Chapter 29

Yousef was no stranger to being chased through wilderness roads. He had crossed enough factions in northern Iran while investigating his father’s death that he’d had to run on more than one occasion. Derek and Maddie thought he was paranoid. But they had no idea of things he’d done. They were after him. Mossad, CIA, Yakuzi, al-Queda. He was an equal opportunity offender. His hand was steady on the wheel and when he blasted through a small village and then south. He pulled up into the foothills on a goat path. He was sure he had missed Derek and Maddie. The roads on this side still had patches of snow on them and there were no other tire tracks through it.

He stopped beneath a ridge and took binoculars from the car, then climbed up to the ridge to look back along the road. The Jeep Patriot he’d wildly shot at when he hit the road came into town slowly, as if checking every alley for him, and then came to a complete stop. After a minute the driver backed into a short tight passage between two buildings. Nothing moved and Yousef used the opportunity to scan the surrounding countryside. From his vantage point he could look over a shallow depression between two ridges that rose toward the mountain. There was movement high above the valley. Yousef could not be sure, but it looked like Maddie’s boyfriend rushing down the mountain.