“I’ll do it,” Russell volunteered and started reaching into his pants pocket.

“Stop,” Laura snapped. I could see she shoved the gun into him a little harder. He kind of rose up on his toes, and I realized she was pushing it between his butt cheeks. My, my, what an interesting woman.

“Okay. Okay.”

She reached into his pocket and got his phone.

I told her, “Lock him in the cage.”

“Give me your handcuffs,” she said.

“One hand,” I warned him.

Using one hand, he took the cuffs off his belt and handed them to her. She cuffed his hands behind him and pushed him into the Chevy’s cage. When they turned, I confirmed my suspicion—she had the gun rammed up his ass.

When he was secured, I gave my full attention to Corbin. “Your turn. Here’s what you’re going to do. Type out a message to your boss. Tell him you’re on your way back to Washington with your prisoners. You’ll be back later tonight. Don’t send it. And please, don’t be a smart guy. I honestly don’t want you to get hurt.”

He showed me the typed message. “Okay, send it.”

I told Laura to toss both agents’ phones in a rusting green dumpster. If anybody at headquarters got hinky, they wouldn’t be able to ping these phones to locate us.

Twenty minutes later we were back on the highway, the Chevy trailing Van, but once again heading north. After retrieving the graphs and my passport from Corbin’s jacket pocket, Laura had duct-taped him to the passenger seat, his arms at his side. It wasn’t a total mummification, just three times around, sufficient to keep him restrained. As she was wrapping him, he pleaded, “Watch my finger. Careful of my finger.”

We drove into the early evening, not pushing it. I-70 flowed into I-90, straight to Buffalo. The twilight sky was the bluish-black of the bruises on my arm, where I’d been kicked. In the distance, lightning was backlighting a cloud bank, but if there was thunder it was muffled by Van’s air-conditioning. Corbin was quiet, probably wondering about his next career after this debacle. No matter what I’d told him, this wasn’t going to be a career builder for him. Finally he asked, “C’mon, Stone, where’d you learn this stuff?”

I thought about it before responding, wondering what the benefit-loss ratio might be to telling the truth. We probably had more to gain if Corbin appreciated the danger he was in. “Special Ops,” I said. “Multiple deployments, numerous missions. Mostly in the sandbox.” I glanced at Corbin. “Multiple KIAs.” I didn’t mention attending the University of Ludlum and Child.

“Yeah. I figured something like that. Me too. I mean, you know, I was just a grunt. I was there for the Surge. We were in some deep shit.” He paused, waiting for me to respond. I got it, two GIs shooting the shit, brothers-in-arms. But I didn’t say a word. Corbin was my prisoner, not my pal. D. I. Dearing again: “Never kiss someone you might have to kill.”