I told him, “Lay down on your stomach. Not a sound.”

Laura climbed in after him. I said, “Cher, close the door, please.”

Corbin asked as if he were a curious bystander, “What’s going on?”

Laura bound Francis’s legs together with the duct tape. He actually lifted his legs to help her, resigned to the situation. “Check his pockets,” I told her, tossing her a blue canvas duffel bag with a Nats logo I’d gotten at the 2019 World Series. “Put everything in this.”

She looked at Russell and said reassuringly, “I’ll be careful, I promise.” She took out his keys, wallet and badge case, some loose change, a plastic toothpick, several individually wrapped white Life Savers mints, and slips of paper on which he had written some notes. She dumped everything in the bag.

With both feds secured, Laura reached into her plastic bag and pulled out a family-sized bottle of CVS Health Maximum Strength Nighttime Sleep Aid and a bottle of water. “How many should I give them?”

“What does it say on the bottle?”

She read the instructions. “Take one before going to sleep.” She looked at me.

Corbin said firmly, “I’m not taking any of that shit.”

I ignored him. “I don’t know. Three? Four? Four should be okay.”

Laura opened the safety cap, cut through the foil cover, and fished out the ball of cotton. She tapped out three gel caps. “Let’s do three.” Russell was lying on his back in the cabin, hands cuffed, legs taped, but to his credit he was still holding on to the last remnants of defiance. He locked his mouth closed and began moving his head. She knelt down next to him. “Open.”

He continued rattling his head. “Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn…” he responded through gritted teeth.

She shrugged. “Your choice,” and reached down to grab hold of his balls.

“It’s open. It’s open!” he shouted, opening his mouth wider than SeaWorld dolphins at dinnertime.

Honestly, how could you not be impressed by a woman like that? “Thank you.” She dropped the three gels into his mouth and gave him enough water to wash them down. “Show me,” she said, as if talking to a child. He opened his mouth again. “Thank you. Good night.” Then she looked at me; her eyes were dancing with joy. She was finding places inside herself that she had never touched.

She duck-walked to the front and shook out three more gels. “How about you?” she asked Corbin.

He kept his mouth shut.

I poked him with the Glock.

Through his closed mouth, he mumbled something I could make out as “You gonna shoot me for not opening my mouth?”

I reached down and took hold of the index finger on his left hand.

He opened his mouth.

Laura repeated the process. Dickie washed them down. “Nighty-night,” she said. She turned to me. “How long?”

I shrugged. “Twenty minutes? Half hour?”

“Perfect.”

Things were humming in our own little world. People were racing around the region like pieces in speed chess. It probably was a good thing we didn’t know what was going on, as we might have changed our plans. They had positioned officers at highway entrances and exits. Then they began knocking on doors of every hotel, motel, and Airbnb between Lake Erie and the border. Additional officers were assigned to patrol the Peace Bridge, the closest crossing into Canada. As I later learned from an admittedly gleeful source, Rip McCord was so confident his people would find us that he told Vice President The Hun, “If he so much as farts, we’ll hear him.”