some commotion by the door. Poole walked still closer and could now see what was happening. Men were escorting—or was it dragging?—kids out of the building. There was yelling, unintelligible over the howl of the storm.
Poole was so transfixed by the scene in front of him that he didn’t notice the two men approach until they were ten yards from him. At this distance he could see that what he had guessed was, in fact, true. These men, and the group of men at the warehouse entrance, were ASU.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
The rain had abated somewhat by the time a sober Frings found his way to Freeman’s Gap, but the ruts in the road had turned to canals. He would have had no chance of finding this hardscrabble community except that Lon Kingsbury down in Advertising had grown up in Sylvan, the adjacent town to the west, and had given him precise directions. The village consisted of a couple of taverns, a country store, a gas station, three churches, and a post office. No one was on the streets. Frings continued on through and out the other side.
Outside town he encountered unmarked roads branching off at irregular intervals and, unable to figure out which might lead to Samuelson, returned to the town. He stopped at the country store, where he asked an elderly man wearing square bifocals for directions. The man paused to think for a minute, gave him directions, decided that they weren’t quite right, then gave him a second set that he seemed happier with. Frings thanked him and got back on the road.
As the man had promised, a road branched off by a giant felled oak. He took this road, which quickly turned into a dirt drive that led into the forest. It was slow going on this track. Rain-fed streams crossed the narrow road at intervals, and Frings had to build up momentum to ensure that his wheels didn’t get stuck. The road eventually curved to a clearing where a ramshackle cabin dominated a yard cluttered with rusted car chassis, broken bicycles, and other assorted large junk.
Frings pulled his car into an open area near the front of the house and got out, wishing for the first time in his life that he had a gun. It was the country, he thought, that had him so ill at ease. He had been with thugs and murderers hundreds of times in the City. But that was his turf. Out here in the sticks he felt vulnerable.
A porch ran the entire length of the front of the house, and Frings trotted to it through the steady rain. On the porch he wiped the water from his face and knocked on the wooden door. The windows were covered from the inside—there was no way to look in. He could see light coming from inside through the gaps in the planks of the door. The place was buttoned up. The floor inside creaked under footsteps. Frings knocked again.
“Who’s that?”
Frings was surprised by how close the voice was. Possibly just on the other side of the door.
“Mr. Samuelson?”
“Who’s that? I’m not asking a third time.”
“My name is Frings. Roderigo Bernal sent me to talk to you.”
No response.
“Mr. Samuelson? I want to talk to you about the Navajo Project.”
“Stand back from the door.”
“I’m going to move to my left, your right,” Frings said, taking two sideways steps to his left.
“You clear?”
“Yes.”
The door came open fast and hard, and Samuelson emerged with a shotgun braced against his shoulder, sighting Frings. He was a huge man, not fat but not thin either, a round Scandinavian face under his tangled blond curls. He assessed Frings with suspicion.
“You’re Frank Frings?”
Frings nodded, looking at the shotgun.
“How do I know?”
“I’ve got my press pass in my wallet if that means anything.”
Samuelson snorted. “To hell with it. Come in.” He nodded toward the open door. Frings was careful not to make contact with Samuelson as he eased by.
The interior was a marked contrast to the outside. Warm-colored rugs hung on the walls and over the windows. What had seemed forbidding on the outside seemed somehow pleasant now that Frings was inside. He figured the rugs had as much to do with insulation as decoration. The sparse furniture was simple and clean and well-ordered. Samuelson might have made some of it himself. Samuelson nodded Frings to a chair and then, to Frings’s relief, leaned his shotgun against the protruding stone fireplace.
“Coffee?”
Frings nodded. Samuelson stuck an iron pot into the fire and sat