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“I’ll drive,” she said. “We’ll put Craig between us so you can hold on to him. There are a few bungee cords under the seat we can wrap around us to help.”

“Bungee cords?” Noreen said.

“If you have a better idea, I’m listening.”

Short of going back to the motel and getting some rope, the bungees would have to do.

To create enough room for Craig, Riley gave her backpack to Noreen to wear, then they sandwiched their injured friend between them. They had enough bungee cords to create two separate loops, so one went around chest high and the other closer to the waist.

“Ready?” Riley asked.

“Not really,” Noreen said.

“Hang on!” Riley started the engine, swung the bike around, and headed south on Highway One.

__________

C
OLTER’S EYES OPENED.

What the hell was that?
He’d heard something. Maybe it was a dream.

Sitting up, he realized he’d passed out on the table. He rubbed his head and looked around. Where was that prick Dugger? He’d left to get some more beers and hadn’t come back.

Colter pushed to his feet. “Dugger?”

He headed outside.

“Dugger?”

19

EVERTON, VERMONT

6:28 AM EST

S
OMEONE MOVED OUT
of the trees onto the highway just as Ash was about to head into the woods to join the others. The person was about three hundred yards ahead and had immediately turned down the road toward the parked convoy.

Ash knew it wasn’t one of his people. He was the only one this close to the trucks.

The security guard
, he realized.

He considered pursuing her, but stopping her before she reached the others would be difficult at best and not worth the effort. She’d be dealt with soon enough.

“Blake for Ash.”

Turning from the road, Ash clicked on his mic and headed into the woods. “This is Ash.”

“DNA. Sat.”

DNA?
That was a code he hadn’t heard since his army days. DNA—do not answer. And sat? That wasn’t standard code but was easy enough to figure out: sat phone. He turned off his radio and pulled his phone from his pack just as it started vibrating.

“Blake?” he said.

“Yes, Captain.”

“What’s going on?”

“We’ve got a problem. Someone knocked Bobby out.”

“What? Is he all right?”

“He’s sore, but he’ll live. Whoever did it grabbed his radio, though.”

Ash looked back toward the road. “The missing guard.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

Ash swore under his breath and then asked, “How long since it happened?”

“Not sure. Thirty minutes, maybe.”

Which meant if the guard had been listening in, she’d heard their plans to reposition and would soon be sharing the info with her friends.

“We have to assume we’ve been blown,” Ash said. “We’ll need to readjust. Get word to everyone—sat phones only. I’m going to find someplace where I can see what they’re doing and call you back.”

“Copy that.”

Ash shoved the phone into his pocket so it would be closer at hand, and then angled his path north and a little east.

__________

A
BULLET FLEW
within a foot of Reni’s head.

“Stop right there!” a voice yelled.

Reni halted and raised her hands as two men stepped out from the trees. “I’m with the Project,” she said.

“No talking!”

While one man aimed his rifle at her, the other approached her and pulled the rifle from her shoulder. After patting her down and finding the spare magazines and radio she’d taken, he stepped back. “That’s it.”

“Name!” the other man demanded.

“Reni Barton. Project Eden security, grade two. Dream Sky.”

She’d hoped her words would be enough to get him to lower his weapon, but the barrel didn’t move.

“You are a long way from your post, Ms. Barton.”

“Dream Sky has been invaded. I was barely able to get away!”

He studied her for a moment, eyes narrowed, and then motioned down the road with a nod. “Let’s go.”

They escorted her to where the five trucks were parked at the side of the road. Two were heavy-duty GMC snowplows, while the other three were SUVs.

“How many of you are there?” she asked.

The main guy answered her with a glare.

His partner disappeared around the side of the vehicles and returned a few moments later with several others.

A hard-looking man with close-cropped hair and matching beard walked right up to Reni. The one in command.

“You’re from Dream Sky?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. Barton, Reni. Security division.”

“So I’ve been told.” He looked her up and down. “All right, Barton, you said Dream Sky’s been taken?”

“Yes, sir.”

“By who?”

“I’m not sure.”

He frowned. “Not sure or don’t know? There’s a big difference.”

“Don’t know, sir,” she said, her mouth dry. “They were—”

“How many did you see?”

She thought for a second. “Maybe a dozen, sir.”

“A dozen? That’s all?”

“That’s all I saw, but there could easily be more.”

“Tell me this, security officer Barton, how the fuck were they able to get in?”

“I wasn’t on duty, sir. I was on level seven. When I returned to my barrack, I found everyone unconscious and tied up so I went to inform my supervisor. That’s when I discovered the others. They’d incapacitated him, too.”

“You didn’t engage them?”

She hesitated. “I thought it was more important to find out all I could and then get word to the Project about what happened.”

“If you’d done that, I would have heard about it.”

“I…I barely escaped and didn’t have a phone.”

A grunt. “I need you to tell me where you saw them, what they were doing, and what kind of weapons they have. Everything.”

“Of course, but there’s something else you need to know first.”

“Oh, really? And what would that be?”

“They know you’re here.”

Several of those behind the man exchanged surprised looks, but the leader just stared at her.

“And how would you know that?” he asked.

“I took their radio.” She nodded toward the man who’d patted her down. “He has it. I heard them making plans. It’s how I knew you were here.” She paused. “They know you plan on approaching the base from the north.

The leader shot his hand out toward her escort. “Give it to me.”

As soon as the man handed over the radio, his boss turned it on but there was only static. He looked at Reni suspiciously.

“They were talking earlier, I swear,” she said. “They’re probably busy getting into position.”

“Tell me exactly what they said.”

