The track finally vanished at the edge of a long abandoned field that was overrun with tall, swaying grasses glowing in the low sunlight.
‘End of the line,’ Amber said as she observed the field.
‘Only if you don’t know what you’re looking for,’ Ethan replied as he surveyed the terrain ahead.
‘Since when did you become the great white hunter?’ Amber asked.
Ethan did not reply as he looked through the various copses of trees and saw what he was looking for probably half a mile in the distance.
‘It’s that way,’ he pointed.
Lopez frowned as she looked at the distant valleys and hills. ‘What, our doom in the wilderness?’
‘The prepper community,’ Stanley said as he followed Ethan across the overgrown field.
Ethan smiled as Lopez rolled her eyes and followed them, and decided to put her out of her misery.
‘Any decent size community requires crops if they’re completely self — sufficient,’ Ethan said. ‘These fields are all long overgrown and abandoned, but those near that hillside look like they’ve been tended recently and possibly ploughed. It’s a good bet that the community’s somewhere over there, possibly concealed within the trees.’
‘Top marks, Mr Warner,’ Stanley said. ‘Hopefully we’ll be able to stay with them for long enough to come up with an alternative plan of action. Right now, I feel as though I have half the country’s armed forces chasing after me.’
‘Frankly, you probably do,’ Lopez said unhelpfully. ‘But hey, we’ll be safe out here living in mud huts with a bunch of tree — huggers.’
‘Would you rather be in DC?’ Stanley demanded.
‘I’d rather be in a hotel in some out of the way place, with a beer and some potato chips,’ Lopez replied. ‘I don’t get why we have to be all Cody Lundin about this.’
Ethan ignored Lopez’s grumbling as he led the way through a dense copse of trees that separated the abandoned fields from the ploughed ones he’d seen from the track. The trees virtually blotted out the darkening sky above, already speckled with a thousand tiny stars that flickered like beacons as he walked carefully in the darkness.
‘I can’t see a damned thing,’ Amber muttered miserably, then cursed as her foot smacked into a gnarled tree root.
Ethan was about to answer when he froze mid — stride on the track, the hairs on his neck tingling as he stared into the darkness.
‘What is it?’ Lopez asked, whispering as she almost clairvoyantly sensed the sudden tension in Ethan.
Ethan saw her raise her chin slightly as she detected the same threat as he had done. The odour on the air was faint, just enough to stand out from the pristine scent of the forest itself, as the breeze carried a waft of tobacco and old fabric past them.
Ethan knew that the source of the odour could not be more than a few yards away to have carried so easily on the almost still air, and even before he could say anything he saw a figure step out onto the track before them, a shadow against the shadows, and heard the sound of a shotgun being cocked, pump action.
‘Don’t move.’
The voice was threatening, and Ethan realized that they had technically trespassed on private land.
‘We already stopped,’ Ethan managed to quip, hoping to defuse any confrontation quickly. ‘We were looking for somebody.’
‘Who?’
Ethan could not make out the individual’s appearance in the gloom, but he was smart enough to be standing well out of reach of Ethan or any of his companions, and Ethan had the sense that he might be willing to open fire if he felt truly threatened.
Lopez’s voice cut through the silence.
‘Somebody who can help us,’ she said.
Smart move, make us sound like we’re defenceless and on the run, which in fact they actually were, Ethan realized. It was Stanley who stepped forward, his hands in the air.
‘I’m looking for Jesse McVey,’ he said. ‘Is he still living out here?’
The figure turned slightly to look at Stanley and Ethan heard the man dig around in his jacket for a moment.
‘Who’s askin’?’
‘Stanley Meyer, I’m here to see if Jesse might be willing to … ’
A brilliant light blazed into their eyes and Ethan squinted and turned his head away in an attempt to protect his night vision, but already all he could see was a blurry orb of light seared onto his retina.
‘Jesus, will you cut it out?!’ Lopez snapped. ‘We’re unarmed, okay?!’
Ethan squinted past the bright light as the man stared at Stanley for a long beat and then lowered the flashlight.
‘The Stanley Meyer?’ he asked in apparent amazement. ‘The steam car builder?!’
Stanley nodded, rubbing his eyes.
‘I’ve moved on a bit from cars now,’ he replied.
Ethan saw the shotgun turned aside and made safe as the man strode forward, a broad grin on his features, his hair a brilliant red that sparkled in the flashlight’s glow, a thin beard adorning his jaw.
‘I’ll be damned,’ he gasped. ‘It is you.’
‘You’ve got a fan club?’ Lopez asked Stanley.
‘You bet your last damned dollar he has,’ the man replied, extending one hand and shaking Stanley’s so vigorously Ethan thought he might yank it from its socket. ‘This guy virtually revolutionized car travel, until the government stepped in and banned his inventions.’
‘They didn’t ban them, exactly,’ Stanley said. ‘They claimed the boilers in the cars were unsafe.’
‘Unsafe my ass!’ the man boomed. ‘I’ve been driving a Lincoln with one of your boilers in it for the last ten years! It’s never gone wrong, not once!’
‘Who are you?’ Amber asked, bemused.
‘My name is Jesse McVey,’ he replied in delight. ‘And you are all welcome here. Follow me, it’s this way.’
Jesse turned, and without checking that they were actually following him he set off into the now blackened forests.
‘Douglas Jarvis?’
The FBI agents arrived even before Jarvis had the chance to book out of the building and head for the parking lot. As he approached the security pen that protected the main building from the foyer beyond, guards at their posts alongside each check — point and scanner, so they flooded into the building and locked eyes with him immediately.
Jarvis considered retreating into the building once more, but he knew that it would be a pointless exercise. General Nellis would then have to become involved in allowing the FBI agents access to the building, further exposing his involvement in what Jarvis had been doing, just the kind of embarrassment he would be keen to avoid.
Jarvis had never been one for falling on his sword, but now there was nowhere left to run.
‘It’s okay Mike,’ he said to the nearest security guard, who was looking at Jarvis in confusion. ‘I’m coming through.’
‘Is everything all right Mister Jarvis?’ the guard asked as Jarvis eased his way through the checkpoint and removed his identity badge.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Jarvis replied, and leaned close to Mike. ‘Inform General Nellis that the FBI are here and they’ve taken me into custody. They’re peeved at my breaking one of their cases, Nellis already knows about it.’
The guard nodded as Jarvis walked through the check point and moved to confront the FBI agents amassed before him. Jarvis counted at least ten men, all of them wearing stern expressions.