“I’m afraid so,” he said.
“Got room for me?”
“Absolutely.”
He saw that she had two large pieces of what he thought of as “limp” luggage and a squarish item he thought was probably a makeup kit. Plus an enormous purse.
“My car’s over there,” he said, gesturing in the general direction.
“Will all this stuff fit in a Porsche?”
“The city’s car,” he said. “It’s a Ford.”
When he picked up her limp luggage, his left hand hurt.
“What did you do to your face?” Terry asked, as she picked up her own bag.
“I fell down,” Matt said, as he started to walk to the Crown Victoria.
He saw that Detective Jesus Martinez had finally shown up; he was standing with McFadden, and they did, he thought, indeed look like Mutt and Jeff.
“You better follow me,” Matt said, and his voice was drowned out by the roar of the Highway bikes starting up.
“You better follow me,” Matt repeated.
His hand hurt again when he loaded Terry’s luggage into the backseat.
By the time Terry’d gotten in and he’d gotten the engine started, McFadden and Martinez had pulled their identical unmarked Crown Victorias in behind him.
And the convoy had left. He could see the GMC and four assorted vehicles bearing the press bringing up the end of it, disappearing around the corner of the administration building.
Discretion forbade racing to catch up with the convoy. He knew where it was going; he could probably catch up with it on I-95.
But when he reached the airport exit, it was barred by a line of cars stopped by two Eighth District uniforms and a sergeant apparently charged with seeing that Mr. Colt’s fans did not join the convoy.
Matt drove to the side of the line of cars, and when he reached the head of it, reached under the dash and pushed the button that caused the blue lights under the grille to flash and the siren to start to growl.
The uniform sergeant waved the first fan’s car through the gate, then waved Matt through the space he had occupied, with McFadden and Martinez following.
“So tell me about the face,” Terry said when he had caught up with the convoy and was driving a stately fifty-five miles per hour down I-95 at the end of it.
“I was trying to stop a homicidal maniac from detonating an atom bomb and ending life as we know it on our planet.”
Terry giggled. It was an accurate synopsis of Stan Colt’s last opus.
“And in so doing, I fell down.”
“And landed on your face?”
“Correct.”
“But you caught the bad guy?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he do?”
“Stole a car, ran a red light, and slammed into a family in their van.”