Page 124 of Into the Fire

Then he drove up the ramp, through the porte cochere, and got on the 60 Freeway heading east.

For two hours and forty-three minutes, he beelined it into the platter of the Mojave. At one point the throbbing in his head intensified to the point where he thought he might have to pull over, but then it subsided. He forged on, finally veering off at a random spot just shy of the Joshua Tree National Park. His window was down, the cool air slicing through his shirt. The headlight beams swept across stunted trees and jutting slabs of stone, a postapocalyptic landscape. He cut the engine, grabbed the Pelican case, and climbed out.

The moon was shining in force, caught in a haze of stars. A cicada buzz filled the air.

Evan took a knee over the Pelican case, ignoring the brief spell of dizziness. From the top he slid up a yagi directional antenna and aimed it at a distant cell tower. Then he accordioned out a small tripod and attached it to the case top, using an SMA connector and a small omni stubby antenna. He waited, crouched over the tight assemblage of equipment as if it were a campfire. The tiny makeshift GSM base station dodged all authentication between itself and the nearest cell tower, but it was now participating fully in the network.

His own personal rogue cell site.

Completely untraceable.

Only now did he thumb on his RoamZone’s Wi-Fi hot spot, joining the LTE network.

He dialed.

When the switchboard operator picked up, he said, “Dark Road.”

Then he punched in the extension.

He waited, the old-fashioned ring loud in his ear.

A moment later the president of the United States picked up.

Silence crackled over the line. A tarantula lumbered by, brushing the toe of Evan’s boot.

At last she said, “X?”

Victoria Donahue-Carr had ascended to the throne after Evan had removed her predecessor in creative fashion. He’d always thought that she seemed principled, or at least as principled as a politician might be.

He waited. The RoamZone’s sound filters would drown out the cicadas along with any background noise. He fed her the silence some more.

She said, “I’m interested in a face-to-face.”

He said, “No.”

“At a minimum I require a live video feed. Audio can be replicated, synthesized. How am I supposed to know you’re you?”

He said, “You’re not.”

“We’d need to discuss terms, of course, but I’m confident we can reach an arrangement.”

“I don’t respond to euphemisms.”

“An informal pardon,” she said quickly. “I assume you don’t want to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.”

Her words caught him completely by surprise. Here he was on the verge of walking away from the demands of being the Nowhere Man, and the offer had materialized out of the thin desert air, his deepest wish made manifest. How surreal that hours ago he’d been locked inside 121 B-Pod of the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, and now here he was conversing with the leader of the free world about his future. He took a moment to gather himself. He had to get to Max and close out the mission. Then he’d be ready to walk away.

“I’m not looking over my shoulder,” he said. “Are you?”

The silence lasted a bit longer this time.

“Think about it,” she said. “You know how to reach me.”

He cut the connection. Broke down the gear and nestled it back into the black foam of the Pelican case. Removed the chip from his RoamZone, crushed it under his heel, and slid in a new one.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, he fired up his laptop once more and moved the phone-number hosting service from Maracay to an outfit in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Paranoia was an Orphan’s best friend.