They drove northwards, through Santa Barbara, on a day that was hot and clear. They spoke very little, and Sally, in the back seat, slept.

Peter and Karen had found Nat Petersen’s car, undamaged, but with no sign of Nat Petersen. After a half-hour talk together, they had elected to head together for Mexico, along with Jerry Stone and his wife. Ed had taken the Chevy, and his new-found family, and decided to try to find a new life for them in Washington or Oregon, out in the backwoods maybe, or in some secluded valley.

Season said, as they passed through El Encanto Heights, ‘I guess I should never have left you, really. I guess it was foolish of me.’

Ed smiled at her, not forgivingly, because she didn’t need forgiving, not for anything; but with that kind of love that sometimes feels like sorrow, because it’s so close, and yet it’s never quite close enough.

They pulled off the road a little further on, at Gaviota, overlooking the ocean; and they opened up a can of Mexicorn. The wind blew warm and fresh, and for the first time in days Ed began to relax. He felt impossibly tired.

They were almost ready to move on when they heard a low, vibrant, thrumming noise. It grew deeper, and louder, and closer, and within a few minutes they saw a formation of four-engined airplanes, turbo-prop bombers, approaching from the sea.

Thunderously, the bombers passed low overhead, and they shielded their eyes against the sun to watch them. Ed tried to count them, but there must have been more than fifty or sixty. All of them were camouflaged in khaki and blue; all of them left behind them long white vapour trails which scored the western sky long after they had headed eastwards over the Sierra Madre. All of them bore the red star of the Soviet Air force.

Ed looked down at the glittering ocean, at the spray on the California shore. Then he turned to Season and said quietly, ‘Well, we’d better get moving. We’ve got a life to lead.’

About the author

Graham Masterton trained as a newspaper reporter before beginning his career as an author. Graham’s credits as a writer include the bestselling horror novel The Manitou, which was adapted into a film starring Tony Curtis. He is also the author of the Katie Maguire crime series, which became a top-ten bestseller in 2012. Visit grahammasterton.com

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