Kathleen dropped the laundry. “Is there time to go upstairs to get my phone?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll go out the back door and across the golf course. If we can reach the clubhouse we should be safe.”
She turned on her heel and went back into the kitchen, Elizabeth right behind her as the doorbell rang.
Bahmad looked through the tall narrow window beside the front door in time to see Elizabeth disappear down a corridor to the back of the house.
He stepped back and shot the lock out of the door. It would not open. It took him a second to realize that there was a second lock, which took three shots to destroy before he could get inside.
He rolled left, keeping his pistol up. Elizabeth McGarvey was a trained CIA agent, and she was probably armed. It would be stupid of him to get shot to death now by a girl.
Aggad slipped into the hallway and rolled right, keeping his AK-47 high on his shoulder, just like the American marines were taught to do with their M-16s. Bin Laden’s soldiers were selected not necessarily because of their intelligence, but because they were professionals. Aggad was acting like one now. Not like a hothead, Bahmad thought gratefully.
They leapfrogged down the corridor, and through the kitchen into the enclosed patio room that looked out onto the pool and across the golf course.
Elizabeth McGarvey and her mother were running as fast as they could go up the fifteenth fairway toward the clubhouse: A foursome on the green was so intent on their game that they hadn’t noticed them yet.
“We’ll never catch them on foot,” Aggad observed.
Bahmad calculated the distances, but he knew that Aggad was correct. The realistic thing for them now was to get the hell out of here, ditch the van and get back to the boat. Survive to strike another day. It had been one of the techniques that had allowed him, and in fact the entire Islamic movement, to survive this long: Hit and run. Swift like the wind, and just as invisible. A method, he’d told bin Laden, that had been used by the American revolutionaries to kick the British out of the Colonies.
But not this time.
“What do you want to do, man?” Aggad demanded.
“They’re heading to the clubhouse. We’ll take the van. I know a short cut.”
Bahmad raced back through the house, and pulled up short in the driveway for just an instant. In the not-so- far distance he could hear a police siren, and then perhaps others farther away. Many others.
Run away to fight another day, the thought crossed his mind. But he shook it off because he knew exactly what he was doing. He could see the entire operation unfolding as he wanted it to, despite the unforseen variations this morning. He had never failed before. He wasn’t going to fail this time.
Elizabeth wished she had her gun. She could hear sirens in the distance, but she knew that it wouldn’t take long for whoever it was after them to figure out where they’d gone and come after them. One of them in the driveway had been carrying an AK-47. A one-wood out of someone’s golf bag was going to be no defense. She thought about heading directly into the woods across the fifteenth and sixteenth fairways where they could hide while her mother caught her breath. But her mother seemed to be having no trouble keeping up. It was her tennis playing, Elizabeth supposed. And she thought that her mother was right; if they could reach the club there would be people and they might be safe. At least long enough for the cops to catch up with them.
Maryland Highway Patrol Trooper Tom Leitner was a good quarter-mile ahead of McGarvey as he turned onto Laurel Parkway. His siren was going and traffic had parted for him, but this street was deserted except for a light- colored commercial van coming toward him.
“All units, all units in the vicinity of fifteen Laurel Park way, Chevy Chase, shots have been reported,” the dispatcher said over the radio.
Leitner grabbed the microphone. “Bethesda, unit 27, I’m there now. But there’s no activity. What do you have?”
“Unit 27, Bethesda, neighbors reported several shots fired at the front of the house. Two men, possibly Caucasian, both slightly built, driving a white Capital City Cleaning van, tag number unknown, possibly involved. Use extreme caution.”
Leitner passed the van and his gut tightened. It was the van. He jammed on his brakes and did a U-turn, his tires smoking as he spun around. The van suddenly accelerated, swerved off the road and careened across the lawn between two houses. He knew what the driver was trying to do, and he followed the van.
“Bethesda, unit 27, I’m in pursuit of the white van, D.C. tag number tango-niner-seven-eight-eight. He’s heading north off Laurel Parkway onto the golf course. Officer requests immediate assistance.” He shot out between the two houses, raced through an opening in the trees at the back and spotted the white van heading directly up the broad, undulating fairway, golfers scattering in every direction.
McGarvey’s phone chirped as he rounded the corner onto Laurel Parkway from Connecticut Avenue in time to see the highway patrol cruiser take off between the houses.
“They’re heading across the golf course,” Rencke said breathlessly.
“Who is?” McGarvey shouted.
“Mrs. M. and Liz. The neighbors saw them. There’s a white van after them, two men. The highway patrol is right behind them.”
“I’m right there,” McGarvey said. He hauled the Nissan over the curb and raced between the houses. “There’s a lot of trees and thick brush on the course, a million places for them to hide. I want you to get some helicopters in the air.”
“MHP is already on it.”
McGarvey tossed the phone aside. Everything that could be done was being done. But it was his wife and daughter out there running for their lives. He shot out through a gap in the trees and found himself on the fifteenth fairway. The van had almost reached the woods near the women’s tee about two hundred yards away, and the Maryland Highway Patrol cruiser was closing with it fast.
Katy and Liz would be trying to make it to the clubhouse where there would be people this morning, and possibly safety. It was the only logical choice for them. He could see that the driver of the van had figured out the same thing and was heading directly toward the first fairway. But he was making a mistake. The way he was going led to a small cart path bridge over a creek that the van could not cross. They would have to double back and cross the seventeenth fairway before they could head to the clubhouse. He would be able to cut them off by heading directly across the fifteenth and sixteenth fairways right now.
A long streak of flame shot out from the side door of the van, and a second later the police car exploded in a ball of flame, its roof flying fifty feet into the sky.
Elizabeth emerged from the line of trees separating the fifteenth and sixteenth fairways, her mother right behind her, when there was an explosion behind them. RPG or LAWs rocket, something came to her from her training. She turned as a fireball rose into the pale blue sky.
“My God,” Kathleen said.
“That wasn’t meant for us,” Elizabeth told her mother. “Maybe the bastards had an accident.” They ran for the broad, sloping green. About seventy-five yards ahead the fairway narrowed to a cart path that crossed a small wooden bridge over a narrow creek. On the other side they could angle over to the seventeenth fairway, which folded back on the eighteenth and first, and directly to the clubhouse. Once they crossed the creek they would be home free because she didn’t think that the van could make it across on the bridge.
She didn’t like running away though. If she had her gun she could send her mother on ahead, and wait here to ambush them. They were screwing with the McGarveys now. Of course if her father and Todd were also here nothing would get past them. At the moment, however, running was their only option.
They were nearly at the bridge when the van crashed out of the woods, skidded sideways out of control, almost tipping over on the fairway, then straightened out and headed directly toward them.
Elizabeth could see that there was no time now to make the bridge. Their only hope was the creek itself, whose banks were five feet high. If they could make it that far they might be able to reach the safety of the woods on the opposite side of the fairway.
“Mother, the creek,” she shouted.
“Right behind you, dear,” Kathleen said.
Bahmad saw what they were trying to do, and he knew with satisfaction that they would not make it that far
