Peter was at the wheel of the first Humvee, Alicia up top, scanning the terrain with the binoculars; Caleb sat beside him in the passenger seat with the map over his lap. The highway had all but disappeared, its course vanished under waves of cracked, pale earth.

“Caleb, where the hell are we?”

Caleb was twisting the map this way and that. He arched his neck and shouted up to Alicia, “Do you see the 215?”

“What’s the 215?”

“Another highway, like this one! We should be crossing it!”

“I didn’t know we were even on a highway!”

Peter brought the vehicle to a halt and picked up the radio from the floor. “Sara, what’s your fuel gauge say?”

A crackle of static, and then Sara’s voice came through: “A quarter tank. Maybe a little more.”

“Let me talk to Hollis.”

He watched in the rearview as Hollis, his injured arm wrapped in a sling, scrambled down from the gun post and took the radio from Sara. “I think we may have lost the road,” Peter told him. “We both need fuel, too.”

“Is there an airport anywhere?”

Peter took the map from Caleb to examine it. “Yes. If we’re still following Highway 15, it should be ahead of us, to the east.” He shouted up to Alicia: “Do you see anything that looks like an airport?”

“How the hell should I know what an airport looks like?”

Through the radio, Hollis said, “Tell her to look for fuel tanks. Big ones.”

“Lish! Do you see any fuel tanks?”

Alicia dropped down into the cabin. Her face was coated with dust. She rinsed out her mouth from her canteen and spat out the window. “Dead ahead, about five clicks.”

“You’re sure?”

She nodded. “There’s a bridge up ahead. I’m thinking that could be the overpass at Highway 215. If I’m right, the airport is just on the other side.”

Peter picked up the radio again. “Lish says she thinks she sees it. We’re going ahead.”

“All eyes, cuz.”

Peter put the vehicle in gear and drew forward. They were on the city’s southern outskirts, an open plain tufted with weeds. To the west, purpling mountains lifted against the desert sky like the backs of great animals rising from the earth. Peter watched as the cluster of buildings at the heart of the city began to take shape beyond his windshield, resolving into a pattern of discrete structures, bathed in a golden light. It was impossible to tell how big they were or how far away. In the backseat, Amy had removed her glasses and was squinting at the landscape outside her window. Sara had done a thorough job of cutting the mats away; what remained of her hair, that wild tangle, was a trim, dark helmet, tracing the lines of her cheeks.