Spent shell casings were scattered everywhere on the ground. The Range Rover and intellimobile were battered and broken, with tires shot out and windows obliterated. Remarkably the coach had taken the least amount of the damage, but it was still a mess. Uly and Felix were finishing changing one front tire that had been shredded by gunfire.
Boone put his phone to his ear. It rang several times before anyone answered, but sometimes that happened. Occasionally the man he was calling could not pick up right away.
“Haven’t I told you never to call during a Cabinet meeting?” President J. R. Culpepper said. J.R. didn’t really speak. He gave commands. Even when he was asking questions.
“We just got ambushed. I’m going to need a bigger than usual clean-up crew. You’ll need a couple of semis for the vehicles alone. Get the Illinois state police to close off this road until they get here. Make up some Homeland Security training exercise story or something that’ll keep everyone away but won’t make the media too suspicious. We do not want to send people into a panic. Also, I need a brand-new Marathon coach. X-Ray is going to send you the specs. You’ll need to get it to Chicago ASAP, and I mean right away, J.R. If Roger and Blaze find out what’s happened, we’re done. They’ll either cancel the tour or send Q and Angela home. If we change things up at all now, the ghost cell will disappear. And after what happened in Texas, I don’t want Q and Angela out of my sight.”
“Boy, Boone,” J.R. said. “You don’t ask for much, do you?”
Boone could hear the sound of a keyboard in the background. He knew J.R. wasn’t really complaining. He wanted to destroy the ghost cell as much as Boone did. Maybe more.
“The clean-up crew is already deployed. The coach is going to be an issue. It would be easier getting you another drone on such short notice. Do you have any casualties?”
“No, just our wits,” Boone said. “And a burning question. How did they know where we were? I mean, Match tour dates and venues are out there, so they knew we were on our way to Chicago. But how did they know our route? Somehow they shut down the freeway, set up a detour, and led us right into a shooting gallery.”
“They’ve got more resources than we even thought. Boone, this is bad. I don’t like this. Not at all,” J.R. said.
“Me neither,” Boone said.
“All right, I’ll take care of things at this end. Call Callaghan and tell him what’s going on and to stay alert. I’ve got to get back to the Cabinet meeting. You all should probably get out of there. Be careful, Boone.”
“J.R.?” Boone said.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think we could get another drone?”
J.R. snorted and disconnected the call.
The SOS team performed their tasks with calm efficiency. Vanessa climbed aboard the coach. Boone was relieved when it started up. X-Ray had finished removing his hard drives from the intellimobile. Uly and Felix had offloaded their luggage and equipment to the coach and were now dragging the bodies of the assault team into the intellimobile. When they had pushed all of the vehicles into the corn, everyone clambered onto the coach.
“Now what?” Felix asked.
“Chicago. Then we have to figure out a way to make this coach identical to the new one, and we’re going to need Q and Angela for that,” Boone said.
Vanessa put the coach in gear and headed east. In twenty minutes, after a series of turns and driving down back roads, they were back on the freeway. Speeding north toward the Windy City.