“Eww,” the women said in unison.
“Come on!” Omar herded them out the front door into the night.
The inn sat on the first terrace of streets above the shore—commandos behind them, the village ahead. They burst onto the cobblestones, turned right, and ran. Across the narrow street, past the florist’s darkened storefront, and into the alley where the blue Peugeot waited.
Ten
Marielle grabbed the keys from Omar’s hand as they reached the Peugeot.
“I’ll drive,” she said, already moving toward the driver’s side.
“Why?” He didn’t argue, just opened the passenger door.
“Because I know where we’re going.”
Hanna climbed into the back seat. “Where are we going?”
“Beats me,” Omar said, buckling his seatbelt.
Marielle started the engine, checked the mirrors, and pulled out of the alley. She drove fast but smoothly, navigating the narrow village streets with the muscle memory of someone who knew the route, even if it had been nearly two decades.
“Omar,” she said as they climbed away from the coast. “Lose your covcom.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“Throw it out the window. Now.”
“Elle—”
“Now.”
His jaw worked. She could see the conflict on his face. The device was their lifeline to Potomac, to Jake, to any hope of backup or extraction.
But he knew as well as she did that they had to cut all ties. He sighed, rolled down the window, and tossed the covcom into the darkness.
“We should destroy it,” he insisted. “Go back and?—”
“No time.”
“Wait. Phones.”
She nodded. “Good call. Mine’s in the backpack.”
As he dug the device out of her pack, she pressed the accelerator, putting distance between them and the village. In the rearview mirror, she clocked Hanna sitting perfectly still, her face blank, even as Omar gently pried her phone out of her hands.
Shock, Marielle recognized. The woman had hit her limit.
Hadn’t they all?
They drove in silence for several minutes. Omar kept checking the side mirror, watching for pursuit, as he removed three tiny SIM cards, rolled down his window, and let them flutter out into the wind like high-tech butterflies.
A few kilometers later, Marielle’s pink phone went flying out the window and into a ditch. Around the bend, his phone followed suit and landed in a small pond. Last, he pitched Hanna’s phone into a culvert.
Finally, he asked again. “Where are we going?”
“My grandmother’s vacation cottage.” She glanced at him. “Well, it’s mine now. I inherited it when she died.”
“Where?”