“In the same shit soup as you,” said Hal. “I’m your messenger. Or servant. Or whatever you need. I think you’re a good guy. I think if anybody’s going to have this kind of power, I’d rather it be you than anybody else I can think of, except maybe Winston Churchill, and he’s dead.”

Danny solemnly took his hand.

“So Hal gets to be your right-hand man,” said Wheeler. “Just because he was willing to talk to you when you came to Parry McCluer High.”

“Because he’s my friend,” said Danny, “and he volunteered.”

“Well I volunteer too,” said Wheeler.

And in a few moments, they had all agreed.

“So get in your cars,” said Danny, “and get away from here.”

“I thought that was what we’d do if we said no,” said Laurette.

“I don’t want Hermia’s people to know about you. Not yet. Go. You’re my friends. Your intervention worked. We’ve told you everything that we know. We didn’t pretty it up. And you chose to stand with me. So the first thing is, if I say get out of here, you get out. So they can’t use you as hostages to control me.”

They nodded.

“Don’t act like drowthers,” said Hermia impatiently. “He doesn’t want nodding. He wants going!”

And with that, Danny gated them all, one at a time, out to the cars.

After a moment of disorientation and confusion, they scrambled into the cars and drove away.

“That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?” asked Hermia. “You wanted me to tell them, right?”

“I didn’t know that’s what I wanted until you did it,” said Danny. “But yes. They asked for the truth. They’re not children, they’re people. They deserve to have the knowledge to choose for themselves.”

“They made a stupid decision,” said Hermia.

“True,” said Danny. “But all the decisions are stupid. I’ve made nothing but stupid decisions. You too.”

Hermia grinned. “When there aren’t any smart decisions, I suppose you just have to pick the stupid decision you like best.”

“Your Family is coming, right?” asked Danny.

“I can’t imagine they’re not.”

“Then it’s time to move to a different location,” said Danny.

“It’s time for me to move to one place, and you to another,” said Hermia. “Until we’re ready to set up the meeting we want. Because they’ll always know where I am, and we don’t want them to know where you are.”

So Danny gated Hermia to a place she knew in Paris. Then he wrote a note to the Greeks and left it on the table in his own little house in Buena Vista.