Strangers
Page 59Following two days of frustration, Foster Hanks, the Elko County Sheriff, had complained to a Sentinel reporter that: "This here's my bailiwick, by God, and the people elected me to keep peace. This is no military dictatorship. If I don't get some cooperation from the Army, I'll see a judge first thing tomorrow and get a court order to make them respect the legal jurisdictions in this matter." The Tuesday Sentinel reported that Hanks had, indeed, gone before a judge, but before a determination could be made, the crisis was drawing to an end and the argument about jurisdiction was moot.
Huddling over the newspaper with Dom, Ginger said, "So we don't have to worry that all authorities are aligned against us in this. The state and local police weren'tpart of it. Our only adversary is-"
“The United States Army,” Dom finished, laughing at the unconscious element of graveyard humor in her assessment
of the enemy.
She also laughed sourly. "Us against the Army. Even with state and local police out of the battle, it's hardly a fair match,
is it?"
According to the Sentinel, the Army kept sole and iron control of the roadblocks on I-80, the only eastwest artery through forbidden territory, and also closed eight miles of the northsouth county road. Civilian air traffic was restricted from passing over the contaminated area, necessitating the rerouting of flights, while the Army maintained continuous helicopter patrols of the perimeter of the proscribed land. Obviously, substantial manpower was required to secure eighty square miles, but regardless of expense and difficulty, they were determined to stop anyone entering the danger zone on foot, on horseback, or in fourwheeldrive vehicles. The choppers flew in daylight and after dark, as well, sweeping the night with searchlights. Rumors circulated that teams of soldiers, equipped with infrared surveillance gear, were also patrolling the perimeter at night, looking for interlopers who might have slipped past the big choppers' searchlights.
“Nerve gases rate among the deadliest substances known to man,” Ginger said as Dom turned a page of the newspaper they were currently perusing. "But even so, this much security seems excessive. Besides, though I'm no expert on chemical warfare, I can't believe any nerve gas would pose a threat at such a distance from a single point of release. I mean, according to the Army, it was only one cylinder of gas, not an enormous quantity, not a whole tanker truck as Ernie and Faye remembered it. And it's the nature of gas to disperse, to expand upon release. So by the time the stuff spread a couple of miles, it would've been diluted to such a degree that surely the air would've contained no more of it than a few parts per billion. In three miles ... not even one part per billion. Not enough to endanger anyone."
“This supports your idea that it was biological contamination.”
“Possibly,” Ginger said. "It's too early to say. But it was certainly more serious than the nervegas story they put out."
By Saturday, July 7, less than one day after the interstate was closed, an alert wireservice reporter had noted that the uniforms of many of the soldiers in the quarantine operation borein addition to rank and standard insigniaan unusual company patch: a black circle with an emeraldgreen star in the center. This was different from the markings on the uniforms of the men from Shenkfield Testing Grounds. Among those wearing the green star, the ratio of officers to enlisted men was high. When questioned, the Army identified the greenstar soldiers as a littleknown, superelite company of Special Forces troops. "We call them DERO, which stands for Domestic Emergency Response Organization," an Army spokesman was quoted by the Sentinel. "The men of DERO are superbly trained, and they've all had extensive field experience in combat situations, and all of them carry topsecurity clearances, as well, which is essential because they may find themselves operating in highly classified areas, witness to sensitive sights."
Dom translated that to mean DERO men were chosen, in part, for their ability and willingness to keep their goddamn mouths shut.
The Sentinel quoted the Army spokesman further: "They're the cream of our young career soldiers, so naturally many have attained the rank of at least sergeant by the time they qualify for DERO. Our intention is to create a superbly trained force to deal with extraordinary crises, such as terrorist attacks on domestic military installations, nuclear emergencies on bases housing atomic weapons, and other unusual problems. Not that there's any aspect of terrorism involved in this case. And there's no nuclear emergency here, either. But several DERO companies are stationed around the country, and since one was near when this nervegas situation arose, it seemed prudent to bring in the best we had to insure public safety." He refused to tell reporters where this DERO company had been stationed, how far they had been flown, or how many were involved. “That's classified information.”
Ginger grimaced and said, “Shmontses!”
Dom blinked. “Huh?”
