ridgefield, connecticut, 2:45 a.m. edt
They had settled on the football field at Ridgefield High School for the pickup. Although there were civilian houses close by, it was far enough from the nearest police station that it would take the local police at least five minutes to get there. By then, they would be long gone. Terry had told K they would be at the field in forty minutes, as he had to take care of the car first. As soon as he got off the phone, he started to wake Kristen, but she was dead to the world. Sod it, I’ll give her another few minutes.
He found the small, wooded area K had suggested for the disposal of the car less than ten minutes’ walk from the football field. He was driving along the dirt road into the center of the wood when the bouncing around woke Kristen.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He grinned. “We’re getting out of here in style.”
She smiled back. “That will be nice. What do you mean?”
He tapped the side of his nose. “All in good time, all in good time.”
Pulling the Caddy over and throwing it in park, he jumped in the back. “Now, if you don’t mind giving me a little privacy while I get out of this damn dry suit, I’m sweating like a pig.”
After a few minutes of grunting and struggling, he was finally free of his misery and wearing pants and shoes. His ribs were another matter. There was a nasty gash that was still bleeding. Looking down at the wound, he realized how lucky he had been. Another inch over and he could have been dealing with a collapsed lung, or worse, a bloody great exit wound where the bullet would have taken out a bunch of his ribs, causing him to bleed to death. He asked Kristen for a little help, and she obliged with another sanitary pad and a ton of surgical tape.
When they were done, he had her stand about twenty feet from the car while he rigged a small amount of C-4 to the gas tank and some more around the VIN on the driver’s side dashboard near the windshield as well as the VINs on the door frame and engine block. No point in making it too easy to identify the car. He hooked all that up to a timer set to go in seven minutes, by which time, with a painful little jog, they should be at the field awaiting their ride.
They had just started running when he stopped. “Something’s wrong,” he said to Kristen.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” He started checking his bag. Nope, that isn’t it.
“Terry, the explosives.”
“I know, I know,” he replied. He started checking his pockets, but they were fine. He was about to leave when his hand went to where the Saint Christopher medal should have been hanging from the chain around his neck . . . nothing. “Oh, shit,” he mumbled.
“Wait here,” he said to Kristen and started running back to the SUV. He quickly stopped the timers, none too soon as they were down to just over two minutes. He desperately started searching the car where he had been sitting, still nothing. A horrible thought crossed his mind that he could have lost it at Lander’s house, but he seemed to remember it still being around his neck. Where is it, dammit? He ran to the back of the SUV and started running his hands over the ground. It was then that Kristen joined him.
“What is it, Terry?”
“Dammit, Kristen, I thought I told you to stay back.”
She ignored that. “How can I help?”
“It’s Miranda’s Saint Christopher medal. I can’t find it.”
“Oh, hell. Where do you want me to look?”
“I don’t know,” he replied still searching the ground. “Maybe try the back of the Caddy.”
“Terry, we really need to get out of here.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he snapped, continuing to search.
Kristen nodded and hit the auto open button on the tailgate, which proceeded to beep as it went up. Both of them stopped what they were doing; the beeping sounded like screams in the night. Nolan continued his frantic search but was still coming up empty.
All that was in the back of the SUV were the different parts of the dry suit. Kristen shook the booties and the hood, nothing there. She grabbed hold of the full body suit and pulled it out of the back. There was nothing on the carpet lining of the vehicle, so she grabbed the dry suit by the legs and shook it. Like a shooting star, the medal flew out of the neck opening in the direction of the bag that Nolan had searched, and, as if by some supernatural intervention, covered the twenty or so feet and landed on top of it.
Terry watched it land on his bag. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered.
“No kidding,” replied Kristen, who stood shaking her head in disbelief.
Terry slipped it over his head and kissed it gently. His elevated heart rate began to slow. “We need to get moving. Start heading down that trail. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Not wanting to delay the destruction of the Cadillac any longer, Nolan restarted the timers without changing the time left on them and began to sprint as best he could to catch up with Kristen. As he passed the spot where the medal had landed, he touched it and smiled. “Thanks, Miranda,” he whispered.
Just as K had promised, they saw the helicopter come swooping in over the stands of the high school football field as they heard a faint whump in the distance when the Cadillac exploded.