She could only hope that Fisher didn't see it that way, and if they stayed close to him, she would definitely see some action. The real stuff, no doubt.

He was, after all, a magnet for mayhem.

THEsun was already on the horizon, the sky fading from light blue to deep saffron as they reached the McDonald's parking lot. There they found several police cars, along with a few gendarmes talking to witnesses in front of the restaurant.

Fisher's yellow Aveo was smashed into the rear bumper of another subcompact. The Aveo's door was still hanging open. The vehicles' positions made it difficult to see who had been at fault. Fisher could have been in some sort of frenzy, perhaps pursued by someone else--and had hit this other car. Or this could be another bread crumb,Valentina thought. He slammed his car into the other to bring the team here.

She spun around, studied the area, saw a train station in the distance and some kind of commotion up there. The side streets were blocked off by a few barricades. Some kind of party?

Hansen approached after having questioned one of the witnesses. "They say a guy in a red shirt. They weren't sure which way he ran."

"Nathan and I will go up there, toward the train station," Valentina said.

"Good. We'll spread out south toward that greenbelt. Everybody open a channel and put on your SVTs."

Valentina applied the flesh-colored transmitter to her throat and took off running, with Noboru at her side.

They headed up rue du Luxembourg, then turned northwest toward what her map called the Audun-le-Tiche station, where a train had just come in from its run to Esch-sur-Alzette on the other side of the border in Luxembourg. Valentina did a double take because the train was a nineteenth-century locomotive pulling three carriage cars and seemingly transported right out of Disney's Magic Kingdom.

If Fisher's plan was to cross the border, then he had picked an excellent avenue of approach. There was so much traffic moving between France and Luxembourg, so many connections between the inhabitants of each country and the sister cities of Russange and Esch-sur-Alzette, that it was quite routine for a French family to spend as much time in Luxembourg as it did in its own country, crossing the border dozens of times each week. As a result, border standards were loose and fast, and Fisher could very well exploit them.

As they neared the station, Valentina spotted a large billboard that announced the decommissioning celebration and carnival of the Audun-le-Tiche rail line. Ah, there was the explanation for the old train; it was part of the festivities and making hourly runs across the border. She and Noboru were running smack-dab into a crowd of weekend revelers--yet another perfect situation for Fisher to exploit. Hundreds of colorful balloons had been tied to the platform, and rows of equally festive flags billowed above rows of vendors' portable stalls with awnings striped red, blue, and white. Valentina could smell the coffee and the pastries, and her stomach growled as she ran past the stalls. There were, she estimated, at least five hundred people at the station, perhaps more, and she and Noboru began cutting through them, trying their best not to shove people and draw attention.

A cry of "All aboard!" in French lifted above the din of the crowd, and with a clank, groan, and sudden hiss, the train broke forward, and those still standing on the platform raised their arms and waved to their friends seated in the carriages.

As Valentina neared the station doorway, she and Noboru strained to see past all those arms and spot a man with a red shirt on board the train. By the time they reached the edge of the platform, the train had already pulled away.

"He might be on the train," said Valentina. "We're just not sure. Moreau? Do you see it?"

"I'm on it. I'll let you know if I spot anything."

THEautomatic streetlights were beginning to switch on as Hansen called back Ames and Gillespie from the greenbelt area. They hadn't spotted anything, and Moreau had done a thorough scan of the area with the help of his satellite feeds. They rallied back at the SUVs, where Valentina and Noboru were already waiting for them.

"We searched the entire station," said Noboru. "Very crowded. But no red shirt."

"Did you know that on Star Trekthe guys who wear red shirts always die?" asked Ames. "I wonder if Fisher knows that. I wonder if, maybe, he's suicidal. But subconsciously, you know? That's why he picked a red shirt."

Nearly in unison Gillespie and Hansen told Ames to shut up; then Valentina said, "If I were him, I'd be on that train."

"Then let's go up there and have a look."

Hansen cocked his thumb back in the direction of his SUV, and Gillespie and Ames jumped in while Valentina and Noboru rushed back to theirs. They took off, heading up rue Napoleon 1er and veering off along a side street running parallel to a large, triangular-shaped reservoir in the distance.

Suddenly Hansen slowed to stop. Gillespie hopped out the back door.

"What's going on?" asked Valentina.

"I see something down there. Looks like a bike," said Hansen. "Moreau, can you get a fix on it for us?"

"No, I've got a signal issue right now. Give me a minute."

"Great timing," grunted Hansen.

"Take the wheel," Valentina ordered Noboru; then she grabbed her weapon and hopped out. She crossed to the black SUV and joined Gillespie, who'd donned a long trench coat, just like Valentina had. Ames climbed out as well, and all three started down the slope, toward the bike Hansen had spotted. They were shouldering their SC-20K rifles with long-range scopes and under-barrel attachments loaded with Cottonballs, LTL (less-than-lethal) projectiles that resembled shotgun shells but were, in fact, aerosol tranquilizers with stronger, faster-acting agents that began taking effect on impact. The round would strike the target, release its contents, and render the subject unconscious for about twenty minutes, depending upon the size of the dose, the target's body weight, and a host of other factors. Valentina thought it'd be a small miracle if they actually got to fire one of those rounds.

"Keep going. It's right there," came Hansen's voice through their subdermals. "Near the bottom of the slope."

"Wait a minute . . . wait a minute . . ." began Ames. "I got movement. Wait . . . red shirt! There he is! He's running!"

Ames sprinted off ahead of them, and Valentina cried out for him to wait up, but then she saw him, too, climbing up the opposite slope and heading toward the trees--and for a moment it was like a dream, utterly surreal--Sam Fisher dressed like a goofy tourist but Sam Fisher nonetheless, stealing looks over his shoulder as he bolted away from them and spirited into the dark cover of the woods.

Valentina's heels dug deeply into the soft earth, and she and Gillespie fought to catch up with Ames. They reached the top of the slope and once more spotted Fisher darting into the woods, heading east.

"You're about 120 feet from the reservoir, 200 feet across, and there's a dirt road on the other side. Looks like he's headed there," said Moreau.

"We're standing by in the cars," said Hansen. "Noboru and I will be ready to pick you up. Just don't lose him!"

"No chance of that now," said Ames.