45 | THE DESERT
The Geiger counter clicked constantly on the car seat beside Sam. The reading was high enough to worry him, but according to the manual, they could handle this level of radiation for an hour or two. Still, the less time they spent in the more radioactive areas, the happier he was.
“Take the next right,” he said, trying to match up the streets in front of them with the maps in the book on his lap.
It was easier said than done. Few street signs had survived the blast, and buildings that might have served as landmarks were scattered in pieces across city blocks.
The pickup had a GPS, and he was tempted to use it. Even in Las Vegas, the satellite-based GPS system should work. The problem was that Ursula might well wonder what a GPS-equipped vehicle was doing roaming through the supposedly deserted streets of Vegas.
“We might be just wasting our time,” Dodge said, maneuvering the pickup around a pile of rubble to take the turn. “If Tyler has any brains, he’ll be watching and listening out for us, and he’ll take cover the moment we get close.”
“Still gotta try,” Sam said, scanning the roadside for any sign of movement. A pair of binoculars sat on the seat beside him, but they were of little use in the built-up areas. “If he makes it to the outside world, we’ll have no chance of getting to Cheyenne Mountain. Our only hope is to stop him before he reaches somewhere with phones that work.”
It was their third day of searching. They took it in shifts, two out searching while the third person remained at the house, in case Tyler should turn up there for any reason.
Dodge said, “Maybe we should just make a break for it now. Try and get to Cheyenne before he gets to Ursula.”
“There’s no way out of Vegas on foot,” Sam said, and added, “Try a left at the T-intersection.”
“Tyler’s a member of the Tactical team,” Dodge countered. “They’re highly trained and very resourceful. I really think we need to give up looking for him and head to Colorado.”
“Without a vehicle, without water, he’s going nowhere,” Sam said. “But if we don’t find him today, then we’ll start making tracks. How’s the Plague coming along?”
“It’s finished,” Dodge replied. “Just a little testing to do.”
“It’s taken a while,” Sam said, hoping that didn’t sound critical.
Dodge nodded. “When I started working on it, I realized that I had to do more than just take out the time limiter. Ursula has seen this virus now. That means she will have had a chance to build defenses against it. So I’ve had to rewrite a lot of the virus to make it different, hopefully different enough that by the time Ursula recognizes it, it will be too late.”
“Let’s hope,” Sam said.
Dodge pulled up at the end of the road and said, “Where to now?”
Sam consulted his map. “Okay, if he stayed in Vegas, I don’t think we’ve got any chance of finding him. It’s too big and too much of a mess. He could be anywhere. If he’s headed out of town, he would be easier to spot. But we’ve already tried all the main highways out.”
“So we give up and head to Cheyenne?”
“Let’s try Highway 95 one last time. We didn’t go far that way yesterday because of the wind. It’s worth another shot.”
The wind had come in from the north the previous day, while they had been searching, pushing back the haze that covered the area. They had dared not venture under the open sky because of the risk of being spotted by a satellite, so they had quickly returned to the safety of Vegas.
“How’s the gas?” Sam asked as they wound a tortuous route back to Highway 95.
“We’re okay today,” Dodge said. “Vienna found a treasure trove yesterday. Three vehicles in a concrete garage, all intact. Two had full tanks, and the third was at least half full.”
Sam put the binoculars to his eyes as they left the built-up area of the city. This end of Vegas had suffered little from the bomb, and the going was relatively clear.
He watched the road in front of them, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tyler before he realized they were behind him. The highway stretched ahead for miles, completely empty.
He scanned the desert to the left and right. It was brown and desolate, just a few scrappy bushes offering nowhere for a human being to hide.
A billboard advertising free credits at one of the casinos appeared to his right, and he examined it carefully as they passed. It stood on tall posts, too narrow to hide behind, and he let it slip past without comment.
“You’ve known Vienna a long time?” he asked after a while, trying to make the question sound casual and innocuous. It still sounded forced and deliberate to his own ears, but Dodge didn’t seem to pick up on it.
“A few years,” he said. “Since she came to CDD.”
“Always just friends?” Sam asked, still as casually as he could.
Dodge looked sideways at him. “No romances allowed in the office. It’s in the rules. Didn’t you read that?”
“Must have missed that bit.”
“You got your eye on her, Sam?” Dodge laughed suddenly.
Sam felt his cheeks redden. He turned away from Dodge and raised the binoculars to hide it.
“She’s a hard nut to crack, that one,” Dodge said, still laughing. “Think you’re up to it?”
Sam said truthfully, “No.”
“Still,” Dodge said, “I suspect that if you ever managed to get through that tough outer shell, she’d be all sweetness and light on the inside.”
“I doubt that,” Sam said. “More like molten lava.”
“Well, good luck to you, then,” Dodge said.
“I never said I was interested,” Sam said.
“I know,” Dodge replied. “But you also never said you weren’t.”
Sam started to reply when a flash of light caught his eye from far out in the desert. A shiny stone? A broken bottle?
“Slow down,” he said, fiddling with the controls on the binoculars. A white mound came into focus, at least a hundred yards from the road. “Go left—I want to check something out.”
Dodge steered the big wheels of the pickup off the highway and onto the hard dirt of the desert. The scrub made a whooshing, scraping noise against the underbelly of the vehicle as they traveled.
“A little to the right,” Sam said, but by now Dodge had seen it too.
A few more yards and it became clear that the shapeless white patch of desert was in fact Tyler, and from the slight movement of his chest, he was still alive.
Dodge skidded the pickup to a halt beside him and grabbed a bottle of water off the seat as he jumped out.
Sam was already taking readings with the Geiger counter, but the level of radiation this far from the blast was no higher than normal background readings.
“Tyler,” Dodge yelled out, and there was a slight stirring from the mound.
Tyler’s mask was off, lying beside him, and it was the sun reflecting off it that Sam had first seen, he realized. Out here, the radioactive dust was not so much of a problem; the danger lay in the heat.
Tyler’s lips were dry and deeply cracked. His face was red and blotchy. His eyes were shut and did not open, even when Sam shook his arm and poured a little water into his mouth.
Dodge was grim-faced as he shouldered Tyler’s body and eased him onto the backseat of the pickup.