State Of Fear

"Food terrorists," Sarah said. But no one laughed.

And then the clearing had flashed past, the helicopter continuing onward. The pilot had explicit instructions not to slow down or to circle any clearing.

"That was definitely one," Evans said. "Where are we now?"

"Tonto Forest, west of Prescott," the pilot said. "I've marked the coordinates."

Sanjong said, "We should find two more, in a five-mile triangle."

The helicopter thumped onward into the night. It was another hour before they located the remaining spiderwebs, and the helicopter headed home.

Chapter 51

MCKINLEY PARK

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11

10:00 A.M.

The morning was warm and sunny, although dark clouds threatened to the north. At McKinley State Park, the Lincoln Middle School was having its annual outing. There were balloons attached to the picnic tables, the barbecue grills were smoking, and about three hundred kids and their families were playing on the grassy field beside the waterfall, throwing Frisbees and baseballs. More were playing along the banks of the nearby Cavender River, which meandered peacefully through the park. The river was low at the moment, with sandy banks on either side, and small rocky pools where the younger children played.

Kenner and the others were parked to one side, watching.

"When that river overflows," Kenner said, "it'll take out the entire park and everyone in it."

"It's a pretty big park," Evans said. "Will it really overflow that much?"

"Doesn't take much. The water will be muddy and fast moving. Six inches of fast water is enough to knock a person off his feet. Then they slide; it's slippery, they won't be able to get back up again. There're rocks and debris in the water; mud blinds them, they hit things, lose consciousness. Most drownings occur because people try to move across very low water."

"But six inches amp;"

"Muddy water has power," Kenner said. "Six inches of mud will take a car, no problem. Lose traction, sweep it right off the road. Happens all the time."

Evans found this hard to believe, but Kenner was now talking about some famous flood in Colorado, the Big Thompson, where a hundred and forty people died in a matter of minutes. "Cars crushed like beer cans," he said. "People with clothes ripped off their bodies by mud. Don't kid yourself."

"But here," Evans said, pointing to the park. "If the water starts to rise, there will be enough time to get out amp;."

"Not if it's a flash flood. Nobody here will know until it's too late. That's why we're going to make sure they don't have a flash flood."

He checked his watch, looked up at the darkening sky, and then walked back to the cars. They had three SUVs in a row. Kenner would drive one; Sanjong would drive one; Peter and Sarah would drive the third.

Kenner opened the back door to his car. He said to Peter, "Do you have a gun?"

"No."

"You want one?"

"You think I need one?"

"You might. When was the last time you were on a range?"

"Uh, it's been a while." In truth, Evans had never fired a gun in his life. And until this moment, he was proud of it. He shook his head. "I'm not much of a gun guy."

Kenner had a revolver in his hands. He had opened the round barrel-thing and was checking it. Sanjong was over by his own car, checking an evil-looking rifle, matte black stock with a telescopic sight. His manner was quick, practiced. A soldier. Uneasily, Evans thought: What is this, the O.K. Corral?

"We'll be all right," Sarah said to Kenner. "I have a gun."

"You know how to use it?"

"I do."

"What is it?"

"A 9-millimeter Beretta."

Kenner shook his head. "Can you handle a.38?"

"Sure."

He gave her a gun and a holster. She clipped the holster to the waist-band of her jeans. She seemed to know what she was doing.

Evans said, "Do you really expect us to shoot somebody?"

"Not unless you have to," Kenner said. "But you may need to defend yourself."

"You think they'll have guns?"

"They might. Yes."

"Jesus."

"It's okay," Sarah said. "Personally, I'll be happy to shoot the bastards." Her voice was hard, angry.

"All right, then," Kenner said. "That about does it. Let's mount up."

Evans thought, Mount up. Jesus. This was the O.K. Corral.

Kenner drove to the other side of the park and spoke briefly to a state trooper, whose black-and-white patrol car stood at the edge of a clearing. Kenner had arranged radio contact with the trooper. In fact, they were all going to be in radio contact, because the plan required a high degree of coordination. They would have to hit the three spiderweb sites at the same time.

