Deep Sky

much less three years. It’d be like reconstructing the itinerary of a bum.”

“Strange,” Paige said. “With all the other questions rattling around, we never asked the most obvious one: How did the Scalar investigation work at all? How could they have pieced together any of Ward’s moves?”

“We know they really spent hundreds of millions,” Bethany said. “Whatever they spent it on, it apparently worked.”

They said no more about it, but the question stayed with Travis as he drove.

They’d figured out their approach even before landing. The single road up to Rum Lake was obviously no good, but there were others that passed within half a mile of the town, through neighboring valleys separated from it by low, forested ridges. The nearest was called Veil Road, and in the satellite frame they’d seen that it was clear of checkpoints.

They slid under the low clouds just before the turnoff, and saw at once where the road had gotten its name. A two-way blacktop, it rose in steep pitches and bends along the valley’s ascending length, climbing right into the cloudbank within the first mile. Travis saw the clouds now for what they were: a marine fog layer that nourished the flora of this place—most notably the redwoods, which flanked the road like thirty-story high-rises.

They pulled off where the map showed the ridgeline to be at its narrowest, and headed up the slope on foot.

They dropped out of the clouds twenty minutes later on the other side, and through the trees they saw the town, crisp and clear beneath its overcast lid. Well-kept storefronts with brick facades lined Main Street, probably dating back a century or more. Cottages and log cabins comprised the rest of the place, its southern half pitched upward on an incline against the foothills where the three of them now stood, its northern half ranged down to the lakefront. The town was a natural amphitheater with the lake for its stage; there couldn’t be a single building in it that lacked a million-dollar view.

The outline of streets perfectly matched Travis’s memory of the roadmap overlay. He picked out Allen Raines’s house, high on the northeast fringe of the basin, maybe a third of the way around the lake. It stood just below the fog, eye-level with their own position. The six Humvees were still there, their occupants still moving in and out of the place. No doubt they were gutting the home’s interior right to the studs, tearing out insulation batts, ripping up the carpeting and the subflooring. A single sheet of paper could hide in a lot of places. Now that he thought about it, Travis supposed it’d been stored in the most inaccessible place of all: its owner’s head. Raines had probably memorized the thing twenty-five years ago and destroyed it.

Travis lowered his eyes to the center of town and picked out the Third Notch. It had a two-story facade, green-painted wood with white trim, all of it getting on in years but well maintained. There were no Humvees parked around it. No contractors on foot, either. Through the big front windows Travis could see a few tables and booths, but all appeared to be empty. There was someone in an apron moving about, not doing a whole lot.

“Place looks a little dead,” Paige said.

“The restaurant?” Travis said.

She shook her head. “The whole town.”

Now that he looked for it, Travis saw what she meant. Rum Lake wasn’t deserted by any means, but it seemed to be at a near standstill. No kids out on bikes. No one walking dogs or just taking a stroll. A Jeep Cherokee with luggage tied to its racks pulled out of a driveway, rolled two blocks to Main and swung west. A moment later it’d crossed the outskirts and headed down the valley road toward the coast. Paige pointed out another house: its owners were hauling suitcases and bags out and stuffing them into a sedan’s trunk.

“They know something’s going on,” Travis said.

“Let’s find out what it is,” Bethany said.

They walked into the Third Notch ten minutes later. The person with the apron turned out to be a woman in her forties. Her name tag read JEANNIE. She was visibly stressed, which might’ve made sense if the place had been bustling and understaffed. But it wasn’t. It was empty except for Jeannie and two kids —a boy and a girl, maybe six and ten respectively, clearly hers. The two of them were playing handheld video games at one of the tables and looked thoroughly bored.

Jeannie was on a cell phone when they walked in. She gave them a small wave and made a face: right with you. Into the phone she said, “Well we’re waiting. Get everything locked up and come and get us.” She hung up without saying good-bye, and turned to the three of them. “Kitchen staff’s gone home. I have pizza slices I can warm up, and drinks.”

Travis considered his reply. The approach he had in mind wouldn’t work well if he jumped right into it.

“Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi,” he said. “Either one’s fine.”

Paige and Bethany both asked for the same. Jeannie stepped into the back room, and the three of them sat at the bar. Travis saw a stack of menus to his left. The cover showed a Paul Bunyan type character wearing a huge belt with three notches carved into it. Travis couldn’t imagine being any less interested in hearing a backstory.

Jeannie returned with the drinks and the check, set them down and got to work squaring things away around the register. Her movements were hurried, anxious.

“I heard of this place a while back,” Travis said.

Jeannie didn’t look up from her work. “Yeah?”

“Guy I used to know told me I should stop by, if I was ever in the area.”

Jeannie said nothing.

Outside, the sedan with the stuffed trunk went past.

“He said he left something of mine in the basement,” Travis continued. “Said someone here would know what I was talking about.”

At last Jeannie glanced up at him.

Travis studied her face for any sign of suspicion. Any hint that she understood the significance of this place’s basement, and that a stranger requesting access to it was probably tied to that significance in some way.

But all she did was knit her eyebrows together. “I think it’s pretty empty down there,” she said. “How long ago was this?”

“Few years,” Travis said.

Jeannie shrugged, thought about it another second and then went back to her straightening, as if that concluded the discussion.

“Can I take a look anyway?” Travis said.

She seemed amused at the request, for some reason. She shrugged again and said, “Knock yourself out,” then reached under the bar out of sight. Travis heard a coffee can slide on wood, and objects clinking against one another. After a moment Jeannie brought out two keys, each on its own ring. The rings had plastic tabs attached to them, labeled simply #1 and #2. She pushed them across to Travis. “Entrance is outside, around the back.”

With that she returned to the register and ignored them.

Travis traded looks with Paige and Bethany, and then the three of them stood, leaving their drinks. They were almost to the door when Travis stopped and turned back toward Jeannie.

“You ever heard of a man named Ruben Ward?” he said.

She met his gaze.

Travis had seen lots of people play dumb before. They almost always overdid it. Their faces scrunched up. They registered too much confusion. Really, any confusion was too much; it wasn’t confusing to simply hear an unfamiliar name.

Jeannie didn’t look confused. She looked puzzled, which was stranger yet. Travis got the impression that she knew nothing about Ward, but that she’d heard the name. Maybe recently.

After a moment she shook her head. “Can’t help you.”

Travis considered pressing her on the subject, but held back. He turned and led the others out.

They were halfway along the building’s left side, moving down an alley floored with cracked pavement and a few lonely tufts of grass, when it happened.

It started as a sound—or what seemed like a sound. Maybe the frenetic hum of an electrical transformer about to fail, or the snapping, static-like buzz you sometimes heard over a field of grasshoppers on a dry summer day. It rose over the span of a second, seemingly from a source very close to Travis—behind him, he thought at first. He spun to look for it but saw nothing there, and noticed as he moved that the sound’s direction didn’t change