"Ouch!" Casey complained. "This feels more like twenty miles than ten."

Derek was striding along the dry river bed in front of her, his pack on his back and his camera bag slung over his shoulder. He was careful not to bring anything sentimental on assignment but he was reluctant to part with his backpack or his camera bag. He had been grateful to Casey for bringing the former from his hotel room because he wasn't sure they would be able to divert back to the hotel when they re-entered the city. He was grateful, but he didn't slow down for her!

"Maybe you should have spent more of the past year doing some exercise rather than sitting on your ass in a television studio." He threw back over his shoulder with a shadow of humour. Casey hoped there was no one closeby to hear his over-loud words. It seemed unlikely. They had trekked some distance from the roadblock by now, and the riverbed was several feet below the normal ground level. The city walls of their destination were still a half a mile away, a vast dark hulk on the horizon. The dawn was still some distance off too and when they weren't walking or talking the only other noises were the usual sounds of a land sandwiched between a desert and a city.

Casey trudged along behind her step-brother. Unlike him in his built-for-comfort cargo pants and well-used walking boots, she was still dressed in an outfit governed by convention rather than practicality. Beneath her long dark robes she wore shorts and running shoes, but the black fabric often tripped her up, brushed irritatingly in the dirt and made her sweat profusely. On her back she carried her own backpack, its contents whittled down over the years to the absolute bare essentials. Casey was used to the discomfort – but it didn't make her like it any the better. In happier times she had often joked with Derek that it was a good job there was no one to impress, since she spent most of her time – in her opinion –looking like she had been dragged through a sand dune backwards and smelling as though she had shared a bath with a camel. Derek was obviously in a similar condition, though he privately conceded Casey both looked and smelled better than he did. He shared the joke with her, but part of him liked the fact that Casey was her "natural" self around him. Everyone they knew got to see the polished Casey. Only he got to see the raw Casey.

She picked up the pace and joined him at his side. "I'm not unfit." She told him truthfully. "I'm just being cautious."

Derek snorted. "Too cautious." He informed her indicating the point in the distance where a slight glow was emerging. "If we don't pick up the pace it's going to be dawn before we get there and we'll be exposed by the new light."

Casey took a deep breath and strode forward with determination, her new pace taking her beyond Derek. "Let's get moving then." She announced, her voice not betraying her irritation at the accuracy of his statement. Despite the emotional landscape between them, Derek smiled at his erstwhile partner's grit and matched her stride with his own.

It was only a matter of ten minutes or so later that they reached the point Omar had described. It was a "small" outcropping of rock in the ancient riverbank: a large rock towering above their heads and wider than a car, surrounded by several slightly smaller rocks. Casey shivered as she imagined what the structures would have done to the vast quantity of water which had once flowed through the gorge they were currently navigating. As she moved closer to examine the colossal boulder she noted the slight rounding of erosion by water which had ceased to flow hundreds of years ago when an earthquake in the region had diverted the water underground. Now she was grateful for the growing light which would make the climb less treacherous.

"I guess this is it." She commented.

Derek said nothing but started to ease his way up the first boulder for a closer look. Casey hesitated. Sensing she wasn't following him, Derek paused and turned to look at her. She appeared scared and he frowned in response.

"What's up?" Derek asked his voice genuinely curious.

"Scorpions." Casey hissed.

"Where?!" Derek's eyes widened and he danced about ridiculously.

Casey shook her head. "I didn't mean I'd seen any, I meant it's rocky. What if they are hiding in the crevices?"

Derek relaxed. "Unlikely." He told her shifting his balance slightly. "What do you know about scorpions?"

"They sting!" She spluttered. Derek chuckled.

"And they are nocturnal." He told her. "You were more likely to get stung earlier while we were walking through the river bed in complete darkness and where they were no doubt busy feeding. It won't be until the sun comes up that they'll start retreating to their holes and therefore come anywhere near us."

Realising that Derek had a point, and remembering from some of the more obscure of Barbara's survival lessons that most scorpions are indeed photophobic, Casey glanced towards the rising sun and then, in a panic, scampered up the small boulder in front of her.

"Then get a freaking move on!" she exclaimed. Derek chuckled quietly to himself as she pushed past him. "It's okay for you!" She told him. "You're wearing long pants!"

