Page 55 of Close Pursuit

“My name is Alex Peters and I’m American. I’m with an American woman named Katie McCloud. We’re in a cab inbound to your embassy, and we’re being chased by Russian FSB agents. Am requesting that you open the front gates so we can drive directly into the compound.”

“I’m sorry sir. But that’s not approved protocol—“ the woman started.

He swore in desperation. “They’re going to kidnap or kill us.”

Katie plucked the phone out of his hands. “Let me handle this.” Into the phone, she said, “My uncle Charlie—Charles McCloud, Deputy Director of Plans, CIA—will verify my identity and authorize an emergency ingress to your location. Here’s his cell phone number. Call him immediately. Tell him Baby Butt says hello. We’ll call you back in five minutes.” She disconnected the call and sat back.

Alex stared, dumbfounded.Her uncle was a high-ranking CIA agent?Blank shock rendered his brain non-functional.

“What?” she asked defensively as he continued to stare at her.

The implications were so staggering he couldn’t even begin to think about them right now. He pushed it all aside to deal with the more immediate and pressing concern of that black car behind them. Regular operatives didn’t get big fancy rides like that to tear around in. But he knew whodidrate a Chaika. And it made his blood run cold.

He had to say something. Do something. Freezing up was not an option.

“Baby Butt is your authenticator phrase?” he managed to mumble.

She rolled her eyes. “Uncle Charlie gave me the nickname when I was about two. My brothers picked it up, and it took me until high school to break them from calling me by it. Uncle Charlie will know without a doubt it’s me when he hears it. It was the only thing I could think of on the fly that would let him know for sure that I made the request.”

“How much longer to the embassy?” he asked the driver.

“Five, six minutes at this speed,” the guy answered.

“It’s gonna be tight,” Alex murmured.

It was more like four minutes when he rang up the American Embassy. The receptionist picked up the line just as the driver said from the front seat, “It’s up ahead. One minute. No more.”

Alex looked back. The Chaika was maybe a hundred yards behind them, its big engine roaring like a lion. Its headlights blocked any glimpse of the passengers inside. It would have blacked out glass windows anyway.

“American Embassy, Tashkent,” the female voice said in his ear.

He passed the phone to Katie with a single terse instruction. “Hurry.”

“It’s me again, Katie McCloud. Are the gates open? We’ll be there in about thirty seconds, and we’re coming in hot.”

He smiled reluctantly at the military terminology coming out of her entirely civilian mouth.

“Thanks so much,” she chirped into the phone. “I look forward to meeting you. I’ll be the blonde with the baby when we get out of the cab.”

She’d done it. Abject relief—and gut-melting gratitude at having dodged a bullet—poured through him. She hadnoidea how badly he didn’t want the person in that black car behind them to catch him.

“Drive directly into the compound,” he told the cabbie. “Don’t slow down any more than you must to make the turn.”

The cab didn’t exactly stand his car on two wheels as it careened around the corner into the embassy’s driveway, but it wasn’t far from doing so. The tires squealed in protest as the cab flew through the checkpoint out front. Twoveryarmed Marines leaped out to block the drive after they tore past.

The driver slammed on the brakes and all but launched Alex and Katie into the front seat as the vehicle squealed into a half-slide and screeched to a halt only feet from the back wall of a courtyard.

The driver turned off the ignition. The cab’s interior was silent but for everyone’s heavy breathing.

“Keep your hands on the steering wheel in plain sight,” Alex told the guy. To Katie he murmured, “Lace your hands behind your head and wait for the Marines to come get us.”

They sat quietly for a full minute before a half-dozen of the Marines crowding the courtyard approached the car from every direction, assault rifles leveled at them.

To the driver, Alex said wryly, “Ever consider defecting to the United States? Now’s your chance.”

The guy smiled a little. “Can I take my wife but leave behind my four teenaged kids?”

The Marines gestured for them to roll down the windows and then proceeded to poke the muzzles of their weapons into the car.

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