Davis was hurrying around the side of the church when he saw what had to be the world's ugliest cat. It slipped out through a hole in a window and disappeared into some overgrown hedges. The rest of his team raced out a side door in pursuit of the hideous-looking feline but after five minutes of searching, it was clear the cat was gone and wouldn't be back anytime soon.

Later in his report, Davis admitted this was the first animal life they'd seen that day, and as much as he disliked them, for the first time in his life he was actually glad to have seen a cat.

Chapter Forty-One

As the day wore on, the teams all provided similar reports – no human sightings. There had been some insects seen though, and one group had apparently seen some birds.

Amy Travers was circling above Delta team when there was a sudden rush of radio traffic. The team reported that they'd found something… or someone. After several minutes it became clear there were fresh human footprints in the town visible in some fine sand which had blown in from the desert. The team was certain the tracks couldn't be more than a day or two old.

Amy could hear the excitement growing in the men's voices on the ground, but for the next two hours they'd searched and come up with nothing. Now it was time for the ground teams to return to the mountain. Darkness was closing in, and RJ had given clear orders that all ground teams needed to be in by dark.

The aircraft had a little time to themselves now, since they wouldn't be needed to cover the ground forces. While they also had orders to return by dark, they could afford to spend some time searching the area before turning back due to their swifter speed.

As Amy flew, she used the thermal imaging scanners to try and locate any heat sources on the ground which might indicate there were people in the area. If she located anything, it would make a good starting point for tomorrow's search efforts.

Amy had been watching a large storm building on the radar for the past hour or so. Suddenly there was lots of lightning in the immediate vicinity, and the wind speed increased dramatically. Controlling the aircraft was becoming more challenging. Like it or not Amy knew it was time to head back, so she increased her altitude and speed and started back toward the mountain.

Flying on, something on the instrument panel caught her eye. On the ground below, was a thermal image, much hotter than the surrounding area. She stared at the image for a moment or two; it almost seemed as if there were two hot objects down there and they were in motion.