Their climb proceeded without incident. If there was wildlife nearby, it scuttled away at their approach – and Casey didn't look too closely to identify it. She was glad of her trainers but longed for even more sturdy boots like Derek's. She owned a pair but they were back in Canada, rejected in favour of more light-weight sports shoes; shoes built for flight.

After a couple of boulders, Casey lowered her veil from her face, lifted her skirts and tucked them into the waistband of her shorts. It left her legs free to negotiate the rocks, cooled her lower body but left her waist a sweaty mess. The light had risen enough now that Derek could clearly see her legs: slim, smooth and, amusingly familiar. On one or two occasions in their past he had woken to find those same very feminine legs unintentionally entwined with his own. He raised his eyes to Casey's face, felt a wave of emotion and pushed it immediately to the back of his mind.

He needed to find the passageway.

To anyone standing in the riverbed below, even in the brightest of daylight, the boulder pile would have looked just like that – a haphazard, naturally-formed pile of massive stone. This was unsurprising, because that is exactly what it was.

However, many centuries ago, when the river still flowed, some enterprising city dweller had realised the potential of the geology of the riverbed at that point. They had understood that strategic tunnelling in a particular point would allow an access to the river, open but hidden from view. For practicalities' sake, the tunnel entrance was high, well above the riverbed, but it was also some distance below the riverbank. Derek guessed that its level had been chosen to ensure that it was only useable at certain tide levels of that age, and therefore the optimum times of the day.

It took Derek a while to find the opening, and even then he had to remove some new rocks and small boulders to make it wide enough for them to enter. That gave him heart that the passage was not generally known. It also gave him pause for thought that the tunnel might not have survived the ravages of time. Earthquakes were not frequent occurrences here in recent years– but they were not unheard of either. Roof-falls would be a danger.

When the hole was wide enough, he swung his back pack from his shoulders and unlatched it.

"Torch?" Casey asked quietly arriving beside him. He nodded and began to rummage in his bag. She did likewise with her own bag searching for her torch. Their torches were expensive, very reliable and there were several sets of replacement batteries just in case. Quite apart from the realities of their day job, many of the hotels they stayed in had unreliable power supplies.

Derek swung his bags back into position, but he paused before entering the enclosure. Casey too paused. She was quite happy for him to go first. It was not unheard of for dark enclosed spaces in the region to house bats or large, clinging spider webs. She wasn't going to point that out to Derek, but she was in no hurry to feel either wings or sticky thread against her face.

After a moment's pause, Derek stepped into the small opening he had revealed.

Casey waited for several moments after she heard the click of Derek's torch, half-listening for the swish of wings. Derek disappeared completely but Casey stayed put. After an agonising few moments his head reappeared.

"McDonald, will you quite peeing yourself like the silly school girl you aren't and get your ass in here. Personally I'd rather take on a whole pit of arachnids-various than find myself looking into the muzzle of an AK47 which is exactly what we will be doing if you don't get out of sight!" He hissed.

Clicking the switch on her own torch, Casey scuttled into the cave after him.

Casey realised her mistake as soon as she passed through the opening. This was no cave. Instead it was a carefully hewn tunnel of some width and height, its sides smooth and straight and its floor surprisingly clear of loose rock.

"I was expecting something more basic." Her voice echoed, signalling that the passage stretched away in front of them. She clapped her hand over her mouth even as Derek glared at her in the light of his torch.

"It's been well-made." He whispered softly, deliberately lisping his letter "s" to minimise the distance his voice would carry. "Reinforced and designed to take more than just people. If they had made it too narrow the people might fit but not the goods. This is only the first few feet, though. I suspect we will have to dig ourselves to the exit."

"How long do you reckon it's been here?" Casey asked, shining her torch at the ceiling.

Derek shrugged. "Long enough." He said abruptly. "Let's go."

Regular though the walls of the passage were, it did not run in a straight line. The excavators had realised that a straight corridor would risk sound from the river carrying into the city walls. It would have made the discovery of the illicit activities the tunnel was designed for a certainty. Instead, the tunnel zig-zagged and curved in places. It meant no light carried in either direction.

It also made the journey along its length feel drawn out. Casey was grateful she wasn't claustrophobic. She didn't enjoy it when something warm and furry brushed past her newly revealed ankles, however. She squeaked. Derek chuckled.

"Wow!" He teased. "You really can get rats as big as a cat!"

