“That's it – there's the car!” Taylor said excitedly. The SUV rolled to a stop after turning the corner and passing a house. Bidwell glanced in the rearview mirror.
“Okay, Angela,” he said. “How do you want to do this?”
“I think I'll run up and ring the bell ...” she thought carefully. “See how it goes. Do you want me to carry enough cash to pay for it now, or come back to pick it up if we want it?”
“If you can get a test drive,” Wilson started, “that would be good. We don't want to buy something we can't use.”
“Oh, I can,” she said. “Woman on the phone a couple of hours ago really wants that car out of here. Says her ex spent all his spare time and money, and then some, on it. I think she's jealous.”
“What a shame,” Bidwell said softly. “It looks fairly clean, considering.”
“We're not judging this as a collector's item,” Wilson said.
“We're sure not,” Hardesty answered. “No trailer queens need apply.”
She grinned at Bidwell and strode away. Using the rear-view mirror – this time, the outside passenger one, electrically adjusted to focus on the door where Hardesty knocked – Bidwell watched her. A woman came to the door – young, not bad-looking, but fatigued in appearance. Hardesty gestured, speaking rapidly; the woman nodded and disappeared inside, but returned with keys a moment later. Hardesty kept an animated conversation going all the way from the front door to the car; the woman unlocked the door and handed over the keys. Hardesty nodded, said something, and the woman slipped under the wheel.
Hardesty hustled around to the back of the car as its engine came to life. She crouched and looked underneath, from front to back then back to front. The woman shook her head in answer to something Hardesty said, tapping the watch on her wrist. Hardesty appeared to be pleading; the woman shrugged, went back in the house and returned, carrying an infant strapped in a car seat.
They fussed with the seat in the back, briefly, then the woman sat down and closed the passenger door. Hardesty slid under the wheel and backed out of the driveway. The car passed from view; Bidwell left the window down, listening until the sound, too, faded away.
“Well,” Wilson said. “What do you think?”
“About what?” Bidwell looked at him, and the younger man swept a hand in the direction of the departed car. Bidwell stretched as best he could, leaned his head against the back of the seat, and closed his eyes. “I think we should wait and see what happens next.”
Wilson shook his head. Taylor unbuckled his seatbelt, scrambled out from between the two men, and crawled into the back seat to peer out the window. The quiet, warm afternoon unfolded around the three of them. Presently even Wilson's eyelids grew heavy.
The spray of gravel and crunch of tires interrupted his fight against somnolence. From the back seat, Taylor yelped, “They're back!”
Bidwell glanced at the mirror, then sat up straight. Hardesty was helping the woman unbuckle the infant seat. The two women were laughing and talking like old friends; as Hardesty opened the door and handed over the keys, the woman nodded. She carried her child over her threshold, but didn't close the door. Hardesty walked away from the house, parallel to the street where Bidwell had parked, a spring in her step. Bidwell started the SUV, made a block, and met her at the corner.
“Well?”
“Well,” Hardesty said, “it'll run. It'll turn and it'll stop and it's not making any funny noises. The seats are good – not original. The frame's okay and the front end's in line, and it doesn't smoke and it shifts like it ought to, and the tires are fair – if I was leaving for California I'd probably think about replacing the spare. Nothing's leaking under the hood or on the driveway underneath it. The paint's okay and there's no bondo or bad rust I can see. All the lights and turn signals are okay – she put a fresh inspection sticker on it last week.
“ She'll take $2,500 less than the price in the ad for cash before the bank closes today – and she needs a ride to the train station. If you gents are in a sporting mood, we can close the deal in the next few minutes, and as a bonus, she'd probably be happy to drive your Suburban to the train station.”
“Or the airport,” Wilson said. “The farther from us, the better.”
Hardesty nodded. “That would be good, too. She could park there, leave the keys under the seat, lock it up and walk away -- and there'd be no surveillance tape of us.”
“That's not a bad price,” Bidwell said.
