“Shit,” Flannel says managing to keep the truck on the road as he brings us to a stop along the side of the road.
“Sounds like we got a flat,” Lee says.
“Damn back roads,” Flannel says, but there’s something in his tone that sets me on edge. I replay his sentence in my mind, listening for variations in the speech pattern. That’s when I know what it is:
He’s not surprised.
The motorcade trucks stop in front and behind us.
“Time for triple A,” I say.
“Time for triple me,” Flannel says.
“You need a hand?” Lee asks him.
Flannel looks from Lee back to me.
“That’s a good idea,” he says.
Lee slips out of the car, then Flannel pauses.
“You okay in here?” he says to Miranda.
“I’ve got my pepper spray,” she says.
“No doubt,” he says.
He turns off the truck and takes the keys out of the ignition, slipping them into his pocket as he goes. It’s a smart security measure. You don’t leave a running car in the hands of a stranger, even a car with a flat tire.
The door closes, and I’m alone with Miranda. I hear voices muffled outside the truck as Flannel and Lee determine the safest way to change a tire on a back road with no breakdown lane. It takes less than a minute for the air in the truck to go from ice-cold to the inside of an oven.
“Hot as hell,” I say.
Miranda doesn’t say anything.
“Are you going to pepper spray me if I unbutton the top button on my shirt?”
“You seem like a nice enough guy….” she says.
“Crap, here comes the let’s-be-friends speech. Let me just get my seat belt buckled before I crash and burn.”
The side of the truck tilts up several degrees as Flannel jacks up the car.
“Listen to me,” she says. “I don’t know why you want to come to Camp Liberty, but now is not the time.”
“Why not?” I say.
I hear the sound of metal on metal as Flannel starts to twist off the wheel lugs. Miranda glances toward the back of the truck, where they’re changing the tire.
“I can’t explain it to you,” she says. “But trust me when I tell you you’re in over your head.”
“Maybe I like being in over my head. It’s a challenge.”
“You don’t need this kind of challenge.”
She reaches toward me suddenly and grasps my arm. Her hand is warm where it makes contact with my bare arm.
“It’s not safe right now,” she says more urgently. “The camp isn’t safe.”
Suddenly her door opens. She lets go of me, quickly letting her hand fall out of sight.
Flannel stands there, sweat soaking through his heavy shirt.
“Miranda, the other truck is going to take you in,” he says.
“Finally,” Miranda says, like she’s had enough. Of the truck or me, I can’t be sure.
She gets out, and I start to slide out after her.
“Not you,” Flannel says to me. “Just Miranda and Lee.”
“What about me?”
“You’re waiting,” he says.
“I’m sweating,” I say with a whine. An annoyed kid used to getting his way.
“I’m betting you’ll survive,” Flannel says, and he closes the door.
The truck in front of us backs up until it’s parallel to our own. Miranda glances at me, her eyes drilling into me one last time before she climbs in and disappears behind blacked-out windows.
I see Lee get in the other side of the truck, and two-thirds of the motorcade pulls away.
That leaves me alone on the side of the road with Flannel.
I hear the lug nuts going on one at a time with an electric drill. It doesn’t take more than ninety seconds before I hear Flannel toss the flat tire into the trunk bed.
My internal alarm goes off.
If it was only going to take ninety seconds, why transfer Lee and Miranda to a different vehicle?
I look around the truck, searching out things I might use to defend myself. Loose tools on the floor, maps, even a tightly rolled newspaper is a weapon in the right hands.
My hands.
Flannel opens the back door.
“What’s up?” I say. “Do you need a hand?”
“All done,” he says. “You ride in the front now.”
“Why now?”
“So I can see you.”
“Girls tell me I’m easy on the eyes,” I say.
He looks at me, not amused. He holds the door, waiting for me to get out.
“So much for limo service,” I say, keeping my tone light and arrogant, consistent with the Daniel Martin I’m building on the fly.
I had one afternoon to prepare this identity. It was only deep enough to get me through a two-hour event at the community center until I could complete my mission. I did not anticipate having to be Daniel Martin in multiple conversations with people of varying agendas, all probing to know more.
“Out,” Flannel says.
He waits for me to get out of the truck and into the front passenger seat. Then he closes the door behind me.
It would be fastest for him to walk around the front, but instead he heads toward the back, walking extremely slowly and disappearing from my vision.
He’s keeping me waiting, building suspense. It’s a classic move, designed to invoke fear.
He doesn’t know that I don’t feel fear.
I use his tactic as extra planning time, recalibrating myself to the front seat, its angles and eccentricities, its dangers and possibilities.
When Flannel finally climbs into the driver’s seat, he sits there for a moment, but he never starts the truck. He rolls down his window halfway and lights a cigarette.
I roll down my own window.
“My name is Francisco,” he says, finally breaking the silence.
“I was calling you Flannel in my head.”
He looks down at his shirt and nods. “Makes sense,” he says.
No smile.
“I’m Daniel,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”
“I know who you are. Who you say you are.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re a liar.”
“What the hell? Now you’re calling me a liar,” I say, letting Daniel get offended by this challenge.
I glance at the visor. Yanked from the roof at the correct angle, it would twist off a piece of metal piping that I could use to strike.
The throat. That’s where I would aim first.
Francisco doesn’t react to my mini-outburst. He simply says, “Everyone’s a liar when they fill out an application.”
“Not me.”
“Everyone,” he repeats. “People want to get in to Camp Liberty. They don’t tell the truth, because they don’t think the truth will be good enough. And the funny thing, Daniel? The truth is the only way to get in. You have to tell the truth.”
“Then I’m practically in already.”
“I’ll be the one to determine that.”
“I thought it was already determined.”
By Moore. In the parking lot a few minutes ago.
“You thought wrong,” Francisco says, pinching the cigarette between two fingers and inhaling slowly.
It occurs to me that our truck didn’t actually have a flat tire. I’m wondering if the whole thing was staged. To bring this journey to a standstill. To bring me face-to-face with Francisco.
“The question is not whether you lied,” Francisco says, “because I already know you did. It’s why you lied that I’m interested in.”
“You already told me why. I wanted to get into camp.”
“You haven’t admitted that you lied yet. I want to hear it from you.”
I could play dumb, but I don’t think that’s what he’s looking for. Better to agree with him but add a twist.
“I didn’t lie,” I say.
I see his shoulders tighten, ready to attack again.
“I embellished,” I say, giving the word the hint of an accent.