JANE HAWK KNEW the desert offered unique beauty, but under the current circumstances, this stark realm seemed to have been salted and otherwise poisoned. What little grew across the pale surrounding plain appeared misshapen and threatening, as though the roots of all the local flora extended far down into infernal regions, originating in the tortured souls of the citizens of that deep darkness.

When they had first arrived here, the land had seemed to speak to her, and now she felt that it repeated what it had said then: The boy is mine now and forever.

They had arrived on County Highway S22, but they were leaving on State Highway 78 to avoid encountering the same agents at the same roadblock. Bernie had entered the valley as ordinary Albert Neary, but he was leaving with an FBI escort, which couldn’t be easily explained to those who remembered him from a few hours earlier.

Luther drove five miles below the speed limit. They didn’t want to appear to be fleeing and thereby draw undue interest. In the motor home, Bernie remained only three car lengths behind them.

Traffic seemed heavier than normal, nearly all of it outbound from the valley. The motorists who passed the Tiffin and Suburban were traveling much faster than the speed limit. Although nothing about the people glimpsed in those vehicles confirmed their panic, Jane suspected an urgent exodus was under way, inspired by extreme, bizarre violence witnessed and rumored.

She had a second thirty-two-round drum for the Auto Assault-12. The barrel of the shotgun was still warm when she changed out the depleted magazine.

Whether the search operation had learned that she was in an FBI Suburban or whether that discovery died with the crew of the Airbus, security at all the roadblocks had surely tightened in the hours since she arrived. The professionals hunting her possessed intuition no less keen than hers. They would feel in their bones that this was the day when she would come, that she was among them, and in fact that she might already have her boy and be on the way out.

Furthermore, they evidently had augmented their searchers with a cadre of adjusted people, and something had gone terribly wrong. The ensuing chaos gave them another reason to conduct tighter searches of every outbound and inbound vehicle. They might even seal off the valley for the duration and allow no one to enter or leave.

She couldn’t risk the motor home being subjected to a closer inspection than it had received earlier in the day. She and Luther would try to bluff their way through the roadblock with Bureau ID and badges that she’d gotten on Monday from her source in Reseda.

Duke and Queenie might give them away; however, the dogs might as likely add credibility to their story of escorting a VIP Arcadian out of the chaos zone. Yes, it was known that Gavin and Jessica Washington owned a pair of German shepherds. But Jane suspected most of these elitist Arcadian creeps would be unable to imagine that she might risk rescuing the dogs along with her boy. Their ethics, such as any existed, were utilitarian ethics. Were their roles and hers reversed, they would abandon the dogs or even kill them rather than bring them along. Fortunately, Duke and Queenie were of the breed most often trained to assist law-enforcement officers, and the Bureau employed a kennel’s worth of them.

After certain events in Iron Furnace, Kentucky, Luther had been publicly connected to Jane. However, he hadn’t been at her side during subsequent hits she made on Arcadians in Orange County, California, and Lake Tahoe. They might think he had died or gone to ground in grief over the nanoweb enslavement of his wife and older daughter, unwilling to risk his remaining child, Jolie, by further helping America’s most-wanted fugitive. Luther could not disguise his race or his size, but his shaved head, beard, and new wardrobe might be enough to avoid suspicion.

As for Jane, she was being Elinor Dashwood. Shoulder-length blond hair long gone. Pixie-cut chestnut-brown wig. Colored contact lenses to turn her blue eyes brown. Stage-prop glasses. A simple disguise was nearly always successful if worn with confidence. Never avoid eye contact. When stared at, stare back. When flirted with, flirt in return. Don’t evade casual conversations with strangers; in fact, initiate them. Know who Elinor Dashwood is, and then be her.

They were approaching the crest of a low rise when Luther said, “Something’s on fire.”

A dark column churned high into the faded-blue sky. Three vultures circled the smoke as though it bore the scent of charred carrion that whet their appetite.

The Suburban topped the rise. Half a mile ahead, lightbars flashed on the barricading vehicles, one of which burned furiously.

20

THE WATER SURGING IN THE GUTTERS bears upon it phosphorescent laces of foam. Deprived of wind, the rain falls hard in plumb lines. Thin scarves of fog do not race like the rain, but instead wander through the day to a different tempo, like lost spirits seeking some final resting place, glowing with the lightning as if each bolt is a welcoming call that lures them toward some far shore.

The scene is beautiful, and it is crafted solely to enhance the drama of what Egon Gottfrey will soon do. Yet he’s weary of it.

Here in eastern Texas, in the central time zone, perhaps half an hour of daylight remains, but the dark-gray overcast is so thick that the sun seems already to be setting behind the swollen clouds. He is eager to proceed and would approach the target house now if only the storm would relent.

A moment later, the volume of rain diminishes. Becomes a light drizzle. The drizzle becomes sprinkles. The arsenal of Heaven seems to have fired its last thunderbolt. In the gathering gloom, the rain entirely stops.

21

LUTHER SAID, “THIS DOESN’T LOOK GOOD.”

Vehicles had been ordered off the road and were parked on the flanking desert, three long parallel rows beside the outbound lane, many fewer along the inbound side. Agents wearing FBI T-shirts and baseball caps were carrying riot guns and watching over the restive motorists in their cars and trucks. The Bureau boys looked pissed, as though they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot out tires—maybe even a windshield—if one of the drivers they’d ordered into limbo decided to tramp on the accelerator and take off.

Jane said, “If we are who we say we are, we’ll play it bold. Drive straight into it but slow.”

In the eastbound lane, a disabled Dodge Charger, which perhaps had been serving as a barricade, had been T-boned at high speed by a Cadillac Escalade. The Charger was on its side, afire. The front doors stood open on the Caddy.

Evidently run down by the Escalade, two mangled corpses—one male, one female—lay in the eastbound lane.

As Luther pulled around the dead to proceed slowly eastbound in the westbound lane, an armed agent waved him vigorously toward the shoulder of the highway.

“We’re coming straight at them, so they can’t see the FBI on the roof and doors,” Luther said.

“Or maybe the Airbus pilot got the word out, and these guys are on to our game.”

Jane put down the window in her door as Luther lowered his. She held out the badge in her right hand, raised high for all to see, as Luther offered his in his left hand.

The agent still waved them insistently to the side of the road, and two other men warily moved forward with their shotguns raised, one to each flank of the Suburban.

With the motor home close behind, Luther braked to a stop, but didn’t leave the pavement.

The Auto Assault-12 stood between Jane’s knees, butt on the floor, muzzle aimed toward the ceiling. Under the circumstances, it availed her nothing. Any attempt to use it would draw instant fire from the two approaching agents.

The man who came to the driver’s side saw FBI on the door, but he didn’t lower his weapon. Blood spattered his face, maybe not his own blood. From a distance, Jane had thought these men looked angry, and they did, but they were also terrified, wide-eyed and as pale as soap, wound so tight that if a neural spring failed, there could be unintended shotgun fire.

“What’s happened here?” Luther asked.

Staying three steps back from the driver’s door, the agent spoke as if Luther’s simple question was an affront. “What happened here? What do you think happened here? What’s it look like happened here. Freakin’ zombies happened, like they’re happening everywhere.”

The agent on Jane’s side said, “In like ten seconds one of our guys had his face chewed apart, torn off. What kind of crazy bastard can do that, can even think of doing it?”

Luther said, “That’s why we’ve been ordered to escort the man in the motor home the hell out of here.”

The bloodied agent looked toward the Tiffin Allegro. “Who’s he, he gets an escort?”