I pushed my way through the tight mob that had gathered around Tim.

Tim was looking rather worse for wear. He had two black eyes and his clothes were bloodstained.

Old man Anderson was yelling quite close to my ear. "What in Monagh's name are you doing now, Jim? Have you come back to save him? Are you on their side now?"

I ignored him. "Tim. Did they give you anything? Anything wearable? Answer me."

Tim gurgled something unintelligible. Then he passed out. So much for that line of enquiry.

I pried open his mouth, ignoring the blood, feeling his gums, feeling behind his teeth, feeling the flat ridges of the molars. Nothing.

I patted down his clothes. A lump. His phone. In one of those chunky phone cases.

Of course. They could have slipped a tracker into it at any time. I popped the phone from its case. There it was. A cavity, gouged out of the rubberised plastic lining of the case. And inside the cavity was a little plastic thing with a blinking red light, held in place with what appeared to be a dab of hot glue.

I put the phone back in its case and slipped it in my pocket. They could be tracking the phone as well.

"Answer me, Jim? What is going on?" "Jim!" The other pack members were yelling over each other.

"I don't have time to explain," I replied. "I'll explain later. Right now, I need to get the hell out of here, for my safety and everyone else's safety. I need you guys to listen to the others and follow them."

They nodded. And with that, I ran for the truck. I could only hope that they understood how serious the situation was.

I drove back along the road I had travelled with the others the night before. At every corner, I feared that the Thunder Falls people would be waiting just around the corner and the whole thing would be over. But it seemed they were running late.

Keeping an eye on the horizon, I finally got the turn-off that the next part of my plan hinged on. I turned left. The glorified logging track I was now travelling on led to a beauty spot nestled in a valley, the type of place you'd take a potential mate for a picnic date. There was a cavern a short walk from aforementioned picnic spot, along the river cliffs. A perfect hideout.

I parked the truck at the entrance to the picnic spot. From here, the trail looped back to the main road, two miles down from where I'd turned off. I got out and hurled the phone into some bushes, as far as I could throw it, and drove back the way I came.

As I drove away, I looked to my left, and I could see the black armoured cars through the trees, heading down from the other direction. It had been that close. 

***

Mercifully, I encountered nothing along the rest of the way. The roads were completely empty, and I made good time. They were clearly not expecting anyone to escape from the cleanup squad they had just sent.

Just before the border of the Industrial Zone I turned right and took a detour into the rough wasteland that formed a buffer between it and the pack territories beyond. It was onto this wasteland that the Interpack depot backed out onto, all tinder-dry grass and plastic litter. Rogues used it as a shortcut, as the telltale paths of desire worn into the ground showed, but today it was deserted. pulled up at the rear entrance, which was deserted. There was a back gate, a set of rusty steel doors. The lock was rusty and the key took a few tries, but soon I was inside. I didn't bother closing the doors.

I made my way through the parked buses to my own car, which was still where I had parked it. The insides of the outer lenses were filthy. Perfect.

I went up into the office. The calendar was still set to the day before. Taking out my keys again, I opened a locked drawer and pulled out one of the satellite phones we used for communication when we did charters for the more remote packs, up in the southeastern mountain ranges. I picked it up, weighing up its dimensions, trying to work out if what I had in mind would work. It was tiny. I remembered the bricks we had to carry around not less than ten years ago.

The office also had a commanding view of the front of the premises. I crept forward to a position beside the window and snuck a look out. There were two armoured vehicles outside the front gates of the Interpack depot. As I had expected. I doubled back and opened the staff fridge. There wasn't much left. I ate what I could, not tasting the food.

I needed one more thing. Careful to make as little noise as possible, I went back down to the workshop. Engine blocks lay in various states of disassembly. Parts were sorted neatly on shelves. A round white object caught my eye. A roll of white electrical tape. Perfect.

Holding my quarry in my hands, I popped open the bonnet of the Moon Goddess and set to work. Five minutes later, I was finished.

***

I turned onto yet another side road, little used and covered with leaves and forest detritus. The sun was almost entirely blocked out by the trees above.