“That's not a bad old Plymouth,” Hardesty answered. “It's partly a restoration and partly a modernization, best I can tell. Lots of the insides are from a way newer vehicle. It's got electric adjustable seats in front and shoulder belts for four, plus factory air that works and a serious stereo. Not to mention what's under that hood. If that Hemi's more than two years old, I'll eat my socks.”
“Hemi?”Wilson said.
“What, are you deaf? I drove right by you.” Hardesty looked at him; Wilson shrugged his shoulders. Bidwell handed her two stacks of well-worn bills, and Hardesty nodded.
“If I put the rest of the money in the backpack,” Bidwell said, “I can leave the briefcase here. The only other thing we need to worry about is the rifle, isn't it?”
“I can take care of that,” Wilson said. “I'll carry the backpack this time, too.”
“Done, and done, gents. Taylor, you and your Uncle Tim wait here. Your Dad and I are going to go pick up a car.”
Fifteen minutes later Wilson faded back out of the alley; he clasped the backpack's straps in his left hand and Taylor's wrist in his right. That the tired-looking woman in the black Suburban hadn't seen him or his charge, he felt fairly sure. That every possible thing Regent One had bugged or stuck a tracker to remained with the vehicle departing or now rested safely in the truck stop's trash cans, he also felt fairly sure. What he didn't feel remotely sure about amounted to pretty much everything else in the world.
“Need a lift?” Hardesty pulled up beside him, grin blazing.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Shotgun,” Taylor said firmly, and Bidwell chuckled.
Wilson hefted the backpack – now much heavier than before – through the open window. He pulled on the door handle; Bidwell stepped out, tipped the seat forward and smoothly doubled over to slide into place behind Hardesty. Wilson blinked as Taylor swung into the front, then stepped inside and ducked into the back seat himself. Buckles clicked and windows rolled up, the air conditioner and the stereo came on, and the Hemi growled its way out of town.
They passed four black Suburbans, six dark-colored government sedans and a parade of police cars headed into town as they headed out. Once the last one had disappeared down a shallow hill behind them, Hardesty put her foot in it. The big engine coughed authoritatively; she set the cruise control for 75 and pointed the car's nose away from the setting sun.

At midnight they stopped for gas and restrooms; Taylor had been dozing, as had Wilson. Hardesty bought coffee, tried a sip and spat it out on the parking lot. She tossed her cup into the trash can, growling, and picked up the squeegee to clean the windshield instead. Wilson came back from his trip into the convenience store yawning, but Bidwell, carrying Taylor, just looked tired.
“Switch drivers?” he asked.
“My turn,” Wilson said. “I've slept since either of you have.”
“No argument,” Hardesty said. She pitched him keys, installed Taylor in one back seat and herself in the other, and they rolled on into the night again. By the time the first lightening signs of the rising day appeared, the road beneath the Plymouth's spinning wheels had changed from a two-lane blacktop winding amid small rural towns in old mountains to an Interstate, peeling away the miles in a straight line toward the Capitol.
He picked out another truck stop by the signs along the road, but turning into the jammed parking lot and noticing the line at the door to the cafe, Wilson decided to keep driving. He pulled through and back onto the highway and hit the button for “seek” until the radio spat out a newscast.
“...forces under the command of General George Whittier and Colonel Caleb Robertson have claimed control of the White House ...” Before Wilson could stop it, the seeking tuner moved on to the next station. He slammed his fist into the rim of the steering wheel so hard he thought he'd broken his hand as first a preacher, then a gospel singer, then a Spanish advertisement – he thought that one might be for a football game – followed. The radio went all the way around the dial before it came back to the newscast. “... intensive care, but First Lady Mikaela Benton and her daughters are reportedly stranded at The Palmer School, which is likewise surrounded by Robertson's troops ...”
“Oh, my God,” Bidwell said softly.
Wilson shook his sore hand. “I bet God didn't have a lot to do with this, sir.”
“God,” Hardesty said from the back seat, “gets blamed for a lot of stuff people do.”

To be continued ...