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in the Pentagon, had attuned him to how power was played—and to wait hat in hand for a callback was an admission of subservience. Beyond that, he had promised the community he would have some answers by evening, and to tell everyone to wait would definitely not play well at all.
    John looked to the backseat of the Edsel. Ed, Black Mountain’s chief of police, was riding on the left side with a sawed-off twelve gauge, and one of his students from the college, Grace Freeman, was on the right side with a well-tended, carefully maintained M4. Her intelligent, attractive look belied the fact that she came from a family that had worked in the security business and that she had grown up around firearms, knew how to use them, and had a good grasp of tactics and the ability to think under stress. She had thus risen to senior student in command of the company of troops fielded by the college.
    Once clear of the security barrier, the fifteen-mile drive to Asheville would be a journey into no-man’s-land, and the old Edsel could be a tempting snatch and grab for some, even now. A month earlier, the Quentin family had embarked on their twice-monthly bartering run to Asheville; it was rumored that they had some hidden fields of corn up on the far side of Route 9 and were running moonshine. They had never come back. Speculation was that a band of the border reivers—though others said it was a gang out of Asheville—had snatched the lot of them. Jim Quentin’s bullet-ridden body was found in a ditch by the highway three days later, the searchers drawn to where he lay by the buzzards wheeling overhead.
    Makala slowed and waved to their security team guarding the highway barrier, nearly coming to a complete stop so John could shout that they were heading into Asheville and would be back by late afternoon. That was standard procedure: let the border guards know your expected return time, and if you did not show up, a search operation would be mounted. They were waved through, and the gate closed.
    Ed perked up once beyond the Swannanoa gate, his gaze scanning the side of the road, and John eased his Glock 21 out of its holster and cradled it in his lap. He kept the lightweight Ruger for when he walked about town, but beyond town, he wanted a .45 loaded and ready. The road ahead was cleared, though scores of abandoned cars still littered the shoulder of the highway, nearly all of them looted of their tires, gas tanks pumped out, oil drained from engine blocks, and some of his own crews now scavenging the wiring from alternators. Medieval Romans tore up finished stones from the roadways, aqueducts, coliseums, and monuments of their ancient ancestors; modern Americans looted abandoned cars.
    Makala sighed and nodded toward a dust-coated BMW, identical to the one she had abandoned by Exit 65 and was now a burned-out wreck from the battle with the Posse. Every time they drove past it, her commentary was nearly the same. “Maybe someday we can get that one towed back home.” She sighed wistfully. “Rewire it, find some treads, some premium gas, and go for a drive again.”
    He chuckled, glad for the diversion.
    “How about cranking up some Emerson, Lake & Palmer on the sound system while we drive?”
    She laughed. “I keep forgetting, dear husband, you’re from another generation. That is old folks’ music. Give me some Meat Loaf.”
    Ed sighed, muttering a rude comment under his breath at that; he was strictly country music. Grace, eyes still glued watchfully to the side of the road, asked what in the world they were talking about, having heard of none of the performers.
    “Never did get to take you out to a nice dinner at the Grove Park,” John replied wistfully. “Their Friday-night buffet of seafood—all the snow crab legs you could eat.”
    “Champagne, real champagne. I’ll dress up in a skirt and four-inch heels so I can see you eye to eye.”
    More groans erupted from the sixty-five-year-old police chief and the