the sky above it was off-limits, patrolled by a squadron of fighter jets out of Kessler AFB. The whole place was ringed by fencing and patrolled by Homeland Security forces in full battle dress; beyond the perimeter, radiating outward for ten miles in all directions, was the N.O. Housing District, a sea of trailers once used for evacuees but now serving as a gigantic human storage facility for the thousands of workers who made the city’s industrial complex hum day and night. It was little more than a giant outdoor slum, a cross between a refugee camp and some frontier outpost from the Wild West; among law enforcement, it was generally known that the murder rate inside the N.O. was completely off the charts, though because it wasn’t officially a city of any kind, not even part of any state, this fact went mostly unreported.
Now, not long before sunup, the Mississippi Border Checkpoint appeared ahead of them, a twinkling village of lights in the predawn darkness. Even at this hour, the lines were long, mostly tanker trucks headed north to St. Louis or Chicago. Guards with dogs and Geiger counters and long mirrors on poles moved up and down the lines. Wolgast pulled in behind a semi with Yosemite Sam mud flaps and a bumper sticker that read: I MISS MY EX-WIFE, BUT MY AIM IS IMPROVING.
Beside him, Doyle stirred, rubbing his eyes. He sat up in his seat and looked around. “Are we there yet, Dad?”
“It’s just a checkpoint. Go back to sleep.”
Wolgast pulled the car out of line and drew up to the nearest uniform. He rolled down the window and held up his credentials.
“Federal agents. Any way you can wave us through?”
The guard was just a kid, his face soft and spotted with pimples. The body armor bulked him up, but Wolgast could tell he was probably no more than a welterweight. He should be back at home, Wolgast thought, wherever that was, snug in bed and dreaming of some girl in his algebra class, not standing on a highway in Mississippi wearing thirty pounds of Kevlar, holding an assault rifle over his chest.
He eyed Wolgast’s credentials with only vague interest, then tipped his head toward a concrete building sitting off the highway.
“You’ll have to pull over to the station, sir.”
Wolgast sighed with irritation. “Son, I don’t have time for this.”
“You want to skip the lines, you do.”
At that moment, a second guard stepped into their headlights. He turned his hips to their vehicle and unslung his weapon. What the fuck, Wolgast thought.
“For Pete’s sake. Is that really necessary?”
“Hands where we can see them, sir!” the second man barked.
“For crying out loud,” Doyle said.
The first guard turned toward the man in the headlights. He waved his hand to tell him to lower his weapon. “Cool it, Duane. They’re feds.” The second man hesitated, then shrugged and walked away.
“Sorry about that. Just pull around. They’ll have you out fast.”
“They better,” Wolgast said.
In the station, the OD took their credentials and asked them to wait while he phoned in their ID numbers. FBI, Homeland Security, even state and local cops; everybody was on a centralized system now, their movements tracked. Wolgast poured himself a cup of sludgy coffee from the urn, took a few halfhearted sips, and tossed it in the trash. There was a No Smoking sign, but the room reeked like an old ashtray. The clock on the wall said it was just past six; in about an hour the sun would be coming up.
The OD stepped back to the counter with their credentials. He was a trim man, nondescript, wearing the ash gray uniform of Homeland Security. “Okay, gentlemen. Let’s get you on your merry way. Just one thing: the system says you were booked to fly to Denver tonight. Probably just an error, but I need to log it.”
Wolgast had his answer ready. “We were. We were redirected to Nashville to pick up a federal witness.”
The duty officer considered this a minute, then nodded. He typed the information into his computer. “Fair enough. Raw deal, they didn’t fly you. That must be a thousand miles.”
“Tell me about it. I just go where I’m told.”
“Amen, brother.”
They returned to their car, and a guard waved them to the exit. Moments later they were back on the highway.
“Nashville?” Doyle asked.
Wolgast nodded, fixing his eyes on the road ahead. “Think about it. I-55 has checkpoints in Arkansas and Illinois, one just south of St. Louis and one about halfway