Checking her Siemens phone, she calculated that she was too far away to walk to III Corps. Milosz dropped her as close as he dared, but that was not very close. She would need wheels. The free buses weren’t running, although she did see a cab pass through every so often, usually loaded up with a squad of drunks trying to get back to the barracks. Proceeding west down 761st, she looked around for a vehicle.

She gave a beat-up-looking Honda Civic some thought – easiest car in automotive history to boost – before catching sight of a Hummer parked in front of an office building girded up with scaffolding. Chalk blocks behind the tyres and its windows all zipped up told her the vehicle was parked for the night, or until someone needed it.

The bumper number meant nothing to her. She couldn’t fit it into her understanding of the TDF’s order of battle. In the pre-Wave days, she would’ve snapped a digital shot and sent it to Echelon for enquiry. She was a completist like that. Her husband could probably read its meaning, but he wasn’t here. And if he had been, Bret would’ve just boosted it. ‘Static,’ he would tell her. ‘Just so much static. Take the thing and be done with it.’

Caitlin looked up and down the street, checking it was clear, before she opened the plastic-canvas door and scoped the padlocked cable holding the steering wheel in place. A few minutes of effort with her pick set, and she’d popped the lock. After removing the chalk blocks, she flipped the starter switch, waiting for the warm-up light to fade out before cranking the beast up. Soon she was cruising down 761st Tank Battalion Avenue with enough gas to carry her to San Antonio if she wanted. Keeping an eye out for MPs, civilian police or TDF security, she watched the barracks, field houses and shops of Fort Hood pass behind her as she drove through the night.

Caitlin ditched the vehicle at the old headquarters building for the US Army’s 1st Cavalry Division. It was a good place to leave a stolen Hummer. When the Cav came back from the Middle East, they’d ended up crammed onto Fort Hood along with a lot of other assets awaiting reassignment or demobilisation. There were over a hundred of the same squat, blocky vehicles parked in a lot, still awaiting new homes within the United States military. Or export to any foreign power willing to pay the asking price maybe. Her briefing notes had made it clear that the Hood did a roaring trade in surplus weapons and equipment, despite Blackstone’s protests regarding Seattle’s own military surplus sales.