Strangers

At Jack's request, Dom and Ernie explained what they had found on their tour of the Thunder Hill Depository's perimeter fence.

Jack listened carefully, asking a number of questions for which Ginger could not always discern the purpose. Were any thin bare wires woven through the chainlink fence? What were the fenceposts like? Finally, he asked, “No guard dogs or men on patrol?”

Dom said, "No. There'd have been prints in the snow along the fence. Must be heavy electronic security. I'd hoped we'd be able to get on the groundsbut not after I got a closeup view of the place."

“Oh, we'll get on the grounds all right,” Jack said. "The tricky part will be getting inside the Depository itself."

Dom and Ernie looked at him with such astonishment that Ginger knew Thunder Hill must have looked formidable, indeed.

“Get inside?” Dom said.

“No can do,” Ernie said.

"If they rely on multiple electronic systems for the perimeter security,“ Jack said, ”they'll very likely also rely on electronics at the main entrance. That's the way it is these days. Everyone's dazzled by hightech. Oh, sure, Thunder Hill will have a guard at the front gate, but he'll be so used to depending on computers, video cameras, and other gadgets that he'll be lax. So we might be able to surprise him, get by him. Once inside, though, I don't know how far we can go or what we might be able to get a peek at before we're nailed."

Ginger said, “But how can you be so sure-”

“For eight years,” Jack reminded her, "getting into and back out of difficult places was my line of work. And it was the government that originally trained me, so I know their routines and tricks." He winked his misaligned eye. “I have some tricks of my own.”

Jorja spoke up, obviously more than a little distressed: "But you've as much as said you'll be caught in there."

“Oh, yes,” Jack said.

“But then what's the point of going in?” Jorja asked.

He had it all planned out, and Ginger listened at first in utter bafflement and then with growing admiration for his sense of strategy.

Jack laid out the details of his plan as if it were a foregone conclusion that the other nine members of the group would agree to do precisely what he told them, regardless of the risks involved. He employed every trick of coercion and leadership that he knew, not because he was unwilling to consider alternatives to his strategy or modifications of it, but because there simply was no time to explore other courses of action. His intellect and his instinct had the same message for him: Time is running out. So he explained to the rest of the Tranquility family that:

Within the next hour, everyoneexcept Dom, Ned, and Jack himselfwould pile in the Cherokee, leave overland from the rear of the motel, and drive into Elko by a roundabout route, thereby slipping the waiting tails. In Elko the group would split up. Ernie, Faye, and Ginger would drive the Cherokee north to Twin Falls, Idaho, then to Pocatello. From there they would arrange to fly to Boston, where they would stay with Ginger's friends, the Hannabys. They should get to Boston late Thursday or early Friday. Immediately upon their arrival, they would tell the Hannabys every detail of what they had discovered. Then, within an hour or two, Ginger would call together as many of her colleagues at Boston Memorial as possible, and she and the Blocks would tell those physicians what had been done to a lot of innocent people in Nevada two summers ago. Meanwhile, George and Rita Hannaby would contact influential friends and arrange meetings at which Ginger and the Blocks could spread their tale. Only then would Ginger, Faye, and Ernie go to the press. And only after they had gone to the press would they go to the police with a statement contesting the heretofore accepted wisdom that Pablo Jackson had been murdered by an ordinary burglar eight days ago.

“The trick,” Jack said, "is to get your story into wide circulation among some important people, so if you have an 'accident' before you've convinced the press to take up your cause, there will be a whole lot of powerful folks demanding to know who killed you and why. That's the special value you have for us now, Gingeryour associations with a spectrum of important people in one of the country's most influential cities. If you can electrify those people with your story, you'll be creating an imposing group of advocates. Just remember, when you get back there, you're going to have to move fast, before the conspirators discover you've gone home and decide to grab you or blow you away."

Outside, the wind suddenly rose, keening at the plywoodcovered windows. Good. If the storm worsened, cutting visibility farther, they would have a better chance of slipping away from the motel unobserved.

"After Ginger, Faye, and Ernie leave Elko in the Cherokee, heading up toward Pocatello," Jack said, using a tone of voice that implied these steps were not suggestions but immutable necessities, "you other fourBrendan, Sandy, Jorja, and Marciewill go to the local Jeep dealership and buy another fourwheeldrive vehicle with cash that I'll give you before you leave the Tranquility. Immediately after signing the papers, you'll head out of Elko in a different direction from Ginger and the Blockseast toward Salt Lake City, Utah. The snow will slow you down, of course, but you should be able to reach Salt Lake, get a flight out as soon as the storm subsides, and be in Chicago by Thursday afternoon or evening.“ He turned to the priest. ”Brendan, when you touch down at O'Hare, you'll contact your rector, this Father Wycazik you've told us about. He must use his pull to arrange an immediate, emergency meeting with whoever's head of the Chicago Archdiocese."

