Atlantic flight 607 from Las Vegas landed on what passed for an airstrip in the refugee town, little more than a strip of bare, relatively flat desert about as wide as a football field and several times as long. The airport was a large, squat building with imposing stone walls and metal bars in the windows, clearly built to withstand attacks by roving packs of infected back during the days when this town was often under siege by the living dead.

The plane was relatively private, much smaller than a 747 but still technically a commercial liner. Barely half-full, it housed mostly tourists, reporters and those among the cripplingly poor who had taken the free ticket out to one of the 'resettlement projects' offered by the government. Nick had ridden first-class, of course, in the mostly-empty forward section of the plane. That suited him just fine, as he'd always been a fan of privacy.

Stepping down off of the exit stairs, Nick grimaced at the cloud of sand kicked up by the plane's engines, doing his best to shield his face with his briefcase. Walking up to stand beside him, Rochelle seemed less perturbed by the flying grains, her attention occupied with the grim, uninviting airport.

Staring around from behind the large lenses of his imposing, very expensive designer sunglasses, Nick drawled "What a pisshole." When his companion snorted, he added "Seriously. This place is worse than Savannah."

"It'll be good for you," Rochelle said, smiling and placing a hand on Nick's arm. "You've been spending too much time cooped up in that gambling resort. You need some time on your feet, outdoors."

"Ugh," Nick grunted as they started off towards the looming entryway into the airport proper. "I knew coming out here was a bad idea."

-O-

"What the hell do you mean you're leaving?" Bill asked incredulously, folding his arms over his chest and glaring out at Francis from under his bushy grey brows.

The big biker mirrored the older man's gesture, and growled "I mean I'm leaving, Grandpa. The longer I stay here, the more danger I put you in. It's me that Carver wants - I know you're technically fugitives too now, but given a choice between going after me or you guys, I can easily guess which one he'd pick." Leaning in as if he hadn't made his point obvious enough already, Francis added "Me."

Slicing his hand through the air in a gesture of negation, Bill said "Hell no. I learned the hard way during the infection - we need to stick together to survive. You go haring off on your own, Carver and his goons'll have you dried and pinned in a drawer in a week."

Letting out a wordless snarl of exasperation, Francis turned and slammed his gloved fist into the wall. "Damn it, Bill!" he snarled, turning a furious glare on the older man. "I'm not putting you three in danger for my sake! They're bound to find me eventually, and if I stay here, you have no idea the kind of hell they'd bring down on you!"

Taking a step forward, Bill put a hand on Francis's leather-garbed shoulder and said, very softly, "Son, you sacrificed yourself for us back at the farmhouse in Alleghany. I think it's about time we returned the favor."

Francis deflated at that, letting out a long breath and turning away, shoulders slumping. After a long moment of silence, he said "Thanks, Bill."

"Any time, son," the 'Nam vet replied.

-O-

"Who have we got?" The voice was hard, clipped, and bored, a shade deeper than usual and sounding utterly at ease, as if its possessor had done this a hundred times before. Cool, competent eyes the color of grey slate swept over the aggregation of miserable, disheveled humanity before them, and a well-used cigarette stub was spat from between thin lips, then crushed under a knee-high leather jackboot.

"Nothing much, Captain," said the man standing next to him, a full foot shorter than his commander. "Just these seven." Both were dressed in the livery of the Guardians - the militaristic branch of the IPA, tasked with hunting down suspected Templars and other such people - but while the shorter one was slightly rounded at the middle and looking as if he'd slept in his clothes, the taller commander was built lean and powerful, his body whipcord-taut and his uniform without a wrinkle or stain in sight. The name badge sowed onto his uniform shirt read "Captain J. Anders."

Turning his head to stare down at his subordinate, Anders said "And what is this sorry lot in for, Sergeant Myerson?"

Myerson gesticulated with his pen, pointing to each one in turn as he ran down the list. "Vagrancy, trespassing, vandalism, more trespassing, assault, more vandalism, and assault with a deadly weapon."

Anders snorted derisively, and crossed his arms over his chest. His laconic voice took on a razor edge, and he said "Isn't this the kind of thing we have a police force for?"

