Page 54 of Flames and Blood

“The gate. The courier told us how it works. There’s a man in that gatehouse with a list. The truck went through because the truck was on the list. So that’s the whole question now.” I look down at the light in the gatehouse. “What else is on the list?”

We watch the gate for a day and a night.

The three of us take it in turns, from within a nearby cave in the day and from the tree line in the night.

A food truck enters in the morning, boxes stacked past the windows. I hear it working up the grade a full minute before it shows between the trees, and the smell of bread comes off it when it stops at the barrier. A fuel tanker at midday, diesel thick on the cold air. A laundry van. And in the evening, a work truck with a generator company’s name on the door and one man in overalls who gets waved up the mountain with a toolbox on his passenger seat.

The gate man’s radio talks twice a day, morning and evening, the same voice both times, short and bored. A check-in. That’s worth knowing too. If he misses one, somebody comes to find out why.

Every time, without exception, the guard comes out of the gatehouse. He checks the plate against the folder. He checks the driver’s documentation, hands it back, then lifts the barrier.

Kent watches the laundry van go through and says something useful. “He never looks at their faces.”

“Say that again.”

“The gate man. He checked that van for a full minute and he never once looked at the driver. Plate, folder, papers, barrier. The van’s on the list. The paperwork’s in order. The man behind the wheel could be anybody.” Kent rolls onto his back. “So the guard checks paperwork, not people.”

He’s right, and it’s the first good news in two days.

“What about the generator man?” Meyer says. “One vehicle, one man, and nobody rides with him. That’s the cleanest option.”

“It’s also the option with a skill attached. If I go in there pretending to be him, my cover’s blown the minute they ask me to fix a generator.”

“Can you fix a generator?”

“I can make one worse.”

“Food truck, then,” Kent says. “Nobody asks the food truck to prove anything. You hand over the boxes, and you leave.”

“Food truck,” I agree. “I think—”

The feeling comes up before I can finish.

Heat.

Her arms fighting against hands. Men’s hands, holding her down, and her body arching against them, and heat pouring off her with nowhere to go—

I’m on one knee in the snow.

This one was different. Every flash before this one was her mouth, her teeth, her body against me. This one was her on the floor fighting, and it wasn’t for me, and it wasn’t wanted. It’s gone before I can understand what’s happening.

“Crowe.” Meyer, close, quiet. “You did it again.”

I don’t answer. I don’t need him to point out something I’m trying not to acknowledge.

“That’s twice today.”

“I know how many it is.”

“You went down.”

“I know that too.” I get up. My hands have closed into fists. I open them. “We need to move. Get Kent.”

He doesn’t ask why. He goes and gets Kent.

We build the plan properly, on the hood of the truck, out of sight of the road, because I screwed up the last plan, and I’m not doing that again.

“The supply run is the way in,” I say. “The food truck. Reyes shared that road with it for over a year, and he knew its days the same way he knew his own. Same firm, same truck, twice a week, and the next run is three days out. Here’s how it’s going to work: I take the truck and the driver’s paperwork the night before, at the depot, before it loads. I drive it up in his place. The plate’s on the list, the paperwork is in order, and the gate man won’t look at me. He lifts the barrier, and I’m through.”