Jenna turned the corner of the building and gestured for Mercy to hurry. The approaching glow was much brighter now. She figured they had only a few seconds left before the unknown visitor rounded the corner for the final approach to the silo building.
“Is this good?” Mercy called.
Jenna nodded. “Keep it running but no lights.”
“Aren’t you going to get in?”
Jenna knew that was what she should do, but her curiosity about the identity of the visitor overpowered her logic. It might be a late-night thrillseeker or some kids coming out to party at the abandoned rocket facility. It might be a cop, investigating the open gate, perhaps responding to reports of activity on the closed road. That would be bad, but Jenna’s real concern was that it might be something even worse. She remained at the edge of the structure, the gun gripped tightly in her hand, her thumb hovering above the safety catch, and she watched as the headlights appeared.
They came fast. So fast that Jenna felt certain, even without being able to see for herself, that her worst suspicions were about to be confirmed. In a matter of seconds, the car arrived in the parking area and pulled in behind Carlos’s rental. She couldn’t make out any details about the vehicle itself, but when the doors were thrown open, three men got out. As they ran into the building, she recognized them.
Zack and company. How did they find us here?
The answer came to her almost as quickly as the question. Not us. They followed Mercy.
She ran back to the car and opened the door. The dome light came on, but she was pretty sure it wouldn’t be visible to the driver in the other car.
As soon as she was in with the door closed, she turned to Mercy. “Do you still have your phone?”
“Sure.” Mercy held up the device. “I don’t think you’ll get a signal out here.”
Jenna took it and hurled it out the window.
Mercy let out a gasp. “Hey!”
“They tracked you here.” Jenna didn’t offer any further explanation, and Mercy didn’t argue, but now she wore an apologetic expression. “They’re inside. If we’re lucky, they won’t be able to see us in the dark, and it will be a few minutes before they realize we’re not here anymore.”
Mercy put the car in gear and let it roll forward. “And if we’re not lucky?”
Jenna shrugged. “Drive like hell?”
“That worked so well last time,” Mercy grumbled. She steered wide, swinging as far out into the darkness as she dared, careful not to touch the brakes, lest a flare of red light give them away. Jenna’s attention flickered between the nearly impenetrable darkness ahead and the bright square of illumination that was the building’s entrance. There was movement within, and Jenna strained her ears, listening for shouts of alarm that might indicate they had been spotted. A moment later they were past the parked cars and headed down the faintly visible stripe of white that was the concrete road. Jenna looked back, watching for some sign of pursuit, but it appeared that their stealthy escape had worked.
“Faster,” Jenna urged.
“I’m going faster than I can see already,” Mercy retorted through gritted teeth.
Jenna pursed her lips and kept watch through the rear window. Not that there was anything to see. The building had been swallowed up by the night.
Suddenly the world lit up red. Mercy had tapped the brakes, just enough to make the northward turn without losing control. Jenna let it pass without comment, but as the red glow vanished, she saw a warmer yellow light in the distance directly behind them, and her heart sank.
“They’re coming.”
26
Mercy kept the lights off even though it meant sacrificing speed for stealth. Jenna took out Carlos’s phone and searched through the history until she found the map she had used earlier to find the Aerojet facility. She had memorized it upon her first inspection, but her attention had been focused on navigating to the silo building.
“There’s a side road coming up on the right,” she said.
“I won’t be able to see it.”
Jenna eyed the little dot on the screen that monitored their progress. “Couple more seconds. I’ll tell you when.”
Mercy let off on the gas and peered into the darkness along the roadside. Jenna saw the faint gap in the foliage. “There. Turn now.”
Mercy wheeled the car onto the siding. There was a crunch of snapping twigs as the left front tire rolled through the brush, but Mercy corrected and found the pavement once more. On the display screen, the little dot was centered on the line that marked the road, and in a matter of just a few seconds, they were halfway to the cluster of squares that marked the derelict Aerojet buildings.
“Stop here.”
Mercy did, and the brake lights flashed again behind them, but she quickly shifted into ‘park’ and shut off the car. Jenna leaned her head out the window and found the bright glow that marked the advancing vehicle. It was close enough that she began to wonder if the men in the car might have seen them turn off. She unconsciously squeezed the gun in her hand and held her breath as the light grew closer, closer…
The car passed without slowing.
Jenna let out her breath in a long sigh, but she had to be sure the ruse had worked. She threw open the door and got out, looking over the car’s roof until she found the glow again, moving away in a northward direction. While it was impossible to judge their speed, she figured it would take the men about ten minutes to reach the highway, if they drove at a reasonable speed. If they threw caution to the wind, they could probably do it in three.
Something about the receding glow changed. It dimmed for a few seconds, and then returned, brighter than before.
Jenna’s breath caught again. They were coming back. She was sure of it. But why? Had one of them seen the car? A lucky guess? She glanced down at the phone, wondering if they were tracking its GPS locator, as they had done with Mercy’s. It seemed impossible that they could have identified Carlos so quickly or known that she now had his phone, but if there was even a chance that the phone was leading the killers to them, it would have to go.
She studied the map again, committing every detail to memory. About a mile ahead, the road intersected a canal, but there was an access road that ran alongside the waterway. There would probably be another gate at the end of that road, but it looked like their only option. She cocked her arm, preparing to hurl the phone away, but then stopped.
Over the tick of the rental car’s cooling engine and the low cacophony of insect noise, she heard a persistent whirring sound that reminded her of a leaf-blower or a small outboard motor. She tried to isolate the sound, but it did not change when she turned her head. It sounded distant, yet everywhere. She looked up at the night sky, seeing nothing, but detecting the sound’s source.
With widening eyes, Jenna realized what the sound was and why the men in the car had turned back. She rejoined Mercy.
“We have to go,” she said. “They’re tracking us with a drone.”
“A drone?” Mercy was incredulous.
“Go!”
Jenna’s mind raced. She knew nothing about surveillance drones beyond the fact of their existence. She had seen them in the sky a few times during charter trips. Various government agencies used them to patrol the Gulf, looking for drug smugglers. Noah had pointed them out to her—UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, that’s the technical name for them—but none of his lessons had included what to do in the event that a drone was stalking her.