***

The van’s tires spun wildly in the mud, sending a spray of brown and black flying behind it. Even though the wheels’ movement was rapid, Terry’s progress was slow. He let off the gas and slammed his fist onto the dash, causing an already large crack in the plastic to widen.

The thick Mississippi mud was proving to be too much for his two-wheel-drive van. It wasn’t built for this type of terrain. Terry stepped back out onto the mudded road and saw that his rear right tire was half sunk in the brown muck.

Terry grabbed the axe from the back of the van and proceeded to chop down branches. He chose ones that were sturdy but not too thick for the van’s tires to climb over. He figured three pieces of wood could do the job. He levered one end of each branch down between the mud and the tire. He used the back of the axe head to hammer each branch deep enough for the tire to gain traction on it.

The rough wooden handle of the axle glided through Terry’s hands with ease, but on the last blow, a splinter caught the palm of his hand, and he winced. The sharp edge of the thin piece of wood jutted out from his flesh. He pinched the end between his fingers and pulled, sliding the splinter out. A small trickle of blood followed, and Terry wiped his palm on the side of his jeans.

With the wood firmly in place, Terry jumped back in the driver’s seat. He slowly put his foot on the gas. The van’s tires slipped and crunched against the sticks underneath. Slowly, the van dug itself out of the muddy rut. Terry pulled over to the side of the road, where the ground was more compacted.

The front windshield was splintered and cracked from the bullets. The damage made it nearly impossible to see anything. Terry leaned back and brought the heel of his boot up to the windshield and smashed it against the already shattered glass. The glass bulged outward from the force of the impact. He crushed his heel against the windshield again, creating another balloon of broken glass.

Glass shards fell to the dash, and Terry reached for the axe. He stepped out of the van and swung the axe violently into the windshield, then pulled the axe backward with one strong yank. The force cut an opening large enough for the rest of the windshield to easily give way.

Terry repeated the violent blows until there was nothing left. The front of the van was completely open and exposed. He tossed the axe through the open space, and it crashed into the back of the van. He brushed the shards of glass off the driver’s seat and from the top of the dash.

He booted up his small laptop at the makeshift desk and waited for the screen to load. He glanced down at his fingers, stained with small bits of red from the cut along his palm and the tiny cuts the pieces of glass had inflicted.

Terry typed in his password, staining some of the keys with his blood. He opened a program, and a large map of the globe appeared in a three-dimensional graphic. There was a small search box in the top left corner with enough space for a seven-digit number. After the number was entered, the three-dimensional globe on the screen rotated and zoomed in on the United States. It buffered, then zoomed in on the Southeast, buffered again, and then revealed a small red dot traveling along the border of Alabama just outside Mobile.