Casey closed the gap between them quickly in a futile effort to speed their journey up. She would have brushed past Derek but decided that if anyone was going to meet what lay ahead she was rather it was him! Derek could feel Casey's breath against the back of his neck and he was certain she must have her face wedged into his backpack. That would explain the trembling sensation his spine was experiencing. She must be scared shitless!

It wasn't the first time he'd come across her vulnerability. He knew she worked hard on portraying herself as a confident woman who could cope with any situation. He respected her for that but he also empathised with her weaker side too. Hadn't he been the one to throw up when asked to perform in front of a crowd despite his larger-than-life personality? Their need to appear strong when they felt anything but was one of the common traits to their personalities. The fact that they covered for each other when their weaker sides broke was one of the strengths in their relationship too.

Wordlessly, Derek transferred his torch to his left hand and held his right hand behind him. Casey accepted his hand gratefully, and Derek linked their fingers together with a squeeze. They might be fighting an emotional battle between them but when put to the test it was always Derek and Casey against the rest of the world.


After ten minutes which felt more like an hour, the final turn in the passage revealed a slight brightening of light at the end. It wasn't much, just a few degrees more light than they had been used to but it was enough of a warning to Derek that he switched off his torch and placed his hand over Casey's to do the same. He leaned close to her ear.

"Let's not talk again until we know what we're walking into. The city should be stirring soon which means there maybe people about."

He felt, rather than saw, Casey nod.

As their eyes adjusted to the lack of torch light, the glow of a new light came from the ceiling rather than at ground level and when they reached the end of the tunnel, Derek wasn't surprised to see there was a dead end. He had expected something like that the whole time they had been walking. The tunnel had been pretty flat with no incline, yet from the outside, such a path would bring them to a point far below the foundations of the city walls. This was evidently the point where they would begin their ascent.

There were iron rungs set into the wall as footholds. Derek suggested Casey went first.

"Why?!" She exclaimed, her reluctance clear.

"You're lighter than me. I'm not sure they'll take my weight." He explained. Casey couldn't argue but she wasn't happy about it.

"You go first." Derek told her. "You don't like anything…jump. I'll catch you."
Casey narrowed her eyes. "I'm expected to believe that?" She asked.

In the darkness Derek grinned.

But it was Casey that went first up the rickety ladder.

She climbed carefully, glad that she had pushed her clothing to one side, her torch between her teeth. It stopped the possibility of her teeth rattling.

The ladder rungs numbered no more than ten in total and Casey paused two before the end because her head was now resting against some sort of ceiling – and she could no longer straighten up.

"You hit something?" Derek hissed up into the darkness.

"Yes!" Casey hissed back. "It's not a stone ceiling. Maybe fibreboard?"
"Can you lift it?"

"I think so…Yes!" Her exclamation announced her success.

She pushed the board up cautiously, expecting that at any moment it would be ripped from her hands by some unseen foe, but nothing happened. A dim light flooded into the space around her making both Casey and Derek blink, although that may have more to do with the shower of sand which fell, disturbed as the board was removed. Casey pushed the makeshift trapdoor to one side and stuck her head into the revealed space. Below, Derek waited anxiously.

Casey ducked her head again and climbed down two rungs.

"It's difficult to tell, but I think it's a storeroom." She told Derek in the light of his torch. "It looks abandoned. Shall we take the chance?"
"What choice do we have?" Derek asked her. Casey nodded. He went on. "Come down. I'll go first this time." Casey shook her head.

"No. It's fine. I'll take the lead." She put up a hand to stop his complaint. "You can switch places with me as soon as we get into the storeroom." Reluctantly, Derek agreed.

Only a few moments passed and they were soon standing in the new space, their bags at their feet. A quick sweep of the room with his torch and Derek was satisfied that they were alone and likely to remain so for a while.

"You need to rest?" He asked.

Casey shook her head. "I don't think we should risk it." She told him. "This might be our only opportunity to get out of town."

Derek thought she was being pessimistic but he let it slide. He explored the room more thoroughly and eventually found the set of rough-hewn stairs which led up to street-level. At the top of the stairs they paused and looked back towards the trapdoor through which they had emerged. Casey had replaced the square of planking, but even if she had not, tucked in a dark corner of an unlit room and concealed behind some barrels and crates which looked as though they had been in place for eons, the exit into the life beyond the city walls was invisible.

"Drop your skirts." Derek said before they turned to the stairs again.

"What?" Casey objected. Derek motioned with his torch to the bundle of black cloth around Casey's middle.

