John Gilstrap - Threat warning

“If you’re not arresting me, you’d better holster that hand,” Jonathan growled.

Clark let go. “Look,” he said. “I don’t know who you are, or how you got the attention of the head of the FBI, but Director Rivers for sure has the attention of Director Miller, and he called me personally to tell me to come here and apologize.” He steeled himself with a deep breath. “I apologize.”

Most people’s features age when they’re under stress, but Clark was the exception. He somehow appeared younger. Maybe it was the kid-in-the-principal’s-office body language. Whatever it was, Jonathan couldn’t bring himself to hammer any more soul out of the man. “Apology accepted.”

He started to move past again, and Clark again grabbed his arm. At that moment, the jail’s front door opened, and a hot babe in a ski jacket hurried into the over-lit white-walled room. A dark ponytail flopped from under a wool stocking cap. Jonathan could think of no one he’d rather see.

“There’s more,” Clark said, hanging on to the arm. “I’m supposed to offer you a ride home.”

“He’s already got a ride,” the new arrival said. Then, in response to Clark’s confusion, “I’m Gail Bonneville, Mr. Grave’s business partner.”

Clark looked unsure whether to believe her. Jonathan couldn’t have cared less.

“This is the quick-witted Agent Clark of the United States Secret Service,” Jonathan explained. “He’s the one who put me up in this fine bed-and-breakfast.”

Clark reddened.

“Just doing his job, I’m sure,” Gail said. “From what I’ve heard, you showed a lot of courage out there on the bridge, Agent Clark.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Let’s go home,” he said.

Clark cleared his throat and shifted his feet. Clearly, there was more. “The director was very specific,” he said. “I am to shake your hand and offer you any other assistance that I can.” He offered his hand.

Now Jonathan felt bad for the guy. How much humiliation had Irene Rivers demanded? He accepted the man’s hand. “Consider it done. In fact, consider anything else that the director insisted that you do to be done. There really are no hard feelings.”

He was pretty sure that was a one-sided statement.

Ryan’s mind raced. They should be fighting back, shouldn’t they? Instead, they were just doing what this bitch with the gun told them to do, driving long into the night-over two hours now-without a word being spoken by anyone.

This Colleen chick was an odd piece of work. Even as she threatened their lives, she managed to sound friendly. Now that the threat was made-and Ryan didn’t doubt that she was capable of killing again-she’d stopped talking, except to give Mom occasional driving directions. She spent the quiet time softly humming church songs. Ryan recognized “Amazing Grace”-who didn’t know that one?-and several others sounded familiar enough that he could have hummed along if he’d wanted. Ryan didn’t consider himself anyone’s expert on religion, but he was pretty sure that Heaven was out of reach for murderers and kidnappers. When one person did both, the odds had to be pretty awful.

Colleen had actually spoken Ryan’s thoughts when she warned against tumbling out of the car and going for help. That was exactly what he’d been considering. Now, with the dire threat to kill Mom still standing, the moment for action was lost. But maybe only for a little while.

Ryan’s dad had told him a thousand times that eighty percent of so-called “victims” of violent crime were in fact willing participants who talked themselves into victimhood as a means of rationalizing their fears. They didn’t consider life-saving action because it added new risk.

In the abstract, it’s easy to think of people who feel fear as cowards, but in real time, when you’re the one who’s likely to die if the nut job pulls the trigger, fear feels more like a survival skill than cowardice.

Interstate 66 led to Interstate 81, which in turn led to Route 262. After that, he lost track of the route numbers. They drove west, endlessly into the night.

They drove into a future that Ryan imagined held little comfort for the Nasbe family. Their next opportunity to make a difference would arrive when they made their first stop-whether it was at their final destination or at someplace along the way for gas or maybe even a pee break. A dozen ideas churned in Ryan’s brain, from the simple to the heroic. Somewhere in the mix of all those options, there had to be one that would work. The trick lay in choosing the right one at the right time.

The trick also lay in Mom’s willingness to take a risk. Weapons notwithstanding, two against one presented real advantage; but if one of the two hesitated, none of the rest would matter.

He tried repeatedly to capture his mother’s eyes to communicate that he had a plan, but she seemed to be intentionally avoiding his glance.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Ryan announced.

The noise seemed to startle the girl with the gun. Then she shrugged. “So go.”

Ryan recoiled. “What, on the floor?”

Colleen leaned forward and lifted an empty Evian bottle from the rear center console. “Or here.”

He was horrified. “I’m not going to go in a bottle. In front of everybody.”

Colleen put the bottle down. “Suit yourself.”

“Can’t we stop somewhere?”

Colleen laughed. “Could you be more obvious?” She tapped Christyne’s headrest with the barrel of her pistol. “How much gas do we have, Mom?”

Christyne cleared her throat, then said, “A little more than half a tank.”

Colleen leaned closer to peer over her shoulder. “Looks more like three quarters to me,” she said. “A minivan like this, that’s got to be fifteen, sixteen gallons. At twenty miles to the gallon and sixty miles an hour, what’s that, three gallons an hour? We stop in five hours.”

“Five hours?” Christyne exclaimed. “Where are we going?”

Colleen said, “Second star to the right, straight on till morning.”

Ryan recognized the directions to Peter Pan’s Neverland, and had started to look out the windshield again when quick movement from Colleen made him jump. Before he had a chance to react, Ryan was staring down the barrel of the pistol. It looked huge, even in the dark. In his mind, he could almost see the bullet launching into his face.

“Don’t ever lie to me again,” Colleen warned. “Don’t try to trick me, don’t try to piss me off. This isn’t a game. Do you understand me?”

Ryan nodded. For the first time, the true gravity of what was happening registered in his mind. He was genuinely terrified.

“I need the bottle after all,” he said.

Ryan lost track of the turns and the route numbers-and also the time-as the roads became progressively narrower and the night darker. But for the clock on the dash that told him it was one-thirty-three, he would have sworn that it was even later. For the last half hour or more, they hadn’t passed a single car. Good thing, too, because Ryan didn’t think there would have been room for two vehicles abreast.

The terrain out the window was mountain-steep, and when the headlights weren’t splashing over rocks, all he could see were trees. Sometimes-rarely-he caught glimpses of lights shining from buildings way off in the distance, for all he knew maybe miles away, mostly in the valleys far below.

He’d never seen his mom so stressed behind the wheel. The last few miles were all short-radius switchbacks, a far cry from the suburban roads in Mount Vernon, and as the van’s transmission screamed for relief, she gripped the steering wheel as if it were a climbing rope. Ryan had considered offering to drive for her, but decided that that would be a bad idea.