While Calista drove toward Blackberry Ranch, a gray-black Night Hawk drone quietly lifted into the air and headed toward Georgia.
Time passed, minute by minute.
The drone reached the last location Glenn and the others had reported and spent a full hour circling within the designated search grid.
Bossie barely dared to blink as he stared at the screen, but the footage showed nothing unusual beyond a few scattered walkers wandering around and several startled deer.
No large concentrations of heat signatures. No reflections from vehicles. No distress signals.
Nothing.
Under the drone's electronic eye, the vast stretch of land looked disturbingly normal.
"Drone reconnaissance sweep complete. No targets or suspicious camps found," Bossie reported to Calista, unable to hide his disappointment.
Their hope deflated like a punctured balloon.
The drone had helped rule out possibilities, but it hadn't given them a location.
Calista frowned deeply.
Sometimes finding nothing was even more unsettling than finding an enemy. It meant Glenn and the others could be somewhere more concealed, or... something might have already happened to them.
She pressed the transmit button. "Rick, the drone search came up empty. Expand your ground search. Focus on every possible turnoff along the highway and any abandoned roads that aren't marked on the map."
"Understood!"
The prison had sent out members of the Defense Force.
Zhou, Murphy, Leon, and Leslie were following the route Glenn's group had taken, conducting an old-fashioned search along the highway.
Just as the Rock Fortress drone came up empty, the prison search team found a crucial lead.
Their reinforced SUV swerved off the main road and screeched to a stop on the emergency shoulder near Mile Marker 177, tires scraping against the pavement and kicking up a cloud of dust.
"What a fucking place!" Leon cursed from the driver's seat as he shoved open the door and spat onto the ground.
Zhou, sitting in the passenger seat, said nothing. He narrowed his eyes and checked the rearview mirror and both sides of the road before opening his door and walking a few steps toward the shoulder, his boots crunching against the asphalt.
"Murphy, get on the roof." Zhou pointed upward.
Murphy climbed lightly onto the roof with his rifle, crouched down, looped the sling around his elbow, and raised the binoculars hanging from his chest.
"No people. Just a few walkers out for a stroll. Nothing else!"
Leslie climbed out of the back seat and compared their position with the location Rick had given them. "We're not far from where Glenn's group last checked in. Can you see any tire tracks?"
The four of them searched the area.
"Here!" Zhou crouched and lightly brushed his fingers over the road.
The others gathered around.
A thin layer of dust covered part of the hard pavement, revealing several distinct sets of tire tracks that crossed, overlapped, and eventually became a tangled mess.
"Look. That's the tread from one of our base's SUVs. I'd recognize it!" Murphy jumped down from the roof and pointed to one of the deeper sets of tracks. "They stopped here and stayed for a while."
Zhou scanned the roadside, then pointed toward a patch of flattened grass. "Maybe they stopped to rest. Or someone needed to relieve themselves."
Murphy said nothing as he slowly followed the tire marks.
A moment later, he stopped about a dozen meters from where the vehicle had been parked, his expression turning serious.
"Another vehicle... coming from the opposite direction, fast. Look at these skid marks."
He pointed at several deep black streaks on the pavement.
"It came straight at the parked vehicle. Either it had no intention of slowing down, or it didn't have time to."
Leon followed his gaze and sucked in a breath. "Damn! They crashed?"
"They did, and it was a hard hit. Our vehicle must've taken serious damage."
Murphy followed the chaotic marks farther ahead and stopped at a slightly darker patch of pavement littered with broken plastic and tiny shards of glass.
He gestured toward the scene. "The impact happened at a decent speed. Judging by the direction of the debris, most of it came from the front side of our vehicle. The other vehicle cut in from this angle.
"After the collision, Glenn's vehicle was shoved over this way. The area around the door was damaged. You can see the scrape marks and paint chips on the ground.
"The other vehicle looks like it was damaged too, but not nearly as badly. It backed up a little, then..."
