Still, it said a lot about Mad Jack that his first thought was to go for the guns. There was plenty of evidence, if you wanted to look, that Texas under Blackstone was a militarised society, and nowhere more so than here at the heart of his administration. TDF armed squads patrolled the streets in armoured Humvees, and although McCutcheon kept to his word and their convoy wasn’t stopped, Caitlin noted the telltale signs of semi-permanent checkpoints at least six times before reaching the base perimeter. She had no doubt that random roadblocks could be thrown up almost anywhere within the greater city of Killeen at a few minutes’ notice.

The residents she saw on the drive through Killeen into Fort Hood seemed to care not at all. They had none of the beaten-down, furtive air that usually hung around the subjects of a tyrant. Sparkling under the morning sun, still wet with yesterday’s rain, the new capital of the Texas Administrative Division presented as an advertisement for Arcadia. A white, heavily armed, middle-class Arcadia.

Milosz stuck close to McCutcheon’s Jeep, tailing him through the enormous military facility, a city within a city. The other vehicles in the small procession had peeled off earlier to seek out some basic supplies, fresh fruit being one item much needed back in Temple. McCutcheon had mentioned that the Post Exchange had a good supply, but he’d never said where it came from. Caitlin was hoping they might score some oranges or tangerines.

Like the air force bases her father had served at, a lot of Fort Hood could have passed for any patch of American suburbia, with a smattering of warehouses and industrial centres dropped into the mix. Brick barracks that looked more like college dorms were faced by large multi-bay garages where TDF and civilians went about the task of salvaging and maintaining the massive fleet of military hardware. A cluster of soldiers took a break at one motor pool, gathering around a light-tan food truck, purchasing sandwiches, sodas and other products from the fried, fat, salt, grease and sugar food groups.

Any thoughts that the Hood was simply an office park in uniform were dispelled, however, by the sight of an Abrams tank at an intersection close to the 1st Cavalry Division Museum, on Headquarters Avenue. The modern tank stood in stark contrast to the collection of mostly olive, drab vehicles from the US Army’s past. The crew waved at McCutcheon, receiving a hand wave in return.

‘The tanks are a bit excessive, aren’t they?’ Caitlin asked.

‘Probably there for your benefit,’ Musso said. ‘This checkpoint is normally manned with Hummers. It’s just Mad Jack putting on the ritz.’