She ignored the perv and went straight for the white steel trash bin near the bank of sinks. She knocked it down to the tile floor. The lid crashed off and out came Fisher’s clothes, along with piles of crumpled-up towels.
She cursed and reported her findings. She snatched up the clothes and ran out of the room, leaving the old gawkers behind.
Valentina then ventured up to the stadium proper and stood there at the foot of the bleachers, her face panning the sea of faces, some five thousand in all. He’d changed and probably bought himself a hat. Hundreds of identical caps seemed to bob as though floating on waves across the stands.
“Maya, report,” ordered Hansen.
“I don’t think he planned any of this.” She gasped. “I just think he’s one lucky guy.”
Her shoulders slumped. They would never find him now.
But part of her said don’t give up, and she kept probing the faces, probing… and then came a thought that she voiced to the others: “He might try to leave on the east side.”
Hansen sent Noboru back to the train station in Esch-sur-Alzette. He ordered Gillespie to take her SUV up rue Jean-Pierre Bausch, north of the stadium, and remain there. He, Ames, and Valentina eventually met up on the east side of the stadium, and Hansen realized that a densely wooded area lay before them.
Fisher could have easily left the stadium via the east exit and vanished into that perfect cover. Beyond the forest to the northeast lay the town of Schifflange with its mushroomlike water tower. Fisher could reach Highway 31 and simply hitchhike or walk farther east to the towns of Rumelange, Kayl, and Tetange. At any rate, he was pushing farther into Luxembourg, a country slightly smaller than Rhode Island and bordering France, Germany, and Belgium. Was he just running through here? Or did he have a clear purpose in mind?
After five minutes of surveying the tree line with their binoculars, Hansen ordered Gillespie to come back down and pick them up. They would head out to Highway 4.
“I’ve got all our resources online,” said Moreau. “He tries to rent car, we got him. He buys a train ticket, we got him.”
“If he’s not using cash,” said Hansen. “Don’t humor me, Moreau. We’ve already lost him. We’re just going through the motions now.”
Abruptly, Noboru’s breathless voice cut over the channel: “It’s Nathan. I’m at the train station. I think I have him.”
Noboru was running along the platform, weaving through the few other people and chasing after the man in the red shirt and white ball cap.
After first spotting the man, Noboru widened his eyes. They made eye contact from afar, the man’s face half in shadow — but his shirt said enough. Noboru had started for him, and he charged off.
“What’s he wearing?” Valentina demanded.
“Back to the red shirt. White cap.”
“No, he’s changed,” she cried. “And if he hasn’t, the team caps are black.”
“Or maybe he wants us to think he’s changed but hasn’t.”
“No, he has,” she insisted. “You got the wrong guy.”
“Then why’s this guy running?”
Noboru launched himself into the air and came down from the platform with a heavy thump on the soft earth, as the guy started across the train tracks toward a long row of maintenance buildings on the other side.
That he might be the one to capture Sam Fisher didn’t register much with Noboru. He felt badly about what had happened to the man, but he wouldn’t think twice about killing him. In truth, Noboru knew exactly what it felt like to be on the run, and in one respect killing Fisher would be ending the man’s suffering. It was a difficult thing to live your life always looking over your shoulder; it wore down your spirit even as the nightmares drained you of sleep.
Horatio and Gothwhiler were there. Always there.
Noboru caught up with the man, dropped to the ground, and threw his leg out, in an expert maneuver, to trip his prey.
The guy dropped hard as Noboru rolled upright, stood, and aimed his SC pistol. He finally saw the man’s face.
“It’s all right, you got me now. They’re in the top right pocket. I don’t care. Tell Pierre it’s all over. I’m not doing this for him anymore. I quit.”
Noboru fought for breath and released a string of curses in Japanese; then he said, in English, “Maya, you were right. Wrong guy.”
“Who are you?” asked the man, who was in his twenties, clean shaven but built exactly like Sam Fisher. “What’s that tape you got on your neck?”
“What’s in your pocket?” asked Noboru.
The guy frowned. “The drugs.”
Noboru continued to catch his breath and shook his head. “Don’t wear red ever again.”
“Why not?”
Noboru leaned down and, still panting, put his gun in the man’s face. “Because I’ll come back and kill you.”
Moreau agreed with Valentina that the team should focus its search efforts east of the stadium, and Hansen could only assume that the man knew more than he was sharing, as usual. They drove the ten minutes out to the small village of Kayl, where they waited for Noboru to join them. Then Hansen sent him and Valentina down to Rumelange, while Gillespie and Ames would check out Tetange. They, too, were small, rural villages nestled into the countryside. Hansen would remain in Kayl and maintain a constant surveillance of the main road from an embankment cordoned off by clusters of tall pines.
If Moreau didn’t pick up Fisher soon, it’d be all over for now. And as Hansen settled down with his binoculars, he couldn’t get the image of a Coke and French fries off his mind. He remembered the McDonald’s, remembered Moreau’s comment, and now the advertising demons were playing product placement with his mind. In point of fact, he’d barely eaten all day, barely slept in the past few days, and if he somehow managed to remain in position and not fall asleep, well, that would be an accomplishment. Some of the others had packed granola and other kinds of energy bars in their packs; he’d opted for a pack of gum, and, boy, wasn’t that a mistake.
The air grew still, and the night seemed to wrap more tightly around him, like a warm blanket against the cold. The night-vision binoculars picked up headlights in the distance. He watched as the car approached and realized it was actually a pair of scooters. They raced on by, their small engines issuing a rather irritating buzz.
“Kim, how ’bout a sitrep?”
“Ames here. She’s busy right now.”
“Doing what?” Hansen said.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Shut up, fool,” said Gillespie. “We’re almost in town. No sign of anyone. Place looks dead.”
“Same here,” said Valentina.
“All right, team, we have a couple of minutes to kill while you’re en route,” Hansen began. “What’s Fisher doing in Luxembourg?”
“Getting drunk,” said Ames.
“If you don’t shut up,” warned Valentina.
“No, I’m serious,” Ames snapped. “Luxembourg is in
“A fact you know how?” asked Gillespie.
“Everyone knows that,” he argued. “And besides, I just pulled it up on my phone.”
“Using Google while on the job?” asked Gillespie.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Moreau? You still with us, Moreau?”
