Strangers

we're nailed."
        Ginger said, "But how can you be so sure-"
        "For eight years," Jack reminded her, "getting into and back out of difficult places was my line of work. And it was the government that originally trained me, so I know their routines and tricks." He winked his misaligned eye. "I have some tricks of my own."
        Jorja spoke up, obviously more than a little distressed: "But you've as much as said you'll be caught in there."
        "Oh, yes," Jack said.
        "But then what's the point of going in?" Jorja asked.
        He had it all planned out, and Ginger listened at first in utter bafflement and then with growing admiration for his sense of strategy.
        

        
        Jack laid out the details of his plan as if it were a foregone conclusion that the other nine members of the group would agree to do precisely what he told them, regardless of the risks involved. He employed every trick of coercion and leadership that he knew, not because he was unwilling to consider alternatives to his strategy or modifications of it, but because there simply was no time to explore other courses of action. His intellect and his instinct had the same message for him: Time is running out. So he explained to the rest of the Tranquility family that:
        Within the next hour, everyone - except Dom, Ned, and Jack himself - would pile in the Cherokee, leave overland from the rear of the motel, and drive into Elko by a roundabout route, thereby slipping the waiting tails. In Elko the group would split up. Ernie, Faye, and Ginger would drive the Cherokee north to Twin Falls, Idaho, then to Pocatello. From there they would arrange to fly to Boston, where they would stay with Ginger's friends, the Hannabys. They should get to Boston late Thursday or early Friday. Immediately upon their arrival, they would tell the Hannabys every detail of what they had discovered. Then, within an hour or two, Ginger would call together as many of her colleagues at Boston Memorial as possible, and she and the Blocks would tell those physicians what had been done to a lot of innocent people in Nevada two summers ago. Meanwhile, George and Rita Hannaby would contact influential friends and arrange meetings at which Ginger and the Blocks could spread their tale. Only then would Ginger, Faye, and Ernie go to the press. And only after they had gone to the press would they go to the police with a statement contesting the heretofore accepted wisdom that Pablo Jackson had been murdered by an ordinary burglar eight days ago.
        "The trick," Jack said, "is to get your story into wide circulation among some important people, so if you have an 'accident' before you've convinced the press to take up your cause, there will be a whole lot of powerful folks demanding to know who killed you and why. That's the special value you have for us now, Ginger - your associations with a spectrum of important people in one of the country's most influential cities. If you can electrify those people with your story, you'll be creating an imposing group of advocates. Just remember, when you get back there, you're going to have to move fast, before the conspirators discover you've gone home and decide to grab you or blow you away."
        Outside, the wind suddenly rose, keening at the plywood-covered windows. Good. If the storm worsened, cutting visibility farther, they would have a better chance of slipping away from the motel unobserved.
        "After Ginger, Faye, and Ernie leave Elko in the Cherokee, heading up toward Pocatello," Jack said, using a tone of voice that implied these steps were not suggestions but immutable necessities, "you other four - Brendan, Sandy, Jorja, and Marcie - will go to the local Jeep dealership and buy another four-wheel-drive vehicle with cash that I'll give you before you leave the Tranquility. Immediately after signing the papers, you'll head out of Elko in a different direction from Ginger and the Blocks-east toward Salt Lake City, Utah. The snow will slow you down, of course, but you should be able to reach Salt Lake, get a flight out as soon as the storm subsides, and be in Chicago by Thursday afternoon or evening." He turned to the priest. "Brendan, when you touch down at O'Hare, you'll contact your rector, this Father Wycazik you've told us about. He must use his pull to arrange an immediate, emergency meeting with whoever's head of the Chicago Archdiocese."
        "Richard Cardinal