Page 83 of Wild Sentinel

We hustled back to the road. The beige truck was still there. I clicked the key fob and unlocked the doors. I climbed behind the wheel, and the others piled in. After firing up the engine, I banked a U-turn and headed back toward Yucca Flats.

"If you can get me somewhere with Wi-Fi, there’s one more thing I can try. It might disable the system for good," Adam said.

His fingers blazed across the keys as we barreled down the highway.

I wanted to get as far away from the bunker as possible. You couldn't just vaporize a section of the Mojave Desert without someone knowing about it. A directed energy beam would give off a thermal signature. Satellite monitoring stations would see the bright pulse. There was no doubt in my mind that US, Russian, and Chinese agencies would all know a directed energy weapon was fired.

The site would be swarming with feds in no time.

I waited for the other shoe to drop. For the black SUVs to pull up, and agents to converge on us with weapons drawn. This would be an international event.

“How much do you want to bet that Horseshoe and his buddy killed Michelle Morgan and buried her body?” I said to Jack.

He knew exactly what I was thinking.

Jack fiddled with the infotainment system and launched the navigation app. He tabbed through the history. Sure enough, the truck had been in Stillwater. The vehicle’s navigation automatically logged every trip. Jack kept scrolling through the history in reverse chronological order. He found the drive from Stillwater to Los Angeles. He found several trips around Stillwater, including the one where they shot at us. He kept sifting through all the trips until he found something unusual.

The only one of its kind.

In Stillwater, a few blocks from Michelle Morgan’s house, the vehicle made a trip out to the desert near the mountains. The car stayed there for a couple of hours, then returned. Enough time to dig a grave and bury a body. Jack made note of the exact GPS coordinates.

I didn’t want to get stopped by the highway patrol in this vehicle, so I kept it at the speed limit. We were out in the sticks, driving a car that belonged to a couple of dead guys.

Adam tapped the keys, his eyes fixed on the screen with laser focus.

We needed to ditch the vehicle. The navigation system contained evidence in the Michelle Morgan case, but all the perpetrators were dead. There was no reason to leave anything behind that tied us to the vehicle. An eyelash, skin cells, a stray hair—all could send you away for life if found in the wrong place.

We made it back to where Brooke had left her car. I told Jack I’d meet them at the coffee shop in Yucca Flats, where this leg of the adventure began. They climbed out of the truck and transferred to Brooke’s car.

They followed me back to town. Brooke turned for the coffee shop, and I drove toward the gas station where we had filled up when we first got to town. I parked around the corner to avoid the security cameras at the pumps. I grabbed a hat from the seat and sunglasses from the center console. It wasn’t the best disguise in the world, but it would create plausible deniability. I hustled to the gas station, bought a crappy plastic gas container, and paid cash for a gallon. Then I hustled back to the truck, threw the gas can in the bed, and hauled ass out to the desert. I didn’t have to drive far to get away from prying eyes.

Once I found a suitable spot, I doused the cab with gasoline, lit a match, and set the vehicle ablaze. By the time I got 20 yards away, the beige truck was engulfed in flames, crackling and popping. Paint peeled and turned black.

I jogged back to town as the sun angled toward the horizon. Black smoke billowed high into the sky. You could see it from miles away.

I made it to the highway and jogged along the shoulder.

It wasn’t long before an old timer pulled beside me in a beat-up, rusted-out pickup truck. “Where you goin’, son?”

“Yucca Flats,” I said with a hopeful smile.

He had white hair, a long bushy beard with tobacco stains around the mouth, and a weathered face. Wearing bib overalls and a flannel shirt, he looked like he’d been around since the dinosaurs.

“Hop in.”

I did, and he drove off.

"You're not from around here, are you?" he said.

I shook my head.

"What brings you to town?"

I flashed my badge. "Investigating a case."

The old-timer had sharp eyes. "Long way from home, ain't ya?”

I smiled, "Yes, sir, I am.”