Sick

phones there to contact their families and find out that everyone was fine.

They’d talked about driving back into Nevada to find someplace to stay, but when Coach Driscoll called around looking for a motel, everywhere she tried was full. Apparently the quarantine was stranding people all over the place.

The Cryer family owned all the businesses at Cryer’s Corner. They offered to let the girls sleep on the floor of the cafe, so that’s what the coach decided they’d do.

As the day progressed, a few other cars drove in-a couple of families and some solo drivers. They, too, were offered places to sleep.

The coaches tried to organize a practice out behind the cafe that first afternoon to distract the girls, but it didn’t work out too well. So this second day they’d pretty much let everyone do what they pleased, as long as they didn’t cause any trouble.

Martina had played catch with her friend Noreen for a while, then had thumbed through one of the gossip magazines another girl had brought along. After lunch, she’d found a spot on the side of the gas station, and was idly tossing rocks at a dumpster, wishing the damn quarantine would be lifted so they could go home. This put her at a good angle to see the helicopters the moment they popped over the hill.

Immediately, she got up and went around to the front of the station where several others were hanging out.

“Helicopters,” she said, pointing.

Since everyone on the softball team lived next to the China Lake Navy base, they were used to the sight of jets and helicopters. But having already spent a day of monotony on the side of the road, seeing them now felt like something new.

“From the roadblock?” Cathy Thorwaldson asked.

“I didn’t see any out there,” Martina said. “Did you?”

“Maybe they flew in during the night while we were sleeping.” This came from one of the drivers who’d arrived alone, a college-age guy. Cute, too.

“Hadn’t thought of that,” Martina said.

“Do you hear that?” their catcher, Jilly Parker, asked. She’d been standing near the pumps but had taken a few steps toward the desert.

Martina listened. There was a very faint whine in the distance. “The helicopters, probably.”

Jilly shook her head. “Doesn’t sound like helicopters.”

A couple seconds later, they all heard a rhythmicthump-thump-thump.

“That’sthe helicopters,” Jilly said.

She was right, Martina realized. The whine was still there, too. Its volume had increased a bit, and it seemed to be coming from ground level as opposed to the sky.

Sims was crouched just behind the two front seats of the helicopter, trying to spot the motorcycle below. The satellite images had gotten them this far, but now it was a matter of eyeballs.

“There, sir,” the co-pilot said, with a quick nod out the window. “Running along that old wash.”

Sims adjusted his position, then immediately saw movement about a mile ahead.

“Get us down there.”

“Sir,” the pilot said. “We’re already twenty miles outside the containment zone.”

“I don’t care where we are. If the person on that bike is infected, we could have a new outbreak on our hands. Our job is to make sure that doesn’t happen.”Yet, he thought, but didn’t add.

The other thing he didn’t voice was his desire to clean up a situation that they had created themselves. The person on the motorcycle had come from the canyon they’d visited that morning. Apparently there hadn’t been two riders, but three. This third person must have hidden from Sims and his men, and that annoyed him.

It should have never happened. They should have checked for additional people but they hadn’t, and it had been his fault. Two bikes, two sleeping bags, two people. Logical, but wrong.

“Hang on, sir,” the pilot said.

A second later, the helicopters dipped in unison toward the fleeing motorcycle.

Jilly and Martina used a stack of barrels to climb up on top of the gas station, then moved to the back edge so they could see what was going on.

“That whine’s a motorcycle. I’d know that anywhere,” Jilly said.

Martina had recognized it, too. It was a common enough noise in the desert around Ridgecrest. But though she was looking toward where she thought the noise was coming from, she couldn’t see anything.

Jilly suddenly pointed repeatedly at the desert. “There, there, there!”

Martina put a hand on her forehead, shading her eyes. “I don’t see it.”

“It’s there! Along that wash.”

Something glinted in the distance, sunlight on a helmet, Martina realized as she finally spotted the motorcycle rider. For a few moments, she watched him-she assumed it was a him-heading in their direction.

“Is that one of the people who lives here?” she wondered out loud.

“I didn’t hear anyone leave earlier, but I guess it could be,” Jilly said.

Until that moment, Martina had thought the helicopters and the motorcycle had had nothing to do with each other. But suddenly both helicopters dove down toward the bike.

“What are they doing?” she asked.

Under Sims’s directions, the helicopters bracketed the motorcycle, his aircraft coming up on its left, the other on its right.

“We’ll take the shot,” Sims said into the radio. “If he doesn’t go down, you’re up.”

Paul felt the thumping of the helicopters in his chest. He allowed himself a quick glance back, and was surprised to see they were approaching him from either side.

There was movement at the open door of the helicopter to his left. He turned forward, checking the terrain ahead, then chanced another glance back. A man stood in the doorway now, held in place by what looked like a strap. In his arm was a rifle.

Without even thinking about it, Paul released the accelerator and pulled on the brakes.

Just then he heard something whiz by him through the air. Involuntarily, he jerked the handlebars to the side. The front tire of the bike turned with it, catching the edge of a sagebrush. Before Paul knew it, he was once more tumbling through the air.

“Is that a hit?” Sims asked. “Is that a hit?”

There was a brief delay. “I’m not sure, sir. But heisdown.”

“Get us back there.”

Martina actually screamed when the driver of the motorcycle flew off his bike.

“Did they…shootat him?” Jilly asked.

“I’m not sure,” Martina replied.

“I thought I saw a flash.”

Below them, one of the cars in the lot started up. Almost immediately, they could hear tires spinning for a moment on the dirty asphalt, then catching hold. Martina glanced over the other side, just in time to see the cute college boy race away from the gas station in his Jeep and head into the desert toward the downed driver.

The helicopters had both swung around and were now hovering above the motorcyclist. Sims was pretty sure it was a man.

“Does anyone see any movement?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“No, sir.”