“But why would they?”

“That’s the question we need to answer. Somehow I doubt we’ll be able to figure out who’s doing this until we understand why it’s being done.”

She was silent for a moment or two, then said absently, “Your computer beeped a little while ago.”

“Um. Must be finished with the search.” Before they had gone to bed, he had set up his laptop to search a number of data banks for some of the information they sought, and then had simply closed the lid and allowed the machine to work, hoping the satellite wouldn’t cut the search short; reception up here tended to be spotty at times.

Now, he carried his coffee with him to the couch and sat down to open the laptop. What he saw surprised him.

“E-mail? What the hell…”

Sarah turned off the stove and came to look over his shoulder at the computer. “Is something wrong? You have an e-mail address, don’t you? Everybody seems to, these days.”

“Yeah.”

“Then it’s probably one of your friends.”

Tucker shook his head. “Sarah, this message isn’t coming through a server into an e-mail account. It’s being sent directly into my system via the satellite dish and my wireless connection, even though I set the program to disconnect from the Internet as soon as it had completed its task. A message being sent straight into the laptop’s operating system…that is not supposed to be possible. Not only does it mean my firewall has been breached, it also means whoever did it knows where I am.”

After a moment, she said steadily, “Then maybe we’d better see what the note says.”

Tucker opened the note. And it was brief.

Leave the cabin now.

They’re coming.

“It could be a trick,” Sarah whispered.

“To drive us into a trap?” Tucker knew his voice was grim. “We’re trapped now, with our backs against the lake. God, how stupid can I be? Grab your bag, Sarah.” He was typing rapidly.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to find out where the note came from. Grab your bag, we’re leaving.”

She obeyed, returning to the great room only a couple of minutes later. “I’m ready. I have your bag too.”

“Thanks. Dammit, they’ve routed the call through so many proxy servers, it’d take me a week to trace it.”

“We don’t have a week.”

He hesitated only an instant, then swore and quickly closed his computer, flipped it over, and removed the battery, severing whatever connection there was between his laptop and whoever had contacted it. Sarah was right; they were out of time. It took only a minute more to pack up the computer in its case, grab it and his other bag, and kill the lights.

They slipped from the darkened cabin as quietly as possible. The car was parked nearby, and it took only seconds to stow the luggage and get moving. Tucker didn’t turn on the car’s lights.

“I know these roads,” he told Sarah as she sat tensely beside him. “They’re like rabbit trails around here. If I can get far enough back into the woods, we may be able to slip past them.” He was assuming that, as at the apartment, the enemy would come in force, possibly from several different directions at once. He thought it was poor strategy to make any kind of assumption, but knew it would be far safer to overestimate the enemy rather than underestimate them.

The Mercedes purred quietly through the woods, shocks efficiently absorbing most of the bumps from a narrow and badly rutted road. But they were forced to go slowly without headlights as Tucker picked his way cautiously around curves and between looming trees.

And they were no more than half a mile from the cabin when suddenly, ahead of them, lights stabbed blindingly through the darkness.

Tucker didn’t hesitate. He hit his own lights and turned the wheel hard to the right in almost the same movement. “Hang on,” he told Sarah.

It was in all reality hardly more than a rabbit trail, an old road so narrow that brush scraped along the sides of the Mercedes, and so uneven that the shocks didn’t have a chance—especially since Tucker was driving at a reckless speed. But, somehow, he was able to keep the heavy car on the road around one hairpin curve after another, even at this speed and with the roar of a pursuing car behind them.

Unlike all the car chases in television and the movies, no shots came from the car behind them. Hardly any sound at all, in fact. There was just that grim, steady pursuit, unceasing and unrelenting. But there was only one car behind them—as far as they could tell.

“There have to be more,” Sarah said.

“Bet on it. If I were them, I’d take one or two more cars and circle around, try to get ahead of us. They have to figure these roads all lead to the main one, where we have to end up eventually.”

“Are they right?” she asked, hanging on for dear life to keep from being tossed around inside the hurtling car.

“No. This road goes on for miles, all the way to the highway—and it doesn’t cross another road along the way.”

Sarah looked back over her shoulder. “I think they’re gaining on us.” Her voice was remarkably calm, especially considering that she could hardly breathe for the fear clogging her throat.

“In just a minute,” Tucker said tensely, “I’ll see what I can do about that. If memory serves—and I hope to God it does—our friends back there are about to get a little surprise.”

Memory served. It was a very easy turn to miss, because it was sharp and totally unexpected; a deceptively gentle rise kept even a wary driver from realizing that there were only two choices once you reached the top—take a punishingly sharp turn to the right, or do a swan dive into a small pond.

Tucker made the turn.

The car behind them didn’t.

Duran stood behind the cabin looking out over the lake. With the sun up now, it sparkled invitingly. He thought briefly of swimming or fishing or just drifting on a boat, but the thoughts didn’t last. They never did.

“Report,” he said as almost silent footsteps approached behind him.

“They didn’t leave anything behind but a half-cooked breakfast. No sign of where they’re headed next. No sign of their ultimate goal.”

Duran glanced over his shoulder briefly. “I imagine the ultimate goal is to escape.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell the others it’s time we were going.”

“Yes, sir.”

Footsteps retreated.

Duran returned his attention to the lake, but this time his gaze scanned beyond it. Eventually, he focused on a spot directly across from the cabin. Misty in the early morning. A couple of fallen trees, thick shrubs. A very peaceful scene. A perfect place from which to…observe.

He smiled slightly as he studied that perfect place. Then, still smiling, he turned and went unhurriedly toward the cabin.

“Tell me that bastard didn’t know we were here,” Cait pleaded.

Watching several dark cars leaving the cabin across the lake, Brodie laughed shortly. “He knew.”

Cait was still visibly upset. “What’s he doing here? Why is he leading the hunt for Sarah Gallagher?”

“She must have more potential than we realized.”

“But they tried to kill her.”

Brodie sat back and began stowing the binoculars, frowning. “Maybe not. That fire could have been an attempt to get her rather than kill her. A house burns down, a female body is conveniently found inside burned beyond recognition—who’s to say it isn’t Gallagher?”

Cait looked a little sick. “Kill some poor woman just to provide a body for something like that?”

“It’s been done before,” Brodie replied without emotion.

After a moment, Cait drew a deep breath. “So you think Duran wants her?”

“I think he wouldn’t be here on the front lines unless he had something more in mind than Gallagher’s death.”