The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky

a ghost town. Yet when Allen Raines had taken watch over the thing, he’d had to stay on top of it day and night, right from the beginning. Those two facts were hard to reconcile. As was a third: even if he and Paige and Bethany could reach the Stargazer, it was unlikely they could do much more than Raines had. Which was to keep the thing in check, assuming they’d see how that was done. But what sort of Achilles’ heel was that? If all they could do was babysit the thing, how long could they stay on it before someone interfered with them? Like these guys in the Humvees. A few hours, at best?
    He knew he was thinking in circles, and that doing so wouldn’t help until they’d seen the Stargazer for themselves. For better or worse, they’d have the whole picture then. He drew hope only from what Bethany had said back in Casper: If they consider us a threat, then we are.
    The little girl stepped out of the doorway and tugged on Jeannie’s arm.
    “The ghost,” the girl said. “Tell them.”
    Jeannie’s forehead furrowed. She seemed stretched between frustration and sober gravity, as if she believed the story herself but would never expect others to.
    “Try us,” Travis said.
    Jeannie frowned and let out a long breath, giving in. “They say it always happens around the two entrances to the mine. They say anyone who goes near starts to hear voices, whispering right behind them in the trees. Pine boughs around you start to move like the wind’s blowing, even when it isn’t. My husband and I … we like to think now we might’ve imagined what we heard. The wind really was blowing that day. Maybe that’s all it was. I don’t know.”
    Travis tried to picture the mine entrance relative to Raines’s place, on the satellite image they’d seen. The moment he did, something occurred to him. He turned to Bethany.
    “That satellite was looking almost straight down, right?”
    She nodded. “Perfectly straight down. Default angle unless you command it to do otherwise.”
    “From that perspective,” Travis said, “even redwoods would have lots of gaps between them. Plenty of open ground visible in the image.”
    Bethany shrugged. “I guess. Probably quite a bit.”
    “We didn’t see any heat signature uphill from Raines’s house,” Travis said. “No bodies moving through those woods. Not even one.” He thought about it a second longer. “I don’t think these guys are going near the mine shaft.”
    “I’m certain they’re not,” Jeannie said. “I’ve been watching all morning, waiting for them to head up into the trees and get in there—get working on the problem. I’ve assumed that’s what they were sent here to do. But all they’re focused on so far is that house. In and out, hours on end now.”
    The more Travis considered it, the more that made sense, and not because of any strange phenomenon that could be mistaken for a ghost. Simple priorities were enough: these men had been sent to find and destroy the cheat sheet, and failing that, they would at least prevent anyone else from getting into that house and obtaining it—if it still existed at all. And while those who’d sent them probably wanted some muscle close at hand to protect the mine if the need arose, Travis wasn’t surprised these guys were staying back. Being kept back, more likely, by strict orders. They were almost certainly nothing more than hired guns; why let them sniff around the mine at all? Whatever the Stargazer was doing in there, it was doing without anybody’s help. All it needed was for Allen Raines to stay dead, and none of his powerful friends to show up in his place.
    “Two hundred yards isn’t much,” Travis said, “even with tree cover. But maybe it’s enough. Maybe we can get in there from the uphill side without them seeing us.”
    The sound of a loud engine faded in. A second later an old pickup went by, heading out of town, its bed loaded with boxes and bags.
    Travis put aside the mine for the moment, his thoughts going back to earlier questions. He turned to Jeannie. “What about the man I mentioned before? Ruben Ward.”
    “I never heard that name until today,” Jeannie said, “when the others came in and asked about it.”
    “And none of these old stories talk about the summer of 1978?” Paige said.
    Jeannie shook her head.
    “Do you have paperwork for who lived here back then?” Travis said. “I know it’s a long shot—”
    “It’s possible,” Jeannie said. “There are old file