Fire and Ash (Benny Imura 4)

“Okay, so why would Dr. McReady stop there?” insisted Nix.

“Because there is a lot of crucial equipment there,” said Joe. “Stuff the American Nation can’t manufacture yet. Stuff like hazmat suits, biohazard containment gear, pretty much everything McReady might need if she was going to collect field samples of a mutating pathogen. And there were planes there too. It’s possible that one of them—a prop job, not a jet—could have been repaired. Or maybe that had already been done and McReady got wind of it. Doesn’t matter. What’s important is that she stopped there, got some alternate transport, and as far as we know she’s still alive somewhere.”

“In Death Valley,” said Benny.

“Possibly.”

Nix said, “Death Valley isn’t that far, is it?”

“Hundred miles and change,” said Joe.

“And the doc went missing a year ago?”

Joe nodded. “Closer to eighteen months. We’ve been looking, but the country’s too big. And we don’t have enough resources.”

“If she’s still alive,” said Nix, “she can’t be trying all that hard to get home. She could have walked it half a dozen times by now.”

Joe winced, but gave another nod. “Don’t think I haven’t thought of that. But we still have to try and find her. Now sit back and enjoy the ride. None of you have flown before, right? Well—you’re going to love this, I guarantee it.”

They did not.

Lilah was the only one who didn’t throw up.

61

THE MOTION OF THE HELICOPTER changed, and Joe called them all to join him. Green-faced, sweating, nauseous beyond imagining, Benny and the others unbuckled and staggered forward to crowd through into the tiny cockpit. Joe chased Grimm out of the copilot seat so Nix could sit there, and the mastiff sulked his way back into the main cabin. Benny and Lilah jammed the doorway.

“Welcome to the badlands of Death Valley,” said Joe as if he was happy about it. “Zabriskie Point is dead ahead.”

Below them was a landscape that Benny thought looked like the surface of some alien world. Stretches of barren ridges, wind-sculpted badlands, deep hollows cut into the terrain by millions of years of erosion, and the black mouths of caves carved by wind into the sides of grim mountains. Here and there were desperate splashes of color from hardy trees and shrubs that even this hostile wasteland could not kill.

“This makes Nevada look like a rain forest,” observed Nix. “Guess the name isn’t ironic.”

“And there’s not much out here. California State Route 190 cuts through this area, but that was mostly used by people who wanted to get through this territory as quickly as possible,” said Joe. “No towns, almost no animals, no—”

“Whoa,” said Benny suddenly, “what’s that?”

Joe looked where he was pointing, and his eyebrows rose in surprise. “Well, well, well . . . Isn’t that interesting as all hell?”

Half a mile ahead there was an unnaturally flat shelf of rock set among the higher reaches of the rippled sedimentary rock. As Joe steered the helicopter toward it, they could see that it was paved with concrete. The surface was cracked and overgrown by some determined but leafless creeper vines. A symbol was painted on the shelf. A big circle with a capital letter H had long ago been painted in the center.

“That’s a helipad,” said Joe. “A landing pad for helicopters.”

“I thought you said there was nothing out here,” said Nix.

“I did.”

Benny nodded to the helipad. “So . . . what on earth is that doing out here?”

“Guess we’re going to find out.”

They rounded the end of a wall of eroded rock and hovered a hundred feet above the shelf. There were foot trails running down into the badlands, but no visible road and no buildings or structures.

“Weird,” said Benny.

Joe consulted his instruments. “That helipad is dead center of the coordinates. This is definitely where McReady’s team was headed.”

“You said they probably took a small plane here,” said Nix. “Could a plane have landed on that?”