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Now the whole oil industry was under federal protection, and it seemed like practically everybody he knew fro, the boas depot in Secaucus, the subway attack in LA and all the rest, and, of course, what happened in Iran or Iraq or whichever it was, the whole economy had locked up like a bad trans on his record, no godda Grey in Homeland, or anywhere else He’d been out of work ht for sure it was n supplier They’d so it, and he was surprised when he’d driven to the address and found it was just an empty storefront in an abandoned strip rounds, hite soap smeared on the s The place had once housed a video store; Grey could still hostly forrimy stucco over the door The place next to it had been a Chinese restaurant; another, a dry cleaner’s; the rest, you couldn’t say He’d driven up and down in front a couple of ti and reluctant to climb frooose chase, before he’d stopped It was about a hundred degrees out, typical for August in north Texas but still nothing you could ever get used to, the air thick and dirty-s down The door was locked but there was a buzzer; he rang and waited a minute as the sweat started to pool under his shirt, then heard a big ring of keys jangling on the other side and the clunk of the unlocking door

They’d set up a little desk and a couple of file cabinets in the back; the room was still full of eled wires and other junk was hanging froainst the rear wall of the store was a life-size cardboard figure, coated with a film of dust, of some movie star Grey couldn’t place, a bald black dude in wraparounds, with biceps that bulged under his T-shirt like a couple of canned hale out of a super Grey remembered, either Grey filled out the form but the people there, a man and a woman, barely seemed to look at it While they typed into the coave hiraph, but that was standard stuff He did his best not to feel like he was lying even when he was telling the truth, and when they asked him about the time he’d done at Beeville, as he knew they would, he told theht out: no way to hide it with the wires, and it was a matter of record besides, especially in Texas, with the website you could go to and see everybody’s faces and all the rest But even this seemed not to be a problem They seemed to know a lot about him already, and most of their questions had to do with his personal life, the stuff you couldn’t learn except by asking Did he have friends? (Not really) Did he live alone? (When hadn’t he?) Did he have any living family? (Just an aunt in Odessa he hadn’t seen in about twenty years and a couple of cousins he wasn’t even sure he knew the na, up in Allen-ere his neighbors? (Neighbors?) And so on, in that vein Everything he told the to hide it, but you could see it on their faces, plain as the words in a book When he decided they weren’t police, he realized he’d been thinking maybe they were

Two days later-by which time he realized he’d never learned the names of the man and the woman, couldn’t even have said what they looked like-he was on the plane to Cheyenne They’d explained theable to leave for a year, which was all right by him, and made it clear that he shouldn’t tell anybody where he was going, which, in fact, he couldn’t; he didn’t know At the airport in Cheyenne he was met by a man in a black tracksuit, whouy no more than five foot six with a permanent scowl on his face Richards walked him to the curb; two otherby a van Richards opened the driver’s door and returned with a cloth bag the size of a pillowcase He held it open like a raphs, anything riting on it, right down to the pen you got at the bank," he told the fortune cookie In it goes"

They ee rack, and clih the side It was only when Richards closed the door behind them that Grey realized the ere blacked out From the outside the vehicle looked like an ordinary van, but inside it was a different story: the driver’s co but a metal box with vinyl bench seats bolted to the floor Richards had said they were allowed to trade first names but that was all The other two ht have been staring into a uys with buzz cuts and puffed red hands and workingman’s tans that stopped at the wrists and collar Grey’s first name was Lawrence, but he’d barely ever used it It sounded odd co hands with the one named Sam, he felt like somebody different, like he’d boarded the plane in Dallas as one person and landed in Cheyenne as another

In the dark van, it was i, and a little nauseating For all Grey knew, they were just circling the airport With nothing to do or see, they all fell asleep soon enough When Grey woke up he had no sense of the hour He also had to pee like a jackrabbit That was the Depo He rose fro panel at the front of the cootta stop," he said

Richards slid theopen, affording Grey a view through the van’s windshield The sun had set; the road ahead, a two-lane blacktop, was dark and eht where the sky e

"I need to take a leak," Grey explained "Sorry"

In the passenger co Richards reached onto the floor and passed Grey a clear plastic bottle with a wide otta pee in this?"

"That’s the idea"

Richards closed the ithout another word Grey sat back down on the bench and exah But the thought of taking his equipht in front of the otherdeal, made all the muscles around his bladder cla that," the one na with his hands folded at his lap His face wore a look of intense concentration "I’ it"

They rode a little farther Grey tried to think of so bladder, but this onlyaround inside hiainst the shoreline He heard hiain "Hey in there! I’ve got an eency!"

Richards opened the panel "What is it now?"

"Listen," Grey said, and pushed his head through the narrow space He lowered his voice so the others wouldn’t hear "I can’t Seriously I can’t use the bottle You’ve got to pull over"