Had I been at that table I probably would have suggested extra sweet sauce. But I had more pressing problems, like the entire U.S. government mobilizing to stop me. Laura was monitoring the radio and the reports were growing increasingly ominous. The situation seemed surreal; the pursuit of the truth had made me a criminal in America. If I was careless or unlucky in the next few hours, I was going to end up locked away. Worse than Howie—it was going to be keep the key, throw Rollie away.

I cut off those thoughts. They weren’t doing me any good. Toss ’em in that safe. Focus, focus, focus. Be in the moment. I began making my mental list. One at a time, I reminded myself. Don’t try to do everything at once. Solve one problem at a time: Don’t kill the army, kill the soldier. First, we had to get rid of the Homeland Security vehicle. And quickly. Next we’d have to get rid of Van. I hated that thought, but they had its description, so there was no possible way we could drive it across the border. Then we had to get rid of the agents.

Where it was possible, we mixed into local traffic. Hiding in plain sight. As we approached Buffalo, it suddenly started pouring. The rain came out of a clear night sky and lasted only a few seconds, as if we had driven under a misplaced waterfall. I started to say something about it to Corbin but caught myself. Big rule: Don’t humanize your prisoners. I glanced at him. He was staring at his hand, testing how far he could flex his finger, then grimacing in pain. We passed a digital billboard, which announced in vibrant colors that Brad Paisley was in town, performing at the KeyBank Center. Two shows. I checked my watch, it was almost eight P.M. The first show was about half over. Brad Paisley was an unexpected bonus, Canadians would be driving back across the border after the concert, probably after eleven o’clock.

In the Intel classrooms at Benning we would game scenarios—the what-ifs. Dungeons & Dragons with tanks and missiles. This would have made a pretty interesting challenge: a clearly defined objective, identifiable good guys and bad guys, limited time and resources, extreme consequences. It would have been fascinating to see what we could have come up with, I mean if my life and freedom weren’t at stake here.

What would Bourne do? Or Reacher? Or even Bruce Willis’s John McClane? That’s a big problem with life; there’s never a good screenwriter around when you need one.

Although clearly Laura and I were outpersonned, we did have some factors in our favor. The feds had to cover four bridges, train and bus stations, and an international airport, so they would be stretched. They had no idea when we were going to try to cross, or even if we were still heading for Canada. The smart play would be to lay low for a few days, so they would have to keep juggling their resources to ensure they had fresh people on watch. The smart play? I chuckled. When did I start recycling noir talk? I tried to remember the attention curve we’d been taught, after how many hours did people start getting distracted? Seven or eight, I thought, but I wasn’t certain. Then the feds couldn’t be sure how many people I was traveling with; I certainly could have picked up some additional people, even some kids, to scramble their equation, so they had to search every vehicle. And maybe my biggest advantage, they would be looking for the average guy riding a normal chair; they had no concept of what me, Cher, and Mighty Chair were capable of doing.