Page 76 of Vortex (FBI Thriller 25)

“How long?”

“Forty minutes.”

René forced her onto her side away from him. She heard him speaking French on his cell. Reporting in to his boss in France?

He tapped off, then said to her in English, “No one follows us. Claude, do not drive beyond their limit.”

“Who are you working with in the CIA?”

“Maybe someday you will know this.” He paused a moment, grimaced, slowly flexed his shoulder. “Maybe I hurt you to pay back for your lucky shot. Monépaule, my shoulder, Claude took care of me or it could be very bad.” The van hit a bump and René hissed out a breath. He shoved the pistol against her side, hard enough to make her suck in her breath.

“I wish I’d shot you in the head, ended you.”

“Salope! Bitch. Ferme ta gueule, I want no more from you or I strike you again.”

René didn’t speak again. The minutes passed slowly, like coarse sand sliding through the neck of an hourglass. The driver, Claude, hadn’t said a word yet. Again Olivia wondered, Was he the man who’d shot at her Monday night?

When they’d left the red lights and stop signs behind, René poked her with his pistol again. “Sit up now and look out the window. Forty minutes have passed. How close are we to Mike Kingman?”

Olivia struggled to sit up, felt a moment of dizziness, and looked out the window. “In about a mile, turn right on the unpaved road. There isn’t a sign.”

Claude slowed, turned the van onto an unpaved old potholed road that led down to the Potomac some fifty yards ahead. There were no houses nearby, only bushes, tangled vines, short stretches of broken-down fencing, groves of hemlocks and oaks crowded together. Through the trees, Olivia saw the derelict boat ramp sinking into the steel-gray water, the bitter wind whipping waves over the rotting boards.

René said, “Claude, no closer, we take no chance Kingman sees us. Stop behind these trees.”

Claude gently turned the van off the narrow road to the right and drove slowly over low-lying shrubs to stop behind a copse of hemlocks. Twenty yards ahead was a battered old wooden boathouse, weathered to a sullen gray, its windows long broken, covered with cardboard. It was like a still life painting, no sign of life.

Claude came around to the back of the van and opened the door. He held a gun on her as René pushed her out, jumped out behind her. Olivia stumbled, went down on her knees, slowly got to her feet.

“Claude, wait with her, I will see what goes on. She is trained, so keep away from her and do not let down your guard. Keep your Beretta pointed at her.”

“Believe me, René, I saw what she could do Monday night. I will not let her close to me. She won’t do anything. Don’t worry.”

Olivia said slowly, “So you were the one I heard speaking English. You were with the Iranian. But you don’t have a French accent.”

Claude took a step back, grinned at her. “Actually, I grew up in Indiana.”

René frowned at him, leaned close to Olivia, murmured in her ear, “Now we find out what this Mike Kingman thinks of you. If he does not give me the flash drive, I will make both of you dead. If he does, well then, we’ll see, won’t we? Claude, shoot her in the leg if she tries anything.” He patted her cheek with his pistol and disappeared into the hemlocks.