I hadn’t seen what had happened to Dinara and Hector, but they would be safe. I hadn’t shared my plan for fear they’d try to talk me out of it. There had been a good chance of me getting shot, but I’d bet my life on the training and discipline of the Marine Corps, and I hadn’t been disappointed. I had been about to surrender my weapon when I’d been hauled out of Hector’s car. It had always been my plan to get taken into custody; I just hadn’t expected to get winded in the process. Becoming a military prisoner seemed the surest way for a wanted fugitive to get on base.
“Come on, corporal,” I said. “You’re smart. Just give me five minutes with Colonel Fuller and if he doesn’t believe me, you can lock me up and throw away the key.”
The Durango came to a halt, and the corporal and the private jumped out. I saw a concrete building directly ahead of us. A blue sign hung above a security door and white letters declared this was the “Transient Personnel Unit Pre-Trial Confinement Facility Fallon.” The brig. If I was taken inside, all was lost.
“Corporal, what time is it?” I asked as they opened the Durango’s back door.
He checked his watch. “Eleven twenty-five.”
“We’ve got thirty-five minutes,” I told him. “You have to listen to me.”
He considered my pleas. “I will contact Colonel Fuller once you’ve been processed.”
“That will be too late,” I protested. “We don’t have time.”
“Bring him out,” the corporal ordered.
The private pulled my arm, and I got to my feet. When I stepped onto the lip of the footwell, I lashed out and kicked the private in the face. He fell onto the corporal, who fumbled for his sidearm as he and the private collapsed in a heap.
I jumped from the Durango and raised my hands high behind me, until it felt as though my shoulders might slip from their sockets. As I hit the asphalt, I brought my wrists down against the small of my back and snapped the cable tie. I rushed the private, who was trying to pick himself up, but before he could react, I punched him, reached down to his waist, flipped his holster open and stole his sidearm. I aimed it at the corporal, who had managed to get hold of his own weapon.
“Drop it,” I commanded.
He hesitated.
“Do it now!” I yelled.
The corporal glared at me, but complied and tossed his gun.
“Corporal, if I take you hostage, there’s a good chance you and the private here will face disciplinary charges,” I said. “And I wouldn’t want that.”
He backed away as I stepped toward him.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I assured him. “All I ask is that you trust me the way I’m going to trust you.”
I took a deep breath and played the biggest gamble of my life.
“Semper fidelis,” I said as I flipped the pistol and offered it to him. “Always loyal.”
CHAPTER 106
“I DON’T KNOW about this, Ryan,” the private said to the corporal as we drove across the base.
“Stow it, private,” the corporal replied. “It won’t cost anything but time to let the man have his say.”
Time was my enemy. After I’d surrendered the pistol, the corporal ordered us back into the Durango, and we set out for the command block.
“We’re here,” the private announced, and the Durango shuddered to a halt.
“Come on,” the corporal said, and the three of us jumped out of the vehicle and double-timed into the command building. We ran into the lobby and the corporal swiped us through a security door that led to the administration block.
“This way,” he said, and I followed him at a run, with the private trailing behind me.
We raced up the stairs and came to the senior officers’ wing. Someone yelled something down the corridor, but we ignored it and ran on.
We came to the executive officer’s suite, and a private sat at a desk outside a door marked “Colonel Steven Fuller.”
“Hey!” the man at the desk exclaimed as the corporal ran past and burst into Fuller’s office.