Double Cross by Jack Mars

Author:Jack Mars [Mars, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Well,” Anya offered helpfully, “at least we know our intelligence is good.”

Tyler nodded, but his face remained set in a dark scowl. “Yeah, there’s that.”

He maneuvered the Jeep around the rut they had encountered in the beginning and gunned the motor, bringing the vehicle up to forty miles per hour. At that speed, it bumped and jostled over the dirt, and Anya had to hold on tightly to keep from being thrown out.

“Could you slow down?” she asked. “We won’t catch them faster by killing ourselves.”

Tyler’s scowl deepened, but he relaxed on the throttle, and the Jeep slowed to a more… well, comfortable wasn’t the right word but at least a less deadly pace.

"They can't get far," Anya encouraged him. "We'll tell the Wall we've chased them from a hideout near Munich. I suspect they'll escape into Austria. Austria is neutral, but they are Western aligned. I believe they will detain the terrorists for the C.I.A."

“We should have gone after them.”

Anya shook her head. “We were a mile from the Jeep in deep snow. We had nothing to carry the fuel with us.”

“The cabin had fuel.”

“A fuel pump, yes, but nothing to carry the fuel.”

“We could have pushed the snowmobile back.”

“Pushed a three-thousand-pound vehicle backwards through deep snow?”

“Downhill.”

She shook her head. “Even if we had succeeded, it would still have taken too long. We must get ahead of them, not chase behind them. Going back to the hotel and contacting Pierons is the correct decision.”

Tyler didn’t say anything. She wished she could comfort him, but she didn’t know how. She had decades of experience that taught her that setbacks were a part of this job. She was able to focus on the positive more easily than he was. To her, this was a success. They had found the woman in charge of this operation, and they had flushed her out of a hiding spot. She was on the run, and that meant she was vulnerable. At the very least, she couldn’t plan another attack while running. Even if they didn’t catch her right away, keeping her running would delay her and give them a better chance of stopping her.

Tyler would realize this soon enough. He would understand that they had made excellent progress today. He just needed time to accept that.

By the time they reached the hotel, he was in a calmer mood, if not strictly a better one. As soon as they reached the room, he called the Wall. Anya listened to the conversation, feeling a flash of irritation that she couldn't talk to their boss herself. In the three months she had worked on her own, she had gotten used to a level of autonomy with the C.I.A. While it was nothing compared to her level of autonomy with the M.G.B., it at least meant she could operate without waiting for permission for someone else.

She felt a touch of guilt at her earlier attitude with Tyler. Calling him Officer-in-Command wouldn’t do anything to heal the rift between them, and she needed to heal that rift.

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