__________

W
HEN ASH HEARD
the crack of the rifle, his first thought was that he’d been seen. After dropping to the snow, he waited for a second shot but none came. Perhaps the bullet hadn’t been meant for him after all.

Moving up the hill, he found a narrow ridge running across the slope in the direction he wanted to go. After a few hundred yards, he found a pile of boulders that gave him a clear view of the land below. The highway ran parallel to the hills for a quarter mile before diverging eastward, opening a lowland mix of trees and meadows between the two.

Though the sun was still a good thirty minutes from rising, the brightening sky provided enough light to give him a good look at the convoy parked along the highway. A couple of plows and some transport SUVs, enough room for about thirty men. That was more than he would have liked, but a lot fewer than he’d feared.

He scanned the vehicles with his binoculars. Hard to tell, but they looked deserted. There was definitely no one standing around outside. He scanned the meadow the convoy’s occupants would have had to cross if they were taking the path he’d predicted. No one was there, nor did he see marks in the snow a group that size would leave.

“Where are you?” he muttered.

He slowly panned the binoculars across the land adjacent to the highway, stopping every hundred feet or so for a few seconds. His diligence paid off when he saw a shadow slip between two trees. Seconds later several more did the same.

They had bypassed the northern route and were heading closer to town.

No question, then. The Dream Sky guard had definitely overheard Ash’s plans and told her friends.

The ambush he had ordered was not going to work, at least not where it was currently located. So where were these people going? He watched them move farther south. Going through town would be the long way to the hut entrance, but maybe that was no longer their goal.

No. Not their goal at all.

He called Blake and relayed a new set of instructions.

“Probably take us twenty minutes to get ready,” Blake said.

“You’ve got fifteen.”

“I’ll get them moving.”

20

NB016

6:34 AM EST

C
ELESTE’S HEAD ACHED
from lack of sleep and too much coffee.

In the past half hour, they had lost contact with seven more bases, and received reports from three others that had sustained so much damage that the locations were now worthless. Three of the Project’s elite strike teams had been completely wiped out, while most others had lost at least a few men.

What she needed was some good news. What she got was—

“Director Johnson?” Dalton said. “Commander Vintner calling in.”

“To me,” Celeste said. As soon as the indicator light began blinking, she answered the call. “Commander, this is Director Johnson. Have you arrived?”

“Almost, ma’am. We are just outside town, making our final approach on foot.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. “Is there a problem?”

“We’ve come in contact with someone who says she’s part of Dream Sky security. She’s telling us that the base has been infiltrated, but I’d like to verify her identity before we assume anything.”

Celeste barely maintained her composure as she said, “Of course. Ms. Dalton? Are you on the line?”

“Right here, ma’am,” Dalton said.

“Go ahead, Commander.”

“The woman says her name’s Reni Barton.”

“Checking,” Dalton said. A brief pause followed. “Confirmed. There is a Reni Nicole Barton at Dream Sky. She’s security level two. Let me send you her picture.” Another pause, then, “Okay, you should have it now.”

“It’s her,” Vintner said after a moment.

“What did she tell you?” Celeste asked.

As Vintner relayed the information the woman had given him, Celeste’s already elevated blood pressure skyrocketed.

“You
must
get them out of there,” she said after he finished. “At all costs, you must regain control of Dream Sky. Do you understand?”

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Vintner said. “We can deal with whoever it is. Give us a few hours and this should all be over.”

“Make sure it is.”

21

EVERTON, VERMONT

6:37 AM EST

W
ITH BARTON’S IDENTITY
confirmed, Vintner decided, based on her intel, they would ditch the approach from the north and enter Dream Sky the same way the invaders apparently had. Tasking two members of his twenty-one man team to keep an eye on the woman, he led everyone into the woods in case the highway was being watched, and headed south.

A few minutes after his phone call with Director Johnson, he heard a muffled “Ash for Blake.”

Vintner halted and pulled the radio from his pocket.

“They’re talking again,” the woman said excitedly.

“Shut up,” he growled.

“Go for Blake,” another voice said.

“You guys set yet?” the first voice—Ash—asked.

“In position above the northern pass.”

“All right. I want to make sure we stop these people before they even know what hit them, so I’m going to send whoever’s not needed inside over to you.”

“Copy that.”

“I should be there in about ten. Any update on where these assholes are?”

“I sent out a couple scouts to the other side of the pass. They should be there in a few minutes. If they see something, they’ll let us know.”

“All right. Keep me posted. Ash out.”

“Blake out.”

Vintner shoved the radio back into his pocket.

“See, I told you,” the woman said.

He grunted, but said nothing else.

__________

A
SH WATCHED THE
Project Eden team through his binoculars as he talked to Blake over the radio.

For the entire duration of the conversation, they didn’t move, but after Ash signed off, they started up again, their pace quicker than before.

He couldn’t help but smile.

__________

F
IFTEEN MINUTES CLOSER
to Everton, Vintner ordered his team to stop again.

“Here?” he asked Reni.

She scanned their surroundings. “Another fifty yards down would be better, I think.”

“All right. You heard her. Fifty more yards, then up and over.”

__________

T
HE SOUND HAD
come from somewhere to the right. Chloe scanned the woods. At first, she didn’t pick up any movement, but then a man wearing Project Eden security gear emerged from the trees and jogged toward her.

She whipped up her gun, but relaxed her trigger finger when she realized it was Ash. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“Not intentionally,” he said. “Chloe, the Project Eden group is heading this way.”

“Good. I look forward to them trying to get past us.”

He looked around. “A firefight out here—too many variables. They could tell their bosses what’s happening before we could subdue them.”

“I take it you have something else in mind.”