"Tonight."

"Okay, I'll leave right away. And Fag-Ass, do me a favour."

"What?"

"Don't get yourself killed before then. They'll make you into another martyr. We got enough of those."

"Just try to read the map without moving your lips, Bill."

Frank Duffy delayed telling his wife he loved her and his son how proud he was of him and God that he was sorry. Inspector William McGurk was another two weeks at least. Guaranteed. Maybe even a natural death.

He drove into Maryland to escape the heavy liquor tax and bought ten quarts of Jack Daniels. Since he would not be stopping at any other stores, he also purchased some soda to go with it.

"A quart," said Congressman Duffy. "A quart of club soda."

The clerk looked at the row of Jack Daniels bottles and said, "You sure a quart's what you want?"

Duffy shook his head.

"You're right. Make it a pint. One of those little bottles."

"We don't have little bottles."

"Then, that's okay. Just what's here on the counter. Hell, make it an even dozen."

"Jack Daniels?"

"What do you think?"

Duffy drove to the airport and loaded the Jack Daniels onto his Cessna, making sure the bottles were flat and even, a central weight on the plane. Not that they would make that much difference, but why take chances? There were old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots.

Duffy landed that night in a small private airstrip outside Seneca Falls, New York. A car was waiting. McGurk had driven from New York City. The cold night, the unloading of the plane, and the meeting with McGurk, reminded Duffy of the night in France when he had first met the best weapons man he would ever know. It had been early spring in France and although they knew an invasion would come soon from England, they did not know when or where because high risk people are never given information that the upstairs would not want to see in enemy hands.