No Return

51

“How’s it looking?” Lars asked over the speakerphone.

“Quiet,” Wes said.

Night in the desert meant miles and miles of nothing but dark. Wes would be able to see the headlights of any approaching vehicle in plenty of time for him and Lars to get away. So far the roads to the isolated set of buildings had remained empty.

“Good.”

“How’s it going there?”

“I’m in,” Lars said. “Just searching for the files on the flight.”

Wes continued to scan the desert, hearing only the clacking of a keyboard through the phone’s speaker. He became so lost in the darkness that it was several seconds before he registered that the typing had stopped.

“Lars?”

“Give me a minute.” Lars’s voice sounded hushed and anxious.

Wes checked each road again. There was a faint light off in the distance through the window on the right, but as far as he could tell, it wasn’t in-line with the road.

“Did you find something or not?” he asked.

“I can work faster if you don’t ask questions,” Lars told him.

More typing.

Wes looked out the windows again. The light he’d seen before was gone.

“The roads are still empty,” he reported.

A grunted acknowledgment, then nothing but keystrokes for nearly ten minutes.

Suddenly Lars said, “Got it!”

“What did you find?”

“Proof. I’m printing it out. Get back into the truck now!”

Wes reached forward to cut the intercom connection, but held up as he noticed movement out the window to his left. There was something on the road in the distance. It was almost as dark as the landscape, but it was moving fast.

“Lars, we have company!”

“I thought you said the roads were empty.”

“They’re coming in with their lights off. There are at least two of them. West road. I’d give us three minutes, tops.”

“Get your ass down here! Now!”