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She announced four minutes, and then eight five.

Every second seemed to crawl past, taking an eternity.

The code continued to scroll down his screen too fast to read.

She counted all the way to fifteen minutes without anything appearing to happen.

And then, all of a sudden, a download progress bar popped up on the screen and started to turn fill with white from left to right.

“You did it,” she breathed.

“We’re not out of the woods, yet,” he warned.

His words turned out to be prophetic. The download was at 98% complete when all hell broke loose. A new window opened of its own volition on the monitor and more code started scrolling down the monitor.

Alex must’ve been able to read it at least in part because he hunched over the keyboard and started typing, his nimble fingers flying across the keyboard. He muttered unintelligibly to himself, and she made like a mouse beside him, not wanting to distract him.

“Pull out the flash drive,” he ordered suddenly. “Now!”

She reached up and yanked the drive out of the port. The screen went black. “Did we get the files?”

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said by way of an answer. He jumped to his feet and raced toward the exit with her running beside him.

“Well?” she demanded as they burst out into the street.

“I won’t know until I see what made its way onto that flash drive before the agency’s countermeasures kicked in. But first, we have to get away from this location.”

Her shoulder wounds throbbed as he took off at a brisk walk. She noticed they were covering a lot of ground, but not in a way that would attract undue attention. They were just two people in a hurry to get somewhere.

She asked nervously, “It’ll take them a while to track down the computer terminal you were using, right? We’ve got plenty of time to get away.”

“It only works like that on TV,” he bit out. “We’re messing with the big boys, now. They have resources you can’t even begin to imagine.”

They’d walked briskly several blocks back toward their motel when Alex swore under his breath.

“Let me guess,” she muttered in dismay. “We’ve got company.”

“Correct. Don’t look back.”

How had someone already identified them as the hackers, geolocated them in this town they hadn’t been in an hour ago, and furthermore, found them walking down a crowded street?

She and Alex had been in the library a grand total of maybe twenty minutes. Alex had been so careful not to leave a trail for the CIA to follow. They’d been completely off the grid since last night. How had anyone managed so freaking fast to get agents into this general area to follow them?

She looked around at the entirely normal looking people and places around her. This wasn’t the kind of place lethal spies played games of hide-and-seek. This was the real world. Her world. The everyday— safe —world she lived in.

“There’s a cab ahead of us about a half-block up,” she suggested. “Across the street just beyond the next intersection.” It was the only cab she’d seen in this dilapidated and mostly residential part of town. Finally. A piece of luck might have broken their way.

“Stay with me,” Alex ordered absently as his eyes roved in all directions. “We’ll cross the street in the middle of the intersection.”

She didn’t reply. He was obviously busy formulating plans and evaluating various contingencies.

She did sneak a peek behind them as they approached a stoplight. Darned if she could spot anyone following them. Was the tail real? Or was this all part of Alex’s elaborate paranoid delusion about how dangerous the world was and how everyone in it was out to get him?

They reached the corner and Alex didn’t even pause. He plunged into the oncoming traffic, and she squeaked in alarm as cars swerved and honked their horns angrily. Scared to death, she stuck to him like a burr as he dodged and weaved, practically climbing on his heels.

Somehow, they reached the far curb in one piece, and Alex broke into a run.

She kept up with him, but barely, gritting her teeth against the pain in her shoulder as she jarred it with every step.

He hailed the cab and opened the door for her to slide into the back seat.

He jumped in after her and gave the cabbie the name of their motel.

She started to turn around to look behind them for pursuit, but Alex bit out, “Don’t look. Assume they’re following us.”

Too late. She’d caught a glimpse of a man in a beige raincoat leaping into the passenger side of a big, dark SUV way too frantically to be a regular civilian going about his business.

God almighty. Alex wasn’t wrong about his world colliding with hers at a moment’s notice. It was as if the curtain separating the two in her mind had suddenly become tissue thin.

In moments like this, she could almost believe Alex wasn’t crazy. Almost.

The taxi rolled for about five minutes, and then suddenly, Alex leaned forward and said sharply, “This isn’t the way to the motel.”

“There’s construction,” the cabbie replied. “I’m going around it. I’ll knock a chunk off the fare if you want.”

Alex subsided, frowning slightly. When he worried, she worried. He not only had a great deal of training she didn’t have, but he also had an incredible instinct for sensing trouble. It was part of what made him a great spy.

Abruptly, the taxi left the surface street and swerved onto a highway entrance ramp, accelerating quickly.

“Hey!” she exclaimed. This was definitely not the way back to the hotel. She reached for her cell phone to call 9-1-1.

But Alex reached out to grip her forearm and forestall her. He shook his head infinitesimally in the negative. He mouthed to her without sound, “Not CIA.”

Then who was their driver? And who did he work for?

She glanced down at her phone in dismay.

Alex was right. They couldn’t call the police.

If they did, the CIA would find them again.

Alex would be hauled away to who knew where and be drugged again…

if he was lucky. If he was not lucky, he would be killed for appearing to have gone rogue.

As for her, she would end up dead simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That, and for loving the wrong man.

If they couldn’t call law enforcement for help lest they attract the attention of the CIA, it also mean the two of them were on their own to deal with this lunatic and his cab.

She looked toward the driver and froze in horror. The small black bore of a pistol pointed back at her.

She looked over at Alex in panic. What was happening…besides the absolutely obvious fact that they were being kidnapped ?