The guy looked at Dryden. Seemed to read the patronizing thought in his expression. Whitcomb’s eyes narrowed further. He looked angry.
“License plate,” he whispered. Then with great effort he jerked his head in the direction of the distant shooter. “He’ll see it when you go. Cover it. Put…”
His breath hissed out. He sucked in another, and then his body was racked with a coughing fit. By the time it passed, he’d lost consciousness. He wasn’t going to regain it. His breathing rattled in and out, weakening.
“We need to go,” Dryden said.
Marnie nodded, but her eyes stayed on Whitcomb.
“Do we bring him?” she asked.
Dryden thought about it. Then he thought of the man’s last words. Whitcomb was right: The license plate had to be covered before they made their break. But with what? The dirt all around them was dry and sandy. Not so much as a handful of mud or clay to smear on the plate. Dryden scanned the nearest parts of the scrap pile. Nothing useful there.
Cover it.
Dryden looked at Whitcomb’s unconscious body, each breath a little shallower.
“Christ…” Dryden said.
Marnie looked at him. “What?”
Dryden only shook his head. Then he took the plastic case and the binder from Whitcomb’s hands. He gave them to Marnie.
“Can you take those and buckle up in the passenger seat? We don’t have much time.”
She stared. “What are you going to do?”
“Please just do it,” Dryden said.
She hesitated another second. Maybe she knew what was about to happen—more or less—and maybe she could have stomached seeing it. Dryden had no doubt she’d seen worse things before. In her line of work, she might have seen even worse things than he had.
But he didn’t want her to see this. He didn’t want anyone to see it.
“Please,” he said.
Marnie stared—then nodded and stood with the case and binder. She took them around the back of the Explorer to the passenger side.
Dryden turned his attention on Whitcomb.
Still breathing, just audibly.
Still unconscious.
Never coming back.
Dryden grabbed a fistful of the man’s shirt, below the collar. He dragged him around to the back end of the Explorer, then lifted him so that his back was positioned against the license plate.
Still breathing. Barely.
Dryden drew the Beretta from his waistband, put it to Whitcomb’s chest and fired. Four times. The hollowpoints made small holes on the way in, and huge ones coming out. They ripped through the back of Whitcomb’s shirt, spraying a thick sheet of blood onto the license plate and the metal around it.
Dryden dropped the body and ran for the driver’s door.
Twenty seconds later, doing 70, they crashed through the roller gate, fishtailed, and then accelerated north on the access road.
A single, wildly aimed shot hit the vehicle a second later. It skipped like a stone off the front corner of the hood, denting the metal. That was it. In another ten seconds they were beyond any possible range.
*
They got back on I-5, northbound. No goal at the moment but distance. Wind roared through the vehicle, through the blown-out front windows on each side.
For five minutes neither spoke.
The roadbed caught and scattered the hard sunlight, rendering it painful.
“He would have told you to do it,” Marnie said. “Almost did tell you. There wasn’t any other choice.”
Dryden kept his eyes on the road.
Marnie turned to him. “Focus on what’s next. What are we going to do?”
Dryden didn’t answer right away. He thought of something Claire had said: that she had arranged security for Whitcomb and his family, a couple years back. In these past few days, when everything had gone bad, he must have hidden his family away somewhere safe. Someplace where, right now, they were waiting for him to come back.
“Hey,” Marnie said.
Dryden blinked. Glanced at her.
She indicated the machine and the binder of e-mails. “He died to get these back. It can’t be for nothing. What’s our next move?”
Dryden nodded. He exhaled hard and pushed away every thought that wasn’t practical.
“Hayden Eversman,” he said. “The guy they want to stop from being president in nine years.”
“But who they’re not killing in the present.”
Dryden nodded. “They plan to kill him eventually, but they’re afraid to try it now. There has to be a reason for that. I’d love to know what it is.”
“So would I.”
“Then let’s find out where he is in 2015.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR