Unknown

He’d been holding on to my hand, and I saw that he held concealed, on his other side, the power- disrupting handcuffs. With one move—no doubt a move he had practiced and performed many times—he could have those on me in seconds, possibly before Luis could interfere.

He didn’t move. After a moment, he let go of me and took a step back. The handcuffs were slipped back into a case at his belt, under his Windbreaker.

“Don’t screw me,” he said. “Because I’m willing to go on a little faith, here. But not much, and not for long. You do anything that makes me doubt you’re all in on this—”

“Oh, we’re all in,” Luis said, and winced a little as he sagged into a chair. He looked tired, and in some pain. “Jesus, how much more ‘all in’ could we be? I’ve lost my brother, my sister- in-law, my niece is somewhere out there in the hands of these assholes. We’ve had half a dozen serious attempts to kill us. You’ve hurt me, done stuff to her—and we didn’t take it out of your ass, man. So shut the hell up, okay?”

Sanders didn’t look particularly offended. “Okay,” he said. “You want to let Klein up now?”

Luis didn’t glance at the other agent, who was still straining to lift himself off of the ground against the increased pull of gravity. “Sure.” Suddenly, the agent’s arms powered him up from the dirt, and he scrambled to his feet, red-faced and chagrined. He retrieved his gun from the ground, checked it, and holstered it, cheeks still burning, eyes still angry. When he saw me watching him, he recovered his composure and tried to look indifferent to the whole turn of events.

Not very successfully.

Sanders took the chair across from Luis. “Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that I believe you. What the hell do you want out of me? I’ve got an FBI team, sure. I’ve got all the surveillance you could want. I’ve got eyes in the sky and boots on the ground. You think this place is going to fall to some kind of frontal assault?”

I poured Luis a cup of coffee from the pot nearby, and took it to him. He drank part of it gratefully before answering. “Show us what you know.”

“You first.”

“That’s easy,” Luis said. “Damn near nothing. Whatever Cass already told you, that’s it. I wasn’t even there. She’s your only eyewitness. Your turn.”

“Follow me,” Sanders said, and led us out of the tent. I dropped back to stay next to Luis, discreetly monitoring his fitness.

He knew what I was doing, and frowned at me. “What?”

“You’re in pain.”

“I’m fine. It’s a side effect of rapid healing for me. Nothing wrong with me.” He nodded to Agent Sanders. “So you’re what, alpha dog now?”

I smiled. “Humans do tend to run in packs. Dominate the leader, and you dominate the others.”

“Cynical.”

“Useful.”

Sanders didn’t hear, because we were both murmuring very quietly. He led us down the hillside to yet another tent, this one with its entrance pulled shut. He slapped it aside and entered. As we followed, I realized that it was filled with more computers, more people, and rolling bulletin boards filled with images. Some were sharply rendered satellite images, showing the area of Rose Canyon where we were; I recognized the dark slash of the chasm first, and then the manicured park of Pearl’s encampment on the opposite side. The FBI tents were visible only as smudges, but they’d been marked in red to make them more visible.

The white, rounded building that I’d seen was like a moon set into the green, carefully empty expanse. Nothing around it—unlike Colorado, which had had barracks, buildings, even an elaborate playground for the children.

This was more . . . alien.

I sca

He was tired.

“So?” Sanders asked. He folded his arms. “Insights from your side of the street?”

“It’s not like Colorado,” I said. “Not at all. That felt as if it had been built by human hands.”

“That’s because it was,” Sanders replied. “Built by the Church of the New World. Their training-slash-inspirational camp, preaching and war games all rolled into one. Thing is, the CNW wasn’t one of those apocalypse cults, originally; it was built by a bunch of hippies who wanted to do the peace and love thing. Gradually got taken over by more and more extreme elements. But even so, we never expected them to ramp up to industrial crazy. They were—” He shrugged. “Normal. As such things go.”

“Until last year,” I said. He nodded. “And when did this structure appear?” I touched the white bubble shown in the pictures.

“About eight months ago,” he said. Same in Colorado. Same in two other places we know of. Same damn structure. This one’s the largest, though. It’s about the size of a football stadium, though it’s not very tall. We figure all their facilities are inside, including whatever training they’re doing.”

“Who comes in and out?”

“In, we get individual cars and trucks. Not too many of those. Most are registered to members of the church, a few suppliers who drop off stuff and drive away.”

Luis asked, “Who comes out to get it?”

“Nobody,” Sanders said. “It sits there until dark. We monitor with night vision, but we never see anybody come out to get it. It just . . . disappears.”

I nodded. I understood, now. “I will need a list of those . . . suppliers.”

“They all check out. And yeah, we’ve tried putting tracking and surveillance into the shipments. No good. Everything gets blocked as soon as it’s inside that dome. Some kind of interference.”

“I’ll need the list,” I repeated. “And a weapon. Perhaps one of those large ones your agents carried in the clearing.”

“Uh-huh,” Sanders said, not in any way as if he was acceding to my request. “And you’d like this because . . . ?”

“Trust me,” Luis said. “I don’t think it’s better to know the answer to that one.”

“Gotta write a report,” Sanders said. “Government runs on reports. So yes. I need an answer before I say yes, no, or anything.”

I shrugged. “I’m going to get into the facility,” I said. “Now that I know how. And I’m going to take a gun because I might need to shoot those who get in my way of retrieving Isabel and as many of the other children as possible.”

Sanders blinked. “You’re going to get inside. Shoot people. Rescue the kids.”

“Yes.”

“That’s your plan.”

“It is.”

He looked at Luis. “Help me out.”

“I think you need a little work on it,” Luis told me. “Particularly in the part where you don’t have any kind of backup or information about what’s inside in the first place. Cass, for all you know, this is one giant fly trap, and you’re the fly. You go in there, you may never make it out. And you’re the one who said she’s all about the Dji

“I’m not a Dji

“Before they do what?” Sanders asked. His voice had gone quiet. The other agents in the tent—and they were all listening closely, although appearing not to—suddenly looked up, fixed on the answer to his question.

“Show me where the other facilities are located.” He looked nonplussed by the question, then nodded to a nearby female agent, who tapped keys on her computer and pulled up four quadrants on the glowing screen. One was labeled ROSE CANYON, LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA—where we currently stood. One was labeled DOGTOWN COMMONS, MASSACHUSETTS, and it looked virtually identical to what was shown in La Jolla. Another said ADAMS, TENNESSEE. The last was OHIOVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA. “Show me on a map,” I said. She pulled it up and illuminated the locations for me.