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“There’s nothing here,” she said. “Not a light. Not even a real road.” The dirt track was smooth enough, but they weren’t driving on asphalt. “I don’t know if I like this.”
“It’s an adventure. We came, we have to say we saw, right?”
Worrying she could’ve brought them all that way for no reason, Tess drank some water, then ran her hands through her hair. “What if it’s somebody’s house? H could be the new Unabomber. He could blow us up on sight.”
Danny snickered. “Maybe. Better to go at night, then people have a chance of seeing the fire.”
Dropping into the cradle of her seat, Tess rolled her head his way. “What if he’s angry? He doesn’t want to see us? You read my mom’s last letter. It sounds like he sent her a Dear John, right? Maybe that’s why he never went back to pick up the other letter.”
“Maybe.”
She frowned. “Why is it so far away? The pickup point? If he lives out here, why do the drop-off and pick-ups in the most southern state?”
“Hawaii is the most southern state,” Danny said, glancing her way just long enough to check her flat affect. “Which doesn’t really matter right now.”
“We can’t wake the guy up at this time of day. If he’s…” When the trees thinned and the path ahead widened, she trailed off and sat up straight, unable to comprehend what lay ahead. “Oh my God.”
“Guess our gadget was right after all.”
About a quarter mile ahead, a structure stood out in the landscape. With ridges and peaks behind it, the darkened building only stood out because the moonlight shone above it. There were no lights on to welcome visitors or to suggest anyone stayed there. The ominous building appeared to be concrete. Sort of featureless with just the occasional steel-framed window. Only maybe three floors high with a smaller tiered floor on the top. It could be a factory or have some other industrial use. Antenna stuck out from the roof, thick and reaching, with other smaller, more difficult to make out shapes there too.
As they got closer, she noticed the wall around the whole thing. At least fifteen, if not twenty feet high, topped with razor wire, quite the first impression.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“What?” Danny asked. “We came all this way.”
“Yeah, and now I want to leave, okay?” she said, tearing her trepidation from the structure to land misdirected anger on him.
His brow descended. “It’s a building, it’s not gonna hurt you.”
“You don’t know that,” she said, shaking her head. “It could be a government facility. They could shoot us for being here.”
“I didn’t pass any keep out signs or anything warning us of danger.”
“No, of course you didn’t, because they don’t want anyone to know it’s here.”
He exhaled a laugh. “Okay, Truther.”
“Danny, please, we shouldn’t be here.”
Except he was still driving, and they were approaching the only suggestion of a break in the wall where two huge metal gates stood blocking the way.
“If there’s nobody here, there’s nothing to worry about,” he said. “And if there is someone here, we’ll just say we got lost.”
“Got lost and stumbled on their secret government project,” she said as the truck came to a halt next to what appeared to be a covered keypad. Tess leaned forward to look out Danny’s side window. “What is that?”
“Guess we need a code to get in.”
“Okay, well, we don’t have one, so let’s just leave.”
“Hmm,” Danny said, his fingers drumming on the wheel. “We could guess.”
“And if we get it wrong, a sniper pops up to execute us.”
He laughed. “Baby, we should use that imagination for role play. Didn’t know you were so wild. Where’s the card?”
“What card?”
