58
After your meal you try to think where you might find some gasolene. Sergeant Haskell and his men—Marines Gunter and Knott—have searched every square inch of Fort Stockton and know that there is none to be had here.
‘What we need is an old road map,’ says Haskell. ‘One that would show us where the freeway rest stops and gas stations in this area were located.’
‘I’ve got a map,’ you volunteer, and take from your jacket the map that you snatched from Mad Dog Michigan’s table at the stadium in San Angelo.
‘Hey, where did you get this?’ says Haskell, as he examines the notes and other markings that have been made on the map of the United States. You tell him its origins and he scrutinizes it at length. Finally, he comments, ‘What you’ve got here is a blueprint of a major HAVOC operation to take over the country. This is one hot piece of property: it shows clan strengths, supply areas, HAVOC strongholds, controlled cities, everything—even pockets of WDL resistance on the eastern seaboard. We’ve gotta get this to El Paso. If there’s anything left of WDL headquarters then they must be warned about what is happening in the East.’
‘OK,’ you reply, uneasily, ‘but what about fuel? My roadster has barely enough to make it another twenty miles. All we need is enough gas to get as far as Kent in time for the rendezvous with the colony. Then we can refuel from the tanker and you can catch a ride with us all the way to Fort Bliss.’
‘There’s a rest stop here,’ replies Haskell, pointing to the map at a place on Interstate 10 that is halfway between Fort Stockton and a town called Brogado. ‘There’s no knowing if there’s still any gas in its storage tanks but it’s our only hope. It looks like a 25-mile-drive—do you think you can make it?’
‘I can try,’ you reply. ‘Like you say, it’s our only hope.’
