"Not yet."
Five miles later they began to see signs that Scarlet Lake was occupied. Black strips indicated aircraft runways. Then, tiny concrete squares came into view. But not until they were in the valley, only a mile from the base, could they see buildings.
The buildings turned out to be a few single-story administrative shacks clustered around a check-in point. A uniformed guard waved them into a parking lot and told them to report to Security for badges.
They walked into the building marked "Security Office, Badge Division" and found a counter with another guard behind it. He took their names and asked for identification, then directed them to stand with chins resting on a tray. He slipped plastic letters into slots and formed their names, then took pictures with a fixed camera.
"Sit down and wait," he said. "We'll have these for you in five minutes."
Rick looked his surprise. "Can you process the pictures that fast?"
"Don't have to. This is a Polaroid camera."
Rick joined Scotty on a wooden bench. "I expected a barbed-wire fence. But there's no fence at all."
"The whole desert is a fence, I guess," Scotty surmised. "The only access roads are probably guarded, and the only other ways to get into the base would be by foot or horseback. No one could make it on foot, and anyone on horseback would attract instant attention."
Scotty probably was right, Rick thought. Still, it wasn't at all what he expected.