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terminal, went online, and typed in a name

Ballard Enterprises

He got back a number of hits, some related to what he wanted and others not

The coed its name years back It was non as CB Excelon Corp Chris Ballard had founded and run the eponymous Ballard Enterprises When he tracked the ers found that he was still the chairman emeritus of Excelon, but had turned over the day-to-day operations to others And Excelon’s focus was now cyber security

Thirty years ago it’d had an entirely different focus

Rogers rose and left He had printed out a picture of Ballard It wasn’t a recent one The ers had known him He wanted to knohat he looked like now, but he had not been able to find a recent picture Rogers hoped the ed well

Like I haven’t

But he wasn’t chiefly interested in Ballard There was someone else A woman He had not found her name in any of the materials That did not unduly surprise hiined that hadn’t changed

He was hungry so he found a place to eat a block over frorits washed doith hot coffee

This was a coal ers could see this in the bent, blackened, and exhausted-lookingthe black rock down the streets, the -distance, and the various plants parked around the area that dealt with turning the chunks of rock into electricity in faraway places

He had read in a newspaper in prison that coal was dying It looked like it was very much alive here

He walked around the town, observing all the ti in particular, and many hours later he found it

The white panel van pulled up to the bar with flashing neon signs and two ers followed

The place was full It was one of the few he’d seen in town that proraphical isolation and backbreaking labor Line dancing, nonstop drinking, pool, and video games

Men and women hooked up and then parted Glasses were lifted to mouths and slammed back down on the scarred wood of the bar Pool balls were hit, aliens were killed on wide screens, and lips locked and bodies curved around each other in semiprivate nooks and crannies

The twotheir jackets on hooks on the wall and went directly to the bar They were both big-bellied e, callused hands and trim beards Their hardscrabble lives were bolted onto every inch of them

One of them had a knife in a holder on his belt The other was arroped any wo distance

Rogers went to the bathrooainst the wall to allow a group of drunken women to pass by on their way to the ladies’ room to fix their makeup and perhaps their reputations

His hand snuck into first the right and then the left pockets of thefor a bit, and then left

He got into the van, started it up, and pulled off He stopped outside of town to change out the plates

He had already checked the van for distinguishing marks There were none It was relatively new There were a million just like this one

The naistration was Buford Atkins

Well, Mr Atkins would have to find neheels

The back of the van was filled with tools, both hand and power, and several pairs of work overalls All that ht actually come in handy

Rogers drove for six hours, covering about one hundred and fiftybecause the roads were two-lane for theand loaded with switchbacks as he h a chunk of the tree-laden Appalachians He longed for a straight shot at interstate speeds, but that was still a ways off according to the love box

He pulled off, slept for a few hours, and got back on the road He finally hit the interstate and headed east An hour later he stopped to eat

He pulled out the photograph of Chris Ballard Brilliant guy, Rogers had to give him that Far ahead of his time

But the woround was even smarter than Ballard In her twenties back then, she was head and shoulders above all others at the company in sheer brainpower and vision

She would be in her late fifties now He wondered where she was

In fact, he was obsessing over that question

Claire Jericho