Strangers

“Then anything might be up there,” Jorja Monatella said uneasily.

“Anything,” Ned Sarver said.

“Is it possible the place isn't just a storage dump?” Sandy asked. “Could they also maybe be doing some kind of experiments up there?”

“What kind of experiments?” Brendan asked, leaning over to look past Ned, beside whom he was seated.

Sandy shrugged. “Any kind.”

“It's possible,” Dom said. The same thought had occurred to him.

"But if there wasn't a toxic spill on I-80, if it was something at Thunder Hill that went wrong,“ Ginger said, ”how could it have affected us, more than ten miles to the south?"

No one could think of an answer.

Marcie, who had been preoccupied with her moon collection for most of the evening and who had said nothing during dinner, put down her fork and piped up with a question of her own: “Why's it called Thunder Hill?”

“Sweetie,” Faye said, "that's one I can answer. Thunder Hill's really one of four huge, connecting mountain meadows, a long sloping piece of high pastureland. It's surrounded by a great many high peaks, and during a storm, the place acts like a sort of . . . well, a sort of funnel for sound. The Indians named it Thunder Hill hundreds of years ago because thunder echoes between those peaks and rolls down the mountainsides, and it all pours in on that one particular meadow in a most peculiar way, so that it seems as if the roar isn't coming out of the sky, but as if it's coming right up out of the ground around you."

“Wow,” Marcie said softly. “I'd probably pee my pants.”

“Marcie!” Jorja said as everyone broke into laughter.

“Well, gee, I probably would,” the child replied. "You member when Grandma and Grandpa came over to dinner at our place, and there was a big storm, really big, and some lightning struck the tree in our yard, and there was this boom! and I peed my pants?" Looking around the table at her new extended family, she said, “I was soooo embarrassed.”

Everyone laughed again, and Jorja said, "That was more than two years ago. You're a bigger girl now."

To Dom, Ernie said, "You haven't told us yet why Thunder Hill is the place, rather than Shenkfield. What'd you find in the newspaper?"

In the Sentinel for Friday, July 13, exactly one week after the closure of I-80 and three days after its reopening, there was a report of two county ranchersNorvil Brust and Jake Dirksonwho were having trouble with the Federal Bureau of Land Management. A disagreement between ranchers and the BLM was not unusual. The government owned half of Nevada, not merely deserts but a lot of the best grazing land, some of which it leased to cattlemen for their herds. Ranchers were always complaining that the BLM kept too much good land out of use, that the government ought to sell off part of its holdings to private interests, and that leases were too expensive. But Brust and Dirkson had a new complaint. For years they leased BLM land surrounding a threehundredacre Army installation, the Thunder Hill Depository. Brust held eight hundred acres to the west and south, and Dirkson was using over seven hundred acres on the east side of Thunder Hill. Suddenly, on Saturday morning, July 7, though four years remained on Brust's and Dirkson's leases, the BLM took five hundred acres from Brust, three hundred from Dirkson; and at the request of the Army, those eight hundred acres were incorporated into the boundaries of the Thunder Hill Depository.

"Which just happens to be the very morning after the toxic spill and the closure of I-80," Faye observed.

"Brust and Dirkson showed up Saturday morning to inspect their herds, per their usual routine,“ Dom said, ”and both discovered that their livestock had been driven off most of the leased pasture. A temporary barbedwire fence was being thrown into place along the new perimeter of the Thunder Hill Depository."

Having finished dinner, Ginger pushed her plate aside and said, "The BLM simply told Brust and Dirkson it was unilaterally abrogating their leases, without compensation. But they didn't receive an official written notice till the following Wednesday, which is extremely unusual. Ordinarily, a notice of termination comes sixty days in advance."

“Was that kind of treatment legal?” Brendan Cronin asked.

“Right there's the problem of doing business with the government,” Ernie told the priest. "You're dealing with the very people who decide what's legal and what isn't. It's like playing poker with God."

Faye said, "The BLM's despised around these parts. No bunch of bureaucrats is more highhanded."

