The bus stopped beside the town square and several figures disembarked: an old man carrying several cloth-wrapped bundles, a youth with baggy pants and an oversized soccer jersey lugging a rucksack and a battered guitar case, and a woman with a headscarf worn in the traditional manner, a red sweater draped over her shoulders, carrying only a small tote bag.
Jet adjusted the sweater as she scanned the square. She didn’t see anyone suspicious, but so ingrained was her caution after the last week’s events she assumed that any watchers were better than her ability to spot them. She walked across the pavilion to the ancient church and entered and, after rushing through the building past a startled priest, ducked out the rear exit and hurried across the street to a small park. At the perimeter she dodged a bicyclist and cut across the manicured grounds to jaywalk across a busy boulevard, earning several outraged horn honks as the stream of cars created a moving steel barrier between her and any pursuit.
The trip to Romania had been easy after she’d had Matt courier her one of her clean passports, and the flight to the nearby international airport had been thankfully uneventful. She’d spent the time waiting for her document’s arrival dying her hair lighter and modifying the cut by several inches. For a finishing touch, she’d taken the time to purchase some local garments in order to present an older, less striking figure, and had opted for the bus for the last leg of her journey due to its anonymity – much of the native population used the ubiquitous conveyances for any long-distance travel, cars being a luxury in the impoverished rural reaches. Jet posing as just another down-on-her-luck passenger wouldn’t raise any eyebrows, and her research had indicated that there were few identification checks on the land routes.
Satisfied that she wasn’t being followed, she made her way down a cobblestone street, past a flea market, to a three-story maroon building. She looked up at a hand-painted sign over the double wooden doors with a stylized depiction of three lambs in a large bed, announcing the Three Sheep Traveler’s Inn. After a final glance around the surroundings, she ascended the steps and placed a call.
“I’m downstairs,” she whispered, ignoring the stern eye of the desk clerk.
“Second floor, first room on the right.”
At the top of the stairs, she approached the green door and rapped softly. Matt opened it, a grin in place, and took her in his arms. Hannah’s cry from behind him came a second later.
“Mama!”
Matt released her and Jet knelt down to hug her daughter, who was simultaneously laughing and crying, tears streaming down her plump cheeks as Jet held her to her bosom and stroked her hair.
“I’m back, sweetie. Mama loves you.” After several long moments she held Hannah at arm’s length, inspecting her, and wiped the tears away. “I’m so happy to see you again, my angel.”
“Me too.”
“I missed you, too,” Matt said from behind her.
Jet looked at the bed, where Matt and Hannah’s few possessions were gathered, ready for departure, as agreed. Jet ran her fingers through Hannah’s hair and stood. “Go wash your face and use the bathroom,” she said. When Hannah had closed the door behind her, Jet sat down on the bed and looked up at Matt.
“New haircut and color?” she said, inspecting his close-cropped military-style cut, nearly black from dye.
“To match the new goatee.”
“You look like a pirate.”
He shrugged. “Hopefully enough to fool any facial recognition software.”
She grew serious. “Any ideas on where to go?”
“I’m thinking Budapest or Prague, to start. We can drive to either, ditch the car, and there are thriving markets for slightly used passports there. We can reload our cache, maybe get a little surgery, and pick someplace permanent once we’ve had time to research it more.”
“No idea how they spotted us?”
He shook his head. “None at all. Any chance there will be blowback on your Russian?”
“I left no trail.”
Neither of them voiced the obvious: that as careful as they’d been, somehow their enemies had found them in an eastern European backwater, and without knowing how, it could happen again.
“I don’t suppose it’s worth bringing up the possibility of splitting up, at least for a while?” Matt said softly.
“That’s not an option.”
He studied her face, the determination obvious in her emerald gaze, and nodded. “I figured.”
She took his hands and looked deep into his eyes. “We’ll find someplace safe, Matt. Together. Maybe India or Pakistan. Or Singapore or the Philippines or any of a million other places on earth. But we’re a team, and we’re staying together. We’ll figure this out. We always do.”
“I don’t know. This last time came out of nowhere.”
“We let down our guard. We know better now.” She eyed the bags on the bed. “No problem with the camper documents?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Worked like a charm.”
Hannah reappeared, her face scrubbed, a trace of moisture still on one cheek. Jet’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of her daughter, and she swallowed away tightness in her throat that threatened to choke her. She stood and took the little girl’s hand and then turned to Matt with a sad smile.
“Time to go.”