“Because I did not kill the two scouts. It would have been easy. They were children. It’s obvious you did not know I was here, so you wouldn’t have known where to look if they simply failed to return. It would have been nothing to me to kill them and either make it look like a zombie attack, or make them vanish entirely.”

The certainty with which he said it scared Dahlia. The look in his eyes told her that he wasn’t bullshitting. Those eyes told her that he had done that sort of thing before. Maybe many times. He had to be some kind of ex-military. Maybe special ops. He’d taken on the whole strike team without so much as being touched. That was freaky scary.

“How many of you are there?” asked the old man. “In your camp. How many?” When no one answered, he smiled and nodded. “Sensible not to share your numbers. But, for the sake of discussion, let’s say the number is sixty-seven.”

That jolted everyone. Despite the pain in her stomach, Dahlia shot to her feet.

“How . . . how . . . ?” It was all she could manage.

“Intelligence gathering is the most important component of any mission. Remember that.”

“Who told you?” demanded Nathan.

The old man shook his head. “No one told me. I observed. I know that you sleep in the seventh tent from the edge of the woods.” He pointed at Serena. “You have the blue bedroll. Should I go on? No. The point is made. As a group of survivors you are all managing things just above the subsistence level. Not bad, considering how many other groups, including better-armed groups, have fallen. You get points for that. However, you are acting like a gang, and you are not very good at it.”

“We do all right,” sneered Trash.

“You just got your clocks cleaned by a very old man who took you all on without weapons. You, on the other hand, had youth, numbers and were all heavily armed. Explain to me how that supports your claim that you’re doing ‘all right.’”

Trash’s face colored and he looked away.

“You’re spying on us?” asked Dahlia.

“Yes.”

“Why? If you know all this about us, why not just leave before we came out here?”

“That,” said the old man, “is a very intelligent question, and it deserves a straight answer. Pay attention.” He leaned his forearms on his thighs. “Before the outbreak I spent quite a long time running teams of special operators. Sadly, the nature of the outbreak disrupted my lines of communication with any who may have survived.”

“The EMPs,” said Dahlia.