“Their whole story,” she said, leaning back in her chair and rolling her head from side to side to work out a cramp in her lovely neck. "It's all just shmontses."
“But what's shmontses?”
"Oh. Sorry. Yiddish word, adapted from German, I guess. One of my father's favorites. It means something of no value, something foolish, absurd, nonsense, worthy of contempt or scorn. This stuff the Army put out is just shmontses." She stopped rolling her head, leaned forward in her chair, and stabbed one finger at the newspaper. "So this DERO team just happened to be hanging around here in the middle of nowhere precisely when this crisis arose, huh? Too damned neat.
Dom frowned. "But, Ginger, according to these stories, although the roadblocks on I-80 were set up by men from Shenkfield, the DERO team took over little more than an hour later. So if they didn't just happen to be nearby, the only way they could've gotten here so quickly was if they were airborne and on their way before the accident ever happened."
“Exactly.”
“You're saying they knew in advance there'd be a toxic spill?”
She sighed. "At most, I'm willing to accept a DERO team might've been at one of the nearest military bases ... in western Utah or maybe up in southern Idaho. But even that's not near enough to make the Army's scenario work. Even if they dropped everything and flew in here the moment they heard about the spill, they couldn't have been manning those roadblocks within an hour. No way. So, yeah, it sure looks to me as if they had a little advance warning that something was going to happen out at the western end of Elko County. Not much warning, mind you. Not days. But maybe a oneor twohour advance notice."
"Which means the toxic spill couldn't have been an accident. In fact, probably wasn't a spill at all, neither chemical nor biological. So why in hell were they wearing decontamination suits when they were treating us?" Dom was frustrated by the elaborate maze of this mystery, which twisted and turned inward but not toward a solution, toward nothing but twistier and more complex pathways that led into ever deeper puzzlement. He had the irrational urge to tear the newspapers to shreds, as if, by ripping them to pieces, he would also be ripping apart the Army's lies and would somehow find the truth revealed, at last, in the resultant confetti.
With a note of frustration that matched his own, Ginger said, "The only reason the Army called in a DERO company to enforce the quarantine was because the men patrolling the zone would have a view of something highly classified, something absolutely topsecret. The Army felt they couldn't trust ordinary soldiers who didn't have the very highest security clearance. That's the sole reason the DERO team was used."
“Because they could be trusted to keep their mouths shut.”
I-80, the DERO men wouldn't have been required for the job. I mean, if it was just a spill, what would there've been to see except maybe an overturned truck and a damaged, leaking canister of gas or liquid?"
Turning their attention once more to the newspapers spread before them, they found additional evidence indicating the Army had had at least some warning that unusual and spectacular trouble would erupt in western Elko County that hot July night. Both Dom and Ginger distinctly remembered that the Tranquility Grille had been filled with a strange sound and shaken by earthquakelike tremors about half an hour after full darkness had settled on the land; and because sunset came later during the summer (even at 41 degrees North Latitude), the trouble must have started approximately at eightten. Their memory blocks began at the same time, which further pinpointed The Event. Yet Dom spotted a line in one of the Sentinel's stories stating that the roadblocks on I-80 had been erected almost at eight o'clock on the dot.
Ginger said, "You mean the Army had the highway closed off five or ten minutes before the 'accidental' toxic spill even happened?"
“Yeah. Unless we're wrong about the time of the sunset.”
They checked the weather column in the July 6 edition of the Sentinel. It painted a more than adequate portrait of that fateful day. The high temperature had been expected to hit ninety degrees, with an overnight low of sixtyfour. Humidity between twenty and twentyfive percent. Clear skies. Light to variable winds. And sunset at seventhirtyone.
“Twilight's short out here,” Dom said. "Fifteen minutes, tops. Figure full darkness at sevenfortyfive. Now, even if we're wrong to think it was half an hour after nightfall that trouble hit, even if it came just fifteen minutes after dark, the Army still had its roadblocks up first."
“So they knew what was coming,” Ginger said.
“But they couldn't stop it from happening.”
"Which means it must've been some process, some series of events, that they initiated and then were unable to control."
“Maybe,” Dom said. "But maybe not. Maybe they weren't really at fault. Until we know more, we're just speculating. No point to it."
