Corrie and Skip continued leading the way, trending northward by a circuitous route. And then Skip stopped. “Listen,” he whispered.

A faint hum could be heard to the south, sounding like a distant lawn mower—or, perhaps, several.

“Drones,” said Skip.

The three cast around, but there was no place to take refuge—just brush and large boulders. The sounds got louder.

“Low flying,” said Skip. “They’re going to see us.”

And then several black outlines appeared out of the south, moving slowly across the night sky: no lights, visible only by their blotting out of the stars. Just the sight turned Nora’s mouth dry.

“Flatten against a rock!” Skip urged.

They did so. The drones passed low overhead. At first they appeared to keep flying on, but then the sounds of their engines changed as they began to loop around.

“They spotted us,” said Skip. “Move!”

They stumbled through the boulder field, weaving this way and that as the drones homed in. There was a flash, followed by a deep whooshing sound.

“Down!” Skip cried.

Nora threw herself down next to a large boulder, cramming herself against its underside. There was a bright flash, then an ear-popping roar of overpressure. Shrapnel zinged and snapped among the boulders.

“Keep moving!” Skip screamed. They leapt up and ran, stumbling and half-blind, through the dark boulder field as the remaining drones again disappeared beyond the hills. But from the sound, Nora could tell they were turning for another pass.

They came around a hill, and the Gower Ranch house abruptly came into view, spread across a dark basin below them.

“Shit,” said Corrie. “We’re sitting ducks.”

“The hot spring!” Skip cried a moment later. He turned to Nora. “You said there was one on the hillside above the ranch.”

Nora turned toward the tall cottonwoods where the general had mentioned the spring was. The drones were now approaching again, moving low and slow. She was about to protest, but Skip and Corrie were already scrambling along the hillside, heading for the trees. They entered the grove and there—coming out of the rock—was a steaming rivulet of water, rimmed and crusted with travertine. It flowed into a man-made pool, crudely constructed of rocks, with more tendrils of steam hanging above it.

“In!” said Skip.

“What—?” Nora began, but Skip grabbed her hand with a curse, pulling her into the hot water.

“Lie down,” he said.

The steamy water enclosed Nora in a sweltering embrace, only her head above the surface. The drones passed overhead with a nasty buzzing sound and continued on.

“Wait,” Skip warned in a low tone.

The drones made another pass, this time farther apart. Then they flew past yet again, widening their search pattern.

“Their thermal cameras can’t make us out,” said Skip. “Not in all this heat.”

The drones flew on, their search pattern drifting west, and soon the sound of their engines had vanished.

“They’ve lost us,” Skip said. “Let’s go while we still have time.”

Emerging from the hot springs, steaming in the cool fall air, they jogged northward, keeping within the complicated maze of foothills and dry washes. They had made an abrupt turn to reach the springs, and it appeared the pursuing soldiers had lost them, too.

They topped the next ridge and scrambled down the other side, Nora scraping her hands badly in the process.

Reaching the bottom, they sprinted across a ravine, which soon turned into a warren of steep canyons choked with boulders and tributaries. Corrie was now leading, and at every turn she picked the most difficult way, but always trending in the direction of the north star. It was a nightmare trek, moving in the dark among boulders and fallen trees, brush and landslides—one of the nastiest landscapes Nora had ever been in, at times almost impassable. But what was hard for them would be hard for their pursuers, and she couldn’t imagine better country in which to lose a tracker.

*

An hour later, scratched, exhausted, and bleeding, Corrie finally stopped. Nora was nauseous, physically shattered. Pure adrenaline was the only thing that had been keeping them going.

“I think we’ve lost them,” said Skip. “Really lost them this time.”

“Let’s not count on it,” said Corrie.

“We should be east of the navy station,” said Nora. “I think we should turn west, head down and out of the mountains, and make a beeline for it, hoping to get there before we’re cut off.” She was aware that neither she nor the others had the energy for further evasive tactics in that rough country.

“They may already know we’re headed there,” said Corrie.

Skip shook his head. “We’ve got no choice. Literally.”

Two minutes later, after the briefest of rests, they turned and headed down a narrow ravine choked with junipers. After another half hour of pushing through the brush, the endless ribbons of washes and ravines opened into grassy foothills—and there, half a mile away on the flat, was the cluster of lights of the navy station.

“Looks quiet,” said Skip.

Venturing out onto the plain, they had to come out of cover. The desert was flat and featureless, dotted with creosote bushes, sparse clumps of grass, and low, sprawling prickly pears.