Grant stands over me nervously. “What are you doing, again?”“I’m going through a deep web connection and filtering it through a – nevermind. I’m making it look like we’re in Mexico. That’s all you need to know.”“You sure it’s foolproof?”“Nothing’s foolproof, because fools are so ingenious.”He looks at me like Quit fooling around.“Hey, I don’t have to do this,” I say. “In fact, I don’t want to do this.”“Just go ahead and do whatever you’ve got to do.”“Then quit hovering over me like a helicopter parent.”“Fine.” He starts pacing behind me, which is only marginally better.“What happened to that ice water in your veins, dude?” I say as I put the finishing touches on the reroute.“It’s there when I have control over the situation. I don’t have any control over the situation here.”“I don’t know that being chased by Dobermans is ‘control over the situation.’”“It is when I’m in the moment. It comes down to what I do. Here… I can’t do anything. I’m totally reliant on you.”For some

First we make our introductions, which are awkward to say the least. You know, given that we just broke into their home through the bedroom wall. The brunette’s name is Lily; she’s Connor’s fiancée. The bodyguard’s name is Johnny. Grant met them months before, but they didn’t recognize him because of the sheetrock dust.Speaking of which, we wipe off the worst of the white powder, but we’re not offered showers or clean clothes. There’s the unspoken threat that we might be going to the police station very soon.Grant tackles the elephant in the room immediately. “I’m assuming you’ve seen the news?”“News? What news?” Connor jokes. “You mean the national, wall-to-wall coverage?”“It’s not what it looks like.” Grant looks over at Lily. “Someone’s trying to destroy me through the media.”“I have a little bit of experience with that,” Lily sighs – and suddenly I know where I’ve seen her. She and Connor were part of a huge scandal about six months ago where they were photographed having se

The take-off goes smoothly, and we settle in for the long flight. The cabin is sumptuous but small. Completely unlike Grant’s plane – which makes sense for a small jet kept off the record books, to be used only when ‘the shit hits the fan.’But since there isn’t any real privacy, there isn’t any hanky-panky this time around.“It’s almost noon, so that should put us into France around 7PM Eastern time, which is… 1AM local time,” Grant calculates.Connor arranged to have us land at a small private airfield, where Mike would get refueled and then turn around and head back.“What’s the plan once we get to France?” I ask.“I have some property in Paris – ”“We can’t use it.”“It’s owned by a shell company.”“What, Palladin Terminus Inc.?”Grant gives me a dirty look.“I found it when I was trying to get my cell phone back from you,” I say. “If I know about it, you can bet Epicurus does.”Grant shrugs. “Fine. We’ll find some empty place like we did in New York, and we’ll lie low while I co

The wind is whistling eerily through the bullet holes in the glass windows. But I realize that no oxygen masks have fallen out of the ceiling.Come to think of it, I have no idea if small jets like this even have that capability – but then I decide they must. Billionaires are even more invested in keeping themselves alive than airlines are.“How come we can still breathe?” I call out.“We’re flying relatively low. We can’t go too high or we’ll depressurize,” Mike shouts from the cockpit.“Just as long as you can get us to the Channel,” Grant yells back. “How long till we’re there?”“Ten minutes.”“Can’t we go any faster?”Mike looks back over his shoulder in irritation. “Ten minutes is pedal to the medal, bud! We’re flying full throttle here!”Grant walks up to the cockpit. “Can you do me a favor?”“What, besides flee the French authorities and get myself shot at?”“Five million should buy me that and more,” Grant retorts.“You’re going to milk that for all it’s worth, aren’t you.”“Y

The beach house is a snap for Grant. No alarm, just a deadbolt. Within 45 seconds we’re inside.It’s deserted. There is evidence of a family – pictures on the walls of smiling parents with three small children – but the house feels vacant. There is a chill everywhere: the cold, damp staleness of salty air bottled up for weeks on end. Grant leads me to a laundry room off the kitchen and snaps on the light. “We have to hurry,” he says as dumps the parachute on the linoleum floor. “A shower to warm up, then we need to hit the road.”“In what? There’s no car.”“There’s an old Mercedes a quarter mile away that I can definitely hotwire. I’d like to be a couple hundred miles from here when the owner gets up and reports it stolen.”“What about our clothes? They’re sopping wet.”He points to the dryer. “Voilà.”I arch an eyebrow. “You’re going to put your $5,000 suit in a regular dryer?”“We’re on the run from the police and a serial killer, we just parachuted out of an airplane into the Engl