And then one day she was climbing a long mountain road, the glory of God in the sunshine all around her, and knew that she’d arrived.

Wait, the voice said. Wait for sunset, Sister Lacey. The way will show you the way.

And so it did: the way showed the way. More men were pursuing her now; each footfall, each snap of a twig, each breath was as a gunshot, louder than loud, telling Lacey where they were. They were spread out behind her in a wide line, six of them, pointing their guns into the darkness, at nothing, at a place where Lacey had stood but stood no longer.

She came to a break in the trees. A road. To the left, two hundred yards distant, stood the sentry hut, bathed in its halo of light. To the right the road turned into the trees and descended sharply. From somewhere far below, was the sound of the river.

Nothing about this place revealed its meaning to her; and yet she knew to wait. She dropped and pressed her belly against the forest floor. The soldiers were behind her, fifty yards, forty, thirty.

She heard the low, labored sound of a diesel engine, its pitch dropping as the driver downshifted to ascend the final rise. Slowly it pushed its light and noise toward her. She rose to a crouch as its headlights burst over the crest of the hill. Some kind of Army truck. The pitch of the engine changed as the driver shifted again and began to gather speed.

Now?

And the voice said: Now.

She was up and running with all her might, aiming her body at the rear of the truck. A wide bumper and, above it, an open cargo area, concealed by swaying canvas. For a moment it seemed as if she’d moved too late, that the truck would race away, but in a burst of speed she caught it. Her hands found the lip of the gate, one bare foot and then the other left the road. Lacey Antoinette Kudoto, airborne: she was up and over and she was rolling in.

Her head hit the floor of the cargo compartment with a thump.

Boxes. The truck was full of boxes.

She scrambled to the front, against the rear wall of the cab. The truck slowed again as it approached the sentry hut. Lacey held her breath. Whatever happened now would happen; there was nothing she could do.

The hiss of air brakes; the truck jerked to a halt.

“Let me see the manifest.”

The voice belonged to the first sentry, the one who’d told Lacey to stop. The man-boy with his gun. She could discern, from the angle of his voice, that he was standing on the running board. The air suddenly tanged with cigarette smoke.

“You shouldn’t smoke.”

“Who are you, my mother?”

“Read your own manifest, dickhead. You’re carrying enough ordnance to blow us all halfway to Mars.”