“There’s a semi up ahead,” I said. “A few buildings too. Might have what we need.”

“Go ahead and pull over,” Mike said. “Hopefully that truck has some diesel in it. Otherwise, we got a long walk ahead of us.”

I tapped the brakes and eased the Humvee to the side of the road. As I did, it struck me as an odd thing to do; we had seen no other vehicles since leaving the convoy. I could have straddled the double-yellow lines if I wanted to, and it would have made no difference.

Old habits die hard, I guess.

Mike stepped out and walked to the rear of the vehicle. I heard the back hatch open, the clattering of a gerry can and funnel being removed from the cargo area, and a few clanks as Mike poured the last of the fuel into the tank.

With the absence of road noise, I also heard the sound of slow, heavy breathing. Turning around, I saw Sophia lying across the back seat, eyes closed, mouth hanging slightly open. Even through the grainy green image of the NVGs, she was a beauty. Smiling, I waited until Mike climbed back in.

“Good to go?” I asked.

“As good as it gets for now.”

I put the Humvee in gear and headed for the truck.

FORTY-FIVE

“Should we wake up Sophia?” I asked.

“Nah,” Mike said. “This won’t take long.”

I stopped the Humvee on the road adjacent to the truck. Its previous driver had backed it off the highway and parked in front of a massive red barn the size of an airplane hangar. Looking to my left, I saw the property was not a farm, but an estate. There was a mansion set back off the road that could not have been less than ten-thousand square feet, a cottage with an empty swimming pool out front, several outbuildings, and at least a hundred acres of fenced pasture. The doors to the giant barn were open, there were no lights visible, and I saw no sign of any horses.

Then there was the semi.

“What the heck is that thing doing here?” I asked.

“Maybe it’s stopped here for the night.”

“Should we look around or just move on?”

“Move on? Why?”

The same uneasiness I felt at Boise City had returned, albeit not as strong as before. “I don’t know,” I said, “but I don’t like this place. There’s no reason that truck should be here.”

“There’s no reason it shouldn’t be, either. Look, it has a sleeper cab. The driver probably stopped to catch some shuteye. Might be he’ll trade us for some fuel.”

Logically, what Mike said made sense. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling we were headed for trouble. Mike noticed my tension and said, “Tell you what, Caleb, let’s just take a look around. If we don’t like what we see, we leave.”

My instinct was to say no, screw that, let’s get out of here. But the fact was we needed fuel, and there was no way to know if we would find any more on the way to Colorado Springs. The roads had been remarkably empty the last few miles—no wrecks, no cars on the side of the road, no dead bodies, nothing—and I was certain I had spotted the even, parallel markings of heavy equipment treads creased into the asphalt. The most likely scenario was the government had sent crews out to clear the highway, as doing so would certainly make life easier for any refugees approaching from the east. But if that were the case, where was everybody? Surely we couldn’t be the only people headed this way.

I continued staring at the truck, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. Finally, I said, “Okay. We’ll check it out. But let’s stash the Humvee first.”

“Fair enough.”

I put the vehicle in gear and drove on, going a mile down the road around a bend in the highway. When I felt confident it looked as if we had moved on, I doubled back and angled the Humvee off-road on a vector that would take us a few hundred yards behind the mansion. Once there, I drove down the back of a hill leading away from the property, turned the Humvee so it was facing the highway, and killed the engine.

“We should wake up Sophia,” I said.

“Sophia’s awake.”

I turned to see her sitting up in the back seat. “This field has so many holes in it I thought my brain was going to bounce out of my head. Where the hell are we, anyway?”

I explained the situation and then waited while she thought it over. Her eyes turned toward the mansion as she grabbed a canteen and took a long pull. “I’m coming with you,” she said, wiping her mouth.

“Good idea,” I said. “Mike?”

“Fine by me.”

Sophia made a disgusted noise. “For Christ’s sake, Dad, I … wait, what?”

Mike turned, smiling. “I said it’s fine by me. I’d rather have you close by where I can keep an eye on you.”

Her eyes widened, mouth open in surprise. “Oh. Okay, then.”

“Don’t forget your rifle.”

Mike and I exchanged an amused glance, then got out of the Humvee.

I fitted suppressors to all three carbines, gave Mike and Sophia each a pair of NVGs, and swapped out my VCOG for our sole night vision scope. Mike attached a PEQ-15—an infrared laser sight visible only through night vision optics—to his weapon, and another to Sophia’s.

“So let me get this straight,” she said, after we explained to her how it worked. “I can see the laser, but no one else can?”

“Unless they’re wearing NVGs,” I said. “Also, don’t think just because it’s dark they can’t see you. The human eye is attracted to movement, even in low light situations. So move slowly and be as quiet as you can.”

She gave a mock bow. “Hai, sensei. Can we go now?”

“In a minute, smart ass.”

Out of habit, I tilted my rifle, checked the safety, tugged the charging handle to make sure there was a round in the chamber, leveled the scope to make sure it was activated, and clicked the button on my radio transmitter.

“Check, check.”

“Copy.” Mike said.

Sophia ran her fingers along the cord connected to her earpiece, found the transmit button, and said, “I can hear you.”

“Try pushing the button,” I said.

She did, and I heard a click.

“Say something, Sophia.”

Another click. “You’re an annoying shit when you get like this.”

“Okay, we’re good to go.”

Mike grunted.

We fanned out and crossed the field, staying low and quiet. Sophia turned out to be surprisingly stealthy. When we were a hundred yards from the back of the mansion, I clicked my radio. “Stop. Time to come up with a plan. Over.”

“Copy, over.”

“What he said.”

We crawled through the tall brush and met at the top of the rise, heads low, eyes scanning for movement. “Here’s what we’ll do,” Mike said. “Caleb, you work your way around to the barn. If it’s like most barns it’ll have a hay loft. You’ve got the scope, so climb up there and provide overwatch.”

“Okay,” I said. “What about you and Sophia?”

“I’ll approach the truck and have a look around. Sophia, you see that tool shed up there, the little square one to the left of the cottage?”

“The one with the wind vane on top of it?”

“That’s the one.”

“What about it?”

“I want you to take cover on this side, facing back toward the Humvee. Stay low and watch my back while I’m checking the truck. Can you do that?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s go then.”

I swung around to my right, staying well clear of the mansion. Ten minutes later, I walked through the open doors of the barn, found the wooden ladder to the loft, and climbed up.

Each side of the loft was huge, easily the same square footage as my old house. A wide gap separated the two halves, and there was a thirty-foot drop to the ground between. The barn housed two rows of more than a dozen stalls each, all standing open. The scent of urine and horse manure was faint, but still strong enough to reach my nose. What little hay remained in the loft reeked of mildew, telling me this place had been abandoned for at least a few weeks.

I made my way to the wall facing the semi and carefully pulled open the shutters on a window. The window had no glass, just two pieces of plywood hung from hinges with a hook-and-lanyard to secure it shut. I had seen the same setup before. The idea was to open the shutters during good weather to let air flow through and keep the hay dry, and close them for the same reason when it rained.