Branches were starting to droop precariously low above the road, the sunlight taking on a yellow glow as it filtered in through their embrace.

I had driven along a heavily rutted track along the wasteland, then taken the backroads once I reached the cover of forest. I had assumed that they were concentrating on fencing in the East Side, and also not exactly expecting people to be travelling to Thunder Falls at this time, and I was right. But it was still wise to take precautions. I needed to get to Brian in one piece.

As it turned out, I did not run into a single patrol, but the drive took twice as long as usual. The roads were barely passable in some places, but the Moon Goddess took it all in her stride. I arrived at the same lookout where we had stopped on the way to Congress. The Thunder Falls pack grounds were in a valley, and there were few vantage points from which to see them. This, from the western side, was one of the few places distant enough that I could observe without any risk of being spotted by their security patrols.

I pulled out the binoculars and adjusted the view. The Thunder Falls pack settlement came into focus. There were some large clearings at the periphery that hadn't been there when I last saw them. They looked like they'd been constructed recently. Some of the roads looked freshly paved as well.

"Enjoying the view?"

I gave a start. Adlai's voice. Soft, not at all alpha-like.

"I thought you'd be here," he expounded. "I had a hunch. A correct one, it turns out."

I turned around to see Adlai's Mercedes 600 Grosser blocking the road behind the Moon Goddess. He was standing next to it, one hand on the roof.

"I've been expecting you, Jim. Come on. Hop in." He gestured towards the Mercedes. I swore the moustache was slightly longer, but he looked like exactly like I remembered. Modest. 

Unassuming.

"What about my car? Do I-"

"Don't worry, Jim. It's taken care of." One of his underlings alighted from the front passenger seat of the Mercedes. Adlai spoke to him briefly, pointing towards my car several times as he did so.

"Be careful with the brakes," I said, as the aide strode past me towards my car. I could not tell if he heard me. 

***

Adlai was drinking from a brandy snifter on the center console. Behind us, the aide was trailing us in the Moon Goddess.

Opposite us, an entire three-piece jazz band had somehow been shoehorned onto the rear-facing jump seats of the Mercedes. The trio, dressed in starched white shirts, bowties, pinstriped pants and patent-leather shoes, looked utterly surreal, crammed inside the dark interior of the limousine, playing a jazz standard I couldn't identify. I looked at them. None of them seemed very happy to be here.

Outside the window, the forest flashed past us silently at fifty miles an hour, with only the faint rumble of gravel serving to remind us of our speed. The wooded backdrop only made the whole thing even more surreal.

"Do you like it?" Adlai put down his glass. "I saw them performing at a function. Their Alpha seemed almost ashamed of them, can you believe it? By the end of the day, they were officially members of my pack, and they've been performing for me ever since. As I might have told you before, Jim, I can't abide recorded music. Believe me, I've spent thousands of dollars on the best stereo systems in the world. And nothing comes close to this."

Who really was this Adlai guy? Was he a madman?

"Where is Brian?" I asked.

"I assure you he is hale and hearty, Jim. A little knocked up, but in good spirits."

"What are you trying to do?" I looked him in the eyes. "Why?"

"We'll talk more once we get to the house." Adlai turned his attention to the scenery. "It's quite an interesting car you have, Jim."

"It's the official Alpha car. We bought it new and we've had it for nearly 50 years now. It's older than I am."

"Old Citroëns are very rare in this part of the world." Adlai continued. "It's a different story over the border, of course."

"I think one of the southern peninsula packs had an SM in their fleet. Do you know much about them, Adlai?"

"Oh, not at all. I've always erred on the Teutonic side when it came to all matters automotive," Adlai replied. "I always thought French cars looked rather odd in all those car magazines. But I must say it looks quite sublime in the flesh."

I breathed an internal sigh of relief. My plan might just work.

I looked around the plush rear compartment of the Mercedes, all burl walnut and black leather. "This car belonged to Sefton, didn't it?"

Adlai nodded, replacing the snifter on a little table between us. "Quite a walking contradiction, he was. Preaching an ascetic lifestyle and the emptiness of materialism, but also quite a connoisseur of a finer things in life."