“Turn left,” said Patton, sliding down in her seat. Paranoia seemed reasonable given what had happened so far this morning.

“Nice weather today,” said Nemo after a moment of silence.

“You should know,” said Patton matter-of-factly, “that because I’ve been shot at this morning and watched an innocent man dropped by a sniper, I’m willing to go along with you for a while, but the time is coming, and it’s coming soon, when you’re going to have to tell me who the hell you are and what the fuck is going on.”

“Noted,” said Nemo.

Ebenezer Road eventually faded into a dirt track that would have been impassable in the old Ford if there had been any recent rain, but the dry spring meant Nemo could gun it up the hill and end up on a patch of matted grass outside a dilapidated barn tucked into the edge of the woods. It had probably been used to store hay in the days when this had been a county of dairy farms, but the side facing them had little left in the way of a roof and did not promise protection from the elements. However, when they crept in through a space where two rotted boards had fallen away, they discovered, built inside the shell of the barn, a prefabricated aluminum building secured with a Yale padlock.

“Nicely hidden,” said Nemo.

“I can’t believe he never mentioned this place to me,” said Patton.

“We all have our secrets.”

“Yes,” said Patton in a low voice. “But Jasper told me his secrets. His secret.” She couldn’t imagine the old man had assembled this building by himself. But then again, Jasper had owned this property since 1981. The padlock looked new, but the rest of the structure could easily be thirty years old or older. It might have even been here when Jasper bought the place. Dents pocked the sides in spots, and moss grew on the lower third of the walls. Patton walked slowly around the building, trying to imagine Jasper in this lonely place. Why had he come here? What had he hidden inside? The barn smelled faintly of stale gasoline, and when she turned the corner, Patton saw a gas-powered generator, with cables running through a small piece of PVC in the aluminum wall. She paced across the back and down the far side from where they had entered and estimated the building measured about twenty by fifteen feet. Room for all sorts of things. By the time she got back to the door, Nemo stood there with a pair of bolt cutters.

“Where did you get those?” said Patton.

“Just had them in the trunk.”

“You just happen to have bolt cutters and a tranquilizer gun in your trunk?”

“Tools of the trade.”

“What the hell is your trade?” But as Patton asked this question, Nemo snipped through the padlock and it fell to the ground.

“After you,” said Nemo, pulling the door open.