“Do I?”
“If you stay, you will all die in approximately twenty-one minutes. That is a certainty. Whereas if you go, there is a chance that I have tampered with your aircraft and that you will die while airborne. So which do you prefer? The chance or the certainty?”
“You should’ve been in politics,” George said.
“I have always been in politics.” Calista gave her men a signal. Sidhu brought Hendricks back out and this time uncuffed his wrists. “Good-bye, George.” She took off a glove and put out her hand, palm up.
After a moment, George placed his detonator in it. “Be careful with that,” he said and started to limp toward the Gulfstream.
Jenn looked uncertain but followed George’s lead and came the rest of the way down the ramp and handed her detonator to Calista too. Calista held them both daintily until Cools came and relieved her of them. Gibson was last. He handed his detonator directly to Cools. Calista gave him a meaningful look but said nothing. They backed away from the C-130, and Hendricks circled around to join them. He put George’s arm around his neck as they broke into a hobbled jog. Hendricks grunted at them in greeting. A more fitting reunion would have to wait. They had a plane to catch.
Most of them anyway.
Gibson wanted badly to have second thoughts. To forget the name Damon Ogden and get on board with Jenn and George and Hendricks. He dreaded the thought of giving this up, this sense of belonging. He could flee with them and give the CIA Ogden’s location from a safe distance. But it would be selfish. Ogden wasn’t the bygones-be-bygones type. Eventually, the CIA would come for Gibson, and he couldn’t be anywhere near Jenn or George or Hendricks when they did. He wouldn’t subject his new family to that risk.
They were at the gangway now. Hendricks helped George up the airstairs and into the Gulfstream. Gibson slowed to a stop and called out to Jenn.
She stopped and came back to him. “You’re not coming, are you?”
“I want to. You have no idea.”
“Whatever it is, we can handle it.”
He held out the Glock. “I know, but you shouldn’t have to.”
“What is it?” she asked but took the gun.
“Thank you,” he said. “For letting me help.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you. Even if you are certifiable.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“You waited until I couldn’t talk you out of it, didn’t you?”
He nodded.
“Dick move, Vaughn,” she said and handed him a claim check printed in German. “If you change your mind—”
“I won’t.”
“If you change your mind, fly to Frankfurt, Germany. Go to luggage storage in Terminal One, Concourse B. You got all that?”
“Yeah. What’s there?”
“I have a go bag. It’ll be there for the next three months. There’s some travel money inside. A phone with one preprogrammed number. Call it. When it answers, say any three words, but only three words. No matter what the voice on the other end says or asks. They will put you in touch with me no matter where I am.”
“Should I be wearing a pink carnation?” Where he was going, he knew it would be far longer than three months, but he pretended in the moment. It was a pleasant self-deception.
“Couldn’t hurt,” she said.
She put an arm around his neck, kissed him on the cheek, and hugged him. They stood there in the cold dawn until Gibson broke away.
“You have to go,” he said.
They were out of time.
“I hate this. We made it,” Jenn said. “Come with us.”
“I wish I could, but I can’t. You have to leave me.”
Grudgingly, Jenn went up the airstairs. At the top, she looked back at him. It took everything in him to keep his feet planted. After she closed the hatch, George appeared at one of the windows. He put a palm to the glass. Gibson raised a hand in farewell, then stood and watched the Gulfstream taxi out to the runway.
They’d pulled it off. How about that? The stuff of legends.
Bear stood beside him. “You did it. Amazing.”
“They’re going to be okay.”
“Because of you. You should be proud.”
“I guess I should be.”
“Are you okay?” Bear asked, watching him carefully.
“I’m scared.”
“I know. Are you ready?”
He thought he might be.
He put on the Phillies cap, shielding his eyes from the sun at the horizon.
“It really does suit you,” Bear said with a smile.
This time he didn’t argue with her. He liked the way it fit him. It meant something to him, even if it was a strange thing for your life to be summed up by a beat-up old cap.
Together they turned and walked back toward Calista. What were the chances she might give him a ride out of here?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“I thought perhaps you had suffered a change of heart,” Calista said. She stood by the open door of her limousine, warming herself. Cools had been banished to a safe distance, where he coughed into the back of his wrist.
“Just seeing them off,” Gibson said.
“That must have been difficult, I am sure.”
Sidhu emerged from the aircraft with a three-ring binder that looked like the flight manual from the cockpit. Calista took it and snapped through the pages impatiently. When she found what she was looking for, she popped the hinges and removed a laminated sleeve. The discarded binder fell to the ground, and a gust sent paper dancing across the tarmac.
“That’s where it was?” Gibson asked.
“Sometimes plain sight is the best hiding place.”
“And you knew what it was all along.”
Calista gave him a pitying look for having ever thought otherwise. “May I ask what your intentions are now?”
“I’m going to turn myself in to him. Work out a deal if I can.”
“I see.” She paused as Cools whispered something to her. “And how do you foresee that conversation will turn out?”
Gibson didn’t have any idea and didn’t care to discuss it with her. “I’m hoping for the best.”
“Yes,” Calista said. “Wouldn’t that be novel?”
Gibson grimaced but said nothing.
Calista said, “Before you go, would you do me the courtesy of lending me a few minutes of your time?”
“Shouldn’t we all be getting out of here? Isn’t Eskridge due any minute now?”
It was Calista’s turn to make a face.
“He is coming?” Gibson said.
“Oh, most assuredly, he is on his way. However, I perhaps exaggerated the imminence of his arrival. You and I have a little time yet. There is a matter I wish to discuss.”