Five hours after leaving Nadja and her guards with Jane Foster and Aina, Ryan and the rest of the Assets team touched down in Fort Worth. The Texas night air hung hot and dry around Ryan as he emerged from the Draco Foundation Lear-Cessna Platinum III and looked out across the tarmac of the abandoned airstrip. Carswell Air Force Base was generally dead, though smugglers used it as a hub of operations for refueling and storage, which was the only reason that ghouls and squatters hadn’t taken over.