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staging tent flapped in the wind, secured with concrete blocks. A mobile medical van was parked on the only paved road into the area, nose pointed out and ready to leave.
    The thirty miles from the airport had taken them an hour and a half. Even the detours included roads with monster-sized gashes in the pavement, as if a Godzilla-like creature had chomped and stomped a path before them.
    Barricades blocked their entrance and a sheriff’s deputy dressed in a rain slicker with plastic stretched over his hat signaled for the SUV to stop. Isabel leaned across the driver with her ID wallet to the window. The deputy motioned for the window to be rolled down for a better look, which drew a sigh of aggravation from Isabel. The rain had eased to a pitter-patter, so Creed could clearly hear her mumble under her breath, “Don’t these people have a clue who we are?”
    “Good afternoon,” the driver said as the deputy reached in and took the ID to examine.
    He pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket and squinted as if looking for Isabel’s name on a list. Creed could see Isabel’s jaw go tight, holding back her impatience.
    “You’re not on the list,” he told her as he handed back her wallet.
    “What? That’s impossible. We’re with the Department of Defense.”
    “Sorry, you could be with the White House, and unless you’re on this list, I can’t let you through.”
    The deputy glanced into the backseat, and when he saw Bolo his expression changed. “Is this the search-and-rescue dog?”
    “Yes, and we need—”
    “Why didn’t you say so?” he interrupted her. “Big guy with the gray mustache is Oliver Vance. He’s the emergency management director for the state of North Carolina. I think he might be under the tent right now. He’ll check you in and get you up-to-date. There’s some solid ground to your left. Go ahead and park up there.”
    As soon as the SUV slid to a stop, Creed gathered his gear and Bolo. He could hear Isabel and her driver still arguing about why she wasn’t on the list even as he slogged his way to the staging tent, leaving them behind. Oliver Vance met him before he reached the tent.
    “Welcome.” Vance stuck out a gloved hand that was as big as a catcher’s mitt. “I’m Oliver Vance. Everybody around here calls me Ollie.”
    “Ryder Creed. And this is Bolo.”
    “Bolo?” He chuckled at the name. “We’re sure glad to see you two. Somebody mentioned you were a marine and a dog handler in Afghanistan?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Conditions on the slide field are still unstable, but knowing what you probably dealt with in Afghanistan, you’re used to unstable territory.”
    Creed remembered what they had said about dog handlers every time he led a unit beyond the wire. “First out. First to die.” Their job was to accompany the platoon and clear a path through hostile territory, making themselves the first targets—not just first targets of hidden Taliban fighters, but also first to trip over buried IEDs.
    “At least here nobody will be shooting at my dog,” he told Vance.
    “Bastards,” the man said, shaking his head. “I was in Desert Storm. Still think we should have taken care of them back then. Saved us a heap of trouble. Hated that son-of-a-bitching place. Some days I feel like I still have sand up my ass.”
    That made Creed smile. Vance showed him to a dry bench in the middle of the tent. He petted Bolo while Creed pulled out gear from his duffel. Around them, men called to each other and worked the area.
    “How many do you have still missing?” Creed asked.
    “Unaccounted is at forty-five.”
    “He’s here to search an area for Lieutenant Colonel Logan,” Isabel told Oliver Vance as she slogged her way under the tent.
    She stood in front of him, a foot shorter, arms crossed over her chest as if that might give her the needed authority. Before they’d left the Gulfstream she had changed into jeans and added hiking boots that looked brand-new. Her