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"Agent, I know you’re angry-"
"You’re goddary And we had about fifty witnesses, starting with the nuns I feel like dropping her off at the nearest cop shop"
Sykes was silent a et you out of state Then we’ll figure out what happens next"
"Nothing’s going to happen next This is not what I signed on for"
"I can hear you’re upset You have a right to be Where are you?"
Wolgast took a deep breath, bringing his anger under control "At a gas station South Meht?"
"Physically"
"Don’t do anything stupid"
"Are you threatening ast kneith a sudden, icy clarity, what the situation was The moitives now
"I don’t have to," Sykes said "Wait for ast clicked off the phone and stepped into the station The attendant, a trilass, watching a church show on TV The girl was probably hungry; Wolgast got some peanut butter crackers and so up, noticing the cameras, when his handheld buzzed at his waist He paid quickly and stepped outside
"I can get you a car out of Little Rock," Sykes said "SoiveTwo irl, a black sedan so plain it couldn’t have been iven the plate nuh the scanner on the bridge; if the girl had been reported as a kidnap victiast looked around Across the avenue he saw a used-car lot, strings ofabove it Most of the cars were junk, old gas guzzlers nobody could afford to fill anymore An old-style Chevy Tahoe, ten years if it was a day, was parked to face the street The words EASY FINANCING were stenciled on the windshield
Wolgast told Sykes what he wanted to do At the car he gave Doyle the ed across the avenue Acoast approached the Tahoe
"A beaut, isn’t she?"
He got the rand, which was nearly all the cash he had left Sykes would have to see to the money question, too Because today was a Saturday, the paperwork on the Tahoe wouldn’t hit the DMV coone
Doyle followed him to an apartment complex about a mile away Doyle parked the car in back, away from the road, and carried Aot sohost the car by the end of the day, they’d be untraceable The inside of the Tahoe sly of lemon air freshener, but it was otherwise clean and coe on the odometer wasn’t bad, a little over ninety thousand
"How much cash do you have?" he asked Doyle
They put their ether: they had a little over three hundred dollars left It would cost at least two hundred bucks to fill the tank, but that would get them to western Arkansas, maybe as far as Oklahoma Somebody could meet them with cash, and a new vehicle too
They crossed back into Mississippi and turned west toward the river The day was clear, just a few clouds ribboning the sky In the backseat, Amy was motionless as a stone She hadn’t touched the food She was just a little bit of a thing, a baby The whole thing gave Wolgast a sick feeling in his sto criet theast didn’t know
By the tie it was nearly one o’clock
"You think we’re okay?" Doyle asked
Wolgast kept his eyes straight ahead "We’ll find out"
The gates were open, the guardhouse unirth of theline of barges pushed obliviously northward against the foanature, but the car would still be registered to the dealer It would take days to sort it all out, to check the video streairl and the car On the far side, the road reclined to the open fields of the western floodplain, sodden with ht about the route carefully; they wouldn’t hit a good-sized town until they were nearly to Little Rock He set the cruise control for fifty-five, the posted li hoas that Sykes had known just what he’d do
By the ti Anthony Carter pulled into the compound, Richards was asleep in his office, his head on his desk His co hiht his ht in"
He decided to let Sykes sleep He stood and stretched, called for a member of the medical staff and a security detail to round level The loading dock stood at the rear of the building, on the south side, facing the woods and, beyond that, the river gorge The compound had once been soovernue on the history The place had been closed up for at least ten years before Special Weapons had taken it over Cole had ordered the Chalet dismantled piece by piece to excavate the lower levels and build the power plant; they’d then rebuilt the exterior alloom and cold A wide roof was suspended over the concrete dock, keeping the surface clear of snow and obstructing the view from the rest of the coured, Anthony Carter would be a psychological wreck With the other subjects, there had been tiht off death row and landed here in less than a day; hisin the next two hours was to keep hihts of the approaching van Richards descended the steps as the security detail, two soldiers wearing sideared in out of the snow Richards told them to keep their distance and leave their weapons holstered He’d read Carter’s file and doubted he’d be violent; the guy was basically as gentle as a laine and cli door; he punched in the numbers and Richards watched it draly open
Carter was sitting on the front bench His head was tipped forward, but Richards could see that his eyes were open His hands, shackled, lay folded in his lap Richards saw a cru on the floor at his feet At least they’d fed him The een the compartments was closed
"Anthony Carter?"
No response Richards called his na, not a twitch Carter seemed completely catatonic
Richards stepped back from the door and pulled Paulson aside "Okay, you tell y, "who "
"Don’t bullshit me, son" Richards turned his attention to the other one, with the red hair: Davis He was holding a sheaf of comic books in his hand Comic books, for the love of God For the thousandth tiht it: these were kids
"What about you, soldier?" he asked Davis
"Sir?"