Gannon woke up at around five thirty in the double-wide’s small bedroom. When he went into the living room, Stick and Ruby were sitting silently watching the news.
“Are we still the lead story?” Gannon said.
“Yes,” Ruby said. “But at least they’re not showing photos of us yet.”
“Is there anything about Wheldon? About the fire at the hotel?” Gannon said.
“No,” Ruby said. “Not a thing.”
After the news was over, the only thing to eat was more pancakes, so they had them for dinner along with some bacon that Gannon defrosted from the otherwise empty freezer.
After they were done eating, they stared at each other in silence. Then it was Stick’s turn to do some pacing. Ruby and Gannon sat at the small kitchen table, sipping instant coffee as they watched Stick walk the length of the small living room to the pellet stove and back.
“Hell, I need a drink. Is there anything to drink?” Stick said.
Gannon got up and looked in the pantry where he’d found the pancake mix.
“You’re in luck. There’s beer,” Gannon said, kneeling down. “No, no. Wait. Sorry. False alarm. It’s just that O’Doul’s nonalcoholic stuff.”
“Screw it. Bring it out,” Stick said, making a gimme gesture with his big hand. “I’ll take even a pretend beer at this point.”
They watched him crack the bottle open and drink while he continued to pace.
“Okay, so there’s obviously something there about the plane,” Stick said. “Something about the director and the people there with him that is so unholy, there isn’t anything they’re not going to do to cover it up. So what the hell could it be?”
“Before he was shot, Wheldon was speculating it had something to do with the uncut diamonds,” Gannon said. “He said maybe they were illegal blood diamonds from some war-torn African country and that the exposure of the FBI director on the plane with the diamonds would expose some kind of Iran Contra–type deal with African warlords.”
“Maybe that’s true,” Ruby said. “The range on a G550 is transcontinental. They easily could have traveled from Africa to the East Coast of the US.”
“Or maybe the dead guy in the hoodie was some kind of African terrorist or something?” Stick said. “And they were doing some kind of off-the-books deal with him? Sneaking him into another country or something?”
“Awful lot of maybes and somethings to go on there,” said Gannon.
“You’re right,” Ruby said, letting out a breath. “We can’t really say what it is.”
“So what do we do?” Stick said.
“I think we need to do what Wheldon said before they shot him,” Gannon said.
“Which is what?” Stick said.
“Get the tape out there,” Gannon said. “We need to go back to my place and get the video. Get it out to the world. It’s the one thing they don’t want.”
“That actually makes a lot of sense,” Ruby said. “They’re willing to kill us to cover it up, right? But if the truth gets out, it’s out. The reason to kill us suddenly disappears.”
“Plus, at the very least, we’re going to need money and plenty of it to keep staying under the radar with these jacks hunting us,” Gannon said.
“Just one little detail,” Stick said. “How do you plan on getting us from here to the Bahamas with the FBI and probably every cop in the United States out looking for us?”
Gannon smiled as he thought of something.
“We’ll take the back roads,” he said.