“Not in a quadrillion years.”
“Then they had to have followed me, but I don't see how.” He quickly went through all the precautions he had taken to shake pursuit since he had left Frederick. “They couldn't have put a transmitter on the Triumph this time.”
That was when he heard it… a noise that rose above the ambient sounds of the city. At first he could not place it. Then he knew what it was, and how they had followed him. His throat tightened. He strode to the front window, raised the shade, and looked out and up.
“Damn!” He slammed his fist against the wall.
Marty joined him, staring up at the helicopter hovering low to the south on a straight line with the pair of bungalows. As they watched, it banked in a sweeping turn north and came back around toward the house where he and Marty hid. Smith remembered hearing a chopper earlier when he had driven away from Marty's house.
He cursed and slammed the wall again. That was the answer ? the Triumph. He knew he had shaken them before he pulled off the Interstate at Gaithersburg ? there had been no way they could have bugged the Triumph that time. But how many restored ? but battered from last night ? '68 Triumphs could there be in the area? Not many, and probably not another on the interstate from Frederick to Washington early this morning. One of those choppers he had seen while eating breakfast in Gaithersburg that he had thought was monitoring traffic could have easily been something else entirely. All they had had to do was guess he would go into Washington and watch the Interstate for a Triumph. A license check would confirm it.
Pick him up at Gaithersburg. Follow him into Washington.
His Triumph had nailed him. Dammit!
Marty's voice was severe. “Okay, Jon. We don't have time for your bouts of anger. Besides, I don't want any holes in my walls unless I put them there. Tell me what you've figured out. Maybe I can help.”
“No time. This is my area of expertise, right? You used to have a car. Do you still have it?” He had been falsely secure in his Triumph. Now his enemies would be falsely secure in relying on it to track him. Everyone had blind spots.
Marty nodded. “I keep it at a garage near Massachusetts Avenue. But Jon, you know I never go out anymore.” He wandered into the next room and looked nervously out the window. He still carried his remote and the sheaf of papers as if they were talismans against danger.
“You do now,” Smith told him firmly. “We're going to go out of here the front way, and?”
“J-J-Jon! Look!” Marty jabbed the remote like a pointer out the back window.
Instantly Smith was beside him, his Beretta in his hand. Two of the strangers had come through the hedge and now trotted toward the bungalow where Marty and Smith hid. The men were low to the ground, running with the careful urgency of men on the attack. And they were armed. Smith's pulse pounded. Beside him, Marty was rigid with fear. He put a hand on Marty's shoulder and squeezed as he crouched beside the window.
He let the pair get within fifteen feet. He slid up the window, aimed carefully, and fired the Beretta at each man's legs. His brain was rusty with years of inaction, but his muscle memory overcame the rust as smoothly as an oiled machine.
The two pitched forward onto their faces, moaning with pain and shock. As they crawled for the cover of a pair of old buckeye trees, Smith hurried to the living room.
“Come on, Marty.”
Marty followed close behind, and they both looked out the window. As Smith had feared, the second pair was in front. One was the same burly man who had led the ambush two days ago in Georgetown. They had heard the shots, and the burly man had dived to the grass and pulled a Glock from his jacket. He landed hard on his chest, but held on to the Glock. The other man's reaction was thirty seconds too slow. He still stood on the brick path, his big old U.S. Army Colt.45 halfway up toward the house.
Smith missed his leg. But before the man could stumble back for the safety of the street, Smith's second shot drew blood from his shoulder and sent him sprawling.
Marty watched worriedly. “Good shooting, Jon.”
Smith thought fast. His unexpected shots had put the two in the backyard out of action. But in the front, the leader was uninjured, and the second man had been only nicked. They would be careful now that they knew they faced lethal opposition, but they would not go away.
And the helicopter would send reinforcements.
His voice tense, Smith asked quickly, “Does your tunnel work from this end?”
Marty looked up. He nodded, understanding. “Yes, Jon. It'd be illogical if it didn't.”
“Let's go!”
In the bedroom, Marty pressed his remote control. The box bed swung silently out of the way, exposing the trapdoor. Another electronic command opened it.
“Follow me.” Holding his papers and the remote tightly, Marty slid into the brightly lighted shaft with its ladder that went through a crawl space and down into the concrete underground tunnel. As soon as he landed, he lurched out of the way.
A few seconds later, Smith's feet touched down next to him. “Impressive, Mart.”
“Useful, too.” He pressed a button on his remote. “This closes the trapdoor and puts everything back the way it was.”
The two moved quickly along the bright tunnel. Finally they reached the other end, and Smith insisted on going up first. As he emerged into the small bathroom of Marty's home bungalow, he had a shock: A fifth man was crossing the hall into the living room.
Smith's pulse hammered. He listened. Then he realized the man was heading toward the bathroom.
He dropped back into the shaft. “Close it up!”
His round face anxious, Marty electronically closed the trap and lowered the bathtub. Seconds later they heard the man enter the bathroom, followed by the sound of a stream falling into the toilet.
Smith quietly told Marty what he wanted him to do.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Beretta ready, Smith climbed up to wait on the top rung of the metal ladder. He took a deep breath as the trapdoor unlocked. But it was still weighted in place by the tub. As he raised his Beretta, the tub swung up against the wall, the trap sprang open, and the entire bathroom plus a section of the hall and living room came into view. Smith repressed a grim smile. The situation was better than he had hoped.
Ahead was the back of the man at the toilet. The guy's jaw dropped. Staring into the mirror, he had seen the bathtub rise like a white apparition into the air behind. The guy was not only stunned, he was exposed. He did not even have time to zip.
But he was a professional. So, fly hanging open, he grabbed his weapon from where he had laid it on top of the toilet tank and spun around.
“Good. But not good enough.” With a mighty swing, Smith slammed his Beretta into the man's knee. He heard bone crack. The man dropped to the floor, groaning and clutching the knee. His weapon skidded toward the door.
Smith leaped up through the trap, snatched the gun, and grabbed the walkie-talkie from the back of the toilet tank. Now the man could not shoot or call for help.
“Hey!” the man bellowed. Pain stretched his narrow face. He tried to get up, but the crushed knee shot disabling pain, and he fell back onto the floor.
“Oh, my,” Marty said as he clambered out. He hurried past him and into the hallway.
Smith followed, locking the bathroom door.
Marty wondered, “You didn't shoot him?”
He pushed Marty forward. “I crippled him. That was enough. It'll take three or four operations to repair that knee. The way he is, he can't hurt us and he's not going anyplace. Come on, Mart. We've really got to move.”
As they crossed Marty's computer-filled office, he stopped for a moment, his face forlorn. He sighed, then he followed Smith to the frontdoor cage, which had been shot open.
