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labored. "I'm already about seventy-five yards south of the road the van's on. How far do you want me to go?"
"Until I say stop," Quinn said. "He's not going to be close."
There was another break in the brush, with two parallel ruts worn into the ground heading west. Quinn slowed this time, taking an extra hard look. Around fifty feet in, there was a solid dark shape. It was out of place among the more wispy brush.
Quinn turned cautiously down the path. After only a few steps, the shape became a car, a sedan. Dark, probably blue or black. As he neared he recognized it as a Ford Mondeo.
The kind of car Otero was supposed to arrive in, Quinn thought. Of course, that didn't mean the man he was chasing hadn't arrived in one either.
The vehicle appeared to be empty, so he quickened his pace, stopping just short of the rear passenger door on the left side. There was still no movement from inside. He held still for a moment, listening for anyone approaching through the brush. All was quiet.
He took a step forward, then peered through the window.
No one. Only a map, half-folded and jammed between the two front seats.
Otero's car, Quinn decided.
The evidence wasn't perfect, but the fact that the map had been stowed between the seats instead of tossed onto the passenger seat could very well have meant there had been two people riding up front. But more than that, the half-open map itself was a better indication that this wasn't the assassin's car. The assassin would have been following Otero, not worrying about how to get to the final destination. In fact, he wouldn't even have known where the final destination was.
Quinn ran back to the highway, then headed north again.
He knew he had to be close now. If Otero had been the one the assassin followed, his vehicle couldn't be too far away. He probably had been able to place a tracking bug on the Mondeo, then had sat back and followed a mile or two behind. Any closer and Otero would have noticed. But once the Mondeo had stopped moving, the assassin would have closed the distance, parking as close as he dared without drawing attention.
"Car," Nate said.
Quinn stopped instantly, and turned to the south as if he could see Nate on the road in the distance. "Is it him?"
"No," Nate said. "It's about a mile off, heading toward us. But it'll be here in a minute or two."
"Make sure whoever it is doesn't see you."
He could hear the car now, too. It wasn't as loud as the two cars earlier had been, apparently traveling at a more civil pace.
As Quinn turned back toward the north, he heard the unmistakable sound of an engine starting. It was close, maybe another fifty feet ahead of him, and off to the right, hidden by the brush.
Quinn raced forward, his SIG in his right hand. In seconds, he saw the path the car had taken into the brush. It was another old rutted road that probably hadn't been used in years.
"It just passed me," Nate said. "Delivery van. One guy up front. Didn't see anyone else."
Quinn could hear the van on the road behind him approaching. And ahead, he could also hear the assassin's car. Its engine was only marginally louder than the van's.
Almost at once there was light in front and behind him. The van was cresting a small hill and soon would be completely visible to Quinn. And on the rutted path ahead of him, reverse lights, bright in the dark night, and warning all that the assassin was about to back out.
Quinn slipped behind a tree five feet from where the dirt road met the highway. He glanced to the south. The van had come into view and was traveling down the blacktop, showing no signs of having noticed the lights from the assassin's car.
And on the dirt road just ahead of him, Quinn could hear the tires of the assassin's car begin to move along the ruts toward the highway.
The timing was horrible. If they didn't run into each other, then it would be damn close. And any kind of incident would bring out the local officials. Quinn couldn't have that.
He moved around the tree and