Panama City was much larger and less than an hour away. They decided it would more likely be a place where a stranger in a hospital could maintain a degree of anonymity. Lori would accompany Brackin, and Burke would check the airport to find out what had happened to Jeffries. He guessed that the Jabberwock team would have arranged to rendezvous somewhere with Ingram and the truck. Although the TV control room on wheels was still a big question mark, he was certain that it must play a pivotal role in the operation.
With that in mind, he stopped by to see Scooter Peyton as they drove through Port St. Joe. Scooter was in the process of locking up the place, dressed in yellow oilskins, looking like a character out of some frozen fish commercial.
"Hi, Mr. Peyton," Burke said. "Looks like I just barely caught you."
"Wouldn't have been here now if I hadn't had to help the boys get that damn LCM back up on the slip." Then he grinned. "Shouldn't cuss it, I guess. Was sure worth it."
"What time did they get back?"
"Oh, 'bout two hours ago, I'd say. That Ingram fella brought her in, said he'd off-loaded his crew with the vehicles. One came after him in a Jeep."
"Tall, dark-haired?"
"Maybe. Didn't get out. I told Ingram he was a mighty brave man. Really, I was thinking mighty stupid. Sailing that old boat in the kind of weather we had this morning. Damned if I'd have done it. He said it wasn't that bad when they started out." He gave a slight chuckle. "Looked worse'n a drowned rat when he got here."
As they drove on to Panama City, Burke finished telling about his examination of the truck and the nearly disastrous ending to their Oyster Island expedition.
"You left two bodies back there?" Lori asked, a drawn look on her face.
"Right. I'm afraid that's not going to sit very well with the 'old man,' whoever he might be."
"That's an understatement." She looked like someone who had just received news of a death in the family. "I would say you have now achieved Number One on two hit lists, Jabberwock and the CIA. That worries the hell out of me."
"Fortunately, they shouldn't have any idea who Walt is. And they don't know you were involved. They thought we came alone and left the boat anchored."
"So that leaves you all by yourself as the target. If they manage to track you down, you can count on a visit from that Bulgarian hit team. One way or the other, I'll have to make Uncle Sydney give me those photographs."
Burke let them off at an emergency room in Panama City and drove on to Bay County Airport. The rain had ended, but the parking lot near the fixed base operator's hangar was dotted with small lakes. He splashed around, checking the vehicles, until he found a brown Jeep with a Texas license plate. He had not managed a good look at the one on the island, but this had to be it. That would likely mean the Englishman called Andrew was here, or had been. Cautiously, he walked out past the hangar and around a parked refueling truck to the ramp, where a shiny corporate jet sat conspicuously among the prop-driven light aircraft. A search of the area turned up no blue Cherokee Lance. He walked slowly among the handful of brightly-painted small planes in the hangar, pausing at the door to the Operations Office. Looking in through the window, he saw no one he recognized.
The man he had talked with earlier was not on duty. Instead, an attractive young blonde dressed in white shorts and a flowered pink shirt walked up and asked if she could help. Remembering the comment of Lori's newspaper friend, he decided she was just the type Jeffries might try to impress.
"Do you know if Robert Jeffries is still here?" he asked. "Flies a blue Cherokee Lance."
She smiled. "I know Mr. Jeffries. He left maybe twenty to thirty minutes ago. Was he supposed to wait for you?"
"No. But I hoped I might catch him. I knew he flew in early this morning. By chance, do you know where his passengers went?"
She shook her head. "That was too early for me. I didn't come in till eight."
"Did he stay around here all day?"
She shook her head and brushed an errant lock of blonde hair from across her face. "I wouldn't think so. It was around eleven when I saw him. Said he got a message when he arrived to wait for some passengers. Wanted to know if I had seen anything of them."
"I wonder if it was—" He stopped in mid-sentence, as though dismissing the thought. "Did you see them when they left?"
"Sure. There was a tall guy, dark hair, must have been up all night, looked like he needed a shave. The other two were dressed in suits, professional types. One must have been a doctor, carried his little black medical bag."
He knew the first one was most likely the Englishman. The other two would have been the interrogation team. They were due for a shock when they arrived at Oyster Island. And that shock was scheduled for delivery any minute. He thanked the girl and left, a man in a hurry.
Walt Brackin's "fall" aboard the boat, as he had explained it to the emergency room physician, was determined not to have broken any bones. The diagnosis was severe bruises of the upper right arm and a moderate dislocation of the right shoulder. The doctor worked on the shoulder, reducing it to its proper alignment. He put the right arm in a sling and prescribed a muscle relaxant and pain medication.
"I should have realized the problem," Brackin said as they drove away. He knew the sling would prove a nuisance. "I presume you're aware that doctors are lousy diagnosticians when it comes to themselves?"
"It's the old forest and the trees thing," Burke said. "When you get too close to something, it's difficult to see what's really going on."
"Maybe that's our problem with Jabberwock," Lori said. "What we need to do is step back a bit and try to view it from an overall perspective."
Burke nodded. Instead of looking at all the little bits and pieces as bits and pieces, they needed to try and fit them together into a pattern that would make some sense. The training period was over. D-Day was approaching. But where had the team gone? What did they plan to do with the weapon, whatever it was? He had to find some answers, and find them fast.
When they came to Highway 98, Burke turned west. "I think we'd best get out of here before they start looking in earnest. Why don't we go to New Orleans and spend the night? It's a big town. We can get lost in it without too much trouble. We could look for that nice restaurant you talked about, Lori. Have a leisurely dinner and then collapse. In the morning we can try to pin the tail on the donkey."
"Could we change the order of that?" Brackin said. "I don't know about the damned donkey, but my tail is about pinned to this seat."
That brought a chorus of laughter, something Lori thought sorely needed.
"We've got a few hours of driving ahead of us," Burke said. "Relax and get some rest. Lori and I'll try not to disturb you."
Brackin yawned. "Fine with me."
Lori reached her hand across the seat and Burke gave it a fond squeeze. "We've hardly had a chance to say 'hello,'" he said in a lowered voice.
"I wondered if you were ever going to find time to hug me properly. I'm a tactile person, you know. Actions speak louder than words."
He grinned. "When we get to New Orleans, I'll be Action Jackson."
Her eyes had a faraway, thoughtful look. "I did a lot of thinking this morning, waiting alone in that boat. I wondered if you were coming back, if there was really a future out there for us."
"I wish you'd quit worrying so much about me," he said stubbornly. "I'm a survivor. There are two kinds of people in this world, survivors and sinkers. A survivor is like one of those inflated figures they make for kids. You know, has a weighted bottom. You can punch it or kick it over, and it'll bob right back up. It's the same with a survivor. You can knock him down as many times as you want, but he'll find a way to bounce back."