I looked at Laura and thought of Jenny. They were very different women. They would respect each other, but probably wouldn’t be friends. I was carrying Jenny with me. Several times every day, too often at the most inopportune times, she popped into my head, and I wondered what she was doing at exactly that moment. It was never good. Worrying about her was an emotion that served no useful purpose, so finally I used an old visualization I’d been taught during interrogation training: I envisioned an old-fashioned steel safe, the type with a big spinning lock, then balled up my fears, put them into that safe, and closed its door. That generally worked well, but this time I could see droplets of anxiety leaking from beneath the door.
One cup of coffee wasn’t nearly enough; I dozed, the image of two dangling bodies twisting slowly in a million mirrors pasted on the inside of my eyelids. I woke up when Lieutenant Carty returned about noon. “Those agents’ll be here soon,” he said.
He helped move me back into Mighty Chair. I let him give me more assistance than I actually needed—another way of making people feel good. I had just gotten comfortable when Corbin and Russell walked in. Rather than gray suits, they were in casual clothes, but both of them wore jackets that covered the weapons they would be carrying. Dick looked at me and grinned ugly. I couldn’t help myself. “Laura, look who’s here! Hey, buddy, good to see you standing upright.”
Corbin ignored me, handing his credentials to Carty. “And this is Agent Russell. I’m assuming your people did a good search?”
Carty glanced at the ID, then gave it back. “We brushed over them. They’re clean.” He got ready to leave. “You people going to need anything else from us?”
“Nope. That’d be it.”
“Okay.” He stopped at the door and looked at me. “Good luck,” he said.
Russell locked the door behind him, then looked at me. “Now go ahead and smile again, asshole.”
“You’re drooling,” I said, making sure I got all their attention. In their anger and anticipation, they completely ignored Laura.
Dickie put a restraining hand on Francis’s shoulder. “Me first.” He took two steps toward Mighty Chair, then stopped beyond the extendable arm’s reach. He stepped to the right before coming any closer. Then tentatively ran his hand over Chair’s right arm to see if it contained any other surprises. Chair sat impassively. Dickie moved closer and ran his hand down the seatback with more apprehension than I’d seen on the faces of bomb disposal techs in the desert. He was treating Mighty Chair as if it were a dangerous sleeping animal, capable of striking when aroused. “Show me your hands,” he ordered.
I held them out; he tied them together with a plastic twist. When he was certain I wasn’t capable of triggering any defenses, he began a thorough search. As Gunn had done, he opened my backpack and lifted out the black plastic tank. “That’s my urinal tank,” I told him. “Help yourself.”
He held it gingerly in both hands, away from his body, and shook it. When he felt the liquid swishing around, he put it down and continued digging through my backpack. He pulled out a shirt, which he patted down; a battery-operated toothbrush, which he shook in case it was hollow; and my passport. He put the passport in his jacket pocket—“no need for this anymore”—and replaced everything else. Then he methodically went through each of Mighty Chair’s pockets, receptacles, and bags.
He reached into a deep side pocket and Cher suddenly started giggling. “Stop. It tickles.”
Corbin leaped back, ripping his hand out of the pocket as if he’d dipped it in lava.
Thank you, Y, I thought. But what I said was “Hey, don’t blame me. I’m just sitting here.”
“Fuck you, Stone.” After completing his search of visible storage, Corbin hesitated and thought about it. “Gimme a hand,” he told Russell. They struggled to move me onto the bed. I didn’t resist, but I didn’t help, either. “You stay right there,” he said sarcastically, chuckling at his own humor. Then he continued his search. After going through the visible storage places, he warily lifted Chair’s foam seat cushion. And discovered the manila envelope. “Well, now what might this be?”
I took a guess: “Inca treasure?” Apparently no one but me thought that was funny. Corbin lifted the clasp and pulled out two graphs. He stared at them, having no idea what he was looking at; he turned them sideways, but they still made no sense to him. He folded them in half, then again into quarters, slipping them in his pocket with my passport.