Myerson squirmed a little, and said "Yes, Captain. And ordinarily they'd be the ones cleaning up this mess, not us. But the police are severely understaffed since that shitstorm at the IPA HQ, and what's left are out sweeping the streets for whoever blew up the place."

"And why aren't we the ones sweeping the streets?" Anders snarled, all hints of boredom gone from his voice, now as cold and hard as a knife.

"Because, sir," Myerson said, eyes narrowing in irritation, "The Director says we need a federal directive before we can organize an S&D. Says that if we go around kicking in doors without one, things here will blow up even worse, and the Agency will get in all kinds of legal trouble."

Letting out a wordless growl and fishing in his pocket for another cigarette, Anders muttered "Take them away."

-O-

Francis's heart almost stopped when there came a knock at the door, firm and authoritative. Bill put a hand to his lips and shooed the biker into the other room, and went to open the door himself.

Ducking into a side room, Francis slid around the doorframe and pressed his back to the wall, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. His heart hammered in his chest, and his fingers twitched at his side where his revolver should have been. It had, however, been confiscated by the IPA upon his arrest, and he hadn't deemed it worthy of making a five-minute detour to retrieve it while they were escaping due to the number of people trying to kill them.

Instead, he just curled both hands into fists as the door clicked open, to keep them from doing anything they shouldn't. He could hear Bill saying "Good afternoon, sir. What can I do for you?"

Then there came a tired and very bored voice, flat and monotonous, as if reciting from memory. "We're looking for this man and three unknown accomplices, one black, one female and one old - say, about your age, actually. The one we know is named Francis Dixon, six-five, brown eyes, wears a leather jacket with one sleeve missing. Have you seen him or any of the other three anywhere within the last two days?"

Francis's breath caught. Oh shit, ohhhh shit… There came a pause, as if Bill was thinking, and then the old 'Nam vet said "No, sir. But if one of 'em is really my age, he can't have done much. I have trouble getting up the stairs to my bedroom each night!"

There came a chuckle, and then the policeman's voice - now tinged with amusement - saying "Thank you, sir. Have a good day." The door clicked shut, and Francis let out the breath that he didn't realize he'd been holding.

"All clear!" Bill said as the growl of the police cruiser's engines started up outside, and Francis came out of hiding, heart still thudding in his chest. Then Zoey came pounding down the stairs, eyes wide, and stopped to let out a sigh when she saw both Francis and Bill still present and unharmed. She looked from the face of one to the other, and asked "What happened?"

-O-

"Well, not a day into this and you've already found something interesting," Nick drawled, reclining in the overstuffed chair in their hotel room. Lavish, they had discovered, was a relative term - the most expensive hotel in town was built of stone , with simple wood ceilings and panel floors disguised by area rugs. It actually had some nice furniture, shipped in from out-of-state, and hot water, thank God, but it was far from the five-star hotels that the con man was used to staying at.

"And get this," Rochelle said, displaying the morning's paper as proudly as a fisherman would display the catch of the day. "It says here that the Guardians, the military branch of the IPA, have been tasked with taking up police duties because they need a federal permit to perform searches of people's houses. But here's the real juicy part - according to the new federal laws established since the infection, any government agency has the right to perform searches of civilian homes in an infected area, and technically, this desert is still an infected area!"

Nick sat in silence for a moment, swirling the rose-colored liquid about in the glass goblet he held between his fingers. Then he raised a slim, angular eyebrow in an invitation to continue, and Rochelle said "Don't you see? By law, they could be searching people's homes! The law was meant to help find infected people hiding in their homes, but it technically applies! There's no way whoever is running the IPA is dumb enough to not know that!"

Nick's eyes lit, and he sat down the goblet he held. Leaning forward and resting his arms on his knees, he said "So that means…"

"That the director of the IPA doesn't want the Guardians to search," Rochelle finished for him, "Because he's afraid of what they might find! It says here the police haven't found anything yet, which is probably just what he wanted! He's probably using the police as a coverup for some secret investigation of his own!"

Nick grinned in triumph, but then the light went out of his eyes and his expression sobered. Glancing over at his companion from under lowered brows, he said "You know, this is a lot of speculation from a fairly small amount of evidence… the guy could just be incompetent, you never know."

Rochelle shrugged, continuing flipping through newspapers. Then she smirked up at him, and purred "Call it woman's intuition."