When I looked at Top, his face was set in immoveable stone and he looked ten years too old.

I pulled up a map program on the small tactical computer strapped to my wrist. It was a little over eighteen miles along Route 94 to 125 and then California 52 east to Gillespie Airport. We had five hours left.

It took us more than four hours to kill our way there.

Four long, goddamn hours. Night caught up with us. It kicked the sun off the edge of the world and tried to smother us with blackness. The lights of San Diego vanished behind us, curtained by smoke even before twilight burned off. The highway was packed, but the fucking truck was designed to crunch its way over everything. We did a lot of that, and it felt like the Mystery Bus was shaking itself to pieces. We saw plenty of fights that I wish we could have helped with. People still alive and trying to stay that way.

The mission, though, the response protocol—that mattered more than anyone or anything, but damn if it didn’t hurt to have to keep moving forward.

In the back, Bunny, Torres, Chang and the president clung to restraining straps and tried not to look at each other. Bunny reloaded all the weapons. We had two grenades left and five or six magazines for each gun.

We were still a mile away when we saw the base.

No, that’s wrong.

From a mile out we could see the flames.

— 15 —

Top circled around to Kenney Street, on the north side of the field, near the biggest runway. We idled on the road outside the gate, watching the big Jet Air Systems factory burn. The light from it painted the sides of Air Force One in Halloween colors. Shadow goblins seemed to caper along the curved sides of the big Boeing 747.

There was a very stout wall and heavy gate, which was closed and locked.

“Ram the gate,” said the president, but Top shook his head.

“Steel construction,” said Top. “We’d wreck this truck and not put a dent in it.”

There were a lot of infected wandering around the field, and signs of one hell of a battle. The National Guard had clearly been called in to protect the president’s plane. Maybe a hundred of them. A dozen of them were on the roof of the burning building. They were the only ones I could see.

On our side of the fence were maybe three hundred infected. They clawed and scratched and even tried to bite the big truck, as if they were hoping to eat their way to us.

We all watched the plane through binoculars.

“Door’s closed,” said Chang. “Lights are on inside.”

“Call them,” ordered the president.

Chang made the call and when the pilot answered, POTUS snatched the phone from her hand. “Major Arlin, this is the president.”

“Thank the lord, sir, I am so relieved to know that you’re safe and—”