The building at first struck him as adobe-inspired, a plain structure with narrow windows on the side facing the highway. As he came closer, they reminded him of the arrow ports of a castle. The walls sloped outward from the flat roof, so they were thicker near the bottom. He noticed two low structures that looked a bit like unfinished water wells—just rings of stone about three feet high—at a distance from the sides of the house.

Summers drove his car slowly up onto the flat area surrounding the house, parked between a van and a pickup truck, and then got out. Ortega was already striding toward him with his right hand held out. They shook hands without speaking. Then Summers pointed toward the house. “It looks a little like where we came from.”

Ortega laughed. “I’ve been working on this place for two years. I decided at that time that I wasn’t going to let them put me back in a cage. I bought this ranch, got some guys together, and started building.”

“What guys? People you can trust?”

“Relax. They’re La Eme, all of them. They know if they talk, the guy who just ate lunch with them will kill them.”

Summers took a breath and let it out, and noticed himself becoming Paul Duquesne again. He felt reassured. He had picked Ortega two years ago because Ortega was a respected shot caller in the biggest and most important gang in the prison system. Since the gang had alliances for various purposes with some other powerful gangs, Ortega had been invaluable in getting past the resistance of the prisoners who were in gangs and those who weren’t.

“If you trust them, so do I,” said Duquesne. “Is Matt here yet?”

“He got in last night in that white pickup with the hard cover on it. It holds a lot of supplies.”

“I hear the hint. I brought some things with me too. I brought a new AR15 and two new Glocks for each of us, a lot of ammo, and some cash. I also brought food and water to cover up that stuff in my trunk.” He clicked the fob on his key chain and the trunk popped open. Visible were four cases of water and four cases of beer. There were also boxes of canned goods and bags of nuts, dried fruit, flour, sugar, potatoes, and rice.

Ortega said, “Good, Paul. Really good. There’s a big water tank up above the house, but if they come, they’ll probably cut that off or blow holes in it. The guns and ammo will help a lot if the fight comes this close. I’ve always kept a few long guns up here in case I need to reach out to tap somebody, but close-up you win by firepower. I watched you all the way from the highway through a rifle scope.”

“You could recognize me that far away?”