“I didn’t know SWAT was going to be there or I would’ve told you. ASAC Breckensen was under direct orders from Lansing. They left me out of the loop again.”

“The beat goes on.…”

“End this, Nathan, before anyone else gets killed.”

“You can count on it.” Nathan ended the call. “We need to get moving.” He pointed to the west where several sheriff’s cruisers were racing down the road with their light bars flashing blue and red. “We’ve got less than a minute to clear the area. You get everything we need out of the SUV?”

“Yes.”

They hurried back to the vehicles. Nathan was thankful the Crown Vic’s windows had survived the blast. He was in no condition for a freezing drive back to Sacramento. Grangeland took the rear seat next to Bridgestone while Nathan slid into the front. Harv left the headlights off as he pulled onto the road. He flipped the night-vision scope down to his eye and stomped the accelerator.

“All the roads in this area are laid out at ninety degrees to one another,” Grangeland said. “Take a right at the first major road we come to. That should take us back to the freeway or its frontage road.”

After another mile or so, Harv turned right and said, “Shit.”

The northbound lanes of the freeway were stopped dead. A string of headlights stretched to the south for at least a mile. Emergency vehicles were using the shoulder to advance. The inferno at Pete’s Truck Palace must have closed down the freeway.

“Keep going under the freeway,” Grangeland said. “We’ll take a parallel road until we’re past this.”

They had to go several miles until Harv could make a right turn. Flat farmland lined both sides of the road. Harv gunned the sedan up to seventy miles an hour. Other drivers had the same idea. The once-quiet country road now looked like a prime arterial. Following the pack, Harv made a right heading north and saw the same string of bumper-to-bumper headlights in the southbound lanes of I-5. After another right turn heading east, they passed under the freeway and accelerated up the northbound on-ramp.

Ernie remained silent. Nathan knew how he felt. Hell, he’d lived it. Immediately after his capture in Nicaragua, he’d been beaten senseless and thrown into the bed of a truck under armed guard. Angry faces had sneered down at him, some spat. The drive through the jungle had seemed endless.

Nathan turned his head and addressed Ernie. “Why don’t you give us the real GPS coordinates now.”

“What are you talking about?” Ernie said.