PART THREE

It’s Deader in the Bahamas

59

Around five in the morning, after their second truck stop somewhere in northern Virginia, it started snowing heavily.

Wired tight on panic and bad gas station coffee, Gannon, at the wheel, cracked the window and clicked the seat up straighter.

The very last thing they needed at this time, he thought, blinking in the cold bracing air, was to spin out or to hit something or to get stuck.

They’d left New York at a little after midnight over the Goethals Bridge in a Subaru Baja crossover pickup truck they borrowed from Stick’s cousin out in Staten Island. They stayed on 278 until it ended in Elizabeth then drove backstreets through there and Plainfield until they got onto 78 West.

An hour later, they crossed the Jersey state line into Pennsylvania. Then just before they reached Allentown, religiously following the speed limit, they swung south on I-81.

He looked at Stick sleeping in the back. He felt terrible dragging him into this. But what a friend, huh? he thought, smiling, as he heard the big galoot start to snore.

He’d shown up at his office with the minions of hell at his back and his old crazy partner hadn’t batted an eyelash, had he? Not only that, five seconds later he was actually swinging a sledgehammer, helping Gannon bust a hole through his own office wall.

Gannon’s smile left as he blinked out at the rushing highway. He couldn’t stop thinking about the four men he had killed in the Cadillac. He thought about their wives, their kids. The phone ringing to tell them Daddy wasn’t coming home.

The men had probably been decent fellas, decent cops. The jackasses behind all this corruption had probably said he was a terrorist or something, lied to them.

Then he thought about Wheldon blown across the hotel carpet.

He wasn’t going home either, was he? he thought. What about his wife? What about his kids?

What an unholy mess, he thought.

“Hey,” Ruby said, suddenly sitting up in the passenger seat.

“Hey,” Gannon said.

He turned the bad wipers up higher and glanced over at her. She seemed different now. Normal. Calm and alert.

Incredible what just a few hours of not being shot at could do for one’s general health and demeanor, Gannon thought.

“You okay?” she said.

“Me?” Gannon said. “Never better. I thought at first that this government-trying-to-gun-you-down stuff wasn’t really my cup of tea, but now I have to say, it’s really getting my blood pumping.”

“You, too, huh?” Ruby said with a small smile. “Even so, you look beat. Let me drive.”

“No, I’m fine,” Gannon said.

“C’mon. You need some sleep,” she said.

“So do you,” Gannon said. “I got this shift.”

“No, for real, Mike. I’ve slept. It’s your turn. Pull over, and we’ll switch.”

Gannon smiled at her.

“You’re pretty stubborn, huh, Lieutenant. Are those navy orders?” he said.

“Yes,” she said after a yawn. “Navy orders.”