“Another one broke off.”
“Yeah, thanks man. I can see that.”
“Dispatch, make that two bikes are on the George Washington Parkway. One has continued south on… stand by…”
“Now they’re all going in different directions.”
“Well, shit,” said the pilot. “What the hell…?”
“Which one are we supposed to follow?”
“I don’t know. I’m coming up. There are too many tall buildings over here.”
“We’re gonna lose them.”
The motorcycle he was following turned into a side street and then took another turn out of view behind a tall building.
The pilot looked at his copilot. He shook his head.
“Bud, I think we already did lose them.”
It had been a while since Max had ridden one of these, but it came back fast enough. His trouble wasn’t riding the Ducati. It was keeping up with the other three riders. They were lightning on wheels. The engines blazed into a fierce, high-pitched whine, the traffic zooming by so fast it felt like Max was traveling in a fighter jet.
Each rider had a set path. It took a moment for Max to get used to the turn-by-turn navigation being painted up onto his visor by a set of lasers. Max had to train his eyes to continuously flip between the transparent map and the actual outside world as they raced down Ohio Drive, only feet away from the Potomac River.
Max had done some riding in France. He’d even spent time at a racetrack in Italy once. He wondered if they knew that. They must have. This kind of riding would have been a death sentence to the uninitiated. None of this was a coincidence, Max realized.
He followed the pack of other bikes, weaving in and around traffic. But as three of them took an exit — which was what his turn-by-turn navigation told him to do — one of the motorcycles peeled left and kept traveling along the road next to the Potomac. They were separating.
He took a chance and glanced up at the helicopter overhead. It all made sense now. This was the only way they were going to escape so many police, and an aerial pursuit.
Each route must have been preplanned for this exact situation. They hit speeds over one twenty on the straightaways, the engines making a deep guttural sound. His chest rattling, heart pounding. The high-speed turns forced Max to remember how to hold his body. He leaned forward, his legs straddling the seat, knees bent at a sharp angle, only inches away from the ground.
The three motorcycles raced over the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, weaving in and out of traffic. They bolted around a lone police cruiser, its lights flashing. If he hadn’t been holding on for dear life, he might have laughed at the blurred expression of shock on the police officer’s face as they whizzed by. Max felt sorry for him. He was only trying to do his job.
But so was Max. And him getting thrown in jail wouldn’t help anyone.
They sped down Wilson Boulevard, and Max could feel the air pounding against his black leather jacket. His stomach fluttered as he accelerated even faster, the engine screaming. People stared at them as they raced past. But only for a split second. After that, they were gone.
They were moving so fast that there were no police cars in the area now. Another of the bikes turned and it was just two of them. They raced through Clarendon and then slowed to a mere forty miles per hour as they turned a corner.
Minutes later, the two other bikes had re-joined them for their entrance into the lower parking garage of Ballston Mall.
They drove at a normal speed up through the garage, turning and climbing higher and higher, up through the levels of parked cars. The lead bike stopped in the corner of the top level. Very few cars up this high in the garage, and no people around.
Everyone began taking off their helmets and outerwear. Removing their gloves. Moving fast. No one would look the same when they left. The bikes were parked in a row, lined up neatly next to each other in the corner. No fingerprints or other biometric evidence. Just four black racing bikes in one of the few blind spots in the garage.
Each of the other three riders left in a different direction. None of them so much as spoke to Max. One of the riders, now wearing a sweater vest and khakis, left via the parking garage stairway. Another rider — a woman in sunglasses and a bland dress — took the elevator. The last rider was the man who had pretended to be the lawyer. He looked completely different now, as he walked through the double glass doors into the Ballston Mall. Hands in the pockets of his denim jacket. A Nationals baseball cap on his head.
Max stood waiting, watching the only other vehicle nearby. An Audi Q7 SUV that was parked next to the bikes. Tinted windows. Engine running. When the three others were gone, the door opened, and a man got out.
“She’s all yours, mate,” he said, with a British accent.
“Thanks.”
“Do me a favor. Try not to blow this, eh? As I’m not sure you’ll get another chance.”
Max knew his face. He’d worked with him on an operation in France once. What was his name?
Max spoke quietly, his voice a whisper. “You’re MI-6, right?”
The man smiled. “I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That was an interesting exit strategy.”
“One of my personal favorites, now that you mention it.”
“Who asked you to do it?”
“Mum’s the word, chap.”
“So you’re not going to tell me what this is all about?”
The man took out a piece of paper and handed it to Max. “Call this phone number tomorrow. Six p.m. Eastern. Repeat that back.”
“Six p.m. Eastern. Tomorrow. Who am I calling?”
“She’s one of ours. She’ll help you from here on out. And do us a favor and don’t go asking her what you just asked me. You know better.”
The man patted him on the shoulder and walked through the double doors of the Ballston Mall.
Max got in the Audi and drove.
5
“How did this happen?”
Special Agent Jake Flynn had never been in the office of the deputy director of the FBI before. Honestly, he’d expected it to be nicer. But it was just as cramped as all the other shithole office space in the J. Edgar Hoover building. Every year they talked about how they were going to start construction on a new FBI headquarters in Maryland or Virginia. But that would require the government to agree on something.
And the only thing that anyone in the government could agree on right now was that Flynn had screwed up royally.
“Sir, I apologize. I take full responsibility. We had no reason to believe that Max Fend would flee. A man pretending to be his father’s lawyer came to the safe house where we were questioning him, and—”
“Why were you questioning him there? Why were you questioning him at all? My understanding was that the NSA and DNI feedback was that the evidence wasn’t strong enough.”
“Sir, after speaking with the Cyber Division and our counterparts in the French government, we were confident that the updated evidence they were about to provide us would be enough to grant a warrant for Max Fend’s arrest. We were already in the process of moving on Fend. I thought there was a chance we might end up charging him with something, so I decided to ask him to voluntarily answer questions at our safe house in D.C.…”
“Wait. Hold up. You’re saying this man claiming to be a lawyer arrived at one of our D.C. safe houses?”
“Yes, sir.”
“As you were questioning this Fend kid?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That didn’t strike you as odd? That he knew your exact address?”
“In hindsight, sir, it is a bit strange…”