Dickie tossed the cushion on the floor. “Now isn’t this something,” he said. The plastic seat beneath the cushion had been divided into five shallow storage boxes. He slipped his index finger into a flush mount ring and lifted the lid. He moved the contents around, found nothing of interest, and replaced the lid. He grasped the second ring and pulled open the second box—and took a step backward. “Whoa.” He looked at me with an I-didn’t-know-you-were-that-kind-of-guy surprise. He took out my revolver, raising it triumphantly into the air. “Well, lookee here,” he said with appreciation for his own professionalism. “Look what I found.”
I frowned. “Darn. Now what am I going to get you for Christmas?”
“Go ahead, funny man,” he said, pointing the gun at the muted TV. CNN was showing highlights of the executions. “Let’s see how funny you are when you’re starring on that show.” He checked the gun. It wasn’t loaded. Another steel-lined box contained eight rounds. An emergency repair kit and a collection of bolts and screws filled the final box. Corbin then got down on his knees and began searching Chair’s underside.
“Careful,” Russell warned him.
I told him, “Don’t unscrew that white cap.”
Corbin hesitated. “Why? What’s in it?”
“Silicone. That’s what keeps the chair lubricated.” The reservoir actually did contain silicone, but its real purpose was to create a slippery trail if I was being pursued. It was Y’s homage to Bond, James Bond. Dickie hesitated, wondering if I was playing reverse psychology, or perhaps this was a double reverse. Did I want him to open it or not? Was it a trap or was there an escape tool in there? I almost hummed a dramatic theme. He left it alone and continued his search. I smiled with what I hoped looked like relief, not because I was relieved but because I wanted to screw with him.
He finished his search and stood up. For the first time he spoke to Laura. “You got something to say?”
“I’d like to know what’s going on. Why am I being held here?”
Corbin looked at Russell. “You want to tell her?”
Francis crinkled his nose. “Let it be a surprise.”
“Okay,” Corbin said. “We got to get going. C’mon, Stone, mount up.”
“I’ll help,” Laura volunteered, coming around to the other side of my bed. She leaned down and I swung my arm around her shoulders. She leveraged me to my feet. Mighty Chair was only a few feet away and Cher could have brought him over, but instead I struggled to get there, playing up my disability for the agents. As we got close, Russell put his foot on Chair’s seat and pushed it back against the wall. Laura glared at him with what I guessed was as much hatred as she could muster, then dragged me a few additional feet until I collapsed into the seat.
“Francis,” Corbin said to Russell without taking his eyes off me. “Take the young lady out to the car. I’ve got a few questions I need to ask Mr. Stone.”
First question, I was pretty sure: How’d that one feel, you bastard?
“I’ll go with Rollie,” she said firmly.
“No, no, you won’t. In fact, you’ll do exactly what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it.”
She stood her ground. Damn, she was terrific. But I didn’t want to see her get hurt. “Do it,” I said. “Go with him.” She considered her options. “Please,” I said.
The fight drained out of her.
I nodded. “Go. I’ll be okay.”
Corbin waited until we were alone, then let his hatred boil over. “Now you’re mine, asshole.” He took a step toward me. I smiled mischievously and let my bound hands hover over Chair’s controls. Corbin stopped, then circled around behind Chair. There wasn’t much I could do. I relaxed and closed my eyes. I was ready for it.
He slugged me on the side of my head. I went sprawling onto the cheap carpet. I went with it rather than trying to resist, letting the force of the blow power me forward. “You fucking traitor,” he cursed in a guttural roar, then kicked me hard in the kidney. That one hurt. “You’re gonna fuck with me, huh? That’s what you’re gonna do? Fuck with me?” I pulled myself into a fetal position, protecting my face and stomach, my hands and arms cupped over my head.
