“Mark, I’m sure you were out there for a reason, and I’m accepting that. But I will need a full report, without fail!”

She hung up.

Mark drove in silence, watching the afternoon slowly sink to gold around him. In Willoughby, he stopped and picked up Richardson, and they put every trace of the unit into the back of the van, every can of shaving cream, every pair of olive drab underwear, every Bible and every smiling photograph. Then Richardson paid the bill and got behind the wheel, and they pulled out.

Mark looked toward the Glade. Evening was falling and its bright green neon sign had come on. Its faint buzzing was the only sound on the whole street. A night wind, still sweet with the scents of pine and summer flowers, filtered in his window. Later, the wind would grow stronger, Mark thought, when the moon rose. Fortunately for the town, it was easterly, and so was blowing the smoke of the fire away toward Big Basin. He wondered what they were being told, how the explosions were being explained. Well, that was Gina’s department, not his.

Linda was still in the back of the van, huddled in a seat. She cradled a disassembled Metal Storm, trying first one way to set it up, then another. Mark clambered back beside her, took it, and snapped it together.

“This is the firing button,” he explained—and she put her finger on it. He pulled her hand away. “There’s no safety. You discharge it in here, we’re done.”

Even though she was now once again fully dressed and hauling her carry, she was trembling like a child in a storm, and he put his arm around her.

“It was Massy,” she said.

“I know.”

“We were confused. What was Massy doing there? He was dead, for God’s sake! We started to walk up to him. I mean, we thought maybe—we hoped, Mark! And then the guys, Jesus, these things came in so damn quick, they had sort of rods—silver rods—and all of a sudden, Knotty—he was kind of dancing, he was naked, he was flushed red—and I ran, Mark. I ran.” She took a long breath. “It was an ambush—and, oh, Jesus, it was so fast!” She was silent for a moment. “Did anybody make it?”

“You did. Because you ran when you did.”

As they went along the highway, Linda wept silently, Richardson drove, and Mark thought of how the trap his men had fallen into had been laid not only on the farm but also in his own mind. Somebody had understood that he would go back out there. Somebody had known that his people would be with him. And they had waited, and they had delivered a horrific blow, the destruction of his beloved unit. His fault, no question whatsoever there.