As Kenner explained it, the rockets were intended to do something called "charge amplification" of the storm. It was an idea from the last ten years, when people first began to study lightning in the field, in actual storms. The old idea was that each lightning strike decreased the storm's intensity, because it reduced the difference in electrical charge between the clouds and the ground. But some researchers had concluded that lightning strikes had the opposite effectthey increased the power of storms dramatically. The mechanism for this was not known, but was presumed to be related to the sudden heat of the lightning bolt, or the shock-wave it created, adding turbulence to the already turbulent storm center. In any case, there was now a theory that if you could make more lightning, the storm would get worse.

"And the spiderwebs?" Evans said.

"They're little rockets with microfilaments attached. They go up a thousand feet into the cloud layer, where the wire provides a low-resistance conduction pathway and creates a lightning strike."

"So the rockets cause more lightning? That's what they're for?"

"Yes. That's the idea."

Evans remained doubtful. "Who pays for all this research?" he said. "The insurance companies?"

Kenner shook his head. "It's all classified," he said.

"You mean it's military?"

"Correct."

"The military pays for weather research?"

"Think about it," Kenner said.

Evans was not inclined to do so. He was deeply skeptical of all things military. The notion that they were paying for weather research struck him as the same sort of ludicrous excess as the six-hundred-dollar toilet seats and thousand-dollar wrenches that had become so notorious. "If you ask me, it's all a waste of money."

"ELF doesn't think so," Kenner said.

It was then that Sanjong spoke, with considerable intensity. Evans had forgotten that he was a soldier. Sanjong said that whoever could control the weather would control the battlefield. It was an age-old military dream. Of course the military would spend money on it.

"You're saying it actually works."

"Yes," Sanjong said. "Why do you think we are here?"

The SUV wound up into the wooded hills north of McKinley Park. This was an area of intermittent dense forest and open grassy fields. In the passenger seat, Sarah looked at Peter. He was good-looking, and he had the strong physique of an athlete. But sometimes he behaved like such a wimp.

"You ever do any sports?" she said.

"Sure."

"What?"

"Squash. A little soccer."

"Oh."

"Hey," he said. "Just because I don't shoot guns amp;I'm a lawyer, for Christ's sake."

She was disappointed with him and not even sure why. Probably, she thought, because she was nervous and wanted somebody competent to be with her. She liked being around Kenner. He was so knowledgeable, so skilled. He knew what was going on. He was quick to respond to any situation.

Whereas Peter was a nice guy, but amp; She watched his hands on the wheel. He drove well. And that was important today.

It was no longer sunny. They were close to the storm clouds. The day was dark, gloomy, threatening. The road ahead was deserted as it wound through the forests. They hadn't seen a car since they left the park.

"How much farther?" Evans said.

Sarah consulted the GPS. "Looks like another five miles."

He nodded. Sarah shifted in her seat, moving so the holstered gun would not press against her hip. She glanced at the passenger-side mirror.

"Oh shit."

"What?"

Behind them was a battered blue pickup truck. With Arizona plates.

Chapter 52

AURORAVILLE

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11

10:22 A.M.

"We've got trouble," Sarah said.

"Why?" Evans said. He glanced in the rearview mirror, saw the truck. "What is it?"

Sarah had the radio in her hand. "Kenner. They spotted us."

"Who did?" Evans said. "Who are they?"

The radio clicked. "Where are you?" Kenner said.

"On Highway 95. We're about four miles away."

"Okay," Kenner said. "Stick with the plan. Do your best."

"Who is it?" Evans said, looking in the mirror.

The blue pickup was advancing fast. Very fast. In the next instant, it banged into the back of their car. Evans was startled, swerved, got control again. "What the fuck?" he said.

"Just drive, Peter."

Sarah took the revolver from its holster. She held the gun on her lap, looked out the side mirror.