Corbin wound up like a punter and kicked me in my leg. I didn’t feel a thing, but I screamed in pain. For effect. The old give-’em-whatever-they-want-to-hear. He kicked me again, this time in my lower back. Okay, that was a good hit. He kicked me again. Then he began punching down at me. The kicks and punches came in a frenzy, over and over and over, but he quickly tired himself out.
Here’s something important to know: Your head and face, your hands, and your balls are the most vulnerable. The rest of your body is easily repairable. I kept my head tucked safely under my arms, my body folded protectively over my groin and let him punch himself into exhaustion. Those long mornings in the gym paid off; I felt every blow and reacted convincingly enough to satisfy Dickie’s need for revenge, but few of them caused any significant pain or damage. The thing about fighting that they don’t tell you in the movies is that when you hit someone, you also hurt yourself. The human body is surprisingly solid: hit certain parts of it hard enough and you bruise your own hands and feet. If you’re not in great shape, you might pull a muscle; punch or kick someone wrong and you can break the small bones in your hands and your feet. So after taking the first few hard shots, you start holding back to protect yourself. And having taken a serious blow to his ego and his honkers, the Big Dick hadn’t entered the fray in primo condition. His anger petered out pretty quickly.
As he was whaling away, I noticed that Vice President Hunter seemed to be watching from the silent TV. In that instant I flashed on the meeting in his office. I warned you, I heard him thinking. A kick caught the back of my hand, ripping off some skin and bringing me back to reality. Blood was flowing from several cuts. But an interesting thing happened: As I was being pummeled, part of me long buried was savoring the thrill of being involved in a brutal physical confrontation—although admittedly not so much being on the receiving end. Corbin had kicked through the barriers of decency I’d erected, kicked down my walls of civility. The adrenaline bursting through my body masked most of the pain; instead I was feeling a kind of primal joy that I hadn’t experienced in years. For a second I started to push myself onto my feet to get back in the fight.
Then I remembered. That wasn’t going to happen. I hated the fact that I couldn’t stand up and smash the shit out of this prick, hated it, but this beating had awakened something primordial that I’d left behind in that collapsed building in Fallujah.
Corbin stepped back. He was breathing heavily. My shirt and pants were ripped and bloodstained. I was moaning, rolling on the floor, hoping I wasn’t overacting. “Try me again, asshole,” Corbin threatened between breaths, leaning on the bureau for support, “and you won’t walk out of…” He coughed some mucus out of his throat. “I’m telling you. We’re taking you back, and I promise you, you’re gonna rot there.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I said through gritted teeth, doubled over, convincingly in pain.
Corbin straightened his clothes. Smiling, satisfied, he bent down and ripped the plastic ties off my wrists, then stepped over me and opened the door. “Now get yourself back in that chair.” He started to close the door, looking back at me curled up on the floor. “And don’t try climbing out the bathroom window.” There was a meanness in his eyes as he added, “Whoops. I forgot.” He was laughing at his cleverness as he closed the door behind him. I heard him say loudly, “He’ll be right out. Soon as he straightens up.”
I rolled onto my back and lay there, gathering my strength. I could feel some liquids on my face and chest; I hoped it was sweat. “Cher,” I finally said in a rasp, “come here.” Mighty Chair rolled to the sound of my voice. I rubbed both wrists then picked the cushion off the floor and tossed it onto the seat. Then I grasped Chair’s arm, as if it were a bar in the gym, and used it to get to my feet, then swiveled into the seat.
I sat there for several seconds. For Bourne or Reacher, this beating would have been a minor inconvenience, forgotten by the end of the chapter; but for me it hurt like a son of a bitch. I wasn’t about to forget it. My left shoulder was screaming for attention, but I didn’t have time for it. I had to move quickly before they came back to check on me. I grabbed my backpack and put it on my lap. I reached inside and took out the plastic urinal tank. I kept it on top because it usually discouraged people from searching any deeper. I opened the tank, which in fact was not connected to Chair and was filled with water. I lifted out the plastic bag protecting a compact Glock 42 and a six-round magazine. I loaded it, put the empty bag inside the tank, put the tank back on top, and hung the backpack where it belonged.
