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Emerson smiled. “I like to wait to see if it will last.”
“You don’t seem to be worried about, you know…dying,” Riley said.
“Worrying is an unproductive activity,” Emerson told her. “And it’s pointless. I prefer to be in the moment.”
“Or at least waiting for the moment,” she said.
“In this case, yes. Anticipation is key.”
The van finally chugged to a stop, and Rollo and the driver got out. The cargo door was opened and Rollo looked in.
“Okay, people,” Rollo said. “This is the end of the road. Everyone out.”
They were at the top of the mountain. It was studded with transmitting towers and satellite dishes, and off in the distance Vegas was visible, surrounded by a deadly desert under a smoldering haze. Riley thought it looked like something that had survived a nuclear apocalypse. She turned her attention to the car that had followed them, and a chill ripped through her. It was her dad’s GTO.
“I know how it’s going to happen,” she said to Emerson. “They’re going to send us off the cliff in the GTO.”
“It is a colorful ending,” Emerson said. “Kudos to Rollo. It won’t work, of course, but it was a good idea all the same.”
“Why won’t it work?”
“We won’t let it. We borrowed your father’s car in good faith. We need to return it to him.”
“Not to mention me.”
“Goes without saying,” Emerson said.
“Put Günter in first,” Rollo said to the guards. “I want him strapped into the backseat.”
Günter was rolled over, taken off the hand truck, and stuffed into the car. There was some screaming involved when they removed the brace and bent his leg to fit into the backseat, but the task was accomplished. Xandy was put in next. She was in the back beside Günter. She was babbling about the space-time continuum and her grandmother’s blue crystal. Her handcuffs were removed and she slapped herself.
“Wake up,” she said. “Wake up!”
“I know you’re not in favor of worrying,” Riley said to Emerson, “but I’m feeling some apprehension.”
“No problem,” Emerson said. “I have a foolproof plan.”
“Great. What is it?”
“I had a small camera in my pocket. I took pictures of the gold, then took the memory card out of the camera and swallowed it. So when they find my body and do an autopsy, the pictures of the gold will be there.”
“That’s your plan?”
“It’s more of a backup plan.”
“Is there one that doesn’t involve us dying?”
“Yes, but that one’s a little sketchier.”
Rollo walked over to Riley. “Guess what. You’re next. You get to go in front so you have a good view on the way down.”
Riley looked at Emerson. “Um…”
“Wait for it,” Emerson said.
“Wait for what?” Rollo asked him.
“It,” Emerson said.
