Ahead, the pickup truck moved into the right lane, and turned on its blinker.
"It's pulling off the road," Kenner said.
They followed the truck through an area of seedy industrial parks. Sometimes the signs said sheet works or machine tooling, but most of the buildings were blocky and unrevealing. The air was hazy, almost a light fog.
After two miles, the truck turned right again, just past a sign that said ltsi corp. And beneath that, a small picture of an airport, with an arrow.
"It must be a private airfield," Kenner said.
"What's LTSI?" she said.
He shook his head. "I don't know."
Farther down the road, they could see the little airfield, with several small prop planes, Cessnas and Pipers, parked to one side. The truck drove up and parked alongside a twin-engine plane.
"Twin Otter," Kenner said.
"Is that significant?"
"Short takeoff, large payload. It's a workhorse aircraft. Used for fire-fighting, all sorts of things."
Brewster got out of the truck, and walked to the cockpit of the plane. He spoke briefly to the pilot. Then he got back in the truck, and drove a hundred yards down the road, pulling up in front of a huge rectangular shed of corrugated steel. There were two other trucks parked alongside it. The sign on the shed said ltsi, in big blue letters.
Brewster got out of the truck, and came around the back as the driver of the truck got out.
"Son of a bitch," Sarah said.
The driver was the man they knew as Bolden. He was now wearing jeans, a baseball cap, and sunglasses, but there was no doubt about his identity.
"Easy," Kenner said.
They watched as Brewster and Bolden walked into the shed through a narrow door. The door closed behind them with a metallic clang.
Kenner turned to Sarah. "You stay here."
He got out of the car, walked quickly to the shed, and went inside.
She sat in the passenger seat, shading her eyes against the sun, and waited. The minutes dragged. She squinted at the sign on the side of the shed, because she could detect small white lettering beneath the large ltsi initials. But she was too far away to make out what it said.
She thought of calling Sanjong, but didn't. She worried about what would happen if Brewster and Bolden came out, but Kenner remained inside. She would have to follow them alone. She couldn't let them get away....
That thought led her to slide over into the driver's seat. She rested her hands on the wheel. She looked at her watch. Surely nine or ten minutes had already passed. She scanned the shed for any sign of activity, but the building was clearly made to be as unobtrusive and as unrevealing as possible.
She looked at her watch again.
She began to feel like a coward, just sitting there. All her life, she had confronted the things that frightened her. That was why she had learned to ski black diamond ice, to rock climb (even though she was too tall), to scuba dive wrecks.
Now, she was just sitting in a hot car, waiting as the minutes ticked by.
The hell with it, she thought. And she got out of the car.
At the door to the shed, there were two small signs. One said ltsi lightning test systems international. The second said warning: do not enter test bed during discharge intervals.
Whatever that meant.
Sarah opened the door cautiously. There was a reception area, but it was deserted. On a plain wooden desk was a handwritten sign and a buzzer. PRESS BUZZER FOR ASSISTANCE.
She ignored the buzzer, and opened the inner door, which was ominously marked:
NO TRESPASSING
HIGH VOLTAGE DISCHARGE
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
She went through the door and came into an open, dimly lit industrial space--pipes on the ceiling, a catwalk, rubber-tile floor underfoot. It was all quite dark except for a two-story glass-walled chamber in the center, which was brightly lit. It was a fairly large space, roughly the size of her living room. Inside the chamber she saw what looked like an airplane jet engine, mounted on a small section of wing. At the side of the room was a large metal plate, set against the wall. And outside the room was a control panel. A man was sitting in front of the panel. Brewster and Bolden were nowhere to be seen.
Inside the room, a recessed monitor screen flashed clear area now. A computer voice said, "Please clear the test area. Testing begins in...thirty seconds." Sarah heard a slowly building whine, and the chugging of a pump. But nothing was happening that she could see.
Curious, she moved forward.
"Ssst!"
She looked around, but could not see where the sound was coming from.
"Ssst!"
She looked up. Kenner was above her, on the catwalk. He gestured for her to join him, pointing to a set of stairs at the corner of the room.