By eleven o’clock eastern time, and not long after the discussion in the situation room had ended for the night, one of the six escape vehicles from Annapolis had covered more than four hundred miles as it reached the town of Bristol Virginia on the Tennessee state line. The trip southwest along interstate-81 had gone smoothly except for one additional stop beyond that of restrooms or the recent need for fuel. That stop west of Washington D.C. along interstate-66 had been necessary to purchase some towels and bandages for the injured man in the backseat, as the gunshot wound he had received continued to cause bleeding and severe pain in his left arm. In the hours that followed he lost the feeling in his fingers, and the recent pale blueish appearance of his hand and forearm provided proof that blood flow to that region had been severely diminished.

Located in the middle seat to his immediate left, the woman who had been tending to his wound since they were riding in the white van thought that the man showed incredible bravery. The pain must have been excruciating for him, but he had never cried out in spite of having no more than a pencil from within the glove box to bite down on and a steady regiment of Tylenol. Knowing that additional medical attention beyond what she could provide would be needed long before their return to Texas; she feared that he could possibly lose the arm.

Meanwhile the second injured man was in another car roughly seventy miles behind on that same interstate near Wytheville Virginia. They, like the car in Bristol, had taken the northern loop around the Washington D.C. area before proceeding west on interstate-64 and then southwest along 91. What had slowed them down to create such a distance between was the need for a few extra stops, as the man who had been severely beaten and kicked several times in the midsection was not well. He was developing a fever, had vomited several times, and the latest such episode at a roadside rest area forty minutes earlier included some blood.

In both cases the men were in bad shape, but nothing could be done about that. Checking either of them into an emergency room or clinic anywhere along their intended route back home would have brought forth unwanted questions and an investigation as to how the injuries had been received. Such an investigation would undoubtedly lead to uncovering bits of personal information such as names, addresses, and medical history that could not be revealed. Although each of those could be falsified by use of the documents they each possessed, those documents claimed that the men were federal agents. If those were to be presented to medical personnel in place of authentic identification, the federal employee database would be accessed for verification. When it was discovered that no such persons actually existed, the standard blood sample taken in an emergency room environment would be scrutinized to reveal their true identity via DNA testing. That entire scenario was simply unacceptable to the successful completion of their mission, so the injured men would just have to endure their discomfort and pain.

Further to the east, the four cars that had left Londontown undetected from the rendezvous point and moved around the southern edge of Washington D.C. had driven nearly all the way through North Carolina. Once over the Potomac and then into Virginia they had turned south onto interstate-95 before using a roadside rest area south of Fredericksburg to change the Maryland license plates to North Carolina. Then while maintaining their spacing of a few miles between each vehicle, the uninjured collective of eight attackers and six drivers were able to maintain a quicker pace than the pair of cars further to the west. Upon reaching Petersburg south of Richmond Virginia they followed the more western option of interstate-85 toward the Tar Heel state, and had since rolled past the outskirts of Durham and Greensboro. As the dashboard clock turned to eleven o’clock when the lead of the western pair was in Bristol, the driver within the first of the four slowed to exit at a roadside rest area about twenty miles north of Charlotte.