Davis took a second to think, eyeing Grey nervously. “Well, I’ve seen you eat, Grey. All you guys. You shouldn’t shovel it in like that. And you don’t look so hot, I’ll say that. No offense, but you look like crap. I really should call this in.”

They’d have to seal the level, Grey knew. That meant Davis would be stuck down here, too. As for what would happen to him, he didn’t know. He didn’t want to think about it. He wasn’t really sick, he knew that much. But there was something wrong with him. He’d had bad dreams before, but nothing that ever made him puke.

“You’re sure?” Davis pressed. “I mean, you’d tell me if there was something really wrong with you?”

Grey nodded. A drop of sweat slithered the length of his torso.

“Man, what a fucking day.” Davis sighed resignedly. “All right, hang on.” He tossed Grey the elevator key and freed his com from his belt. “Don’t say I never did anything for you, okay?” He spoke into the mouthpiece. “This is the sentry on three? We need a relief worker—”

But Grey didn’t stay to listen. He was already in the elevator, gone.

Chapter Eleven

ELEVEN

Somewhere west of the town of Randall, Oklahoma, a few miles south of the Kansas border, Wolgast decided to surrender.

They were parked inside a car wash, off a rural blacktop the number of which he’d long forgotten. It was almost dawn; Amy was fast asleep, curled like a cub on the backseat of the Tahoe. Three hours of driving hard and fast, Doyle calling out a route he quickly assembled off the GPS, a line of lights flashing in the distance behind them, sometimes fading when they made a turn but always reassembling, picking up their trail. It was just after two A.M. when Wolgast had seen the car wash. He took a chance and pulled in. They’d sat in the dark and listened to the cruisers fly past.

“How long do you think we should wait?” Doyle asked. All his bluster had left him.

“A while,” Wolgast said. “Let them put some distance between us.”

“That’ll just give them time to set up roadblocks at the state line. Or double back when they realize they’ve lost us.”

“You have a better idea I’d like to hear it,” Wolgast said.

Doyle thought a moment. The big scrub brushes hanging over the windshield made the space in the car seem closer. “Not really, no.”

So they’d sat. At any second Wolgast expected the car wash to blaze with light, to hear the amplified voice of a state cop telling them to come out with their hands up. But this hadn’t happened. They had a signal now, but it was analog and wouldn’t encrypt, so there was no way to tell anyone where they were.