Page 53 of South of Nowhere (Colter Shaw #5)

53.

Time Elapsed from Initial Collapse: 27 Hours

Waylon Foley watched her SUV—the black Expedition with government plates—squeal to a stop in the River View Motel outside of Fort Pleasant.

It was a weathered, non-chain place, dressed drown in peeling paint, sporting greasy windows and serviced by vending machines whose contents he would never even think about consuming.

The motel, however, lived up to its name at least. Every room offered a kick-ass view of the Never Summer River, presently raging past at what he guessed was about forty miles an hour. It would slow soon as it continued south, to Fort Pleasant itself, where it flushed into a floodplain.

He watched the woman park and climb from the SUV, pushing back her thick red-black hair, zero attention paid to the surroundings. Foley glanced at the olive drab uniform and the Army Corps of Engineers patch on the shoulder. The name on the ample breast: T. Olsen . The uniform and insignia had an effect on him. Foley killed the engine of his pickup and, more careful than her, looked around slowly. He had to be cautious. He’d been seen in person and on tape. And though his appearance now was not what his appearance would soon become, enough people were looking for someone of his general description that prudence was vital.

The River View nestled up against a defunct service station on one side and a self-storage operation on the other. One cat, three buzzards, a dead squirrel and zero humans were present. No police patrols cruising by either. The authorities had their job—finding the leg-shooting sniper and mine-owner bomber—but they also had a hundred-foot levee that as far as they knew was about to detonate into a flood. They were, in other words, preoccupied.

The parking lot was gritty and decorated with trash that couldn’t melt even in today’s torrential rains—like beer bottles—and trash that could: paper and cardboard and food, now piles of mush. A thoroughly unappealing place. The smell of rot and the smell of garlic from a Chinese restaurant fifty feet away and the smell of crap—dog or human. He strode across the asphalt now, moving silently on his rubber-soled boots, following her route from the Expedition to the rooms. She stopped at 188 and fished for the key, undid the lock and stepped in.

He got to the door just as she was swinging it shut.

“Hey, there, Soldier Girl,” he whispered.

She gasped. “Jesus.”

A moment passed between them, their eyes locked.

Then Alisette Lark—aka Sergeant Tamara Olsen, her fake name in this operation—gave a coy smile as she looked down at the telltale bulge in the front of his slacks.

Her voice was amused as she said, “Don’t tell me, Waylon. Not the uniform?”

Foley grinned then nodded toward the bed. “Leave it on. Well, just the top. Not the rest of it. Obviously.”