FORTY-FIVE

They drove in from the south, into the fading day, into a vision of towering ruins.

Peter was at the wheel of the first Humvee, Alicia up top, scanning the terrain with the binoculars; Caleb sat beside him in the passenger seat with the map over his lap. The highway had all but disappeared, its course vanished under waves of cracked, pale earth.

“Caleb, where the hell are we?”

Caleb was twisting the map this way and that. He arched his neck and shouted up to Alicia, “Do you see the 215?”

“What’s the 215?”

“Another highway, like this one! We should be crossing it!”

“I didn’t know we were even on a highway!”

Peter brought the vehicle to a halt and picked up the radio from the floor. “Sara, what’s your fuel gauge say?”

A crackle of static, and then Sara’s voice came through: “A quarter tank. Maybe a little more.”

“Let me talk to Hollis.”

He watched in the rearview as Hollis, his injured arm wrapped in a sling, scrambled down from the gun post and took the radio from Sara. “I think we may have lost the road,” Peter told him. “We both need fuel, too.”

“Is there an airport anywhere?”

Peter took the map from Caleb to examine it. “Yes. If we’re still following Highway 15, it should be ahead of us, to the east.” He shouted up to Alicia: “Do you see anything that looks like an airport?”

“How the hell should I know what an airport looks like?”

Through the radio, Hollis said, “Tell her to look for fuel tanks. Big ones.”

“Lish! Do you see any fuel tanks?”

Alicia dropped down into the cabin. Her face was coated with dust. She rinsed out her mouth from her canteen and spat out the window. “Dead ahead, about five clicks.”

“You’re sure?”

She nodded. “There’s a bridge up ahead. I’m thinking that could be the overpass at Highway 215. If I’m right, the airport is just on the other side.”

Peter picked up the radio again. “Lish says she thinks she sees it. We’re going ahead.”

“All eyes, cuz.”

Peter put the vehicle in gear and drew forward. They were on the city’s southern outskirts, an open plain tufted with weeds. To the west, purpling mountains lifted against the desert sky like the backs of great animals rising from the earth. Peter watched as the cluster of buildings at the heart of the city began to take shape beyond his windshield, resolving into a pattern of discrete structures, bathed in a golden light. It was impossible to tell how big they were or how far away. In the backseat, Amy had removed her glasses and was squinting at the landscape outside her window. Sara had done a thorough job of cutting the mats away; what remained of her hair, that wild tangle, was a trim, dark helmet, tracing the lines of her cheeks.

They came to the overpass; the bridge was gone, collapsed in sheets of broken concrete. The highway below was a choked gulley of cars and debris, completely impassable. There was nothing to do but try to go around. Peter guided the Humvee east, tracing the highway below them. A few minutes later they came to a second bridge, which appeared intact. A gamble, but they were running out of time.

He radioed Sara. “I’m going to try to get across. Wait until we’re over.”

Their luck held; they traversed it without incident. Pausing on the far side for Sara to cross, Peter took the map from Caleb once again. If he was correct, they were on Las Vegas Boulevard South; the airport, with its fuel tanks, would be due east.

They pressed on. The landscape began to change, thickening with structures and abandoned vehicles. Most were pointed south, away from the city.

“Those are Army trucks,” said Caleb.

A minute later they saw the first battle tank. It was resting upside down in the center of the road, like a huge capsized turtle; both of its tracks had been blown off its wheels.

Alicia crouched to peek her head back into the cabin. “Pull forward,” she said. “Slowly.”

He turned the wheel to navigate around the overturned tank. By now it was obvious what lay ahead: the city’s defensive perimeter. They were moving through a vast debris field of tanks and other vehicles. Peter saw, beyond it, a line of sandbags backed against a concrete barrier, topped with coils of wire.

“What do you want to do now?” Sara asked over the radio.

“We’ll have to go around somehow.” He released the Talk button and lifted his voice to Alicia, who was scanning with the binoculars. “Lish! East or west?”

She ducked down again. “West. I think there’s a break in the wall.”

It was getting late; the attack the night before had left them all shaken. The last hands of daylight were like a funnel, drawing them down toward night. With each passing minute, the decisions they made became more irrevocable.

“Alicia says west,” Peter radioed.

“That’ll take us away from the airport.”

“I know. Put Hollis on again.” He waited for Hollis’s acknowledgment, then continued: “I think we have to use the gas we’ve got to find shelter for the night. All those buildings up ahead, there has to be something we can use. We can backtrack to the airport in the morning.”

Hollis’s voice was calm, but Peter could detect the underlying note of worry. “It’s your call.”

He glanced through the rearview at Alicia, who nodded.

“We’re going around,” Peter said.

The break in the perimeter was a ragged gap twenty meters across. The remains of a burned-out tanker truck lay on its side near the opening. Probably, Peter thought, the driver had tried to run the blockade.

They continued on. The landscape was changing again, thickening with structures as they moved into the city. No one was talking; the only sounds were the low rumble of the engine and the scrape of weeds on the underside of the Humvee’s carriage. They had somehow gotten on Las Vegas Boulevard again; a creaking sign, still held aloft on its wires above the street, jostled in the wind. The buildings were larger now, monumental in scope, towering above the roadway with their great ruined faces. Some were burned, empty cages of steel girders, others half-collapsed, their facades fallen away to reveal the honeycombed compartments within, dressed with dripping gardens of wire and cable. They passed beneath signs bearing mysterious names: Mandalay Bay. The Luxor. New York New York. Rubble of all kinds littered the spaces between the buildings, forcing Peter to move at a creep. More Humvees and tanks and sandbagged positions; there had been a battle here. Twice he had to stop completely and search for an alternate route around some obstacle.

“This is too dense,” Peter said finally. “We’ll never make it through. Caleb, find me a way out of here.”

Caleb directed him west, onto Tropicana. But a hundred meters later the road disappeared, subsumed once again under a mountain of rubble. Peter reversed direction, returned to the intersection, and fought his way north again. They were stopped this time by a second perimeter of concrete barricades.

“It’s like a maze in here.”

He tried one more route, heading farther east. This, too, was impassable. The shadows were lengthening; they had maybe half a hand of good light left. It had been a mistake, he knew, to head through the heart of the city. Now they were trapped.

He took the radio from the dashboard. “Any ideas, Sara?”

“We can go back the way we came.”

“It’ll be dark by the time we get out of here. We don’t want to be caught out in the open, not with all these high points.”

Alicia dropped down from the roof. “There’s one building that looks tight,” she said quickly. “Back down this road about a hundred meters. We passed it coming in.”

Peter relayed this information to the second Humvee. “I don’t see that we have a lot of options.”