My boots crunched on the gravel. Around me, creatures slithered, twittered, rustled through dead leaves. Rats, badgers, owls—I wished I could be sure that was all I was hearing. Every swaying bush or dead cornstalk turned into a soldier training a nightscope on me, or Spirova’s friends with aerosol cans of plague.

When I’m this frightened, I usually sing, but I didn’t want to advertise myself. Breathe, Victoria. My mother’s voice sounded in my head. Relax, carissima, and breathe. Naturalmente sembri un topo strozzato. Of course you sound like a strangled mouse—you are not letting your body have any oxygen!

Right, Gabriella. Deep breaths, down to my belly. Those breaths were one of your many gifts to me.

I’d reached the road to the silo. I stood still, squinting at the fields. A solitary spotlight on top of the silo’s front gates showed a small car parked nearby. I went over to it and risked switching on my flashlight. No one was inside, but Reporters Cover American History: Teacher’s Guide was on the passenger seat.

I squatted on McKinnon’s side of the fence, trying to see any signs of motion in the field beyond or any darker shapes against the dark earth.

“Cady!” I called softly. “Bernie! It’s V.I.”

I called again but got no response. I walked back to the silo and shone my flash again through the padlocked front gates. Nothing was parked outside the heavy silo entrance. I slid through the same gap in the fence I’d used last week. Crossed the silo grounds at a cautious trot. Came to the place where the compound abutted Sea-2-Sea’s land.

“Cady! Bernie!” I called again. “It’s V.I. Warshawski. I can’t see you. If you’re in the field, tell me the way past the alarms.”

No answer. I turned around, uneasy, listening for . . . I didn’t know what. Had the two women gone to Sea-2-Sea’s headquarters on foot, without Cady’s car? If they’d been seized . . . I needed to go to Sea-2-Sea myself.

I skirted the back of the silo buildings, heading toward the county road on the west side of the complex, but stopped abruptly: lights were seeping through the black paint on the windows of the old launch-control support building. It came from the section where the launch crews had worked and slept.

I hadn’t tried to get past the locked door to the support building when I was here before. I’d noticed that the lock was new and put it down to either meth makers keeping out the sheriff, or the sheriff and the air force trying to keep out meth makers. I swore silently: I should have been more diligent in my exploring.