“I think it’s the other side of the circular driveway,” Copley said with a laugh.

Behind them, Victoria could see the towering edifice of the main hotel. “I think we’ve gone from the service road to the main driveway,” she said.

McCrea agreed. “I think you’re right.” He pointed ahead. “Keep going down the hill.”

At the base of the driveway—at the apron—traffic in the far lane had come to a complete stop, stacked up to make a future left-hand turn into the service road.

“Go down the left lane,” McCrea commanded.

Copley laughed louder. “Oh, they’re definitely not going to like this,” he said.

He accelerated and the line of cars whizzed past on their right. A half mile up the road, they reached the intersection and encountered the gridlock created by the turning cars. The right-hand lane remained jammed with westbound traffic, but at the turn, the left lane dead ahead was clogged with eastbound traffic. Where the two met, there was a gap that maybe was wide enough for the Suburban to pass.

“Flash your lights and lean on your horn,” McCrea instructed. “No matter what they do, don’t slow down. Let them know there’ll be a price for getting in our way.”

Copley did exactly as he was told, pressing his right thumb down on the horn pad in the center of the steering wheel, and flicking the fingers on his left hand against the light switch on the column.

Other cars sounded their horns in retaliation, and one looked like it might pull out to block the way, but in the end it didn’t.

On Victoria’s left, Luke reached over and squeezed her hand as they launched toward the gap. “We’re not going to—”

Before he could finish his statement, they were through the line and onto the empty roadway. Copley goosed the accelerator some more. “Let’s do that again!” he crowed. “So, now that we’re free, where are we going?”

Victoria didn’t drop a beat. “Mountain View, West Virginia.”

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

AFTER CLEARING THE GANG SHOWER AND THE GANG DRYING ROOM, the Solara gestapo had herded Penn and Strasky into the dressing area, where each member of Congress had his own locker, complete with a name tag Velcro’d to the metal. Two feet wide by three feet tall, the lockers were stacked two high and were placed in alphabetical order. Wooden benches ran the length of the entire locker room. Penn felt himself flashing back to high school, and the miserable memories of Mr. Irwin, the grab-happy gym teacher who fondled boys before words like pedophile had made it to the common vernacular.

On the far end of the locker room, Arlen Strasky picked through the pile of uniforms that were stacked by size in piles inside the tiny alcove labeled: STAFF AND OTHERS.