“That's what we gathered from reading the Sentinel, ” Dom said. "Now, Ginger and I might've figured the Thunder Hill business was just coincidental, that the BLM just happened to go after that land the same time as the crisis on I-80. But the way the government dealt with Brust and Dirkson after the land was seized was so extraordinary it made us suspicious. When the ranchers hired attorneys, when stories about the cancellation of their leases began appearing in the Sentinel, the BLM did a sudden aboutface and offered compensation, after all."

“That's not a bit like the BLM!” Ernie said. "They'll always make you drag them into court, hoping litigation will wear you down."

“How much were they willing to pay Brust and Dirkson?” Faye asked.

“The figure wasn't revealed,” Ginger said. "But it was evidently darned good, because Brust and Dirkson accepted it overnight."

“So the BLM bought their silence,” Jorja said.

“I think it was the Army working secretly through the BLM,” Dom said. "They realized the longer the story was in the news, the more chance there was of someone wondering about a link between the crisis on I-80 that Friday night and the unorthodox seizure of land the very next morning, even if the two events were ten or twelve miles apart."

“Surprises me somebody didn't make the connection,” Jorja said. "If you and Ginger could spot it this long after the fact, why didn't anyone think of it then?"

“For one thing,” Ginger said, "Dom and I had the enormous benefit of hindsight. We know there was a lot more going on during the days of the crisis than anyone suspected at the time. So we were specifically looking for connections. But that July, all the hoopla about a toxic spill diverted attention from Thunder Hill. Furthermore, there was nothing extraordinary about ranchers fighting the BLM, so nothing in the situation linked it in anyone's mind with the I-80 quarantine. In fact, when the BLM made that totally outofcharacter offer to Brust and Dirkson, a Sentinel editorial praised the repentant attitude of the government and prophesied a new age of reason."

“But from what you've told us,” Dom said to Faye and Ernie, "and from what else we've read, that was the first and last time the Bureau of Land Management dealt reasonably with ranchers. So it wasn't a new policyjust a onetime response to a crisis. And it's too coincidental to believe that the crisis evolving at Thunder Hill was unrelated to the crisis simultaneously under way here along the interstate."

“Besides,” Ginger said, "once our suspicion was aroused, we got to thinking that if the trouble that night had been related to Shenkfield, there'd have been no need for the Army to use DERO troops for security. Because the soldiers stationed at Shenkfield would already have full security clearance in all matters related to that base, and there would've been nothing about a Shenkfield crisis too sensitive for them to see. The only reason DERO would've been called in is if the crisis was utterly unrelated to Shenkfield, involving something the soldiers at that base were not cleared for."

“So if there're answers to our problems,” Brendan said, "we'll most likely find them at the Thunder Hill Depository."

“We already suspected the story about a spill was less than half true,” Dom said. "Maybe there was no truth to it at all. Maybe the crisis had nothing to do with Shenkfield. If the real source was Thunder Hill, the rest was just smoke they blew in the public's eyes."

“It sure feels right,” Ernie said. He had finished dinner, too. His silverware was neatly arranged on the plate, which was almost as clean as before dinner, evidence that his military discipline and order had not departed him. "You know, part of my service career was in Marine Intelligence, so I'm speaking with some experience when I say this Shenkfield stuff truly does smack of an elaborate coverstory."

Ned's frown exaggerated his pronounced widow's peak. "There're a couple of things I don't understand. The quarantine didn't extend from Thunder Hill all the way down here. There were miles of territory in between that weren't sealed off. So how did the effects of an accident on Thunder Hill leapfrog over all that distance and come down on our heads, without causing trouble between there and here?"

“You're not dullwitted,” Dom said. “I can't explain it, either.”

Still frowning, Ned said, "Another thing: The Depository doesn't need a lot of land, does it? From what I've heard, it's underground. They've got a couple of big blastdoors in the side of the hill, a road leading up to the doors, maybe a guard post, and that's it. The three hundred acres you mentionedthe area around the entranceis plenty big enough for a security zone. So why the landgrab?"

Dom shrugged. "Beats me. But whatever the hell happened up there on July sixth, it prompted two emergency actions on the part of the Army: first, a temporary quarantine down here, ten or twelve miles away, until we witnesses could be dealt with; second, an immediate enlargement of the security zone around the Depository, up there in the mountains; a secondary quarantine that's still in effect. I have a hunch ... if we're ever going to find out what happened to uswhat's still happeningwe're going to have to dig into the activities up on Thunder Hill."

