on your own time and send me the bill? No biggie, huh?"
"It will be just a few minutes," the manager said, but he was not looking at her. Instead, he was making eye contact with a guard across the lobby.
Anna looked at her wristwatch ostentatiously. "Your cousins are going to be wondering what happened to us," she said to Ben. "We'd better get a move on."
The manager stepped around the counter, and placed a clammy hand on her arm. "In just a few minutes," he said. Up close, he smelled unappetizingly of grilled cheese and hair oil.
"Get your hands off me," Anna said in a tone of low menace. Ben was startled by the sudden steel in her voice.
"We can take you wherever you want to go," the manager protested, in a tone that was more wheedling than threatening.
From across the lobby, the security guard was reducing the distance between him and them with long, fast strides.
Anna hoisted her garment bag over her shoulder and headed for the front door. "Follow me," she said to Ben.
The two made their way quickly toward the entrance. The lobby guard, she knew, would have to confer with the manager before pursuing them outside of the building.
On the sidewalk in front of the hotel, she looked around carefully. At the end of the block, she saw a police officer speaking into a walkie talkie, presumably giving his location. Which meant that he was likely the first on the scene.
She tossed her bag to Ben, and headed straight over to the policeman.
"Christ, Anna!" Ben snapped.
Anna stopped the policeman, and spoke to him in a loud, official sounding voice. "You speak English?"
"Yes," the cop said uncertainly. "English, yes." He was crew-cut, athletic, and seemed to be in his late twenties.
"I'm with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation," Anna said. "The Federal Bureau of Investigation, do you understand? The FBI. We're looking for an American fugitive from justice, and I've got to ask for your help. The woman's name is Anna Navarro." She flashed her OSI badge quickly while holding his gaze; he would see it without really looking at it.
"You say Anna Navarro," the policeman said with recognition and relief. "Yes. We've been notified. In the hotel, yes?"
"She's barricaded herself in her room," Anna said. "Fourteenth floor. Room 1423. And she's traveling with someone, right?"
The policeman shrugged. "Anna Navarro is the name we have," he said.
Anna nodded. It was an important piece of information. "I've got two agents in place, all right? But as observers. We can't act on Austrian territory. It's up to you. I'm going to ask you to take the service entrance, on the side of the building, and make your way to the fourteenth floor. Are you O.K. with that?"
"Yes, yes," the policeman said.
"And spread the word, O.K.?"
He nodded eagerly. "We'll get her for you. Austria is, how do you say, a law-and-order place, yes?"
Anna shot him his warmest smile. "We're counting on you."
A few minutes later, Ben and Anna were in a taxicab enroute to the airport.
"That was pretty ballsy," Ben said quietly. "Going up to the cop that way."
"Not really. Those are my people. I figured they'd just got word, or they would have been better prepared. Which means they had no idea what I look like. All they know is that they're looking for an American, on behalf of the Americans. No way of knowing whether I'm the one to pursue or the one in pursuit."
"When you put it that way..." Ben shook his head. "But why are they after you anyway?"
"I haven't exactly figured it out, yet. I do know that somebody's been spreading the word that I've gone rogue. Selling state secrets or whatever. The question is who, and how, and why."
"Sounds to me like Sigma is going through channels. Using real police through manipulation."
"Does, doesn't it?"
"This is not good," Ben said. "The idea that we're going to have every cop in Europe on our ass, on top of whatever psycho-killers Sigma has on the payroll-it's going to put a crimp in the game plan."
"That's one way to put it," Anna said.
"We're dead."
"That's a little harsh." Anna shrugged. "How about we approach this thing one step at a time?"
"How?"
"Ben Hartman and Anna Navarro are going to book a flight from Graz, about a hundred and fifty kilometers south, to Munich."
"And what are we going to do in Munich?"
"We're not going to Munich. The thing is, I already put a trace on your credit cards. That's a genie