I slipped the gun under my seat cushion, took one last deep breath, and said, “Cher, let’s go, please.”
On the still-muted TV a slow-motion replay of the hangings was being shown while talking heads silently provided expert analysis.
I came out of the room in slow motion, slumping, a man defeated. Laura gasped when she saw me. Quite dramatically, she tore herself loose from Russell and ran over to me, hugging me with more conviction than she’d ever shown. “What did they do to you? Oh, Rollie…” As she hooked her left arm around my neck, she slipped Hicker’s bagel-buttering white plastic cafeteria knife into my hand. “Are you okay?”
Corbin pulled her away from me. “We all get it,” he said dismissively. I noticed for the first time that he was moving slowly; he appeared to be waddling more than walking. The adrenaline that had allowed him to beat on me was slowly dissipating, and his body was remembering his pain.
Russell was leaning against the government car they’d driven up from Washington, a white Chevy Caprice, combing the remaining strands of his hair, adjusting his jacket. Doing the victor’s dance. “Nice of you to join us, Stone,” he said, with a knowing smirk on his face.
It was only as the agents got ready to leave that they realized their problem: Just like the Lake City PD, they had not anticipated the difficulty in transporting a detainee in a wheelchair. They spent several minutes fruitlessly debating if Mighty Chair would fit into the Chevy’s trunk before giving up that idea. They debated renting an SUV or van, but finally decided it would be safe and considerably easier to let me drive Van. Just like the Lake City PD, Corbin volunteered, “I’ll ride shotgun with superschmuck.” Laura would go in the car with Francis.
As Laura climbed into the Caprice’s caged back seat, Dickie asked, “You okay to drive?”
Was I okay? You kidding me? That was an essential part of my plan. You’re damn right I was okay to drive. “I think so,” I managed.
As we watched Van’s ramp rattling flat on the pavement, Corbin poked a warning finger at me. “Let me tell you something, pal. I wasn’t kidding about riding shotgun. I don’t know exactly what you’ve done, but you pissed off some pretty important people. They had the whole world out looking for you. When they told us to come up and get you, they made it clear they didn’t give a flying fuck about how we brought you back.”
He took a pack of Juicy Fruit from his pocket, slid one out for himself, and offered one to me.
“No thanks.”
Corbin unwrapped it and put it in his mouth, savoring that initial rush of flavor. “Damn, that’s good. Like I was saying, they told me that where you’re concerned there’re no rules. Do whatever I had to do. Do it twice if I felt like it. Nothing was ever going to bounce back. So here’s my point, you screw with me…”—he tapped his index finger on his chest to emphasize that me meant him—“you’re gonna die.” He raised his eyebrows as high on his head as he could to reinforce that warning. “You try anything with that chair or this van, it’s pretty likely that girl is gonna die too.
“Now listen up, I don’t want to shoot you. Far as I’m concerned, right now you and me, we’re even. But I have to tell you the truth—if I do have to shoot you, I will enjoy it.” He forced up both sides of his mouth in his phony smile. “Capiche?”
I capiched. As Corbin played Dirty Harry, I hunched my shoulders and didn’t look up, showing him I was as beaten up on the inside as was visible on the outside. But I had been genuinely affected by Laura’s willingness to risk her own safety to slip me a weapon, if you believe a plastic knife is a weapon. It was a wonderful gesture; she had no way of knowing it wasn’t necessary. I had laid out my plan a while ago. The only part that had been missing from it was the feral anger that once had made it possible for me to do brutal things without hesitation, to look some jerk with a bloated sense of self-importance in the eyes and pull the trigger. But I had it now. It was back.
Rollie Stone, journalist, was a different man. That was by necessity, but also by choice. Life was easier once you backed away from the edge. On some of those sleepless nights I’d had brief reminders; for an instant I was the trigger, walking down a rubble-strewn street, ready to snap. Jenny had caught me there once, asked about it, and I’d joked my way out of it. Rollie from my first life, I’d explained, paying a brief visit.
