…Minus 031 and COUNTING… The service ramp described a rising

Richards drives slowly up the service ramp toward the Northern States Terminal, passing lines of heavily armed police. The police do not fire; instead they watch him with blank awe as he continues through the open service-area gate.

Inside the service area, Richards passes tanker trucks, private planes, and the taxiway. A large white jumbo jet waits with its engines running, and workers move a stairway into place. Richards sees the stairway as leading to a scaffold, emphasizing that the promised escape may actually be a setup for execution.

Evan McCone steps out from the shadow of the plane and confronts Richards. McCone formally identifies the Games Federation order for Richards’s apprehension and execution, then coolly praises Richards’s performance: his record-breaking survival time, his escape from the Boston YMCA, and his inventiveness during earlier stages of the chase.

McCone makes clear that the situation has changed because “the woman” has broken under Sodium Pentothal, implying that Richards’s leverage has been compromised. McCone draws a small automatic pistol, declares that the game is over, and says he will execute Richards privately, away from the cameras.

Richards responds with a grin and steps out of the car. The chapter ends with Richards and McCone facing each other across the service-area concrete.