‘As inconvenient as it might be, Colonel, this route’s still better than waiting at a roadblock for an hour while they check my credentials, believe me.’

‘Seriously? It’s that bad?’ Caitlin noticed her voice was warbling with the violence of their passage.

‘Depends on whether he’s sending a message on any given day,’ said Musso, as he steered them off the old road surface and around a fallen tree.

Scorch marks blackened the blasted stump where it had been felled by lightning, around which the vegetation had been burnt to a cinder for about fifty yards. On the far side, however, the path opened up again.

‘If I manage to get on Mad Jack’s grade-A shit list, or if Seattle does something that aggravates his indigestion, he’s not above placing checkpoints at every intersection between Fort Hood and Temple. He’s really been on our asses of late. I think it’s his idea of turning up the heat on Seattle because they won’t take him seriously about Morales. It can turn a half-hour’s drive into a day-long adventure.’

‘Must play hell with his own people, no?’ she suggested.

‘The spot checks are random,’ replied Tusk Musso. ‘But they always seem to randomly select vehicles with federal plates and tags. So I send a couple of Hemmts through here every few days, just to bash down the scrub and keep a way open. It’s a rat run, a long way out of my way, but it means we have an alternative route to the airfield.’

The windshield began to spot with drizzle as they finally swung off the southern heading and began to track gradually back to the north, taking them past an old sand-mining operation. A petrol tanker had left the road and driven straight into a tailings dam, presumably on the morning of the Disappearance. Caitlin could tell at a glance that Blackstone had made no effort to restart the operation of the mine. She wondered what would happen to Musso’s rat run when he did. Would there be checkpoints every couple of hundred yards along here as well?

‘You’re not rocking my world, sir. I need to gain the trust of these people, but it doesn’t sound like they’re going to let me get to first base.’

Musso flicked on the wipers as the rain thickened up. Past the old sand mine, the forest on either side of the road grew so dense again that she couldn’t see more than a few yards into it. Every now and then, however, Caitlin spotted the remnants of driveways, completely overgrown, but not as thickly as the scrub around them, or glimpsed slumping buildings otherwise hidden by vegetation.

‘Oh, I think you’ll be okay,’ the general assured her. ‘After all, I’m just Seattle’s step’n’fetch-it bitch. You, though, have something Blackstone actually needs. Or he thinks you do.’