But he’d come back to stay on the floor of that motel room. Each kick, each punch had opened the door a little wider, and he’d rushed back in. Welcome home, baby.
The girl is gonna die too? Really? Fuck you very much. I was going to enjoy this a lot more than I had anticipated. I could feel the bulge of the Glock under me as I cowered. I wanted to make sure Big Dick was confident, even cocky.
“Now let’s get the fuck out of here,” Corbin finished.
While Mighty Chair slid into its rails and I locked down, Corbin belted himself into the passenger seat. To be extra safe he made a big show of taking his weapon out of his shoulder holster and putting it in the passenger door well, making it impossible for me to reach it while still keeping it easily accessible. He called Francis on his mobile to confirm he was “ready to roll with Rollie,” and advised him we would be stopping for gas within an hour. “We’ll stay in the right lane. Just keep up with us.”
We took the highway. No diversions, a reasonably straight shot to Washington. I didn’t even bother asking if he wanted to detour slightly to visit the Liberty Bell. It was a bright sunny day—it probably would be remembered as a good day for a hanging—and Corbin was enjoying the ride. He’d accomplished his mission and undoubtedly there would be goodies waiting for him. Regional assistant? Probably not out of the question. He played with the radio, settling on an easy listening station. Barry Manilow was singing a mournful arrangement of “On the Sunny Side of the Street.” Good, the boredom had gotten to him even sooner than I’d expected.
Corbin turned to me. “So what exactly was it you were trying to do? How come you’re so important?”
I glared at him. That punch to the side of my head had rattled my noggin and my brain was still banging around in there. Or something was causing the throbbing pain. I didn’t say a word, just glared at him.
Corbin couldn’t stand the silence. “I mean, come on, with that chair and everything, what could you be doing?”
Ah, the beauty of low expectations. I picked my words carefully when I responded, “We’re taking back our country.”
“Oh?” Once again he raised his eyebrows; apparently that was his go-to expression. “You think so, huh? Let me tell you something, pal,” he continued, his voice rising. “That ain’t happening. This country is just fine, thank you. There are some people like you trying to cause trouble, but thank God we have people like me to stop you.”
Okay, so maybe the rumors are true. People are starting to fight back. I checked my rearview mirror. The Caprice was holding steady four car lengths behind. I turned and looked directly at Dick, then yawned. I yawned long and loud, my mouth opened as wide as I could manage, and sighed.
It took a few seconds to register, but then Corbin yawned. To get to Lake City that early, he and Russell must have left Washington in the middle of the night. The early afternoon sun glaring through the windshield added to that sense of fatigue. But Dick kept babbling, maybe to help himself stay awake. “I haven’t seen Americans this united since … since whenever. Oh, man.” He yawned again. “I mean, nobody’s saying that Wrightman is the brightest bulb in the chandelier…” He lazily pointed his finger at me. “You didn’t hear that from me. But c’mon, look what all those smart guys did; Kennedy and Bush and Clinton and Trump…”
I looked at him skeptically.
“Okay, maybe I’m just kidding about Trump. Just wanted to make sure I had your attention.” He rattled on for several more minutes, continuing his long monologue on the state of the nation: People were satisfied, the economy was coming back, there was a feeling that someone smart was in charge, and “You got to admit it. There are more great shows on TV than ever.”
Just to make sure he knew I was still in his game I interjected an occasional uh-huh or Really?
Corbin was describing his favorite Netflix series, something about earthlings trading places with their duplicates on our mirror planet (which ironically was how I sometimes felt in Wrightman’s America), as we came around a gently sweeping bend. I checked again; the Chevy was steady in position. The road grade was rising and we were heading directly into the sun. Dickie leaned forward and snapped down his visor, and when he settled back in his seat, he turned and looked at me and saw the Glock in my left hand, pointing at his head.
