He wanted answers, but survival was first and foremost. Going separate ways seemed like the most prudent solution in light of the current circumstances. But the phrase “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” kept nudging him. Was Jo a friend or enemy?
Uncertain, he made his decision based on their relationship prior to her role with the Initiative committee.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.” Snowflakes caught in her long eyelashes. “You?”
He gave a snort, but before he could answer, her eyes went wide and she flipped him onto his back. “Your jacket was on fire,” she explained.
Well, her quick thinking and the deep slush seeping through the fabric had put it out now. He made a mental note that her reflexes and physical ability seemed to be in perfect order. It wasn’t all that comforting considering his seemed to be a bit sluggish.
“Thanks.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, removed the battery and tossed both pieces into the fiery wreckage. “Give me yours.”
She scowled, but did the same with her own cell phone.
“Now let’s move. Stay low.”
“I know the protocol,” she snapped, anger clear in her eyes, intensifying the flags of color high in her cheeks.
The attitude was a good sign. Maybe. He just didn’t have enough facts to sort out the situation. “Prove it.”
“That car was rented in your name. I changed your reservation and picked it up for you days ago,” she answered before he could ask the obvious question. She held up a key fob with the logo of a different make. “My car is two rows that way.”
He nodded and motioned for her to lead. Again.
They moved quickly through the lot, but he knew anyone could be watching, waiting for the right opportunity to pick them both off.
How had the bomb been triggered? And who wanted him dead? There were a number of possible answers to both questions. He mentally narrowed the list to people who wanted to eliminate them both, but that left him plenty of names to consider. And only sprouted more questions as he wondered who knew they were both in the area.
When they reached her car, he noted the license plate and watched her use a compact from her purse to check the undercarriage for problems.
She nodded, convinced it was safe, and they climbed inside. He suspected she was holding her breath the same as he was as she turned the key in the ignition. When the engine came to life and they were still intact, he buckled his seat belt. The action had him thinking of Lucas, and wondering how best to alert his friend to the developing situation.
“What’s your plan?” He cranked up the heater and defrosters while she backed out of the parking space.
“Get out of Denver with all haste.”
He had the wet, singed clothes on his back, his wallet and quickly dwindling options. “I hope you have something a little more detailed in mind.” Her lips were pursed and quirked to the side, a sure sign she was thinking. “Go on, spill it.” Maybe he’d get lucky and she’d give him something he could work with. “You used to like having a sounding board.”
She peered up at the gray sky and he thought this time she might keep her theories to herself. “I’m wondering how you bribe Mother Nature?”
“Pardon me?”
“The storm almost took down your plane.”
“You saw the landing?”
She nodded. “The storm certainly gives an assassin the advantage since you’d be trapped here overnight.”
“Disadvantage,” he argued. “The storm traps the assassin, too.”
She slid a look his way as she merged onto the Interstate. “I’m not the assassin.”
He wanted to believe her. “Says the woman who dropped me off at a car rigged to explode.”
“Relax. I would have been beside you if I hadn’t been picking my way through the snow. It took me back to that night in Germany.”
Recalling the way she’d fiddled with the contents of her pockets, he reached across the seat and searched her.
Conditions were so bad, she had to keep both hands on the wheel and couldn’t counter his search, but she called him all kinds of names in the interim. He didn’t find a remote for the destroyed car, but his fingers closed on a small, flat disk sealed in a thick plastic envelope the size of a quarter.
“Not the assassin?” He held it up then snatched it back when she made a grab. The car swerved and a loud rumble growled around them as the tires rolled over the grooved pavement meant to alert a drifting driver.
“Not the assassin,” she insisted. “That is just a light sedative. I brought it along in case you weren’t inclined to cooperate.”
“Any other surprises planted on you?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Yes, he would. Her sly smile wasn’t encouraging his trust but it was stirring other feelings he had no business allowing just now.
“Thomas, I know it looks bad,” she said, her tone quiet and serious. “But I am on your side.”
“I can’t even call in my people to assess the device,” he grumbled.
“But—”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Everyone I trust is at the top of a mountain.” Without a phone, he couldn’t immediately reach the offices in D.C. He leaned forward, trying to see anything through the storm. “A mountain I can’t even see. We should stop and buy a phone,” he added, spotting a bright neon sign for a superstore.
“Not just yet.”
He swiveled in his seat. “We’ve got a tail?”
“No. But I’d rather put the airport farther behind us before either one of us swipes a credit card.”
Thomas took it as a bad sign that he hadn’t been thinking about that. Sure, he’d flown out here for a wedding and left business to his deputy director, Emmett Holt, but that didn’t give him the luxury of being rattled by events.
“What the hell does the Initiative committee want with me that couldn’t wait until Monday?”
“I can’t tell you right this minute.”
“Jo—” He couldn’t finish the threat. She jerked the wheel right and nearly lost control of the car in an effort to get to the exit ramp.
“Tail?”
“Yes.” She laid on the horn and blew through the light at the end of the ramp. “There’s a gun taped under your seat.”
She pulled a hard left at the next corner and, with him reaching for the gun, his head rapped the door. On a curse, he powered down the window. Maybe the blast of cold air would have the added benefit of an ice pack.
“Stay in the left lane,” he ordered. Thankfully traffic was sparse with the storm keeping most sane people safe inside. “Let him get closer.”
“Are you nuts?”
“I’m open to better ideas.” When she slowed down, he assumed she didn’t have another suggestion.
The car pulled up beside them. The heavily tinted glass made it impossible to identify the driver, but the dark, menacing barrel of the handgun poking out of the back window made