Endgame

Gillespie, her voice cracking, questioned Fisher about how he'd survived the plunge into the Rhine, and he described his use of an OmegaO unit that had allowed him to breathe underwater. He'd waited until the car hit the bottom of the lake before getting out.

"Mistakes are mistakes. They happen. How you handle them is what counts."

"Uh, Ben, I don't want to say 'we've got company' because that's ridiculously cliche," said Valentina. "So how about this: The goddamned police are behind us!"

Hansen frowned, continued on, and appearing from between two bushes ahead was . . . Fisher himself! The man started immediately toward a big BMW sedan parked nearby, drawing within ten feet. "Don't, Sam." Chills shot up Hansen's spine. Had it all come down to something as anticlimactic as this--nabbing him in a parking lot? Hansen raised his voice a bit more. "We've got you." Fisher averted his gaze and kept moving. But Hansen was certain the man had heard him. Even so, Hansen called even louder: "Fisher!"

Fisher disappeared once again. The road grew dark. Hansen accelerated a bit more, rose up and over the next crest, and started down. Lights appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the road. Reverse lights. Hansen's mouth fell open. Fisher had stopped dead, waited for them, and thrown the Rover into reverse. He was now barreling backward, directly toward them. With the better part of three seconds to react, Hansen jammed on the brakes, and while the Audi's sophisticated antilock braking and traction- control systems immediately kicked in, he still found himself skidding across the road, past the Range Rover, and sliding up onto the right-side shoulder. And then, with a jerk, the car dropped, as though on the rails of a roller coaster, and began to plunge down the embankment. Hansen corrected course, rolling the wheel and taking the car back up toward the pavement as Gillespie clutched a handle near the passenger's-side window and said, "The son of a bitch was never a good driver!" As they neared the top of the embankment, Hansen hit the brakes hard, burning rubber to a stop, front tires now up on the pavement, back still on the dirt. "Now what?" Hansen asked. "Oh, no," said Gillespie. "This is bad."

49deg56'36.27" N, long 6deg10'39.10" E.Target: Yannick Ernsdorff.Occupation: investment banker.

Delta Sly had the latest and greatest toys, and they sure as hell would need them against Fisher.

DARPA-modified model 1650 Pelican case with an encrypted-keypad lock and a C-4 tampering system that went boom! Larger than a suitcase, the pack held a standard equipment loadout: SVT; OPSAT; Trident goggles equipped with night-vision, infrared, and electromagnetic settings; SC pistol; SC-20K modular assault rifle with all the accoutrements; Mark V tactical operations RhinoPlate suit; and six grenades, three flashbang, two fragmentation, and one White Smoke.

Hansen glanced down through a rectangular opening in the floor, lost his balance, and reached toward the wall, but his hand came up empty. He slipped down onto the floor, landing across a piece of broken pipe and breaking off several chunks of concrete that went tumbling down through the hole. He bit back a curse, stood, and then carefully chose his next path, across sturdier-looking boards, and searched for a way down to the second level.

Fisher had taught Ames that water was cover, escape, and safety, and he'd also taught him to swim on his back and steal breaths so that only his mouth broke the surface, not his head. This was a basic escape-and-evasion technique often forgotten by operative in the heat of the moment.