They drove into Los Angeles at dusk on Monday night. They had been held up for more than half a day in the Mojave Desert by burst coolant hoses, clogged exhausts, and flats. Then there had been the treacherous business of driving in convoy through the small towns east of the Los Angeles conurbation – towns where small raiding parties still roamed the streets, shooting at any thing that looked like food.

Pasadena had been a ghost town, a white mirage that shimmered under the sandy peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains. They had stopped on the freeway overlooking the town for a twenty-minute rest, and a scrappy meal of processed meat, canned raspberries, and tepid water. They had seen nobody in the streets anywhere, and heard nothing but the persistent whistling of the warm wind. It was as if the whole population of America had eerily vanished.

As the sun glowered at them from up ahead, as crimson and sorcerous as a witch’s fire, they drove slowly westwards along the Ventura Freeway, weaving their way in between wrecked and abandoned cars, until they reached the intersection with the Hollywood Freeway. Ed had ordered that every car in the convoy should have at least one gun at the ready, but the freeways were deserted, and they saw nobody.

‘The first thing I want to do is check with the FBI office,’ said Della.

‘Where’s that?’ asked Ed.

‘On Hollywood Boulevard, between Ivar and Vine.’

The sun had gone by the time they reached Hollywood Boulevard turnoff. As they came up the ramp to street level, they saw the heavy palls of smoke hanging over Los Angeles, and they could smell burning and death on the wind. A police car sped past them along Hollywood Boulevard, heading east, with its lights Hashing and its siren warbling.

‘Just about the first sign of life since Victorville,’ remarked Della.

The convoy drove at ten mph along Hollywood boulevard, between the stores and the movie theatres and the parking lots, until Ed pulled the Chevy wagon in at the curb by Hollywood and Vine.

‘It’s here?’ he asked Della.

In the back seat, Shearson Jones was asleep, and snoring heavily, with his nose in the air like a Walt Disney beaver.

‘A little further, I guess,’ said Della. ‘There – where that office entrance is. Let me take a look at the shingles.’

Ed nudged the wagon forward, and leaned over to see the signs outside of the office building. It wasn’t much of an office building – a three-story, beige-tiled walk-up in that particular architectural style which you could only define as ‘Hollywood Boulevard east of Cahuenga.’ A little bit Spanish, a little bit 1930s, a little bit H.G. Wells.

The signs outside read: Super AA1 Detective Agency, Inc.; Walston Retreat Tyres; BK Investments Ltd.; and YSS (Photographic) Inc.

‘That’s it,’ said Della.

‘What’s what?’ asked Ed. ‘I don’t see any sign saying “FBI”.’