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“Not necessary,” Patrick said, but she didn’t like his pallor, and she thought his pupils were looking a little strange. “Just give me a weapon. ”
“I’m not giving up my sweet heirloom shotgun,” Joe said. “I just got it. Rest, Pat. We’re good for now. ” His tone was light, but he shot a glance back over the headrest, and Bryn could tell that he was concerned as well. “Brick, how far to that rendezvous?”
“Fifteen minutes once we make the highway. ”
Joe didn’t say go faster, but Brick got the message, and the SUV accelerated as fast as the rutted dirt road would allow. Patrick hung on grimly to his seat belt, looking green and agonized, and whatever disrepair the freeway was in when they finally bumped up onto its hard surface, it felt like silk under the wheels, and Patrick (and all of them) breathed a sigh of relief. The flanking trucks closed in around them on the two-lane surface—not quite a box, but as close as it could get for the conditions. And Brick opened the throttle even more, blowing past speed limits to the point that the blur of corn and wheat outside the window became a disorienting kaleidoscope.
Patrick shut his eyes again, and she felt his grip on her hand tighten. “Are you okay?” she asked, and got no response. Dread gathered in her chest, smothering her. “Patrick!”
His hand slowly loosened, but his eyes didn’t open again. He didn’t respond when she called his name again, either.
“Brick!” she called, and heard the sharp edge of panic in her voice. “Brick, he’s out again!” She knew that was a bad sign, and rubbed her knuckles on his sternum—a painful sensation, one that would bring most people around.
But he stayed limp. He was breathing, though, and when she checked his pulse, it remained fast, but steady.
“Five minutes,” he said. “Can’t cut it down more than that. ”
She knew he was right, but it still felt like an eternity. She kept her fingers pressed to his neck, feeling his pulse, and she thought his skin felt clammy. Shock, probably. They needed to get him warm before his blood pressure fell too far.
She was so intent on Patrick that it came as a surprise when the SUV braked, and she looked up to see that the lead truck was making a sharp left turn—again, an unmarked dirt road. This time, it wasn’t quite as rutted, or as long, and they pulled to a stop in a cleared area next to what looked like some kind of abandoned pumping station.
An unmarked black tractor trailer was parked there, and as the fleet of SUVs came to a halt, the back doors of the trailer opened, and three people bailed out, plainclothes but carrying red medical bags. From there, it all went very fast—they had Patrick on a gurney and into the trailer, which turned out to be a well-equipped medical bay, in minutes. There wasn’t room to observe, so Bryn was left outside, with the others, as they triaged his condition.
It took fifteen minutes for the man in charge—or at least, Bryn assumed he was the head doctor—to come back to report. “Pretty bad concussion,” he said. “No skull fracture, but there is bruising and swelling of the brain. We’re going to keep him here and run more tests; he needs rest and quiet, and it’s pretty obvious he won’t get it on the road with yo
u. You want to stay with him?”
She did. Desperately. But that wouldn’t help—it would only hurt, in fact, and Patrick would be the first to tell her she needed to continue the mission and finish this, or it would all be for nothing. By staying with him, she might lead Jane to Patrick, when he was next to helpless.
So she swallowed and said, “No. I’ll check in on him, but I can’t stay. ”
The doctor seemed unsurprised, and handed her a blank white business card with a phone number handwritten on it. “Here’s the number,” he said. “If he’s anything like our usual patients, he’ll try checking himself out of our care way too soon, but we’ll make sure he’s out of danger before we let him go. Anything else we should know?”
“We have heat all over us,” Brick said. “A shit ton of it, and some of it may spill onto you, so be prepared. Get somewhere safe and locked down. ”
“Will do, sir. ” The doc was definitely a veteran of combat, Bryn thought; he took the news with total calm, and climbed back into the trailer to give orders to his people. They shut up the trailer, and the drivers—whom Bryn assumed were combat trained—started up the truck and headed off down the dirt road in the opposite direction from the freeway behind them. Evidently, they had a different destination in mind.
Brick’s radio cracked as they headed for their own transportation, and he answered. “Go. ”
“Sir, we’ve got some activity to the northeast. ”
“Helicopters?”
“No, sir, looks like it could be a drone. I don’t like it, sir. You need to get under cover immediately. ”
“What’s our window?”
“Ten minutes at best. ”
“Jesus, son, we’re in fucking Kansas—you know that? It’s as flat as a table, and we can’t outrun a drone. What assets do we have to kill it?”
“Nothing in the air right now, sir. I’m reaching out to our nearest air force friend, but I have the feeling they’ll want to stay out of it before shooting down their own expensive toys, even unmanned ones. ”
Bryn grabbed for her phone and checked their location on the map. Close. Very close. Brick and his men were still talking, and Joe was tossing in suggestions, but Bryn leaned forward and held out her phone. “Here,” she said. “Go here. Haul ass and max the engines. It’s our only option. ”
“Go,” Brick said to Joe, and got on the radio to deliver the orders. To his credit, he didn’t even ask where they were going; Bryn supposed it didn’t much matter to him. She thought, Wait until I tell Annie about this, because it was Annie’s teenage obsession with kitschy roadside attractions that had rung a bell for her, out here in the middle of nowhere.
They were heading to the salt mines.
