Patrick Lee - Ghost Country

Not far enough, Travis thought. Not nearly far enough. The plan had a giant drawback built into it: it was going to give away their position the instant they executed it. Which might be okay, as long as the plan worked. As long as its effect was immediate and overwhelming for Finn's people.

But for that to happen, they needed to cover a certain amount of distance first. The path they'd taken so far was a line from east to west, south of Yuma. Like they were underlining the city on a map, right to left. The longer they could make the line before everything happened, the more likely the plan was to succeed.

Distance and time. They needed more of one. They were running out of the other.

Nearly straight ahead of them, the sun's lower rim touched the horizon. T he mast was finished. Lambert and Miller stood armed with the others now, while the four with the guywires staked them into the ground.

Grayling was moving back and forth over his laptops, hunched, looking excited.

Finn could see sparse portions of the open lanes reading ninety-seven degrees now. Even the cars themselves were reading down around one hundred. T wo and a half miles. Still probably not enough. It was impossible to guess exactly what would be enough. The plan would work or it wouldn't.

The sun was gone. The desert felt immediately cooler, though Travis was sure that was a psychological effect. It'd been cooling steadily for a long time now. He let his hand press on the hood of a truck as he passed it. Warm, but not hot. " There!" Grayling said. His hand shot out to indicate the fifth laptop's screen. "South of southwest, a mile and a half away." He dropped to one knee and studied the monitor. "I see three of them. Christ, they're not even hiding. I've got direct line of sight. They're moving-straight west through the cars. I wouldn't say they're running. I don't know what the hell they're doing. It's like a fast walk, hunched over. Maybe they're tired."

"Then it won't be hard to catch them," Finn said.

He turned and picked up the cylinder from where he'd set it on the curb. A second later he was running, holding the cylinder with both hands and tucking it against himself. Lambert and Miller and the other eight fell in behind him.

This would be simple. Straight south out of town along one of the broad lanes among the cars, until they were level with the east-west line the others were fleeing along. Then just catch up to them from behind-maybe stick to a parallel path ten yards north of theirs until the last minute, to stay clear of the sightlines between the cars.

Finn freed a hand from the cylinder and took from his vest pocket the FLIR goggles he'd brought along. He hung them around his neck by their strap. They weren't necessary yet, but in another ten minutes the desert would be an ink-black void without them. His men each had them too.

Paige Campbell and her friends almost certainly didn't.

Finn really did feel bad for them. It wasn't even going to be a contest.

Three miles. Three fourths of the town underlined. The going was harder now: their muscles were sore and the channels between the cars lay deep in shadow.

Yuma looked strange in the twilight with no lights coming on. Just low, black rectangles against the dying sky. Nearer, the sea of cars made a single, undefined field of darkness.

The wind was much cooler. Under any other circumstances it would've felt soothing.

Travis stopped. There was no question that Finn and his people had seen them by now. No question that they were coming, that they were out there somewhere among the cars, threading this way.

Paige and Bethany stopped too.

The three of them met one another's eyes. F inn found the desert surprisingly easy to traverse. The inch-thick layer of rubber crumbs, the remnant of a few hundred million tires, made for a soft-and silent-running surface. Finn had incorporated running into his exercise regimen years ago, not long after settling down in D.C. His mile time varied between 6:30 and 6:50. His men, most of them with twenty years on him, were all at least that fast.

They'd completed the southern arm of the sprint and were well along the westbound track now. They had their FLIR goggles on. The desert looked spectral through them. The cars were bluish white, while the passageways between them were shrouded in deep indigo and black. It was like running through a photo negative.

Finn held up a hand and brought the men to a stop.

He set the cylinder down beside a pickup, then climbed onto the sidewall of the truck's bed. He balanced himself against the cab and surveyed the desert.

Christ, they were right there. Six cars west and four cars south. They were crouched low; Finn could see only the reflection of their heat signature against the side of a minivan.

Were they hiding because they'd heard the approach? Finn ruled it out. They couldn't have heard.

The answer was simpler than that. They could no longer find their way in the dark. There was no moon. No light glow bleeding into the sky from distant cities. There was starlight, but starlight was worthless. Human eyes, even dark-adjusted for hours, couldn't see a thing by it. Finn had faced that fact a number of times, in remote places all over the world.

Miss Campbell and the others had stopped because they simply couldn't go on. They were crouched as low as they could get, hoping it was enough.

Finn considered waiting for them to go to sleep. Then they could be executed without even knowing it, and spared the jolt of animal terror that would otherwise mark their final seconds as the shooting started.

He thought of it and then discarded it. They would probably post a watch. That person would sit awake for hours, anxious and miserable, listening for footsteps in the dark. And that was its own kind of pain. No need to prolong it.

He turned to step down from the truck-but stopped.

He'd smelled something. Just briefly. It'd come to him on the breeze, blowing northward over the cars.

He tilted his head up and inhaled. Couldn't detect it again, whatever it was. He tried to place it, based on the trace of it he'd gotten. Somehow it made him think of gun lubricant, but that wasn't quite it.

He took another breath, still couldn't reacquire it, and let it go. Maybe it was the natural odor of tens of millions of cars, mothballed in the desert for all time. It occurred to him only for a second to question that idea-to wonder how any smell at all would still be around after seven decades of sun and wind-and then he stepped down from the pickup and waved the men forward again.

They rounded the truck's front end and went south. Finn stopped them again one channel north of the row the others were crouched in, and led them west. They would drop down into the same pathway as Miss Campbell when they were two cars shy, and simply rush them. It would begin and end in seconds. As close to painless as circumstances afforded. T ravis took the first glove box item from his pocket. He shook it next to his ear. Empty as expected. Even though it was nearly a sealed container, its trace contents would've no doubt evaporated long ago, even in the sun-sheltered interior of a dashboard.

It didn't matter. The item should serve its purpose here, regardless.

He lowered it until it was nearly touching the bed of tire crumbs. F inn brought the men to a halt at the near edge of one of the broad north-south lanes. He could see the victims' heat signature against the minivan, one channel south and two cars past the far side of the lane. He was sure all the men could see them too. No need to plan the final move. They knew what to do now. Finn stepped forward into the lane, and simply got out of their way. He sidestepped to the left. Waved them on.

They advanced, single file, angling across the lane toward the channel in which the victims were crouched. L ambert took point as Finn moved aside. He moved slowly, silently, one step per second. No need to rush.