“We must be in Scranton,” says Rick urgently, “in half an hour.” It’s a two-hour trip. They all know this.

“Be ready in five minutes,” says Slone, calm through static.

Two minutes later Rick and Carey are out the door; Thom kicks it shut behind him and lunges out into the road, where he barely halts himself in time. A roaring Alpine White Eldorado whiptails a U-turn around him and brakes. Thom stares through the windshield as an expressionless Slone whips off his sunglasses, revealing another pair of sunglasses underneath.

Thom feels a sudden wild hope: they just might make it!