THIRTY-TWO... mutually assured destruction

                                        

                                              
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
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"John B's gonna get nabbed sooner or later. So if we're gonna clear his name, we need to have done it like, yesterday." Kie scoffed and shook her head as they sat by the docks next to her family's restaurant, assembled there together to discuss their next course of action to exonerate John B. 
The first thing Collins should've been doing, is getting ahead of the long list of assignments she had stacked ahead of her for the classes that she'd spent all day listening to syllabi for. But obviously, priorities had been rearranged and now, freeing John B from his title as fugitive was at the top of the pile. As it should. Collins knew that until they were able to bring him home, she wouldn't be able to focus on anything else. Thus, the quicker they sorted this out, the better for more reasons beyond just one.
"So are we going to the Bahamas or what?" JJ propositioned. He was the most eager about John B's rise from the dead out of all of them. He was impatient and wanted to do whatever it took to speed things up. 
"There is no way that is happening." Pope deadpanned, Collins nodding in agreement. 
"Pope's right. Aside from the fact that it would be next to near impossible for us, if we're gonna prove John B's innocence, it starts right here. This is the scene of the crime."
"Okay, then I propose my second idea." JJ said. "We kidnap Rafe."
Kie and Pope simultaneously rolled their eyes at the boy while Collins just shook her head in disapproval. "I'm sorry, what?"
"We kidnap Rafe, tie him up, stick a gun in his mouth and just wait til he starts squawking." There was a smug smirk on JJ's face, and though all of them wanted nothing more than to see the Cameron boy get what he deserved, the method of doing so that JJ was proposing didn't suit any of them well. 
"You know, torture's a war crime." Kie pointed out bluntly. 
"And how exactly do you plan on clearing John B's name from a prison cell? Because that's a felony." Pope remarked sardonically. 
JJ huffed and sat down in defeat. "All right, well what do you guys got? I was just trying to keep it simple. You know, one stop, and we're done."
"Guys, all we need is a material witness." Pope told them. 
"Someone who would've been there when it all went down." Collins pitched in. This was how she and Pope worked, building off of each other's ideas until they could find the answer to their big question. Two brains became one big giant brain. It had been a pretty solid strategy for them so far. "Like I said, the scene of the crime. The airstrip?"
Pope nodded, and they could practically see the gears turning in his head. "We saw Ward's plane fly over our heads, with the gold inside of it. He didn't fly it. If somebody else flew, they were there on the tarmac. They saw Peterkin get murdered."
"So we just have to find out who that was, and get them to confess on record." Collins stated, though it couldn't be as simple as her words implied. "Preferably without tying them up and sticking a gun in their mouth." It felt like she needed to make that disclaimer for a certain individual in particular. 
JJ grabbed her head and kissed the top of it before moving on to do the same to Pope, who didn't accept it as graciously as Collins did. "I fucking love it when you two put your genius heads together."