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“He’s not here,”

Lockett said as Hennessy picked up the phone. “Berkley was right. Palin’s gone already. The office is locked up.”

Hennessy slammed his hand against the steering wheel of his truck as he drove. “And the Rebel Sons?”

“Gone as well.”

“I’m five minutes away,”

Hennessy said as he raced through Charleston to Palin’s office. “Wait for me there. I’ll pick you up.”

Hennessy roared his pickup truck around the streets, racing through intersections, speeding over humps, and ignoring traffic. Lockett was waiting for Hennessy as he pulled up to the front of the building that housed Palin Accounting.

Lockett jumped in, and Hennessy screeched the tires out of the parking spot and toward I-95.

“Where are we going?”

Lockett asked as he gripped the grab handle.

“South. We’re headed to a stop outside Midway, Georgia.”

Hennessy paused as he weaved in and out of traffic. “It’s a Rebel Sons roadhouse, and they need to stop there if they’re driving past. They’re escorting him to Jacksonville airport, where they have enough connections to get him out of the country. If Palin gets on that plane, we’ll never see or hear from him again.”

“And what are we going to do when we get there?”

“Berkley said that Palin often bragged about having a to-go bag with two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand cash in it. That’s our money.”

“And how are we going to convince him to give it to us?”

Hennessy hadn’t thought that far ahead. He pointed to the glove compartment. Lockett opened it and saw Hennessy’s Glock. “We’re going to convince him to pay us before he leaves.”

Racing through the traffic, they arrived at the roadhouse in under ninety-five minutes.

The bar was off the main road, with a dated and rundown hotel on one side and a gas station on the other. The red-brick building had seen better days, and judging by the almost empty parking lot, it didn’t have many customers. That didn’t matter, though. The bar was a front, a place where the Rebel Sons could relax and enjoy themselves without the pressures of the public.

“Two bikes and a black sedan,”

Lockett said as they rolled into the parking lot. There were two other sedans near the entrance, but the older cars looked like they had been parked there for days. “We won’t be welcomed in there. They don’t like strangers in a place like that.”

Hennessy nodded but didn’t respond. As they approached, his eyes were on Palin’s sedan. The front seats were empty, and several suitcases were placed on the back seats.

As Hennessy parked, he noticed the pickup parked on the other side of the lot. It had a sticker on the door advertising Stanwell Construction.

Hennessy drew a breath and nodded to the glove compartment as he parked. Lockett opened it and took out the Glock. He handed it to Hennessy.

“Think we’ll need it?”

Hennessy nodded as he checked the weapon. Lockett took his handgun out of his belt and checked it.

“How do you want to approach this?”

Lockett asked. “Wait until they come out?”

“There might be people around by then, and this might get messy,”

Hennessy responded. “We’ll go in and ask Palin nicely for the money.”

“Think that’ll work?”

“I hope so.”

Hennessy looked at the weapon in his hand. “Because I don’t like the outcome if it doesn’t.”