As she approached the Range Rover, Sonja Nilsson pulled her phone from her side pocket, paused and typed on the screen.
She’d barely finished doing so when the improvised explosive device erupted in a ragged shape of orange flame and launched shrapnel in a thousand different directions.
60
Shaw and Hannah were in the Kia, driving slowly through the field to a stand of trees beside the lake. They were off the driveway and the car rocked gently on the soft soil.
Hannah pulled off her stocking cap. He was surprised she had long hair. He’d thought it would be cropped. The dark blond strands, streaked with red coloring, were pulled back in a ponytail, bound with a black tie.
When they were about forty yards from the entranceway to the property—a gate in a post-and-rail fence—Shaw steered right and nosed the car into a stand of pine and scrub near the lakeshore. He shut the engine off and climbed out. Hannah joined him.
Slinging the backpack over his shoulder, he walked toward the gate. She followed.
They hiked through the field of low vegetation, yellow and pale green; it had not rained for some weeks. Grasshoppers and leafhoppers and stinkbugs danced away from their legs in fast streaks.
“Ick. I hate bugs.”
“Those are insects,” Shaw said, recalling his father’s lesson on the distinction. “Bugs are a type of insect.”
“Like, all bugs are insects but not all insects are bugs.”
“That’s it.”
She’d be wondering why the entomological distinction was important but now was not the time for a lesson in the value of precision in survivalism. Toxic versus nutritional. WhileHemiptera, true bugs, could destroy plants, none were dangerous to humans. Nine types were edible.
They arrived at the gate. The girl swatted a mosquito.
Shaw stepped into the woods bordering the property, looked down and ripped from the ground several floss flower plants. He tore off the leaves and handed them to her. “It’s got coumarin in it. Crush it and rub it on.”
She smelled it, wrinkled her nose. “Bet it doesn’t taste as good as ginger.”
“Doesn’t,” Shaw said. “And it’llmakeyou puke.”
He withdrew the car remote and pressedlock. The horn beeped. Good. He’d been concerned about the distance. There are ways to increase the range of a car remote—press it against a bottle of sports drink or your head or add a piece of metal to the antenna—but there was no need for that here.
He picked up a long flat piece of bark and studied the ground until he found a small round pebble. From his backpack he took a roll of electrician’s tape. With this he secured the pebble against the panic button, and the remote itself he taped to the bark. He set this, remote side down, in one of the tire tracks in the driveway.
She laughed. “So when the car drives over it, the alarm goes off.” She seemed delighted at the idea. “This’s so dope.”
“Try it.”
She stepped on the bark and the Kia alarm blared.
“It worked!”
Shaw quickly picked up the bark and pressed thelockbutton, which shut the alarm off. He replaced it on the ground and scattered some leaves to hide it further.
The two began hiking back to the cabin.
“You learn that from your father?”
“Yes, and no. Not the remote specifically. But he taught us to improvise.”
“Like, who’s ‘us’?”
“I have a brother and sister.”
He explained about Russell—to the extent he could. Much of the man’s government security work was so secret even Shaw didn’t know his employer. Hannah was particularly interested to hear about Dorion, who had a degree in engineering. “Like your mother. She’s got a disaster response company. Hurricanes, oil spills.”