There was a moan. It all came back to him in a rush. Dad! Dwayne Myers was still in the passenger seat. Luckily, he’d taken the time to buckle him in first or he would’ve gone out the window. “Dad? Are you okay?”

“Go, Tom,” he ordered through pink, gritted teeth. “Run.”

“Hang on. I’ll get you out of here.” He got himself unbuckled, and fell against the steering wheel. “I’ve got you.”

Dad’s skin was far too pale under the spotlight. “No. Save yourself.”

“You’re coming with me.” It was hard to work at this angle. He tried to get himself under his father so he wouldn’t just tumble through the broken windshield and into the river when the seat belt came off. Dad’s chest was slick with blood.

“I’m sorry, Tom. I never told you the whole story . . . I should have.”

Franks was a fallen angel from Hell? That was a lot to take in, but he hadn’t really had time to think about it yet. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have believed you anyway.” The buckle was stuck. “Damn it.” He got the knife out of his pocket, flicked it open, and began sawing through the strap.

“Should have . . . You deserved the truth, but I kept it from you all those years.”

The nylon was tougher than it looked. The wet cold was making his hands shake. Strayhorn gritted his teeth and kept sawing. “Keep talking, Dad, help’s on the way.” Maybe. He’d called it in, but he didn’t know if the other loyal MCB agents would get here in time. Meanwhile, a helicopter full of shadow government assholes was on top of them, and his foster father was bleeding to death. “Franks doesn’t know about me, does he?”

“No. When your mother gave you up, I took you in . . . Either that or Unicorn would have taken you, thinking you might be an asset someday . . . I couldn’t let that happen . . . We never knew what you’d inherit.”

“Sadly, not enough.” He was only human, mostly. The seat belt snapped. Strayhorn caught him as gently as possible.

“I don’t think Franks can love, but I think maybe he loved her.” Dad was delirious and mumbling.

It was dark again. The helicopter was moving away. Strayhorn froze, waiting for the strafing to begin, but it kept getting quieter. Then he could hear the rain against the car and the rush of the river. Unicorn was leaving in a hurry.

Then a voice came from just outside the car. “I see two inside. They are still alive.”

Shit. Some of them had stayed behind. Strayhorn drew his pistol, but he couldn’t see anyone through the reeds outside the window. He craned his head over his father’s shoulder, but the car was at such a steep angle that the view out the back window was useless.