He swallowed. “It doesn’t make it any better.”
“No, but it’s the truth.” Evelyn turned to the door. “Come on. We need to get out of here. We’ll go out the side door and take the alley to the next street. That way no one will see us leaving.”
They went down the hallway quickly to the door they had entered less than an hour before and, a moment later, were in the narrow alley between the houses. Jens closed the door behind them and they turned to walk away from the house.
“If you work for MI6, I could have just given the decoded messages to you,” he said in a low voice. “Then we could have avoided all of this.”
She looked at him sheepishly. “I know. It wasn’t until you told Marcel what was in the messages that I realized I could have saved us this entire trip if I’d told you who I was.”
“I understand why you didn’t.” He glanced at her. “Marie isn’t your real name, is it?”
“No.”
“Will I ever learn your real name?”
Evelyn hesitated, then shook her head. Before she could say anything, a shiver of awareness streaked down her spine. It was the same feeling she’d had several times, all when someone was following her. With a sudden frown, she turned her head to look behind them. Fear made her throat constrict at the sight of a tall man in a long coat moving silently down the narrow path behind him. A soft gasp escaped her and her stomach lurched. Suddenly she knew, without even the shadow of a doubt, that the man was coming after them. Without thinking, she grabbed Jens’ hand.
“Run!!”
Hans threw away his cigarette and straightened up when the side door to the house opened and the couple emerged. There was no sign of Asp, but that meant nothing to Voss. If they were coming out the side door, Jian still had the package. And that was all he cared about.
Eisenjager got out of his car and crossed the road swiftly, bringing a scowl to Hans’ face. The assassin was after the man, but once he got a good look at the woman’s face, he would recognize her for who she was. Hans had to reach her before that happened.
Turning, he ran to the end of the narrow alley where he’d left his car. He would head the couple off. The alley they were in opened onto a street at the edge of the small town. He would drive around and stop them there. Hopefully, he would get there before Eisenjager. The engine roared to life and he pulled away from the mouth of the alley, turning left at the end of the road. The assassin was welcome to the man, but Voss would be damned before he let him get to the English spy first. Pressing his foot on the gas, he sped past Asp’s street and came up to the road where the alley would lead the couple. He rounded the corner just in time to see them run across the street and disappear between two houses.
Voss let out a low curse as Eisenjager followed a few seconds later. There was nothing behind those houses but fields, and Hans knew that those fields wouldn’t afford any protection until they reached a tree line at least half a mile away. He could stop them in the fields.
A moment later, he was rounding the corner and staring at wide, flat meadows before him. A rough track separated the fields from the two houses they had fled between, and Voss rolled to a stop on the uneven dirt road, staring out over the expanse of grass and brush. He got out of the car with a frown, straining to see in the darkness. Behind him, Eisenjager emerged from the narrow space between the two houses, breathing heavily.
“Where are they?” he gasped, seeing Voss standing beside his car.
“They’re not here,” Hans answered, rounding the hood of his car. “I don’t see them in the field.”
“They must be!” Eisenjager stared out into the moonlit field, a scowl on his face as he tried to catch his breath. “They came down this way. There’s nowhere else for them to have gone!”
“You don’t see them, do you?” Hans snapped. “They’re not out there.”
They stared at each other, then turned slowly to look at the houses behind them. One was dark and silent while the other was ablaze with light.
“If they didn’t come out from the alley, they must have gone into one of the houses,” Eisenjager said. “I was right behind them. I know they didn’t go back.”
“I’ll check the dark house,” Hans decided, starting towards it. “It looks empty. They may be hiding inside. You check the other one. The owner is obviously still awake. Perhaps he saw something.”
Eisenjager didn’t answer but instead went towards the other house. Voss didn’t spare another glance for the assassin as he went back into the narrow lane between the two houses. Light from the one on his right allowed him to see somewhat in the dark space, but he pulled a flashlight from his coat pocket anyway. Switching it on, he shone it around the alley and then over the side of the dark and quiet house. Either it was empty or the owners were away, he decided. If it was the first, there would be no problem searching it for the missing couple.
Hans went further into the alleyway and his light fell on stone steps leading below ground level to a door slightly ajar. He smiled coldly. They had gone into the dark house, just as he suspected.
Moving forward, he went down the steps quickly and pushed the door open, stepping into a pitch black basement. He slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out a pistol, holding it in one hand