He started to reach …
“Don’t.” I was completely calm. Calmness equals control; a lack of emotion in your voice is far more threatening to someone than screaming at them. Long as it’s backed with a gun, of course. “Don’t. Fucking. Move.” The first hour of the first day of Special Ops training, we had been taught the importance of establishing and maintaining total control. Drill Sergeant Millard Dearing had reminded us every day, “The choices you make at the beginning will determine the actions you’ll have to take at the end.”
Corbin’s right hand began edging toward the door pocket.
“Do it, and I swear to God I will put a bullet in your head.”
He lifted his hand. “You shoot me and Russell’ll shoot your girlfriend.”
“Maybe. But how is that gonna help you?” He dropped his hand in his lap. “Good. Now here are the new rules. You do exactly what I tell you to do and you’ll be fine. You’ll end up back in D.C. and they’ll give you another assignment and eventually they’ll forget all about this one. You’ll get to be a wise old agent, telling stories around the book burnings. But try to be a hero today…” I frowned. “I will kill you.”
Corbin had lost his bravado, so he retreated to threats. “You know what they’ll do to you if you shoot a federal agent, right?”
“Yes I do, Dick. I most certainly do. Exactly the same thing that they’re going to do to me if I don’t shoot a federal agent. Either way, I’m fucked if I get caught. But you, you’ve got a choice to make. You can be a live agent or a dead hero.”
Corbin entwined his fingers in front of him and snapped them back, running scenarios in his mind. I was way ahead of him. There wasn’t one of them in which he emerged in a better situation. Even if he got his gun, what was he going to do with it? Shoot the guy driving the van?
“You ever check out my background?” I asked him. Watching him while driving was difficult. I needed to change that equation, take him out of the game at least temporarily.
“No. Why? What was I going to find out, you’re some kind of bumper chairs champion?”
“Yeah, well, you know.” I sneaked a quick glance at him. “You scared, Dickie?”
“Of you?” He half laughed, half sneered. “You kidding me?”
“Good. Here’s what I want you to do,” I said, still evenly and firmly. “Hold out your right hand with your palm facing down and spread your fingers.” He hesitated. For the first time I raised my voice. “Don’t fuck with me. Do it now.”
Corbin turned slightly in his seat and did exactly as directed. He fought to stop his hand from shaking. In one move I took hold of the steering wheel knob with my gun hand, then with my right hand I grabbed Corbin’s trigger finger. I pressed down hard on his knuckle with my thumb while yanking the finger upward. An oldie but goodie. It sounded like a piece of kindling crackling in a fire, followed instantly by Dick’s agonized scream. “What the fuck! Oh, Jesus Christ, that fucking hurts! You broke my fucking finger.”
I waited until his shrieking dissolved into whimpers, then told him, “Now reach down into the well with your right hand and give me that gun.” With a completely unnecessary but totally enjoyable sneer, I added, “Capiche?”
We used to refer to snapped fingers as tweets to the soul. It definitely got your attention, and if not necessarily your respect, your obedience. Corbin was sweating from the pain, but he did exactly as ordered, picking up the gun with his thumb and middle finger and handing it across his body to me. He covered his right hand protectively with his left hand as tears ran down his face. “Hurts like a bastard, right? But you’re lucky. It’ll heal up. Maybe you won’t be tapping your chest for a few months…”—I demonstrated, tapping my chest with the Glock as he had done minutes earlier—“but give it a little time and you’ll be ready to shoot anybody you want.”
I slipped his gun under my seat cushion. I checked again. Russell was staying steady. We passed a large sign promising food and fuel, exit right in two miles. About a mile later I put on Van’s right-turn signal. A few seconds later Russell’s signal light clicked on. Good boy, I thought. “Okay, here’s where it gets interesting,” I told Corbin. “You fuck up, I promise you, bad things are going to happen.” I told him exactly what I wanted to do, throwing in all the requisite threats.
