"Well," Max reasoned between breaths, "we need to follow them. We don't know where they are heading, so we can't let them get too far ahead."
"We need to go get the car." Roden felt a pang of excitement at the idea.
"Hold on, hold on," Martin exclaimed as he finally hobbled up to them. "It'll take too long to get back to Roden's car. We have access to some vehicles that are much closer." They gave him a wary appeal to continue. "Angoli has cars in the garage. The keys are hanging in the guards' cottage. It would get us going much faster, and the gas tanks are undoubtedly full."
True, Roden's car had very little gas left in it, and Angoli's cars were much closer, but Roden cringed at the thought of deserting his car where he had parked it. He already nearly lost it once, and to the same man who was telling him to leave it behind now. But, time was of the essence. They had to go at once.
"Fine, fine," Roden begrudgingly agreed, "let's go get the keys."
"You get the keys," Martin replied, "I'm going to run into the house and get some bandages, and maybe some ice. My leg hurts like a mother f - ".
"No way," Manda cut him off. "I'm not letting you out of my sight. You may have helped us get in here, but I still don't trust you as far as I could throw you. And believe me, right now I'd like to hurtle you into the closest obliging tree."
"Wow, Manda," Max remarked, impressed by her tenacity when it wasn't directed towards him. "Okay, you go into the house with Martin and help him bandage himself up while Mike and I get the keys from the cottage. I think I saw where they were hanging. We can bring the car around to the front and meet you there. Now hurry."
Manda refrained from using her signature eye roll at the thought of being stuck with Martin, but quickly followed him into the house. She certainly couldn't be less pleased with having to help such a loathsome man out, but was willing to put up with it to get back on track towards saving Ess.
Max and Roden, who had reasonably recovered from their prior exertion, jogged towards the guards' cottage, and peered inside. The newbie guard sat slumped in his chair, breathing heavily. Quietly, they entered the door, and Max made his way over to the key hooks. There was only one set of keys available, and it was labeled 'Rolls'.
"Damn. That's all we have? A Rolls Royce? That can't be good. Those suckers aren't very fast, are they?" Roden just shrugged at Max's question and grabbed the keys.
As they turned to leave, the guard stirred. "You back?" He yawned. "Couldn't find th-the, aah, the aah, the furry. . . aah. . . you know - dogs."
Roden exchanged an amused glance with Max. The man's announcement had worried them for a moment, but the roofie obviously held up its affects. Roden decided to try something. He whispered to Max, "This might be a good chance to find out where Angoli plans on taking Ess, just in case we can't catch up with them on the road. Then, we'll still have a trail."
The idea of not catching up with Angoli and Ess made Max pale. This might be their best opportunity of finding out – just in case. "Okay. Give it a try."
Roden nodded. "You couldn't find the dogs, huh?"
"Nope. Ran off . . . Dumb mutts."
"Well, did you hear me on the radio earlier, telling you where I was taking Mr. Angoli?"
The drugged man tried to look up at Roden as he spoke, but only managed to keep one eye open, and that eye didn't seem to really focus on anything. He appeared irritated that the person speaking to him had questioned his intelligence by asking such a thing. Of course he could remember! But when he answered, the words came out in one long incoherent slur.
Roden strained to understand the drugged man. The only word he comprehended sounded a lot like 'airport'. Airport?
"Ah, that's right. And did I tell you where they are flying to?" Roden probed him further.
The man felt no less annoyed at the new question, and Roden couldn't understand the grumbled reply. When he asked him to repeat his answer, the sedated guard did not oblige him with a response. The Rohypnol clearly made him hazy, as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
"Jeez, Max, how much did you give him?" Max shrugged and shook his head, a bit embarrassed to admit that he may have overdone it. Roden tried again. "Where was that again?"
The man answered this time, a little slower and more pronounced because he thought his questioner was the one lacking the intellectual capacity to understand. Roden repeated the syllables, and rolled them around on his tongue, trying to make sense of the man's riddle of slurs.
"Clearly, the man's incoherent." Max was getting anxious. "Let's just go."
"Wait, wait." Roden endeavored to interpret the man's speech. "Mul – diva –ba – inja? That's . . . that's got to be. . ." and it hit him. "I think I know what it is."
"What? What?" Max was frantic. He needed to know, and he needed to get going.
"The Maldives? – By India?" Roden directed the question to the guard.
"Tha's . . . wha' I say." The guard confirmed. He sounded beyond annoyed at this point that this dense person couldn't grapple what he told him.
With the newfound knowledge pressed out of the guard, Max and Roden took off towards the garage. While they ran – yet again – Roden huffed out an explanation for why they should worry. "The Maldives are a small, secluded chain of islands off of India. They're not easy to get to. If he gets her there, we'll have even bigger problems trying to get her back."
"Oh," Max panted back, "that's just great. And this whole chase thing was going so well up until now."
The Rolls Royce was beautiful. Roden stood back for a moment to admire it's shiny perfection, because in the next few minutes, they were going to drive it to its limits, and it probably wouldn't look so stunning by the time they were done.
A few seconds after they swung around the drive to the entryway, Manda and Martin rushed out of the massive doors. Manda stopped short at seeing the luxurious car, but quickly regained herself, and ran around to the back passenger-side door.
"Whoa, a car chase in style. Can't say I'm not impressed with the ride." Manda exclaimed. "Let's tear the hell out of Mr. Angoli's car." No one could say Manda wasn't a vengeful person.
"That's exactly what I intend to do." Max replied as he hit the gas and hightailed along the drive and out of the estate grounds.
* * *
The ride had been long, uncomfortable and silent. Angoli couldn't resist giving Ess an occasional glance, but she managed to keep her eyes on the driver's headrest the entire journey. Her lack of motion and emotion managed to deter Angoli from making any attempts at shallow conversation or venturing any unwelcome caresses. Unfortunately, Ess knew that didn't mean he wouldn't try it in the future. He had intentions towards her, and seemed determined to pursue them.
Earlier in the drive, when Ess had thought she couldn't be more disgusted with Angoli, her detestation proved to reach even higher. On the side of the road they could see the wreckage of a black SUV, toppled onto its side and practically wrapped around a tree. Ess felt sure that it was the SUV she had been forced into yesterday. That meant that it belonged to Angoli. She felt livid hatred for the self-obsessed man when he ordered John to ignore the mangled vehicle and keep driving to the airport.
Later in the course of the drive, Ess began to recognize her surroundings. She knew the general vicinity of the airport. Although she rarely had cause to go there, she did, on occasion, pick her father up from the arrivals area when he visited after he moved to Miami. The familiar locale made Ess finally feel close to reaching a real opportunity to save herself.