He turned in place, got his bearings, and faced southeast. The intact Suburban was down there somewhere, parked along the road beside the forest.
“We need to go back to Eversman’s estate,” he said. “Right now.”
“Why the hell would we go back there?” Marnie asked.
“Because the system is there. And I know what to do about it now.”
Marnie’s eyes narrowed. “What about what we said last night? There’s no way to beat it without warning it.”
“There is,” Dryden said. “Whitcomb was about to tell us, yesterday. He had it all figured out. Come on.”
He led the way east, sprinting through the trees.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“Think very carefully,” Dryden said. “When we met Eversman’s wife, did he introduce you as an FBI agent?”
They were in the Suburban, rolling out of Monterey and into the hills, twenty minutes from the estate. Behind them, the city was dotted with police flashers streaming in from all quarters toward the crash site in the woods—amid much else they would find there. During the run to the SUV, Dryden had stopped to relieve Eversman’s corpse of its wallet. With any luck, that would buy a bit of time before authorities identified the man and descended on his home. He had taken the guy’s cell phone, too.
Dryden was at the wheel. Marnie rode in the passenger seat, Claire behind her on the middle bench.
“No,” Marnie said. “He just used my first name. And yours. Maybe he didn’t want her remembering us, if we ended up on the news after we disappeared.”
“Maybe,” Dryden said. “I don’t think she was in the loop on anything. She didn’t know about the system. I doubt he was ever going to tell her.”
“Why does it matter whether she knew I was an agent?” Marnie said.
“Because we still need her to forget us. Or at least not remember us well enough to point the authorities in our direction. And she won’t.”
Claire leaned forward. “Why does any of that matter?”
Dryden explained what he planned to do. By the time he’d finished, Marnie and Claire looked noticeably pale.
“If there’s any other way,” Dryden said, “I’d love to hear it.”
All that followed was silence.
*
When they reached Eversman’s estate, they drove past it. They followed the switchback residential road as it turned and climbed. They stopped half a mile farther on, where a gap in the trees offered a view down onto the distant brick house. They could see Dryden’s Explorer still parked in front.
Dryden took Eversman’s phone from his pocket, switched it on, and pulled up the contact list. Ayla was near the top. He opened her contact page and tapped SEND MESSAGE. He typed:
Ayla, take Brooke and get out of the house right now. Pick a hotel in town. Don’t talk to anyone. I will call and explain soon.
He pressed SEND.
They waited. Twenty seconds later, Eversman’s phone rang. Ayla. They watched the mansion as the ring tone trilled on and on. It was still going when one of the house’s garage doors began to rise, and a moment later a sleek red SUV—a Porsche Cayenne, Dryden thought—lurched out and sped down the driveway.
Dryden put the Suburban in drive, made a U-turn and headed back down the road toward the estate. At the last curve before the entry drive, he slowed and stopped, three hundred yards shy of the big iron-and-wood gate. He nosed forward just far enough that he could see it while mostly keeping the Suburban hidden from view. The gate was already swinging inward.
The red Cayenne burst through the opening, fast enough that it nearly clipped the concrete wall on the far side of the road before it could turn. Then it was pointed downhill and accelerating away, and a second later it was out of sight beyond a curve.
Dryden stepped on the gas. He pushed the Suburban to 60; it felt like 90 in the boxed-in canyon between the property walls. He braked hard and turned in at Eversman’s drive, the gate just beginning to swing shut again. He steered around and past it, and twenty seconds later he rolled to a stop in front of the guesthouse.
He turned and looked at Marnie and Claire.
Pale again, both of them. Breathing a little faster than normal.
“We’re not the bad guys,” Dryden said.
He opened the door and got out, Eversman’s silenced .45 in his hand. He crossed to the guesthouse’s front door and simply knocked.
*
From the moment the door opened, the violence that followed took less than a minute. There were three men in the guesthouse, as Eversman had said. They weren’t armed. They weren’t expecting trouble to show up. They were, in fact, certain that it wouldn’t.
When it was over, Dryden found the door that opened into the garage. There were two stalls, both empty. He pressed the wall-mounted button to raise the big single door, then waved for Marnie to drive the Suburban inside. She climbed over the console to the driver’s seat and put it in gear.