Cavalier

Chapter Fifteen

His palms are sweaty against the steering wheel.

A knock at his window makes him jump, and one look at the unimpressed border guard outside makes him think, crap. He forgot to roll down his window. This is already off to a brilliant start. Cool, David, you have to act cool, you have to not freak out, if you can face a really big genetically modified soldier you can do this—

He pulls away from his train of thought; it's not helping anything. He smiles his most charming smile and says, "Sorry," hoping that the Philistines don't have too many pictures of him smiling.

The border guard, a stern looking man, says, "Don't cross the border much, do you?"

David's brain is full of technicalities as it tries to figure out how many times he's actually crossed into Philistine territory with his unit on one of the many ridiculous missions that they were sent on. David's mouth, however, says, "No."

The border guard nods. "Passport?"

It takes David under thirty seconds to locate it. He thinks it's a pretty good time, for not being able to remember if it was still in the envelop (and how suspicious would that look?) or if he'd moved it.

When he passes it through the window to the guard, his hand is only shaking a little bit. Barely noticeable to the untrained eye.

The border guard goes back into his booth to scan David's passport, and even though David would really like to watch he manages to keep his eyes trained forward. He doesn't turn to look until he hears the door to the booth open, which is a small eternity later. "Where are you going today, Mr. Fava?"

"Sightseeing," David answers, and when the guard looks skeptical he says, "It's on my bucket list. Planning on coming back in a week, if everything goes according to plan."

That last part is a little bit of a lie. If everything goes well, David has no intent of coming back across the border. He's going to stay in Philistia until President Saul is no longer a problem or he gets found out and taken in as a political prisoner never to see the light of day again.

The border guard hands him back his passport. "Can you pop the trunk?"

David fumbles for the lever. It takes ten seconds.

He puts his passport away while the man looks in the trunk, praying fervently that he and Ahimelech covered up the sword knife well enough. He holds his breath and is just starting to get desperate for oxygen when a dull thump sounds and his car rocks just a little bit.

The border guard is back at his window. "Do you have anything with you that you're planning on leaving in Philistia?"

"No, sir," David says.

"Enjoy your trip, Mr. Fava."

David blinks as the border guard steps back into his booth. Is that it? He inches his car slowly forward and the border guard doesn't get out to stop him. No specialist team with automatic rifles descends to apprehend him. He keeps driving, picking up speed now, away from the customs building.

That's it.

He's in Philistine territory.

He's breathing only a little bit easier.

-

David remembers asking his oldest brothers what it was like in Gath back before he became a shepherd and when they were around more. Eliab had to commute there at least biweekly for meetings and negotiations and stuff, a rising star in his company that was entrusted with the wellbeing of the Gath office. Abinadab dated a girl from there once, when he was going through his rebellious stage, and it's where Shammah went to college before everything got irrevocably hostile.