"You'll scare the natives if you go out half-dressed." He pointed out. Casey's confusion cleared and she swung down her bag to the floor so that she could pull the veil over her head and let the folds of fabric fall to the floor. Derek took a deep breath at seeing her once again in the traditional dress and raised a finger to smooth the fabric where it framed her eyes. For a second Casey saw a softening in his own eyes and manner towards her – something she hadn't seen in many, many months. She raised her own hand to his finger letting it touch in the briefest of ways. Then wordlessly they both turned towards the door.


It was daylight: probably a full half hour after dawn. They emerged from a rickety door set into one of the buildings that didn't so much butt up against the city walls as form part of them. The door led into a small alley which was empty. Close by, however, they could both hear the bustle of a city.

"Busy." Casey commented quietly. Derek nodded.

"It always is at this time. The market stall holders will be setting up."

Casey frowned. "It doesn't sound right. The crowd." She noted. "The rhythm's wrong."

Derek rolled his eyes and said nothing as he led the way.

"Can you tell where we are?" Casey asked. She was speaking in a normal voice for the first time in hours. The noise from the street ahead would cover their approach and their speech. Derek shrugged.

"The old quarter, I guess." He suggested. "I don't recognise the alley but the city walls are at their most intact around this side. I think we're a few blocks from that old bazaar we saw on our first trip here with Barbara."

"The one with the guy with a nervous tic?"

Derek grinned. "Hey, I'd forgotten about him!" He announced.

Casey grimaced. "I hadn't." She said wryly.

"He definitely liked you." Derek reminded her.

"Really? I couldn't tell." Casey retorted sarcastically. Derek smirked his way to the end of the alleyway.

It was heaving. For as far as the eye could see there were people milling about and Casey was right - there was no rhythm to the crowd. It was chaos.

For a moment they stood on the sidelines and watched. Even Derek admitted to himself it that joining the throng would be a risky manoeuvre.

"What shall we do?" Casey asked. "Do we try and walk down the street? And if so, which way?"

Derek was thoughtful. "You reckon the airport is out?"

Casey shrugged. "If I was cracking down on foreigners, the airport is the first place I would put out of action."

"Yeah. Me too." Derek agreed. "And you think that the embassy is the place to make for?"

"How else will we get out of the country?" Casey asked. "And we do need to get out of the country." She insisted, remembering his earlier reluctance.

"I guess so." Derek conceded. Since they had left Omar, Derek had been reconsidering their situation. He was beginning to think maybe they should get out of dodge – and not just because he wanted Casey to be safe.

Casey raised an eyebrow.

"I realised there's more than scorpions out in the desert and even worse in some of the towns." He informed her. Derek straightened and adjusted the backpack. "We'll head for the centre of town and pick up the road to the embassy there. If we are careful we should be able to criss-cross the main streets using the alleys. We'll need that famous sense of direction of yours for this one."

Casey grinned at the hidden compliment. "Not a problem." She assured him. "Just don't argue with me when we disagree."

Derek shrugged. "Maybe we won't disagree." He suggested.

Casey snorted. "Derek we always disagree."

Crossing the mass of people was not a simple task. For a start the city wasn't laid out in a criss-cross pattern, instead following a layout which had more in common with a plate of spaghetti than an orderly municipal plan. Secondly, when they had decided on the direction to go in, and the point to aim for, moving against the tide of people was difficult. These were people who had been born in the city or its surrounds. They didn't need to go to the airport or make for the embassy district. All they were interested in was moving between their homes, the homes of their relatives and the few remaining stores which still traded. Though Derek and Casey did not know it, the municipal heart of the city was where all the activists were gathering for their demonstrations. These sites and protests held no draw for the ordinary citizens so the tide of people was not flowing in that direction.

Derek grabbed Casey's hand and pushed his way into the crowd. Casey put her head down and let him drag her in the agreed direction. It took them several minutes to move one block in the right direction and when they finally side-stepped into the alleyway that was their initial goal, Casey felt battered and bruised.

But at least they and their belongings were intact.

"Wow!" Derek exclaimed. "I feel like I've been in one of those Laundromat machines!"

"You look like it too." Casey told him dryly.

"Gee. Thanks Sis." He bit back.

Casey pulled her veil down so that she could stick her tongue out at him and for a moment, their differences were forgotten and they were back to their silly, bickering selves.

It didn't last. As if sensing that he'd relaxed his animosity, Derek glanced about the small alley they were currently walking along. It was narrow, dark and not at all signposted. It also stank.

