"My brother sent me to pick you up, " Andy said, rewriting his script yet again.

"Your brother's Donny Brett?" Cuda asked with wide eyes. "Whoa, man, he's phat! I sure hope he pulls it off tonight, 'cause I know he sucked last spring, coming in eighteenth. "

"Shut up!" Smoke ordered. "We're supposed to be picked up by the state police, " he said to Andy. "Why the shit would your brother send his chopper after us?"

Andy detected Smoke's twitching fingers over a pocket on his bright red Winston Cup jacket, where he probably had concealed a high-caliber gun. Andy eyed what he assumed was Smoke's trailer-park-looking girlfriend and something about her eyes gave him a creepy feeling. She seemed familiar.

"All I can tell ya, " Andy said, "is me and my girlfriend-copilot was just with Donny in his trailer, giving him a pep talk, when this big black trooper shows up in a panic. He starts telling this story about the governor's helicopter getting a chip light and the thing's grounded, and he's got a pit crew he's supposed to pick up downtown, and he don't know what to do, but maybe Donny could help out because his helicopter's just sitting there. I assumed you're the Jolly Goodwrench pit crew, " Andy added, feigning sudden doubt and suspicion to buffalo them a bit.

"Yeah, " Possum shouted above the thud-thudding of the helicopter blades, and he managed to unfold the flag enough for Andy to make out part of a skull smoking a cigarette, and the word Jolly and part of Goodwrench. "Come on, let's go!" Possum exclaimed.

"Wait a minute, " Smoke said, staring menacingly at Andy. "How the fuck do you know about Jolly Good-wrench?"

"Yeah!" Cuda agreed.

"Because it's on your flag, " Andy replied, pointing at it and grateful Possum had been sharp enough to unfold it just in time.

"And I put something about Jolly Goodwrench on the NASCAR web, " Possum added an untruth to firm up the story.

"Right, " Andy said, sending a secret signal to Possum. "I saw it. "

Possum caught on and hid his shock. The blond guy with the ponytail wasn't Donny Brett's brother but Trooper Truth undercover! Trooper Truth had changed the plan! Possum had been suffering from a bad feeling that something was going to screw up at the last minute, and he was right. Otherwise, Trooper Truth wouldn't have shown up in Donny Brett's helicopter!

"Listen, we can't stand here all day talking, " Andy said loudly. "We've got to get off this helipad before Medflight shows up to drop off a heart for transplant surgery. So either get in, or I gotta get out of here and back to the racetrack. "

"Come on, " Smoke said. He, his girlfriend, and the road dogs climbed over the fence and held on to their MAC Tools, M amp;M, and Excedrin baseball caps as they ran through gusting rotor wash toward the 430.

Barbie and Hooter saw the bright helicopter pop up over the tops of buildings and speed away as Barbie turned into the empty parking lot of the courts buildings. She drove to the back, and instantly six desperate-looking men, including the reverend, rushed out of a wooded area and ran like hell toward the minivan, jerking open the doors and piling inside. It did not escape Hooter's attention that the men smelled unwashed, were unshaven, and had neither belts nor shoelaces. She knew inmates when she saw them, and froze in fear. Oh, oh, oh, what had she gotten herself into now? And wasn't that Mexican boy the same one she'd met at the toll-booth the other night?

"Drivel" Reverend Justice shouted.

"Yeah, get the fuck outta here!" Slim Jim screamed.

"Duck down!" Trader yelled.

"Man, you're crushing me!" Cat complained.

The men ducked down on the floor as Barbie shot out of the parking lot and noticed cop cars with flashing lights rushing toward the gloomy brick jail across the street.

"Just drive normal, " Hooter said, because somebody had to have a clear head and take control. "You be whizzing around like this and the police will stop us for sure. Then we gonna get arrested for helping convicts escape from jail. "

"What?" Barbie panicked, clutching the steering wheel in both hands. "Convicts?"

"We was unfairly arrested, Barbie, " the reverend said from the floor in back. "It's the Lord's will we got out and you're helping us. And I had no choice about it 'cause these other inmates forced me to act like I was rupturing something in my belly and when the guard burst inside the cell to help, I smacked him over the head with a food tray, just like Pinn had done to him when he used to work as a prison guard.

"So I got the idea from being on Head to Head with Pinn. Ain't it wondrous the way the Lord works?" Reverend Justice preached on. "If I hadn't been on that show, all 'cause of Moses Custer and the Neighborhood Watch I started down there near the Farmers' Market, well, I never would'ave thought to smack someone with a food tray. ' Course, if I hadn't been so over-stended and stressed out from all the publicity I suddenly was getting, I might not have tried to pick up that old woman for purposes of releasing myself, and then I never would'ave had to smack nobody with a food tray. "

Maybe it was just a superstition, but Moses Custer had always heard that if his ear itched, it meant someone was talking about him. As he rode in the governor's motorcade, Moses's right ear was itching something fierce beneath bandages, and he wondered if it might indicate that a lot of people out there knew he was a VIP guest in a long black limousine, and destined to sit in the governor's box at the race. He stared out tinted glass at backed-up traffic as the governor snored and his peculiar daughter with her jet-black helmet haircut kept staring down at her quivering cleavage while that tiny red horse stood in the woodchips and now and then stepped on Moses's foot.

Macovich, meanwhile, was trying to weave through traffic as he talked over the radio to Andy, who had turned the helicopter's intercom to crew only so the road dogs couldn't hear what he was saying.

"To make everything worse, " Macovich said into the mike, "six inmates just broke out of jail and cop cars are everywhere, so I'm telling you, it's a mess out here. I don't know when we'll get to the racetrack, but we gonna be late. "

"Look, I've got to go to Plan B, " Andy transmitted as the mobbed racetrack appeared a thousand feet below, in the distance.

"Wooo, seems like we should be on Plan G or H now, at least. "

"I'll do a high recon over the racetrack and just keep circling until you can get a bunch of uniformed cops to swarm onto the helipad so Smoke will change his mind and order me to take them to Tangier Island, " Andy came back.

"But we ain't got no undercover backups down there, man!" Macovich worried.

Andy looked down at thousands of fans waving wildly up at the helicopter and fighting to get close to the helipad.

"I wasn't expecting this and should have, " he said, "but Brett's fans are recognizing his bird and are going to storm us on the ground. Someone may get hurt or Smoke's going to get away. No way I'm setting down at the racetrack. "

"Ten-four, " Macovich came back. "I mean, roger. "

The stands were filling up as Andy switched on pulsing landing lights and began to slow down. He turned the intercom back to all so everyone in back could hear him through the headsets.

"We'll be landing in a few minutes, " Andy announced. "Now it's very important you follow instructions, for reasons of safety. When we set down, just keep your seats and the ground crew will get you out. "

Smoke was staring out his window. When the helipad came in sight, he noticed dozens of cops crowding onto it. Smoke also detected that there was something odd about the pilot's ponytail. It seemed to him that a minute ago, the ponytail had been centered, and now it was cock-eyed.

"What are all those cops doing?" Smoke said into his mike.