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And a well-thought-out one, too

Brick’s SUVs started their engines and sped out to join them on the freewayand then they were on the road, and accelerating; their convoy o vehicles lighter, but going a whole lot faster Harot on the cell phone to his boss "Don’t like this road, Brick, it’s too straight and not enough cover Got any options?"

"Not much," Brick’s voice ca, but you’re right, this whole daht Everybody good there?"

"McCallister’s down, but not out Rest of ’eht-ready"

"You keep ’e this isn’t over yet"

• • •

Brick was right, and if they hadn’t had qualified coht have been junk on the side of the highway, because they hadn’t gotten hteen-wheeler trucks tried to run theotiate with semitrucks as it had been with the train, but the SUVs had the advantage of speed and maneuverability over momentum, and at least one of theout one driver within thirty seconds, and putting the other truck out of coine block

"Brick," Har shape of the last attack truck, "we’re running on fu up," Brick said "Stay tight on my bumper We’re about to test the off-road claims on these bastards"

In half a mile, his driver took a drastic slide off the road and into the soft dirt, and then a sharp rightinto a cornfield "Well, shit," Harm said, and braced hi"

Brick’s SUV was taking the brunt ofdown the crops, so the rest of theh a newly plowed tunnel in the tall, summer-blown corn It srass, which was funny when you looked at the size of the stalks being cut down

It didn’t last long, because the lead truck burst through the corn and onto a narrow dirt path, thick with sun-dried ruts that the farmer and his employees must have used They took it way too fast for the terrain, sending up a ser of God, pointing straight to the?" Joe asked "Because I’ this plan if it involves some pissed corn farmers with sawed-offs"

"Relax," Brick said over the cell "It’s a safe house"

And it was

The farmhouse--typically Kansan, ashed board walls and neat russet tri red barn and a shiny e or water; Bryn was no specialist in that It looked well cared for, and utterly normal

At least, until the doors of the barn opened with hydraulic smoothness, and proved to be as thick as the doors of Manny’s Titan missile complex Brick drove in and came to a fast stop, and the SUV Bryn was in veered around and parked with military precision next in line In ten seconds, they were all in place, and the doors were cranking shut behind them

"Hands up," said an amplified male voice fro with thermal, and we’ll see if you’re not in compliance"

Bryn raised her hands, and so did all the others, except Patrick, as still cold unconscious That took so to the disembodied voice, but finally, they were all told to exit the vehicles and line up along the wall, hands still raised

"I don’t like this," Riley said, and Bryn caught that shine in her eyes--the unsettling gleary, ferocious burn she felt in her own stoht it was a safe house"

"He never said it was ours," Harm said, and led the way out He took his place at the wall, and Bryn joined hiry, and as Joe stood next to her, he sent her a concerned glance

"Hold together," he told her

Do I look that bad? She must have Bryn took a deep breath and concentrated on the wood pattern of the boards in front of her At least, it looked like wood--but it probably wasn’t, given the reinforced front doors