“Did you talk to the Trident yet?” she asked.
“Still waiting to pick us up,” Danny said. “All we have to do is get to someplace where they can do exactly that, and then we’ll all be on the sundeck drinking piña coladas. Easy breezy.”
“Easy breezy, huh?” she said doubtfully.
“Have faith, Gabster. We’ll get there. Eventually.”
She didn’t doubt they would get home — she just hoped they all made it, and in one piece.
“I believe you,” she said.
“You should. I’m never wrong.”
“Never?”
“Well, mostly never.” He glanced up the street in the direction she and Nate had come. “You said two?”
“Two, yeah.”
“But one vehicle?”
“That I could see or hear.” When he didn’t ask or say anything, she continued: “What are you thinking?”
“That if we want to get out of here before nightfall and those two hombres are still hanging around on the highway, then we might have a problem.”
“Just one?”
“Okay, one of many. The biggest one is the noise factor. As soon as we fire up our ride, they’ll know we’re here. Then they’ll radio their friends, and who knows how many of them are between us and the coastline. We might have to wait them out.”
“How long?”
“Hopefully they won’t make us wait too long. I’m not a very patient guy when piña coladas are at stake.”
“How far is it between Gallant and the coast?”
“Twenty-five miles, give or take. The problem isn’t the distance — it’s the not knowing how many guys with guns and bad intentions are waiting for us between here and there.”
“Captain Optimism,” Gaby said.
“That’s what Carly said when I told her about our present dilemma.”
“They’ve been out there for a while. What’s their fuel situation?”
“I’ve been told that they’re dealing with it.”
“Is that good or bad?”
He shrugged. “That’s what I said.”
She heard voices from the back of the bank and glanced over. Nate had left the office door open, and she could hear him talking with Mason but couldn’t quite make out the conversation.
“What about Mason?” she asked.
“What about him?” Danny said.
“Does he know what’s waiting for us out there?”
“His knowledge is getting more limited the farther south we get. He only knows what he knew before Starch. Everything after that is all Greek to him.”
“Then why are we keeping him around?”
Danny gave her an amused look. “You sick of him already?”
“I’ve been sick of him since Starch, and I still don’t believe he doesn’t know anything about what happened to Alice and Taylor. I just don’t see any reason to keep dragging him along if he’s outlived his usefulness, Danny. ”
“Wow, talk about breaking my heart,” a voice said behind her.
She looked over at Mason coming out of the back hallway with Nate. The collaborator was still wearing the same black uniform they had captured him in back at Starch. His face was grimy with dirt and sweat — which ironically made him perfectly at home among them — and the only thing clean on him was the bandage around his right leg. He walked with a noticeable limp and a grimace, his reward for trying to kill them a few days ago.
“After all we’ve been through, too,” Mason added.
“Give me one reason why we should keep you around,” she said.
“Because I’m still more valuable to you alive than dead. You can use me — and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but what the hell — as a hostage, if it becomes necessary. And yes, I do think it’s going to be necessary.”
“Bullshit. You’re just trying to talk your way into staying alive. You’re not important to them. You never were.”
“Then why have they been tracking you all the way from Starch?”
There was just a ghost of a smile on his pale and cracked lips, probably because he knew a full-blown smile would have just pissed her off, and Mason, for all his faults — and the man had many of them — wasn’t stupid.
“Good question,” Danny said. “So, tell us, ol’ popular one, what makes you the bee’s knees? And don’t say it’s because of your stinky armpits, ’cause I’m sure I got you beat on that one.”
“It’s a secret,” Mason said.
“Is that right?”
“You can try to beat it out of me, but I’m still not going to tell you.”
“I don’t know, I’m pretty good at beating things out of people. Just ask Johnny Paulson back in middle school.”
“The difference between me and Johnny Paulson? I know keeping quiet is the only way to stay alive. The second I tell you, I’m a dead man. And I really, really like staying alive.”
Danny exchanged a look with her, then she did the same with Nate. She wasn’t sure if either one of the men believed Mason, but she got the feeling they were like her: They didn’t believe a thing that came out of his mouth, but they couldn’t disregard it out of hand, either. And that, ultimately, was what Mason was going for.
“You’re a tricky little bugger,” Danny said, pointing a finger at Mason. “You know what happens to tricky little buggers? They eventually overstay their welcome and end up being stuffed into ventilation shafts. And trust me, buddy, I know my ventilation shafts.”
“I don’t know what any of that means,” Mason said.
“Think about it.”
“I’ll pass.”
“I don’t believe you,” Gaby said.
The collaborator grinned at her. “Just ask yourself one question, sweetheart: How do you think I’ve stayed alive this long? It wasn’t because of my good looks.”
She bristled at the word sweetheart but pushed through it. The last thing she wanted was for Mason to see that he had an effect—any kind of an effect — on her with his words. It was a weak man’s weapon because right now, that was all he had.
Gaby stared at him. “The second you prove you’re no longer valuable, I’m going to end you.”
“I believe you,” Mason said.
“Good. Because when the time comes, you won’t be able to say I wasn’t honest with you.”
He smiled defiantly back at her, but she couldn’t help but notice that this time it wasn’t nearly as convincing.
Crack!
Danny, looking down at the well-worn map of Texas spread out on the bank’s island counter, snapped a quick glance at the windows that faced the street. He hadn’t said anything when two more shots, about three seconds apart, crackled across the city even before the first one had fully faded.
“Same rifle?” Gaby asked.
Danny nodded. “Bolt-action. Heavy caliber.”
“What are they shooting at—” Nate said, when the pop-pop-pop of an automatic rifle cut him off.
“Someone’s shooting back,” Gaby said.
“Is that good?” Nate asked.
“Good, bad, as long as they’re not shooting at us, that’s all that matters,” Danny said. He pushed off the counter and moved across the bank lobby to the front windows.
More gunfire washed up and down the street outside. It took her a moment, but there was enough of a sustained volley that Gaby managed to trace its origin back to the highway. Had the two collaborators in the Jeep found someone to shoot at, or had someone found them?
“Pack up,” Danny said.
Gaby folded up the map and pocketed it. “Are we leaving?”
“I don’t think we have a choice, kids. All that racket’s doing is drawing a whole lotta attention our way. Pretty soon we’ll be up our butts in bad boys in black uniforms, and I don’t know about you two, but I’d rather avoid that uncomfortableness.”