“My husband’s been shot in the hand by the American police,” she said as soon as they’d pulled away. “I’m going to need antibiotics, disinfectant —”
“Here.” The woman handed a plastic grocery bag over the seat. “This will have to do for the moment. We need to get you out of Washington before we do anything else.”
When Hala looked inside the bag, she almost wept with relief. There were bottles of water, chocolate bars, a jar of almonds, a first-aid kit, and a small pharmacy bottle of amoxicillin. Two weeks ago, she might have wondered how all of this was even possible, but she’d learned — just like the Americans — never to underestimate the power and resources of The Family.
She took Tariq’s good hand in hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. If he’d had his way back in that disgusting alley, she knew, he would have been dead by now.
“Thank you,” she said to the two in front.
“No,” the other woman said. “Thank The Family. And thank Allah.”
MAHONEY DROVE. SAMPSON sat in front. I took the backseat with Glass, who was as high as a kite by now. His eyes occasionally rolled up into the whites.
I waited until we were out on the Beltway. Then I reached over and pulled the silver tape off his face.
“Wha’ the
Sampson reached right across the seat and popped Glass hard, upside the head. It must have hurt because it immediately stunned him into silence.
“You listen first, dumbass,” John said with a finger in his face. “Then you talk.”
Glass hunkered down, trying to get away, but he seemed more pissed off than scared. That was the scopolamine, doing its thing.
“Wha’ever,” he said.
“Rodney?” I said. “Listen to me. I’m going to ask you about Ethan and Zoe Coyle. That’s our only subject here. Do you know where they are?”
He smacked his lips a few times. His eyes fluttered. “Wha’d you gimme? Is this thiopental? My mouth’s like a sandbox.”
“Glass! Where are Ethan and Zoe?” I said. “They’re in a basement somewhere, right? There’s a dirt floor. What else?”
“I dunno know … what you’re talking about,” he slurred.
It’s not that scopolamine is a truth serum, per se. But cognitively speaking, lying is a lot more complex than telling the truth. The drug just makes it that much harder to do. My best bet was to keep coming at him with simple, direct questions. Eventually he might slip up.
“Ethan and Zoe are in a basement somewhere,” I said again. “Isn’t that right, Rodney?”
His head lolled back and he swallowed several more times.
“Why should I tell you?” he said. John reached for him, but I put up a hand to stop him.
“Are they in a basement, Rodney? Or is it some kind of a cave?”
“I, um …”
“Are they? Tell me. Right now.”
“Nah,” he finally said, and my heart lurched. “I mean … yeah. But not a basement. It’s a, uh … you know. More like a root cellar.” His head fell back again, and he let out a bizarre, low chuckle.
“What the hell’s so funny?” Sampson asked him.
“You are, man,” he said, and laughed again. “I mean … you’re all cops, right? But now you’re the ones who’re goin’ to jail. That’s funny, man. That’s fuckin’ classic.”
IT TOOK A second injection and a lot of wrong turns to tease some more details out of Glass. The closer we got to the truth, the funnier he seemed to find it. It was everything I could do to keep from knocking that smile right off his face — or letting Sampson do it.
After two long hours, we found ourselves on a dark secondary road somewhere south of the Pennsylvania border and Michaux State Forest. The middle of nowhere, basically.
Mahoney kept our speed low and the high beams on. The result was — we were going nowhere. We had no final destination yet.
“Hang on,” Sampson said suddenly. “What’s that?”
Ned stopped and angled the car at the side of the road. A wall of high grass and brambles was broken in one spot, like it had been trampled and bounced back. On the other side, it looked like an old ATV trail, or maybe a driveway, running into the woods.
Glass let out another long, drunken laugh.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Ned said, and pulled in.
