Devin opened the file and started reading. By the time he finished skimming his mother’s summary, he wondered if he shouldn’t go back and tell Frank to hold off on refurbishing the boat. If any of what his mother had written turned out to be true, he didn’t foresee a lot of time in his immediate future for sailing lessons. For the first time ever, he actually hoped his mom had been crazy, because if she had been sane all along, the United States of America had one hell of a problem on its hands. The kind of problem that could dramatically and permanently alter the course of the nation’s trajectory—in the wrong direction.

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 13

Devin’s mother hadn’t been kidding when she’d written “sketchy neighborhood.” After conducting an abbreviated surveillance-detection route, which took them over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and up through the back roads of eastern Maryland, he’d approached Baltimore from the northeast along US Route 40. He knew they were in for a treat when they got off the Route 40 bypass at Federal Street. The area started out fine but got progressively worse as he navigated the mile and a half west to the provided address.

Boarded-up windows and doors. Knee-high weeds growing through the cracked sidewalks. Corner convenience stores with faded signs—no real indication whether they were open or closed for business. Men huddled on stubby concrete stoops, eyeing him warily as he drove. The words NO SHOOT ZONE spray-painted on the sides of buildings or larger pieces of plyboard.

The number of abandoned buildings and commercial structures increased the farther west he drove, until he reached a one-block section that looked as though it had been scheduled for demolition. The block ended at a tall stone wall topped with cyclone fencing and barbed wire. A sturdy barrier designed to keep troublemakers out of the Green Mount Cemetery, which lay on the other side. He turned left on the street next to the wall and followed it south until he could bypass the cemetery.

Greenmount West, a neighborhood on the other side of the cemetery, looked like a different world than what he could only assume had been Greenmount East. Still sketchy as hell in his opinion, but not a quasi-demilitarized zone. If he had to guess, he’d say this part of town was in the throes of gentrification. A chic coffee shop and a massive, newish-looking four-story apartment complex gave it away, even if every street-level apartment window was covered with tasteful stainless-steel grating.