The blue truck had dropped back for a moment, but now raced forward again.

"Here he comes"

Perhaps because Peter stepped on the gas, the impact was surprisingly gentle. It was hardly more than a nudge. Peter careened around the curves, glancing at the rearview mirror.

Again, the blue truck dropped back. It followed them for the next half mile, but it was never closer than five or six car lengths.

"I don't get it," Evans said. "Are they going to ram us or not?"

"Guess not," she said. "See what happens if you slow down."

He slowed the SUV, dropping their speed to forty.

The blue truck slowed too, falling back farther.

"They're just following us," she said.

Why?

The first scattered drops of rain spattered the windshield. The road ahead was spotted. But they weren't yet in full rain.

The blue truck dropped even farther back now.

They came around a curve, and immediately ahead of them saw a big silver eighteen-wheeler, with a big trailer. It was rumbling slowly along the road, not going more than thirty miles an hour. On its back doors it said, "A amp;P."

"Oh shit," Evans said. In the back mirror, they saw the blue truck, still following. "They've got us front and back."

He swerved out, trying to pass the big trailer, but as soon as he did, the driver moved toward the center of the road. Evans immediately fell back.

"We're trapped," he said.

"I don't know," she said. "I don't get it."

The trailer blocked them at the front, but behind them the blue truck was farther back than ever, several hundred yards down the road.

She was still puzzling over this situation when a bolt of lightning crashed down at the side of the road as they drove past. It couldn't have been more than ten yards away, a white-hot, dazzling blast of light and sound. They both jumped.

"Jesus, that was close," Evans said.

"Yes amp;"

"I've never seen one that close."

Before she could answer, a second bolt crashed down, directly in front of them. The sound was explosive; Evans swerved involuntarily, even though the bolt was gone.

"Holy shit."

By then Sarah had a suspicion, just as the third bolt hit the car itself, a deafening crash and a sudden pressure that made knife pains in her ears and a blast of white that enveloped the car. Evans screamed in fear and let go of the wheel; Sarah grabbed it and straightened the car in the road.

A fourth bolt smashed down by the driver's side, just inches from the car. The driver's-side window cracked and splintered.

"Holy shit," Evans was saying. "Holy shit! What is this?"

To Sarah, it was only too obvious.

They were attracting lightning.

The next bolt cracked down, and was immediately followed by another, which smashed into the hood and spread burning white, jagged fingers over the car, and then was gone. There was a huge black indentation in the hood.

"I can't do this," Evans was saying. "I can't, I can't do this."

"Drive, Peter," Sarah said, grabbing his arm and squeezing hard. "Drive."

Two more bolts hit them, in rapid succession. Sarah smelled the odor of something burningshe wasn't sure what. But now she understood why they had been so gently rammed.

The blue pickup had stuck something onto their car. Some kind of electronic thing. And it was drawing the lightning to them.

"What do we do? What do we do?" Evans was whimpering. He howled as each new bolt struck.

But they were trapped, driving on a narrow road, hemmed in by dense pine forest on both sides of the road amp; Something she should know.

Forest amp;What about the forest?

A lightning bolt cracked the rear window with explosive force. Another bolt struck them so hard it bounced the car on the macadam, as if it had been hit by a hammer.

"The hell with this," Evans said, and spun the wheel, turning off the highway and onto a dirt track in the forest. Sarah saw a sign flash by, the name of a town on a battered post. They were plunged into near darkness under the huge, green pines. But the lightning immediately stopped.

Of course, she thought. The trees.

Even if their car was attracting lightning, it would strike the taller trees first.

A moment later, it did. They heard a sharp crack just behind them, and lightning flashed down the side of a tall pine, splitting the trunk open with what looked like steam and bursting the tree into flames.

"We're going to start a forest fire."

"I don't care," Evans said. He was driving fast. The vehicle was bouncing over the dirt road, but it was an SUV and it rode high so Sarah knew they would be all right.