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Since Mary

So about Mary didn't evoke the sauilty over her death and had a burning desire to see every last one of the Swar to hi pain he'd beco hi, he wouldn't have thought it possible

Noelle went coured it out"

David crossed die space in three long strides He stared at the screen, not understanding a word or symbol he saw

"Are you sure?"

She looked up at hireen eyes David wanted to kiss her so bad he could almost taste her mouth "Yes I'm one hundred percent positive Only"

"Only what?"

She bit her lip as if trying to figure out what to say "This isn't all of the text"

"Then how do you know you cracked it?"

"I could spend the next twelve hours trying to explain, my solution to you, or you could just take h an hour-long lecture "I'll take your word for it"

"Did Monroe give you anything else? Any nu"

Noelle sat back and let out a frustrated sigh "Then what I've got here isn't going to help much"

Disappointment and relief warred within hi him yet "What do you mean?"

"It's kinda hard to explain without those twelve hours, but I'll try Do you have a ed "It doesn't really matter I just need it to show you what I h his knapsack and pulled out a map of Colorado Noelle went into the kitchen, dumped out a box of dried pasta into a bowl and tore the front off the cardboard box There was a little clear plasticthat displayed the noodles inside the box On that , she drew an arrow and labeled it north Then she drew another arrow pointing down and to the right

Noelle spread the map out on the counter and placed on top of it the cardboard box front with the plasticand the arrows she'd drawn "Okay The up arrow is north--just a reference--and the second arrow gives us our solution, which are map coordinates The tip of the arrow is the destination this text was encrypted to hide It's our target location for the weapons"

David frowned "But you don't know the destination unless you knohere to put the arrow on the nitude--distance in this case-- and direction, but not the origin"

Frustration welled up in David's chest "All this effort and nothing tangible to show for it Damn, I'm sorry, Noelle"

"It's not a lost cause There's got to be another piece of text soin If we know that, we'll knohere this text was telling us to go Can't you ask Monroe?"

"I can try, but I'ht we could use Is it possible you ? I obbledygook?"

Noelle chuckled "It's not gobbledygook It's a string of equations that share like variables The solution to that series of simultaneous equations clearly leads to a fairly si the way, and if I feed orithet a solution with a new nitude and direction--a different vector, but it's all fairly simple now"

David stared at her He could feel his IQ slipping as her words slaughtered brain cells left and right "I'itated that she couldn't share this with him, but there wasn't ue when it came to this stuff

"So, what do we do now?" she asked

"First, you make a backup copy of all that stuff and show et you away frout tells ure out the last piece of the puzzle, I'll be going wheels up i to hide her eyes fro soon then?"

David didn't like the thought of leaving her behind any more than she did, but he kneas her best chance for survival At least until all this was over He couldn't very well drag her into the rehold when he went to hunt them down He needed to know she was safe "Yeah We will"

"Will I see you again?" Her voice was so small and vulnerable it made him want to pull her in his arain Which was about the stupidest thing he could possibly do

"You will We have unfinished business" David didn't promise He didn't know if he'd survive this mission or not, but he knew that if he did, he'd hunt her down no matter how deeply they tried to bury her in any of the protection prograo until one of theht have a child on the way, and he wasn't about to walk away from that while he still drew breath

She nodded, but he could see in her expression that she didn't believe him David didn't bla that he would coh the odds weren't great, they were better than they had ever been before because Noelle had given hi, long time

Caleb and Grant were nearly finished patrolling the perimeter David had set up to protect the cabin when Caleb heard a faint noise He stopped,Grant to do the sa the air for the scent of ani the huain, louder this ti from the woods It sounded like a rowth of brush growing in the ditch that ran along the south side of the road leading to the cabin

"Cover me," said Caleb as he readied his weapon and headed for the brash

Caleb felt Grant standing guard at his back, knew his buddy would keep watch in case this was some sort of trap