The others immediately moved over.
The grass had clearly been trampled, and there were signs that something had been dragged through it.
Leslie crouched, drew a knife, and carefully moved aside several blades of grass, revealing a dark spot beneath them that had already partly dried.
"Blood. Glenn and the others may have been injured, but there isn't much of it."
Leon spat. "Bastards. Was this an ambush, or just a wreck?"
"Doesn't look like a simple accident," Murphy said. "If the other vehicle had lost control and hit a parked car, its skid marks should've been longer and more erratic.
"But these start abruptly and they're short. Looks more like they got close to the target and deliberately slammed on the brakes, or maybe never meant to stop at all."
The four spread out again, searching outward from the point of impact.
Leslie stayed near their vehicle to stand guard.
Before long, Leon called out from beside a patch of nettles near the road.
"Guys, footprints!"
He pointed toward several impressions sunk into the soft earth.
"About size 44. Deep prints, long stride, heavy footfalls. Looks like an adult man running fast or dragging something heavy."
Almost at the same time, Murphy found another set of tracks on the opposite side.
"Another set. These are messier, with drag marks... Look here. Part of the sole pattern is missing. The heel dug into the ground during a struggle."
He demonstrated the motion.
"At least two people were forcibly moved through here, heading toward..."
Murphy followed the marks with his eyes.
Farther ahead was another set of clearer, deeper tire tracks. The tread matched the vehicle that had struck them, but the impressions showed that its load had become noticeably heavier.
"They took our people," Zhou said coldly.
He followed the tracks for several steps, then suddenly crouched.
Beside the tire marks, in an easy-to-miss spot, Zhou found half of a shallow footprint.
His gaze shifted deeper into the roadside grass, where the vegetation had clearly been trampled.
"This person probably wasn't near the vehicle when it happened. They heard the crash and ran back."
Zhou followed the footprints toward the collision site.
There, the tracks moved around frantically, changed direction several times, then finally led to their own badly damaged vehicle. Whoever had made them had gotten inside and immediately driven off in the same direction as the attacking vehicle.
"This person came back, saw what happened, and went after them." Leon clenched his fist. "Maggie, Glenn, or Caleb?"
"Maggie," Murphy said immediately, his voice certain. "The prints are smaller and shallower. They're from a woman."
That conclusion made everyone's heart sink.
Two people had been abducted, while the third had gone after them. The oil stains and scattered debris showed that their vehicle had taken severe damage, and the onboard radio had probably been destroyed in the collision.
Everything fit with Glenn and Maggie's disappearance.
"Can you track them?" Zhou asked Murphy.
Murphy stared at the two sets of tire marks stretching away along the interstate and nodded. "As long as they keep leaving traces, I can stay on them. Get in. We're going after them!"
Tire tracks were difficult to follow on asphalt, but the four soon noticed that the battered vehicle Maggie was driving had been shedding pieces along the way.
At first, it was only shards of window glass. A few kilometers later, they even found half of a twisted black plastic bumper lying by the roadside.
"Smart girl."
Zhou watched the trail continue toward downtown Atlanta and pressed the radio button.
"Prison, this is the search team. We've found conclusive evidence Mile Marker 177 on the interstate.
"Our vehicle was struck. Based on the scene, two members were forcibly taken and one member pursued them by vehicle.
"The hostile vehicle continued along the highway toward downtown Atlanta. We're continuing the pursuit. Prison, increase alert levels for anything coming from that direction. The other party is aggressive and may have a permanent base. Over."
He put away the radio and turned toward Murphy and Leslie in the back seat.
"Mark this spot."
Leslie nodded, pulled a fluorescent marker stick from a backpack, snapped it to activate the glow, and tossed it beside the debris.
The four men climbed back into the SUV. The engine growled as the vehicle steadily picked up speed.
"Keep following them." Zhou rolled down the window and spat outside. "Let's see which bunch of blind bastards thought they could mess with people from Rock Fortress."
...
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