The exit was a long two-lane ramp ending at a traffic light at the crest of a rise. There was an off-brand gas station with a small market about two hundred yards down the road on the right. While we were stopped at the light, I told Corbin, “Call him now.” This was the most delicate part of the plan so I doubled down. As he picked up his phone with his left hand, I reminded him, “Believe me,” I said evenly, keeping any hint of exaggeration out of my tone, “I got nothing to lose. Whatever happens to me, I will kill you.”
Corbin hit the keyboard with his right pinkie. I watched in my rearview as Russell answered. Corbin came acceptably close to sounding normal. He told Francis that before filling his gas tank he should escort the female to the restroom.
“You sure?” Francis asked. “That’s not what the regs say we’re supposed to do.”
Corbin took a deep breath, fighting the pain. “It’s on me.” He closed his eyes. “Just do what I tell you, Frankie, okay?”
“Well, what if she doesn’t need to go?”
Corbin pressed the phone against his chest and looked at me. “Tell him to tell her this is the only time we’re stopping. Her boyfriend says take advantage of it.”
He repeated it exactly. The fight was gone out of him. He was in survival mode.
As we pulled into the gas station, I remember noticing that the price of gas was unusually low, back to pandemic prices, and thinking that was another trade-off to keep people docile. Funny I should remember that. I drove around to the side of the market, as far away from the pumps as possible. There was a row of empty parking spots on my left and I parked in the one farthest away. The Caprice pulled in on my left, meaning Agent Russell had to approach the van on the driver’s side. I looked down, as if fumbling for something in my lap, but with my peripheral vision I watched Russell get out of the car and lock it with a remote. Laura was sitting calmly in the back seat. Russell waddled around the back of his car, putting his jacket on to cover his weapon. His badge was hanging from a lanyard around his neck. He came over to the van, his head down.
As I rolled down the window, I backed up Mighty Chair several inches in its tracks, giving me a wider field of vision. For the next few minutes I was going to have to be Bourne again. Keeping both agents in view was tricky, but I didn’t need the details, I just had to be aware of motion. Russell rested his right arm on the doorframe and leaned in. “What’s going…”
The Glock was in my right hand, resting on Chair’s arm, pointing directly at Corbin. There was about eighteen inches between us, can’t-miss distance. If I fired, I’d hit something. As Russell leaned into Van, I raised my left hand and jammed Corbin’s gun right under Russell’s chin and pushed up hard. “Don’t. Fucking. Move.”
“Do what he tells ya,” Corbin shouted. “He’s nuts. He broke my fucking finger.”
“Whatever you say,” Russell stammered, starting to raise his hands.
“Put your hands down,” I told him. “We’re gonna do this by the numbers. One, take the remote out of your pocket and open the car.”
“What’s two?” he gasped as I moved the gun into a slightly better position. Its barrel fit almost perfectly over Russell’s Adam’s apple.
“There is no two. Either you do exactly what I tell you or you die in a gas station parking lot.”
We were in a good spot. Anyone looking in our direction would see someone leaning into a van having what appeared to be a friendly conversation. Then they would have seen an attractive young woman getting out of the rear seat of a white Chevy and joining us.
“You okay?” I asked her.
“I’m good.”
“Pat him down. He’s got a gun on him somewhere.”
Russell tried to look at her without turning his head. His eyes were pulled so far to his right, they threatened to disappear into his ears. “Don’t touch me there,” he said. “It’s in an ankle holster.”
She was shielded from view by the Caprice as she bent down and found his weapon.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“My other one’s in the glove box.” He cleared his throat and asked in a voice so thin it could have been coming through a straw. “Think maybe you could ease up a little.”
As I’d learned in dark rooms, that’s what fear sounded like.
Corbin shifted in his seat enough to attract my attention. I turned and he recoiled, raising his hands in supplication. I noticed his index finger had swelled up like a balloon. He saw me looking at it and pulled it back. He obviously had accepted the fact he was dealing with a crazy guy. “I’m not doing nothing,” he swore.
