Chapter 16: RetreatWhen Garner awoke, it was morning and he was lying on a sheet-rumpled mattress, naked and covered by another sheet. To one side was a neatly folded tarp. Overhead arched a blue, cloudless sky, with a sun that warmed him wonderfully. He could hear cars somewhere in the middle distance, and for several seconds he lay without moving, vaguely wondering where he was. Then he remembered, and sat up.
The mattress lay between a tarp-covered pile of boards and a low, shed-like structure. Beyond the foot of the mattress stretched the gravel-covered surface of a building’s flat rooftop, and maybe twenty feet away a cluster of pipes rose vertically from the gravel surface, each covered with a conical metal hat.
Details of his activities from the previous evening came slowly back t
