The brown desert was baked into layers that had cracked for lack of moisture, and a high midday sun was vulcanizing everything in sight.Davis set his bag on the tarmac in front of FBN Aviation. Standing on the groomed concrete, a searing wind snapping at the cuffs of his pants, he filled his lungs with the dry, musky air. This was his target box, and so, just like flying a combat mission, the first order of business was to get his bearings. The FBN Aviation building looked relatively new, a given really, since the whole airport complex had been nothing but scrubland seven years ago. The main building was big, two stories of concrete and burnt brick. It reminded him of any number of military facilities he’d seen. Brown, gray, tan—shades so dull Michelangelo couldn’t have done anything positive with them. On the flat roof, two box-like swamp coolers were working hard. There was little in the way of architectural detail. Just square corners and a few token windows, institutional and cheap, a budgetary stepchild to the over-the-top passenger terminal a mile away.