They were all silent. Though everyone was finished with dinner, no one was ready for dessert. Marcie was using her spoon to draw circles in the greasy residue of turkey gravy on her plate, creating fluid and temporary moonforms. No one moved to clear away the dirty dishes, for at this point in the discussion, no one wanted to miss a word. They were at the crux of their dilemma: How were they to move against enemies as mighty as the U S. Government and Army? How were they to penetrate an iron wall of secrecy that had been forged in the name of national security, with the full power of the state and the law behind it?

“We've put together enough to go public,” Jorja Monatella said. "The deaths of Zebediah Lomack and Alan, the murder of Pablo Jackson. The similar nightmares that many of you have shared. The Polaroids. It's the kind of sensational stuff the media thrives on. If we let the world know what we think happened to us, we'll have the power of the press and public opinion on our side. We won't be alone."

“No good,” Ernie said. "That kind of pressure'll just make the military stonewall like hell. They'll construct an even more confusing and impenetrable coverup. They don't crack under pressure the way politicians do. On the other hand, as long as they see us stumbling around on our own, fumbling for explanations, they'll be confidentwhich might give us time to probe for their weak spots."

“And don't forget,” Ginger warned, "apparently Colonel Falkirk advocated killing us instead of just blocking our memories, and we've no reason to believe he's mellowed since then. He was obviously overruled, but if we tried to go public, he might be able to persuade his superiors that a final solution is required, after all."

“But even if it's dangerous, maybe we've got to go public,” Sandy said. "Maybe Jorja's right. I mean, there's no way we can get inside the Thunder Hill Depository to see what's going on. They've got lots of security and a pair of blastdoors built to take a nuclear hit."

Dom said, "Well, it's like Ernie told us ... we'll have to just stay loose and search for their weaknesses until we find a way."

“But it looks like they don't have any weaknesses,” Sandy said.

"Their coverup has been falling apart ever since they brainwashed us and let us go,“ Ginger said. ”Each time one of us remembers another detail, that's another gaping hole in their coverup."

“Yeah,” Ned said, "but seems to me they're in a better position to keep patching the holes than we are to keep poking new ones."

“Let's can the goddamn negative thinking,” Ernie said gruffly.

Smiling beatifically, Brendan Cronin said, "He's right. We must not be negative. We need not be negative because we're meant to win." His voice was again infused with the eerie serenity and certitude which arose from his belief that the revelation of their special fate was inevitable. At moments like this, however, the priest's tone and manner did not comfort Dom, as they were meant to but, for some odd reason, stirred up a sediment of fear and muddied his emotions with anxiety.

“How many men are stationed at Thunder Hill?” Jorjia asked.

Before Dom or Ginger could respond with information they'd gleaned from the Sentinel, a stranger appeared in the doorway at the head of the stairs that led up from the motel office. He was in his late thirties, lean and toughlooking, darkhaired, darkcomplexioned, with a crooked left eye that was not coordinated with his right. Though the downstairs door was locked, and although the linoleum on the stairs did nothing to quiet ascending footsteps, the intruder appeared with magical silence, as if he were not a real man but an ectoplasmic visitation.

“For God's sake, shut up,” he said, sounding every bit as real as anyone else in the room. "If you think you can plot in privacy here, you're badly mistaken."

Eighteen miles southwest of the Tranquility Motel, at Shenkfield Army Testing Grounds, all the buildingslaboratories, administration offices, security command center, cafeteria, recreation lounge, and living quarterswere underground. In the blazing summers on the edge of the high desert and in the occasionally bitter winters, it was easier and more economical to maintain a comfortable temperature and humidity level in underground rooms than in structures erected on the lessthanhospitable Nevada barrens. But a more important consideration was the frequent openair testing of chemicaland occasionally even biologicalweapons. The tests were conducted to study the effects of sunlight, wind, and other natural forces on the distribution patterns and potency of those deadly gases, powders, and superdiffusible mists. If the buildings were aboveground, any unexpected shift in the wind would contaminate them, making unwilling guinea pigs of base personnel.