"We going the right way?" he asked his voice unnecessarily short and to the point.

Casey stopped walking. She pointed back the way they had just come.

"We know the wall is that way. We know the wall, incomplete though it is, forms a circle around the city. So basically, to find the centre of the city we need to keep that part of the wall immediately behind us."

"Which we can't do. We've already dog-legged and you've no idea where this alley leads to. It could curve and…"
"…you want to navigate?" Casey asked him.

"I'm just saying maybe we should use the compass. At least we would know where North is."

"Do we need to go north?" Casey asked as if proving a point. "Or south…east…west? You tell me which way to go and I'll follow. Of course then it will probably be Christmas before we find our way to the embassy by which time it will be closed and our only hope of leaving the country will be to wave at Father Christmas and hope he let's us hitch a ride on his sleigh."

"You think you're funny." Derek hissed. "You're not."

"At least I don't get lost."

"Really? Where are we?"

"Fuck off."

Casey honestly did use her intuition to lead them through the streets. When, shortly, it became clear to Derek that she was getting them somewhere, the barbed comments stopped and he let her continue to lead the way.

Until they reached a point Derek recognised.

"Hey! I know where we are!" Derek exclaimed as they turned into a new street. It was empty – unlike the road they had just crossed. This was the pattern they had been following as they crossed the city: busy thoroughfare, quiet alley, busier street, light-trafficked turn-off, busy street, deserted alley. They were currently on one of the latter. "We're about five blocks from Revolution square."

"You're just working that one out now? Casey's eyes widened to show her astonishment. She didn't break her stride, however. Derek too, kept walking. Neither of them noticed they were still holding hands – the way they had been since they crossed that very first, very busy street. It made sense on the crowded avenues where they might be easily separated in the post-curfew crush. Less so now.

"McDonald, don't make out you knew what you were doing. You were biting your bottom lip the whole way. It's your "tell"."

"I was biting my lips because they are dry, Derek. I need lip balm but I lost my travel one. "

"Bull-shit! You didn't know where we were going. You're as relieved as I am."

"Anyway, how can you tell I was biting my lips? You can't see my mouth."
"Nah! Shame I have to hear –"

Derek broke off and stopped so abruptly that Casey was yanked back with some force.

"Ow!" She objected.

"Shhh!" Derek hissed at her.

Casey had been working with Derek long enough to obey commands like that without question. She tipped her head to one side quizzically and let her eyes follow the direction of his. They were focussed on a hand-written sign on a nearby building.

She frowned. The sign was in Arabic and whilst Casey had a working knowledge of the language, the words on the sign eluded her. What made her frown even more was that Derek, whose Arabic was truly dreadful, appeared to understand what the sign said.

He turned and pulled them a way back up the street.

"We need to find another route." He said quietly.

"I'm not sure if there is a parallel road." Casey told him.

"We'll have to retrace until we find one." Derek told her.

Casey nodded, trusting in his judgement but she asked all the same.

"What does the sign say?"

"I recognised it from one of my computer games." He explained. "It says "Sniper Alley"."

A peaceful silence fell over them as they retraced their steps back two blocks to find an alternative route: "Peaceful" in that they didn't fight each other while they contemplated the significance of their discovery. It wasn't a comfortable peace. This city had its problems; its violence, but in the past it had remained a blunt, ignorant aggression. It wasn't a good thing but it spoke of ill-informed, untrained fervour. It was predictable because there were warning signs. It escalated.

That had begun to change with Barbara's death. The anatomy of that attack spoke of fervour of a different kind: educated, skilled – Far less predictable; far more deadly. The idea of a sniper on the streets of a bustling city changed the whole character of the dangers they were facing whilst they remained there. This was more systematic, more precise. This was cold, hard. This was planned.

"Do you think there really is a sniper?" Casey asked after a while.

"Yeah." Derek said quietly, his determination to get Casey out of the city as soon as possible stronger than ever. "Yeah, I do."


The municipal centre of the city was a mass of large, elaborate buildings from a bygone era. They had originally been constructed from expensive materials including good quality stone and, in a couple of examples, even some marble. The buildings had been carved with care and intricate detail, and finished off with colour which made them look like enamelled pins. But if these buildings now were ornaments they were the type you would pick up in a flea market. The "enamelling" was chipped and pitted with bullet wounds and gouges only an explosion could make. That the buildings showed damage was nothing new to Derek and Casey. They had seen some of it before. That the damage was this extensive was a real shock.

