“Why didn’t you call out to them?” I ask.

It's his turn to shrug.

“You could be getting medical assistance by sunset,” I say.

He pushes himself off the ground and brushes off. “Yes. Or I could be delivering myself back into the hands of my enemies.”

He starts walking roughly in the same direction as the road again. I follow on his heels.

“Did you recognize them?” I try to keep my tone casual. I wish I could just ask him directly how many of them there are, but that's not a question he could answer without betraying military secrets.

He shakes his head but doesn't elaborate.

“No, you didn’t recognize who they were? Or no, you couldn't see them well enough to recognize them?”

He pauses to dig the remaining cat food out of his pack. “Here. Please stuff this in your mouth. You can have my share.”

So much for my information mining. I guess I’ll never be a spymaster like Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

CHAPTER 26

“Can you drive one of those things?” he asks, pointing to the road.

“Yeah,” I say slowly.

“Let's go.” He turns downhill toward the road.

“Um, won't that be dangerous?”

“It's unlikely there will be two units flying in the same direction within an hour or two of each other. Once we're on the road, we'll be safer from the road monkeys. They'll think we're Obi's people, too well armed and too well fed to attack.”

“We’re not monkeys.” Hadn't I just thought we were clever monkeys? So why does it sting that he just called me one?

He ignores me and keeps walking.

What did I expect? An apology? I let it drop and follow him down to the freeway.

As soon as we step onto the asphalt, Raffe grabs my arm and ducks behind a van. I crouch beside him, straining to hear what he hears. After a minute, I hear a car coming toward us. Another one? What’s the chance of another car just happening to be on the same road only ten minutes behind the first car?

This one is a black truck with a canopy over the bed. Whatever is under there is big, lumpy, and somehow intimidating. It looks a lot like the truck they were filling with explosives yesterday. It rumbles by, slow and full of purpose towards the city.

A caravan. It’s a very spread out caravan, but I’d bet the contents of my pack that there are more cars ahead and behind. They’ve spread it out to be less noticeable. The Hummer probably knew about the angels flying toward them because they got word from the cars ahead of them. Even if the first car was taken out, the rest of the caravan would be all right. My respect for Obi’s group goes up another notch.