Bleeker told the Chief he'd check in after changing his clothes. Closed his phone. So they wanted him on this after all. Wanted him to go in shooting, it sounded like. Fine. He could live with that.
Bleeker started nodding his head along to the radio host, who was damn near crying talking about his ruined country like she was some sort of teenage whore who'd gotten knocked up. Not going to let 'em destroy what we all helped to raise!
What Bleeker was really thinking: God help that young man's soul if he was the one who pulled the trigger.
THREE
Waves of super-heated air rising from the tarmac. Adem squinted his eyes, shielded them, too hot to see, it felt like. Jibriil shoved him from behind, off the last step of the plane. He'd been at it the whole trip, calling Adem pussy this and pussy that because he whined half the way back to Minneapolis about how the cops would get them, and how Jibriil should turn himself in, and the gun, the fucking gun, why did Jibriil bring a motherfucking gun with him to New Pheasant Run?
"Cause you never know. And now you do."
"We were supposed to disappear. You don't disappear when you kill police! We won't be able to come back. Just…just…"
Unspoken between them: As an eyewitness, now Adem couldn't go home again. He would never rat out Jibriil. But there it was, the reason they couldn't split up. The reason Jibriil wouldn't let them.
They ditched the rental outside of Redwood Falls, found another car. People on the farms left keys in, stuck in the visors or under the wheel wells. Took five tries. The weather made it feel like more. Their plane didn't leave until six thirty-five a.m., so they could afford to take their time. The car was a Pontiac Grand Am, red. Thousands and thousands of them on the road. The police couldn't stop all of them, could they? And the owner probably wouldn't realize until morning.