Spectre Black Read Online Free PDF Page A

instead of black: “Heron Lake Agricultural Farm.” Landry looked for a lake but didn’t see one. He did see irrigation ditches, though.
    The third big farm was called “The Valleyview Experimental Agricultural Station.” Like its companion farms, the Valleyview Experimental Agricultural Station was neatly laid out with computer motherboard precision. There were two gigantic manufactured steel buildings and several smaller ones, all fitting together in a pleasing manner, divided by paved roads lined by poplar trees. A small airfield and hangar were situated at one end of the grid of bean fields.
    He slowed a tick—no one else on the road—as he drove past the mega farm, instinctively enjoying the layout, the neat interlocking parts. Precision was something that appealed to his eye. He had always been drawn to circles and squares and triangles. Geometry had been his favorite subject in school.
    He watched the farm dwindle in his rearview. The land became fallow farmland again and the odd patch of desert. As he left the valley and the farms behind, the road climbed a little.
    Up on the left he saw a child’s building block of a structure—the Circle K. An old one, the kind he used to hang out at during his youth. The pole rose above it but the sign was gone, except for a rusty square frame.
    Landry didn’t alter his speed, but drove past it, cop style. First, get the lay of the land. Then, go back. At approximately two hundred yards beyond the Circle K, Milepost 138 flashed by.
    He scanned the road, looking for anything or anyone, but saw nothing. He turned around and drove back, pulling off the road into the pitted asphalt parking lot. Aimed for the tamarisk tree at the edge of the lot near the rear of the building, and parked behind it. This way he was hidden from the road on one side and blocked by the bulk of the abandoned building on the other.
    He saw the pay phone on the side of the Circle K. Turned on his 4G and punched in the number Jolie had left with his answering service. The phone rang.
    Landry had mixed feelings about tamarisk trees. They were salt cedars, imported from the Mediterranean. They clogged up rivers and streams in the west, killing the natural flora and fauna, and they sopped up a lot of water. On the other hand, their shade wasn’t just good, it was spectacular—the deepest, darkest, coolest shade you could find anywhere. At this time of day, going on eleven in the morning, the area under the tamarisk tree was as black as ink.
    Landry went out on the road and looked from every angle. The car was, for all intents and purposes, invisible.
    Just in case someone pulled in (unlikely, as the Circle K was obviously abandoned) Landry opened the trunk and pulled out the spare tire and the jack. He left the trunk open and set the spare tire against the car and the jack near it. It would look like he was just getting ready to work the tire.
    He leaned against the car, staring out at the road and the shimmering blue mountains to the east, and once again punched in the number of the pay phone.
    This time he let the pay phone ring again and again and again while he scanned the desert for movement.
    She did not come.

    But someone did. Or rather they drove by, in a hurry: two Tobosa County Sheriff’s cars, light bars blinking. They whisked past, going at least eighty miles an hour, in the direction Landry had come from. They disappeared over a hill and the sound diminished.
    Landry wondered where they were going in such a hurry, but decided it was none of his business. He continued to wait for Jolie Burke, staring out at the desert, and tried calling again.
    The same result. Nothing.
    Another city or county car—this one a plain wrap—blew through, followed by a tall white panel van. After that, nothing. Landry continued to try the phone at the Circle K periodically, as noon turned to afternoon. One hour turned to two hours turned to three hours. The sun moved and he moved with it, staying in the shade