Page 41 of Shadow of the Moon

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The drive to Bozeman seemed to take an inordinately long time. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, but somewhere ahead there had been a crash, because the interstate was at a standstill.

“I hope we get there soon,” Amberly murmured, looking up from her laptop screen. She’d been clacking away for the past two hours, researching and collating data.

Dev looked at Amberly and grinned. “Everything is working out the way it needs to, babe.”

She cocked her head at him, stretching her neck muscles. “Why do you say that?”

“Haven’t you noticed? It’s the new moon tonight. It will be completely dark. Perfect stalking time for the Moon Devil.”

Amberly rolled her eyes at him. “Whatever. It’s going to be black as pitch and unless you have NVGs, you’re going to bumbling around in the dark like the rest of us.”

Hm. She was right. He didn’t even have anything like that, even at home. After he’d been charged, he’d given everything over to the evidence techs. It didn’t matter. He hadn’t wanted any ties to them at all after that.

There were civilian grade optics available, and he’d have to put it on his card, but it might be better than nothing. Being Montana, they might be able to find a decent hunting store that carried that kind of stuff. One of his fellow teammates had been from Billings. It would have been nice to have the option to call him for support.

“The stores will be opening soon in Billings. We have time to gather up some stuff before we head on to Bozeman.”

What should have been a two-hour trip to Billings ended up taking a little more than three, and they had two more hours to get to Bozeman. But they took the time to stop at a hunting store just off the interstate. They had small night vision spotting scopes, but they were nothing compared to what he was used to.

“Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess,” he murmured to Amberly as he carried the bag from the store. He knew the scope would fit on his rifle, but he hated going into the field with unfamiliar equipment.

Once they got to Bozeman, they found a motel on the north side of the city and checked in. They had to use his card for that as well, because they were damn near out of cash. Now that he’d committed to using the card, he could get cash out. It would just tell everyone where he was.

“Fuck it,” he said, pocketing his wallet. “We’re going to get him tonight, anyway.”

Amberly nodded. “We almost have to. Since we don’t know how the attack, or attacks, are going down, we have to assume that they’ll be leaving Bozeman soon. We have to find him, or at least his camp.”

“How far are we from that location on Zed’s phone?”

Amberly pulled up the map on his phone. “Looks like less than half an hour, but straight up onto the mountains. We’re going to need a four by four.”

Amberly spread everything they had out on the table, the pictures, the list, her laptop and the file on Regent and his followers. “The answers have to be here.”

They pored over everything they had. Dev kept coming back to the picture they’d been calling the spider. “Can you pull up the Virginia Railway Express maps for D.C.?”

They didn’t look similar.

“Oh, maybe the Washington Metro…” she murmured, typing in the search terms. The bus map popped up. “That’s completely wrong.” Then she clicked on the train maps. “Oh, we found it! That’s a match!”

Yes, it was. “Okay, so he’s sending people in on trains. I bet if we look at the destination points, they’ll coincide with a lot of these targets.”

She scanned again, nodding slowly. “Yes, I think you’re right.”

He rested a hand on her shoulder as he stood behind her. “We’re figuring it out.”

“I need to let Brown know.”

Even as she said it, he was typing a message off to Charley. He didn’t know if she had any pull in that area, but if they could get someone on those trains, watching, maybe someone would spot something.

He also told her he was moving in tonight if he could find a decent ride and a few more supplies.

Roger that.

Amberly had activated the second burner phone and called Brown. Dev listened as she related the details they’d worked out. Then she paused, and her face fell. “No way,” she breathed, her eyes flicking up to his.

Dev could see the shock in her expression, and he wished she’d put the phone on speaker.

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