Page 2 of No Plan B

“Not one hundred percent.”

“OK. Where was the envelope?”

“In the bag.”

“Where was the bag?”

“On the ground.”

“You put it down?”

“I needed my hands free.”

“Where was it when the car arrived?” Hix said.

The guy with the sling said, “On the ground.”

“In the same place?”

“How could we know? I wasn’t there when Robert put it down. Robert wasn’t conscious when I picked it up.”

Hix paused for a moment. “OK. How long was the guy alone with the bag?”

“We don’t know. Can’t have been long. A couple of minutes, max.”

“So it’s possible he looked,” Hix said. “Glanced, anyway.”

“Right,” the guy with the broken nose said. “And the bag was ripped, remember. How did that happen? And why? We didn’t do it.”

Brockman leaned forward. “It was a crazy scene, from what you told us. Wreckage everywhere. Total chaos. The bag probably got ripped by accident. It doesn’t sound like some major clue. And the other two haven’t reported that he looked.”

The guy with the sling said, “They haven’t reported at all. We don’t know where they are.”

Brockman said, “Must still be on their way back. Phone problems, probably. But if there was anything to worry about they would have found a way to let us know.”

“And the guy didn’t mention anything about it to the police,” Moseley said. “I’ve talked to the lieutenant over there a couple times. That has to mean something.”

“I still think he looked,” the guy with the broken nose said.

“We should pull the plug,” Riverdale said.

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard,” Brockman said. “We didn’t set the date. We didn’t pick the time. The judge did when he signed the release order. You know that. We pull some bullshitdelaying tactic, we wind up ass-deep in inspectors. You know where that would land us. We might as well shoot ourselves in the head, right here, right now.”

Riverdale scowled. “I’m not saying we delay. I’m saying we go back to the original plan. The switch was always a mistake.”

“That would solve Friday’s problem. If there is one. But then we’d have no way out of the bigger jam we’re in. Carpenter’s situation.”

“I said from the start, the solution to that is simple. A bullet in the back of his head. I’ll do it myself if you’re too squeamish.”

“You know what that would cost? How much business we would lose?”

“We’ll lose a lot more than money if this guy joins the dots.”

“How could he do that?”

“He could come down here. You said so yourself. He could dig around. He was a military cop. It’s in his blood.”

“It’s years since the guy was an MP,” Moseley said. “That’s what the lieutenant told me.”

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