Chapter 7: The Cliff Avenue Gate

We left the farm at one in the morning, Wyatt and I, with the Peterbilt's headlights off.

Tor had called it a fool's errand.

Then he had handed Wyatt a pair of bolt cutters as long as his leg.

Bets stayed in the shack with the net open and Jonas on the bucket.

As we crossed the farm gate, words hung in the dark above the dash.

[Task: Open the Cliff Avenue gate. Take Wyatt Brekke.]

It was the first task that named him.

I noticed, and I let it go.

He was the one with the truck and the cutters, and I had no reason to think the system wanted anything else.

We came into Sioux Falls from the south on a county road, with the east side dark ahead of us.

There wasn't a light on in the whole city except the arena.

It stood on its hill of concrete, lit from within.

From a mile away I could hear the noise coming off it.

Wyatt drove with the engine barely turning.

"You're sure about this," he said quietly.

"No."

"That's the first honest thing you've said all day."

"I'm sure about the people," I said. "I'm not sure about the rest."

The parking lot at the Cliff Avenue gate was a field of cars with their lights on.

About three hundred people stood between them.

Children asleep on shoulders.

Old men in lawn chairs.

A woman in scrubs with a toddler on each hip.

A chain-link fence ran the whole way around, twelve feet high.

A rolling gate closed the exit, with a fat chain through the middle of it.

Two deputies stood on the far side with rifles slung, and behind them the arena's glass doors glowed.

I got out of the truck and walked up to the fence with my hands where they could see.

"Evening, Deputy," I said.

The younger one jerked his head around.

"Ma'am, step back. This is a closed perimeter."

"It's a parking lot, and you've got three hundred people stuck in it," I said.

"We've got orders."

"I know. I used to be the voice that read you the orders."

He stared at me.

His face changed.

"Oh, hell," he said. "You're her. You're the night desk. You sent me to the Garretson call in March."

"Unit two-fourteen," I said. "You went in first, and you didn't have a vest, and I told you to wait."

"You told me to wait for backup," he said. "I didn't, and you were right."

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