Book 1: Revelation at Tikal — Ch 28: Locks and Leaving

Chapter 28 — "Locks and Leaving"

Panama City greets Cutty and Paula with heat, noise, and the last thing they wanted to see in a mirror: the Foundation's battered white van, back in the game and shoving through traffic with David hanging out the window shouting about callings and star convergence. Cutty doesn't outrun it. He outsteers it — threading the BMW through a gap built for a motorcycle, not a van, until the van plows into a bus and slides sideways into a waiting police sedan. A Panamanian sergeant, unimpressed by prophecy and very impressed by a clean-looking rider with his papers in order, impounds the van, processes its crew, and hands Cutty his card along with an offer to buy the BMW.

At the bank, a stack of refunded traveler's checks and a TV news crawl collide: a press conference for the "Luminous Path Foundation," and the man in the linen suit, calm on camera, one lingering shot too long. He isn't hiding anymore. He's holding a press conference. At the Miraflores Locks, the Canal does its slow, engineered miracle while a rust-streaked freighter called Verapaz Star eases through, its name painted over an older one — Verapaz, cardamom country, the same province Father Felipe named as Foundation territory, one more coincidence that refuses to feel like one.

By nightfall, Cutty and Paula find their boat captain, Mateo Igwais, and buy passage to San Blas for tomorrow, first light — every dollar they have against a scatter of islands and a sister who may not want to be found. In a mildewed room by the harbor, Paula finally says the quiet part out loud: there's a point coming where chasing Floey and staying with Cutty stop being the same road, and when they reach it, she'll have to choose.

In this episode:
- A motorcycle-versus-van chase through Panama City that ends with the zealots' van folded into a bus and a cop.
- Sergeant Herrera: impound lot justice, a business card, and an offer to buy the BMW.
- The Luminous Path Foundation goes public — a press conference, a philanthropist's name nobody quite catches, and a man too comfortable on camera.
- Miraflores Locks: the Verapaz Star, painted over an older name, and Cutty's dream of coming back with a boat of his own someday.
- Finding Mateo Igwais, the boat captain who can get them to San Blas — for nearly everything they own.
- Paula's warning: the road she's on with Cutty and the road he's on for his sister won't stay the same road forever.

A line to carry out:
"It means there's a point where chasing your sister and being with you stop being the same road. And when we reach it, I'm going to have to choose."

Tomorrow, first light, they get on a boat headed straight into someone else's prophecy.

Part of the Cutty Braughn literary-thriller trilogy — one man, a motorcycle, and a hunt across Central America, 1977–1980s, where the deadliest thing on the road is a polite instruction typed on a distant desk.