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all evidence their enemies had indeed elected to hold off until dawn before marching forth to wipe them off the face of the earth.
    Scattered communications on the salvaged radio seemed to confirm this, although since the other side would know their frequencies might be monitored, this chatter could be part of a ruse. Despite that possibility Hollis believed what they said, and for one good reason: these men weren’t quite as stupid as they looked. They had no need to risk rushing headlong into the dark. Their already decisive advantage would be even greater in the daylight. With such an overwhelming force behind them the next day’s search-and-destroy operation would be a turkey shoot, and they knew it.
    For the remainder of that night very little time was spared for rest and reflection. Wounds were tended to the crude extent possible in the absence of sterile supplies. Fresh water proved easy enough to find, though food was limited to what raw provisions of nature could be gathered in the depths of a bitter night in early spring. With those necessitiestended to, Hollis took the watch and let the others try to sleep as best they could. As for himself, he couldn’t remember even the last brief nap he’d had, or the last meal that had been more than a squirrel’s portion. He’d never yet found the far limit of his endurance but he could feel complete exhaustion getting close.
    In the morning, they took stock and prepared to press on.
    The only shred of a map still in their possession was a worn pocket trifold that had been pocketed during that brief stay with the Pierce clan. It looked like a hunter’s crib sheet, hand-traced from a legitimate chart and only crudely annotated with landmarks, spot-elevations, deer paths, and a mark for due north. Hollis spent a few minutes with this map to get his proper bearings, and for a welcome change what he discovered wasn’t as bad as it could have been. They were days late and off course to be sure, but they also weren’t so awfully far from where they’d planned to be before this latest trouble began. Whatever their chances, the best prospects lay ahead; they needed to get themselves under way immediately.
    Before they left the campsite all visible evidence of the overnight stay was carefully erased, buried, or camouflaged. The path forward was simple enough: Molly and the others would start onward—seven walking and one dragged by two others on a makeshift stretcher—while Hollis took up the rear guard.
    He’d given the handmade map and the only compass to the forward group. If they got too far beyond him he would find his way by the transit of the sun and the seat of his pants. There was little craft or subtlety to the travel scheme. They would head northeast, as the crow flies, toward a now-belated rendezvous with some regional allies of the organization. For the sake of speed it was a straight-line excursion, though along the way they would try to employ any natural features of the terrain to make themselves more difficult to overtake.
    Despite the urgency to move, at the insistence of one of the more pious group members the ten of them elected to join hands and squander a few precious minutes in a prayer circle. Hollis declined to partakein this delay, choosing instead to devote his full attention to the threatening hush from the forest behind them.
    That’s why he was able to hear a sound that didn’t belong, and how he recognized the dry mechanical whisper of its approach, faint and very distant though it was.
    Helicopter.
    Perhaps the others had heard it, too, because their circle was soon broken with a hasty benediction, and they were off.
    As he followed, always watchful for signs of the inevitable pursuit, Hollis set about brushing out conspicuous tracks while periodically stepping off to fabricate decoy paths that might lead less experienced woodsmen astray. Naturally, if the enemy came with air reconnaissance, or even if they simply brought along dogs to aid