The cause of the desecration was obvious as soon as they emerged from the crowded side street into the packed square. There a large mob was gathered facing off to an equally large pack of soldiers. They had seen mobs gather here before, but not as well armed and not as well organised.

"Fuck!" Derek hissed.

"I know." Casey murmured. "Omar was right."

"No." Derek insisted. "Omar under-estimated."

They hid in the shadows of a small tenement block, one of the few lower status buildings that bordered the square. Before the trouble it had been a slight blot on the landscape of this part of the city: a rotten tooth in a row of pearly whites. Now it fitted right in.

The pair watched as the two sides squared up to each other. A casual observer might believe this was just a straight forward confrontation, but Derek and Casey had not succeeded at their jobs by observing anything casually. As they watched, they each spotted actions of both sides which were going unnoticed by the majority of the people in the square. Almost unseen in the melee, people were being rounded up and lead away at gunpoint.

Derek watched on for a while and then turned to Casey.

"We cannot cross that square." He told her. "We're an open target."

"You are." Casey pointed out. "I blend into the scenery."
Her partner sighed. "Casey, how many women can you see out there?"
"There'll be some…somewhere." Casey told him.

"You step a foot into that crowd and they'll hoist you up on one of their trucks and parade you as a product of the corrupt morals of the establishment. If they find out you aren't a local they'll strip you of your costume – and probably more. You're no safer than I am."

"So what do we do?" Casey asked, knowing that he was right.

"We don't have any choice." Derek told her. "We'll have to skirt around the square and try and get behind the crowd on the other side. If we don't we'll never reach the embassy."

"It's a moot point whether we'll get there anyway." Casey told him quietly.

Derek looked at her long and hard. "We'll get there." He promised.


The next half an hour became a game of cat and mouse. Not only did they have to avoid the crowds but they had to avoid being seen by anyone. This involved an elaborate dance from shadow to shadow, alley to alley. Occasionally they allowed themselves to break cover but only when they could ensure they had a place to run too and their only witnesses were too interested in saving themselves. The distance to travel was less half a mile – it felt every bit as long as their ten miles trek along the riverbed.

It was significantly more dangerous.

To try and limit the possibility of discovery they had retreated back from the square some distance and were circumventing the general area in a great arc. But it was not as straight-forward as they would have liked. As before there were few direct alleys or streets to take them in their desire direction, and where there were they were inevitably populated. It was Derek who took the lead, and - once again - Casey's hand. She was hardly the weak partner, correcting him when he seemed inclined to take a wrong turning and he knew she would do her part if it came down to a fight.

Casey dressed in the demure costume but only because it suited her purposes. She had flashes of fear, but so did he - Derek just did a better job of hiding them.

Holding her hand kept her with him, but though he'd never admit it to her, especially the way things were currently between them, Derek held Casey's hand because he wasn't ready to let her go.

They were almost at the road which led to the Canadian embassy when the truck pulled up. Derek nearly ran straight into its side. At the last minute, however, Casey held him back and they dissolved once again into the shadows. They were stuck. The route they needed was the other side of the truck. There was no way round it. Turning back was pointless.

Staying where they were was not a long term option. For now, however, it was all they could do. The soldiers on the truck were holding some sort of conference.

"Can you hear what they are saying?" Derek put his mouth to Casey's ear and whispered. She nodded. "Can you understand what they are saying?" he clarified. Casey raised her flattened hand and rocked it in a "so-so" gesture. Then she held up an index finger to forestall any further speech.

"They are talking about where to go next." She whispered eventually. "They have been told to make a circle around the square and seal it off. Apparently there are lots of trucks on their way to do just that." Casey frowned. "They were saying something else but I missed…oh!"

"What?"

"They were talking about the areas of the city which are already sealed off. We were right about the airport."

"That figures. Are they showing any sign of moving on?"

"Shhh!" Casey hissed. "I'm trying to…" Her voice trailed away as she concentrated. Then to Derek's confusion, her shoulders slumped and she leaned back against the wall.

"What?" He almost barked only remembering to keep his voice down at the last minute.

"This is futile!" Casey exclaimed in a frustrated hiss.

"What is?"

"This route we're taking."

"Casey, it's the only way to get to the embassy district!"

"I know." She groaned. "And according to those guys, the embassy district is completely cut off!"