Ginger turned the page of the Sentinel's edition for Wednesday, July 11, which they were currently examining, and her gasp of surprise directed Dom's attention to a headandshoulders photograph of a man in an Army officer's uniform and cap. Although Colonel Leland Falkirk had appeared in neither Dom's nor Ginger's dreams last night, they both recognized him at once because of the description that Ernie and Ned had supplied from their nightmares: dark hair graying at the temples, eyes with an eerie translucency, a beakish nose, thin lips, a face of flat hard planes and sharp angles.
Dom read the caption under the picture: Colonel Leland Falkirk, commanding officer of the company of DERO troops manning the quarantine line, has been an elusive target for reporters. This first photograph was obtained by Sentinel photographer, Greg Lunde. Caught by surprise, Falkirk was angry about being photographed. His answers to the few questions asked of him were even shorter than the standard “no comment.”
Staring at the photograph of Falkirk, Ginger softly said, "Kayn aynhoreh. “ Aware of Dom's puzzlement, she said, ”That's Yiddish, too. Kayn aynhoreh. It's an expression that's used to . . . to ward off the evil eye. Somehow, it seemed appropriate."
Dom studied the photograph, half mesmerized by it.
After a moment, he said, “Yes. Quite appropriate.”
Colonel Falkirk's sharply chiseled face and cold pale eyes were so striking that it seemed as if he were alive within this photograph, as if he were returning their scrutiny.
While Dom and Ginger were examining the backissue files at the Elko Sentinel, Ernie and Faye Block were working in the office of the Tranquility Motel, trying to contact the people whose names were on the guest list for July 6, two summers ago, but who had thus far been unreachable. They were behind the checkin counter, sitting opposite each other at the oak desk, which had kneeholes on both sides. A pot of coffee stood within reach on an electric warmingplate.
Ernie composed a telegram to Gerald Salcoe, the man who had rented two rooms for his family on July 6, the summer before last, and who was unreachable by phone because his number in Monterey, California, was unlisted. Meanwhile, Faye went back through last year's guest book, day by day, looking for the most recent entry for Cal Sharkle, the trucker who had stayed with them on that July 6. Yesterday, Dom had tried the telephone number Cal had printed in the guest registry that night, but it had been disconnected. The hope was that a more recent entry would provide his new address and phone number.
As they performed their separate tasks, Ernie was reminded of countless other times throughout their thirtyone years of marriage when they had sat facing each other at a desk or, more often, at a kitchen table. In one apartment or another, in one house or another, at one end of the world or another, from Quantico to Pendleton to Singapore, nearly everywhere the Marines sent him, the two of them had spent long evenings at a kitchen table, working or dreaming or worrying or happily planning together, often late into the night. Ernie was suddenly filled with poignant echoes of those thousands of huddled conferences and shared labors. How very fortunate he had been to find and marry Faye. Their lives were so inextricably linked that they might as well have been a single creature. If Colonel Falkirk or others resorted to murder to terminate this investigation, if anything happened to Faye, then Ernie hoped he would die, too, simultaneously.
He finished composing the telegram to Gerald Salcoe, called it in to Western Union, and requested immediate deliveryall the while warmed by a love that was strong enough to make their dangerous situation seem less threatening than it really was.
Faye found five occasions during the past year when Cal Sharkle had stayed overnight, and in every case he had listed the same Evanston, Illinois, address and phone number that he had entered in the registry for July 6 of the previous year. Apparently, he had not moved, after all. Yet, when they dialed this number, they obtained the recording that Dom had gotten yesterday, informing them that the telephone had been disconnected and that no new Evanston listing existed.
On the chance that Cal had moved out of Evanston into the “Windy City” itself, Faye dialed Area Code 312 Information and asked if there was a number for Calvin Sharkle in Chicago. There was not. Using a map of Illinois, she and Ernie placed calls to Information in the Chicago suburbs: Whiting, Hammond, Calumet City, Markham, Downer's Grove, Oak Park, Oakbrook, Elmhurst, Des Plaines, Rolling Meadows, Arlington Heights, Skokie, Wilmette, Glencoe. . . . No luck. Either Cal Sharkle had moved out of the Chicago area, or had dropped off the face of the earth.