Irene cringed. “Twenty minutes? Is that the best you can do?”
Bower chuckled. “This ain’t the big city, Agent Rivers. Things take time out here. I can guarantee we’ll do our best for you, how’s that?”
Irene smiled. “I never doubted that for a moment. Tell your folks to be careful, though. The Donovans are slippery and they’re desperate.”
This time Bower laughed out loud. “My troopers work real hard to make our customers be careful around us, ma’am.”
“Okey-doke, Sergeant. Then you just have your folks go do what they do best.” She looked at her watch. No chance, she thought. Jake and Carolyn were specialists at staying ahead of the law. Christ, they’d already made it from Phoenix, South Carolina, to Winston Springs, West Virginia. If nothing else, they knew how to stay out of reach. No way would they still be there in twenty minutes.
Hanging up the phone, she turned to the task of calming Paul. Poor guy was working like a galley slave to keep his career afloat, and every time he fixed a leak, they took on another torpedo. Amazing how fragile a career could become. Like it or not, his was tied to hers, and hers was cloaked in a suit of eggshell.
“There are grown-ups waiting to use the phone, young man.” It was Peggy, now sporting a brand-new grease stain on the front of her apron, and an expression like she’d just drunk a quart of lemon juice.
Travis covered the receiver and tried his best to be polite. “Tell them to wait a minute,” he said. Okay, so much for polite.
Peggy made a face, then flashed a two-fingered “V” in front of her nose. “Two minutes, smart mouth,” she warned. “Two minutes, then you’re off the phone.” As she stormed away, Travis successfully fought the urge to flash a onefingered wave of his own.
“Listen carefully, boy,” Harry said. “Tell your parents that the FBI knows where you are. No need to panic, but they’ll be on their way soon, I’m sure.”
“I gotta go, then,” Travis said hurriedly. Need or no need, the panic came, anyway.
“Wait!” Harry commanded. “I only need a half minute. I’ll see what I can do about convincing this friend of your parents’-Nick Thomas, right? — to cooperate. For the time being, though, we’ve got to figure out a way to get you and your folks out of there. Are there any landmarks? A place where we can meet?”
Travis leaned away from the wall, trying to get a look out of the front windows, but all he saw was Peggy, who’d stationed herself in the middle of the aisle, fists planted on her hips. “I–I don’t know.”
Harry sighed heavily. “Okay, do you know which way the roads run? North-south? East-west?”
Travis shook his head, feeling embarrassed; like he showed up for a test without studying. “No, I don’t.”
Another sigh. Actually, this one sounded more like a growl. “All right. Listen. Here’s what I want you to tell your parents. At midnight tonight, a white car will pull off to the side of the road, precisely two miles to the right of the diner where you’re calling from. Got that?”
Travis wasn’t sure. “To the right?”
“Yes, dammit, to the right. We don’t know north and south, so we’re doing left and right. You stand out on the road facing the diner and hold out your right hand. Exactly two miles in that direction.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t say okay unless you’ve truly got it,” Harry warned.
“No, really. Two miles. Got it.” Sensing that Peggy was listening to every word, Travis pivoted back toward the stink of the rest rooms as he spoke.
“Okay, boy, now you all need to find a place to hide for the rest of the day. I don’t care where it is, but when I say hide, I really mean hide. Until midnight, when you need to be at the rendezvous point. Are you still with me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t grunt at me, kid. I need yeses or noes.”
“Yes, I’m with you.”
“Wonderful. Now, pay very close attention to this part. At midnight tonight, a white car will pull up at the rendezvous point. That’ll be your ride. The driver’s name is Thorne, and he’ll take care of you. When he gets out of the car and lights a cigarette, that’ll be your signal to approach. Have you got all of that?”
Travis was terrified that he’d forget some detail, but he didn’t dare ask him to repeat himself. “I think I can handle that,” Travis said.
“Okay, then,” Harry concluded. “Now, go back and tell your parents to get the hell out of there. Fast. If you’ve got a car, ditch it as soon as you can. And be in the right spot at midnight. Sharp.”
Travis nodded. “We’ll be there.” He couldn’t wait to get moving. “Anything else?”
Harry was quiet for a moment while he thought. “Yeah,” he said at length, lowering his voice. “Tell your folks to be careful when they approach Thorne. Sometimes he misinterprets sudden moves.”
From the tone of voice alone, Travis understood this to be perhaps the most important detail of all.
Harry pushed the disconnect button and relayed the details to Thorne-his personal assistant for nearly thirty years now. In order to survive in the business world, Harry firmly believed that you needed a watchdog-an attack dog, even. Somebody on the payroll who could discover the kind of information about competitors and politicians that could be used to keep them under control. You needed somebody to whom you could make a request, and never question that there’d be results. In Harry’s company, that man was Thorne. Loyal as a lapdog yet fierce as a tiger, Thorne’s unspoken job was to occasionally stack the deck a little. Only rarely did Harry have to rein him in anymore.
“Do they have a chance?” Harry asked when he was finished regurgitating his niece and nephew’s latest plan.
Thorne shrugged. “I think it’s risky as hell, but yeah, sure. Why not? There’s always a chance. It’ll take some time, though. A lot of logistics.”
Harry shook his head. “We don’t have time. They don’t have time. We need to move quickly. Who do we know in Little Rock?” Washington contacts were a nickel a dozen, as were friends in Chicago, New York, and all the other major cities. Out in the boonies, though, pickings became awfully slim.
Thorne chewed on his lower lip and scowled. “I can’t think of a soul. No, wait! Didn’t that dermatologist friend of yours-Tim Vincent-move down there after they yanked his license in Wisconsin?”
“Oncologist,” Harry corrected. “Cancer specialist.” And yes, that did ring a bell. A friend from his college years, Tim Vincent had lost focus for a while about a decade ago and was nailed by some mutilated patients for all kinds of misdiagnoses, a few of which, it turned out, had resulted in the surgical removal of perfectly healthy body parts. The very thought of it turned Harry’s stomach, but Vincent insisted in one tearful telephone call that it was all an accident, and he pleaded for help. Harry had waffled before finally caving in to his sense of loyalty. Leveraging some very generous gifts he’d made over the years to the Midwest’s most prominent universities, Harry had been able to talk a few of Vincent’s peers into taking it easy on him. He got to keep his license, as long as he agreed to take his practice someplace where they’d never have to clean up after him. Last Harry had heard, Tim had sobered up and was doing very well.
“Okay,” Harry instructed, “give Tim a call. Tell him I send my regards and that I’ll need him to put up some friends of mine in the next couple of days.”
Thorne jotted notes on a scrap of paper.
“And if he can manage to make himself scarce while they’re there, so much the better.”
Thorne smiled. “Want me to roust your pilots and get the planes ready?”
Harry had to think for a moment on that one. “No, we’ve got the FBI watching us,” he mused aloud. He snapped his fingers as the solution came to him. “Tell you what. Does Universal Waste still owe us a favor?”
Thorne laughed. “Didn’t we guarantee Peter van der Horst’s debt?” He didn’t wait for a response. “I’ll give him a call and see if he’ll let us borrow a couple of planes and pilots.”