When he got there he slowed the truck and looked around. It really was the middle of nowhere. Yet maybe not. He punched in some buttons on his navigation system and on the screen sprang up a number of different locations in the relative vicinity. “Tazburg, Mise, Divine, South Ridge.” He read the names off the screen. All these places were scattered in different directions. So which should he take? And what should he do when he got there? His experience in the last tiny town had not been good. He swore he would not flash his federal badge, for one thing. And he was a stranger, so they would be suspicious anyway. If Carr were still in one of these places he might have already ingratiated himself with the townsfolk. Knox could be walking into something he would end up not liking. And the bus driver had said that Carr had a young guy with him. Was he from one of these towns? If so, he hadn’t told the driver which one.

Knox pulled off the road and left the engine running as he stared at the navigation screen. He sighed. Hell, even for intelligence experts it sometimes came down to something as simple as this.

He closed his eyes and stabbed the screen with his finger. When he opened his eyes and pulled his finger back the town’s name was revealed. He had a twenty-five percent chance that it was right.

Tazburg, Virginia, here I come.

He put the truck in gear and pulled back on the road.

While Joe Knox was enjoying a rare moment of exuberance Annabelle was slamming her hands down on the steering wheel. They’d been driving round and round trying to pick up the scent, but when they pulled past the same gas station for the third time, she’d driven into the parking lot, ripped the van into park and was now scowling at a dog that was sunning itself next to the air pump, only rising every few seconds to investigate its private parts.

“This isn’t working, is it?” said Caleb.

“You think!” snapped Annabelle.

“Do you have another idea?”

She glared over at him. “Why do I always have to come up with the ideas, Mr. Librarian of Congress?”

Caleb said imperturbably, “I only asked because I happen to have one, an idea I mean.”

She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and looked at him expectantly.

“Do you want to hear it?” Caleb said tersely.

“Yes!” she shouted at him.

“I don’t appreciate being yelled at.”

She leaned into him. “Will you appreciate it more if I pull you out of this hunk of junk and kick the shit out of you instead?”

Caleb put one hand on the door lever and looked ready to sprint for it. “How about I just tell you my idea?”