And for the first time in 23 years, he was not thinking about the second plate. He was thinking about tomorrow, which was in its own quiet way the most dangerous thought he had ever had.
Because men like Grim did not make plans for tomorrow. Men like Grim operated in the present tense, in the immediate, in the tactical now.
Tomorrow was for people who believed they were going to get there. And believing you were going to get there required believing you deserve to.
He had stopped believing that a long time ago. But something had shifted tonight.
Something in the specific weight of a 7-year-old girl's arms around his neck. Something in the flat, careful, ancient eyed steadiness of a 12-year-old who had walked 25 miles in the rain because his mother had told him to find someone safe.
Something in all of it had moved a thing inside Grim that he had believed for a very long time was no longer capable of moving. He didn't know what to do with that yet, but it was there.
And then Danny's phone buzzed. He looked at it.
His expression shifted. He looked at Grim.
We've got a problem, Danny said. And the sound of the first engine reached them from the parking lot.
Not one engine, several. Several engines, not bikes, trucks.
Danny knew the difference the way any man knows the difference between sounds that mean nothing and sounds that mean something has begun. He was already moving to the window before Grim had set down his coffee cup.
And what he saw in the parking lot made him pull back from the glass and turn around with the particular controlled expression of someone who needs the next 30 seconds to go exactly right. Four trucks, Danny said.
I count seven, eight men, Clay's people. A beat and the deputy's cruiser is parked at the far end.
Lights off. Grim sat down his cup.
He didn't rush. He didn't raise his voice.
He looked around the diner with a slow, systematic attention, taking inventory of what he had, what he didn't have, and what the next hour required of him. The trucker who had stayed, Frank and Dolores near the window, Millie behind the counter, Danny and Jesse beside him, and the diner itself, one front door, one back door, a kitchen with a service exit that Marco had left through 40 minutes ago with Sarah and the kids in Frank's sedan.
Marco was long gone. Sarah was long gone.
The children were long gone, which meant everything that was about to happen in this parking lot was happening for reasons that had nothing to do with getting them out safely. They were already out.
This was something else. This was Clay Mercer making a point.
He knows they got out, Grim said. Has to, Danny said.
Otherwise, why come here? Why not go to Laughlin and cut them off on the road?
Because he can't, Jesse said. He had pressed himself against the wall beside the hallway and his voice was tight but clear of him.
The roadblock. It was his deputy's operation.
If he sends those guys to Laughlin, he has to explain why he has to loop in more people. He has to put more of it on record.
He paused. He can't do this officially anymore.
So, he's doing it the other way. He's coming to send a message.