“I think so, we’ll have to check it out. It’s about a mile-and-a-half northwest from ground zero. It’s an island of trees in our canyon and kinda horseshoe-shaped. It screens the chopper from three directions.”

“I’m dropping down to fifty feet. Keep your eyes peeled.” Nathan lowered the nose. Ten seconds later they were skimming the grassy landscape at nearly 140 miles an hour. The ground rush was intoxicating. As dangerous as it was, Nathan loved flying low and fast.

Harv worked the NavCom screen. “Adjust heading to three-four-five.”

“Three-four-five,” Nathan echoed.

“Guys?” Grangeland asked.

Harv pivoted toward the rear seats. “You okay back there?”

“I hate to be the weak link, but do we have to fly this low? I don’t feel so good.”

“Sorry, but yeah, we do,” Harvey said. “Look straight ahead, don’t look out your window, okay?”

She grunted an acknowledgement.

A small herd of elk dashed underneath them. The animals tried to stay in a group, but several peeled off in different directions.

“Keep an eye out for birds, Harv. Striking an eagle at this speed will definitely ruin our day.” Nathan’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Do you see any transmission or antenna towers?”

“Negative. We’re good to go.”

“Let’s call Malmstrom and ask for an update.”

General Mansfield himself answered the radio and reported all was quiet except for the thermal image of their exhaust. He informed them in ten minutes, they’d experience a thirty-minute blackout as the current surveillance satellite dropped below the horizon.

Harv had the 500-meter-per-inch photo in his lap. “I seriously doubt Leonard’s arrived yet. To get here before us, he’d have to drive eighty miles an hour the entire way, straight through. There’s no way he could do it and he certainly wouldn’t risk getting pulled over.”

“Agreed,” Nathan said, though he shared Harv’s apprehension. “If what Ernie said is true, then we’re beating him here by at least one hour, possibly as many as three.”

“What’s your gut on what Ernie told us?” Harv asked.

“Obviously we can’t know for sure, but I don’t think he was lying about the second set of coordinates.”

“We assume nothing,” Harv said.

“Right.”

“Think Leonard will have an RF detector?”

“Hard to say, but I doubt it. If he does, he’ll pick up our handhelds for sure, but unless it’s a contemporary device, he won’t have signal strength or direction, he’ll just know there’s radio chatter in the area. There’s not much we can do about it unless you want to skip the radios. Since our handhelds can’t interface with the helicopter’s NavCom,  I’m thinking we keep Grangeland and Ernie at the chopper. We’ll need her to relay anything Mansfield sees from the surveillance birds. I’d say using the radios outweighs being blind out here. Lesser of two evils.”