“I got him,” Laura said. We exchanged a quick glance. She smiled confidently. She was enjoying this, whether it was simply retribution or maybe a feeling of finally being able to fight back, a new part of her had been exposed, and clearly she was enjoying it.
I wasn’t certain how to proceed. Getting to this point had been my primary objective. I had a sort of vague plan, but I lacked sufficient knowledge to fill in the gaps. I didn’t like that. Contrary to the cliché, the best-laid plans usually were the ones that worked. I had no choice, though—we’d just have to solve each problem as it popped up. What was certain was that Dickie and Francis would be traveling with us, at least partway. “Get his phone,” I told her.
“I’ll do it,” Russell volunteered and started reaching into his pants pocket.
“Stop,” Laura snapped. I could see she shoved the gun into him a little harder. He kind of rose up on his toes, and I realized she was pushing it between his butt cheeks. My, my, what an interesting woman.
“Okay. Okay.”
She reached into his pocket and got his phone.
I told her, “Lock him in the cage.”
“Give me your handcuffs,” she said.
“One hand,” I warned him.
Using one hand, he took the cuffs off his belt and handed them to her. She cuffed his hands behind him and pushed him into the Chevy’s cage. When they turned, I confirmed my suspicion—she had the gun rammed up his ass.
When he was secured, I gave my full attention to Corbin. “Your turn. Here’s what you’re going to do. Type out a message to your boss. Tell him you’re on your way back to Washington with your prisoners. You’ll be back later tonight. Don’t send it. And please, don’t be a smart guy. I honestly don’t want you to get hurt.”
He showed me the typed message. “Okay, send it.”
I told Laura to toss both agents’ phones in a rusting green dumpster. If anybody at headquarters got hinky, they wouldn’t be able to ping these phones to locate us.
Twenty minutes later we were back on the highway, the Chevy trailing Van, but once again heading north. After retrieving the graphs and my passport from Corbin’s jacket pocket, Laura had duct-taped him to the passenger seat, his arms at his side. It wasn’t a total mummification, just three times around, sufficient to keep him restrained. As she was wrapping him, he pleaded, “Watch my finger. Careful of my finger.”
We drove into the early evening, not pushing it. I-70 flowed into I-90, straight to Buffalo. The twilight sky was the bluish-black of the bruises on my arm, where I’d been kicked. In the distance, lightning was backlighting a cloud bank, but if there was thunder it was muffled by Van’s air-conditioning. Corbin was quiet, probably wondering about his next career after this debacle. No matter what I’d told him, this wasn’t going to be a career builder for him. Finally he asked, “C’mon, Stone, where’d you learn this stuff?”
I thought about it before responding, wondering what the benefit-loss ratio might be to telling the truth. We probably had more to gain if Corbin appreciated the danger he was in. “Special Ops,” I said. “Multiple deployments, numerous missions. Mostly in the sandbox.” I glanced at Corbin. “Multiple KIAs.” I didn’t mention attending the University of Ludlum and Child.
“Yeah. I figured something like that. Me too. I mean, you know, I was just a grunt. I was there for the Surge. We were in some deep shit.” He paused, waiting for me to respond. I got it, two GIs shooting the shit, brothers-in-arms. But I didn’t say a word. Corbin was my prisoner, not my pal. D. I. Dearing again: “Never kiss someone you might have to kill.”
Once Corbin started talking, he wouldn’t shut up. Maybe it made him forget the pain of his broken finger. Eventually he came back to the starting line. “So c’mon, what’d you do to rate priority handling? Which one of those assholes did you piss off?”
I brushed him off. He didn’t need an answer. “I told you,” I said, “I fought for America.”
“Yeah, I got that. That’s what you said.”
I looked straight ahead, into the past. “That was then. This is now.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I know,” I said, finally glancing at him, “that’s the problem.”