They never made it.
CHAPTER 90
SHAW AWOKE FIRST, the synapses in his head screaming out intense messages of pain to the rest of his body; yet that busted-up nerve mailbox was pretty full. He tried to sit up and push back the feelings of nausea rolling over him. He assumed he’d be bound. But he wasn’t; his hands and feet were free.
He heard a groan and looked behind him over the top of the seat. Katie was lying on the floor there.
“Katie? Are you all right?”
Another groan was followed by a soft moan, and then came a bit of movement as she slowly sat up.
She rubbed her head. “Yeah, but I’ve got the mother of all knots on the-”
There was a grinding sound, like metal against something equally hard.
“What was that?” she said. “Where are we?”
She looked around. They were in a car. Her car. The one she’d followed Shaw in.
“Don’t move,” Shaw hissed.
“What?”
Another grinding sound came, and Katie had the sickening feeling of the floor slipping beneath her.
“What’s going on?”
Shaw inclined his head at the window. Katie stared out and saw nothing but black. No, not entirely black. She saw some trees, large trees and thick bushes.
“Did they leave us in the woods?”
“Yes, but not exactly on level ground.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look out the windshield but do not move.”
Katie slowly turned her head to stare straight ahead and her breath got lost halfway up her throat. She was looking straight down, or at least it seemed that way. It was like being on a roller coaster about to go over the edge, or a plane in a death spiral and you were the pilot watching the ground coming at you sickeningly fast.
“Where are we?” she whispered.
“In a car on the side of what appears to be a very steep hill with a clear path of two hundred feet in front of us at least until we get to the bottom. Then we hit a wall of trees. And if we manage to plow through those, we go right into the river.”
“River?”
“The Potomac.” He slowly raised his arm and pointed out the windshield. “That looks to be Georgetown over there, doesn’t it?”
She gazed at the pulse of lights from across the water. “Then we’re off the George Washington Parkway?”
He nodded.
“Can you open the doors?”
“They’re locked, and if I try to open one, we’re going for a short ride way too fast.”
“How did we get here? The last thing I remember is leaving Pender’s house.”
“They must’ve been waiting for us. I’m an idiot! They were waiting for us at the graveyard in Germany. Why not Pender’s house? They must have figured out what we’d done on the call,