The search started at dawn, and by midmorning Jackson had been turned inside out.
Maria ran it from the hall like a general: sectors chalked on a slate, teams of four, checklists read aloud. Barns, cellars, root cellars, the smithy, the greenhouse potting sheds. Every newcomer in the last month pulled aside for a talk with Dana's people — most of them confused, all of them cooperative, none of them wrong. Carrow, still bandaged, coordinated runners from a chair by the door — and looked happier than Ethan had seen her in days, a soldier with a job again.
Ethan and Ellie drew the stable district with Dana.
"You're with me because you found the last thing," Dana told them as they walked, her breath fogging. "And because you two notice things my people walk past." She said it matter-of-factly, like it was just logistics. Ellie stood a little straighter anyway.
The stables smelled like hay and horses and leather oil. Ethan went through the big barn slowly, the way Grandpa had taught him to walk a new trapline — not looking for anything, just looking at everything, letting the wrong thing announce itself. Ellie worked the other side, running her hands along beams and bins with the same patience she'd shown re-dressing Carrow's arm.
It announced itself on the third beam from the door: chalk marks, low where a man sitting on a hay bale could reach. Tally clusters — four vertical lines with a diagonal, over and over — and beside them, smaller marks in a pattern that made Ethan's stomach drop.
"What?" Ellie asked, seeing his face. She came over, squinted at the beam. "Those are —"
"Patrol rotations," Ethan said quietly. "Gate shifts. Count the tallies — they match the north wall's schedule." He looked at Dana. "Have you ever seen these?"
Dana stared at the beam. "No," she said slowly. "And I sweep this barn every week."
"They're fresh," Ethan said. "Chalk dust on the hay below. Made last night, maybe this morning."
Dana was already moving. "Who uses this barn?"
"Transient crews," one of the stable hands said, a boy about Ellie's age with straw in his hair. "Traders passing through. Right now it's —" he checked a slate by the door, "— Merritt's crew. Due out at dawn, actually. Wagon's being loaded now."
They found the wagon in the stable yard, half-loaded, and Merritt beside it — a wiry man with a trader's easy smile that didn't reach his eyes. He saw Dana coming and the smile didn't flicker. That was the tell, Ethan realized later. An innocent man looks confused. Merritt looked ready.
"Merritt," Dana said. "Need a word."
"Course," Merritt said, and bolted.
He was fast — over the wagon bed, through the stable yard, toward the east gate where the morning supply traffic was already lining up. Dana shouted, her rifle coming up and then dropping again — too many civilians, no shot. Ethan ran.
The town woke up around them as they chased — shutters opening, a woman yanking her child back from the street, someone's dog going insane. Ethan didn't think. He just ran the way he'd run traplines, reading the ground ahead instead of the man: Merritt was angling for the gate queue, for the cover of wagons and people.
He'll go under the second wagon, Ethan thought, where the guards can't see—
He cut left through a garden plot, vaulted a fence that nearly took his knee out, and came out in front of the second wagon just as Merritt dove for its shadow.
They collided. Went down hard in the mud and straw. Merritt got a hand into his coat — and Ethan saw the small black device, no bigger than a matchbox, wires and a stub antenna —
Merritt smashed it under his boot heel. Once. Twice. Ground it into the mud.
Then Dana was there, rifle on him, and it was over.
The gatehouse was stone and cold. Merritt sat zip-tied to a bench, mud on his face, the easy smile finally gone. Maria stood in the doorway. Joel leaned against the wall. Ethan stood in the corner, trying to be invisible, which had never once worked.
Maria didn't waste time. "How long?"
Merritt looked at the floor. "Eight months. In and out. They pay in medicine — real medicine, not the boiled-bark kind. My sister's got the lung rot."
"And the marks?"
"Patrol rotations. Gate schedules. I chalk them, the eyes copy them." A bitter laugh. "You got the wrong team yesterday, by the way. Vega was right. I'm not the hands either. I'm the errand boy."
"Then who are the hands?" Hale asked from the shadows.
Merritt was quiet for a long moment. Then: "The convoy. Thirty-six hours. And it's not coming to knock." He looked up, and his eyes found Ethan. "Orders mention two designations. D-09 — capture alive. And 38-C — confirm existence."
The room went very still.
"What's 38-C?" Maria asked.
"I don't know." Merritt's voice was raw now. "Nobody knows. Last known: Houston, years back. Then nothing. But the file moved three months ago, same as yours, kid. Somebody's looking for both of you."
Ethan felt Ellie's hand find his. He held on, and felt Joel's eyes on him from the wall — not the hard stare from the ridge, just watchful. Measuring the boy who kept finding things.
"One more thing," Merritt said. "You destroyed the transmitter. Good for you." He nodded toward the window, toward the far ridge just visible over the wall. "But the chalk was fresh this morning. I already signaled. They know the rotations. They know the gate."
Maria was already turning. "Seal the gates. Triple the patrols. Now."
They filed out into the cold morning — and Ethan looked up at the far ridge, and saw it: a single flash of light, there and gone. A signal mirror, answering.
Dana saw it too. Her hand tightened on her rifle.
Closer than they thought.