Ross Cuthross's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

Ross stood in the empty lot until the dust settled. The wagon sat alone under the rusted canopy. He went back inside the old gas station lab and locked the door behind him. He knew the suits had not left him a clean board. They had touched too many things on their way through. He started a sweep. He pulled a handheld scanner from a drawer and walked it slow over every surface they had passed. The bench. The back room. The hatch frame. Nothing chirped inside. He stepped into the lot and ran it along the wagon. Clean. Then he crouched by his own truck and slid the scanner under the frame. A flat tone climbed into a steady whine. He lay on his back in the dirt and looked up. A small grey square sat tucked behind the rear axle, held by a magnet. Sleek. New. The word stamped on its face was a brand he had only seen in federal procurement leaks. He did not pull it off. Not yet. A live tracker yanked would tell them he had found it. He carried the truck keys back inside and sat down at his bench. The satellite phone setup blinked beside the laptop. He thought it through. If he ran, they followed. If he stayed, they came back at dawn with more men. The wagon in the lot was the answer hiding in plain sight. Her plates. Her registration. A vehicle they had already cleared and walked away from. He worked for an hour in the dark. He pried the tracker off his truck with a thin blade and pressed it under the wagon's rear bumper instead. He moved his drives, his scanner kit, and the small black box that armed his failsafes into a duffel. He hot-wired the wagon and left his truck parked in its usual spot, doors locked, lights off, as if he were sleeping inside. He drove the wagon out across the flats with the headlights dark. Somewhere east, a screen in a black SUV showed a green dot leaving the station and crawling toward nothing. He had bought himself a night, maybe two. The lab was behind him now, and with it the only address they had for his work. The arc of the search was still open. But for the first time since the wedge of vehicles arrived, Ross was the one moving and they were the ones standing still.