“Richard Cardinal O'Callahan,” Brendan said. "But I don't know if even Father Wycazik could arrange an immediate meeting with him."

“He has to,” Jack said firmly. "Brendan, you've got to move fast, just as Ginger will be moving fast in Boston. We've got to assume our enemies will be quick about spotting you when you turn up in Chicago. Anyway, at the meeting with Cardinal O'Callahan, you and Jorja and Sandy will explain what's happened in Elko Countyand Brendan, you'll give a demonstration of your newly discovered telekinetic ability. Pull out all the stops, okay? Do cardinals wear pants under their robes?"

Brendan blinked in surprise. “What? Of course, they wear pants.”

"Then I want you to scare the pants off your Cardinal O'Callahan. Give him a show that'll let him know he's part of the biggest story since they found the stone rolled away from the mouth of that tomb two thousand years ago. And I don't mean to be blasphemous, Brendan. I really think it is the biggest story since."

“So do I,” Brendan said. Though he had been glum all morning, he seemed to take heart from Jack's tone of authority and quiet excitement.

Now, the wild wind was vibrating the sheets of plywood at the windows, filling the restaurant with a low and ominous thrumming.

Ernie Block cocked his graybristled head, listening, and said, "With winds like this already, so soon after the snow hits, it's going to be a roofraiser later on."

Jack didn't want the weather to deteriorate too rapidly, for if the enemy was going to strike within the next few hours, as he anticipated, they might accelerate their schedule to avoid the messy complications of conducting the roundup in a fullscale blizzard.

“Okay, Brendan,” Jack said, "convince Cardinal O'Callahan and get him to arrange quick meetings with the mayor, city councilmen, social and financial leaders. You might have as much as twentyfour hours to spread your story before your life is in danger. The farther you spread it, the less danger you're in. But in any case, you shouldn't risk spending more than twelve hours putting together a network of powerful advocates before you ask them to arrange a press conference. Just picture it: the city's most prominent citizens forming a backdrop for you, reporters wondering what the hell is about to happenand then you display your telekinetic ability by levitating a chair and sending it on a nice slow trip around the room!"

Brendan grinned broadly. "That'll put an end to their coverup for sure. No way they can continue it after that."

“Let's hope so,” Jack said. "Because while the rest of you are off on your various missions, Dom and Ned and I will be inside Thunder Hill, perhaps under military arrest, and our only chance of getting out in the same condition we went in is if you blow this wide open."

Jorja said, "I don't like that part of itthe three of you going into the mountain. Why's it necessary? I asked you that same question fifteen minutes ago, and you still haven't answered me, Jack. If we can slip out of here, back to Boston and Chicago, use Ginger's and Brendan's connections to blast

this story wide open, then there's no need to go poking around in the Depository. Once we've set the wheels of the press in motion, the Army and whatever government agencies are involved will eventually have to come clean. They'll have to tell us what happened that summer and what they've been doing in Thunder Hill."

Jack took a deep breath, for this was the part at which they might balkespecially Ned and Dom. "Sorry, Jorja. But that's naive. If we all split and tell our stories, there'll be enormous pressure on the military and government to reveal the truth, yes, but they'll delay. They'll drag their feet and spread contradictory stories for weeks, months. That'll give them time to devise a convincing lie to explain everything, yet reveal nothing. Our only hope of exposing the truth is to make them open up fast. And to speed things along, the rest of you have to be able to tell the world that three of your friendsDom, Ned, and meare being held against our will inside the mountain. Hostages. The element of a hostage drama, with agencies of our own government in the role of terrorists, will be the final ingredient that might make it impossible for the Army to stonewall more than a day or two."

He could see that this revelation startled everyone. Ernie and Faye regarded him with a mixture of shock and sadness, as if he were already deador mindwiped.

Fear had risen like a dark moon in Jorja's face. She said, "But you can't. No, no. You simply can't sacrifice yourselves-"

“If the rest of you do your jobs properly,” Jack said quickly, "we won't be sacrificing ourselves. You'll pry us out of Thunder Hill with the lever of public protest that you create. That's why it's so important we all do exactly what we're supposed to."

“But,” Jorja said, "what if, by some chance, you get inside the mountain and manage to see something that explains what happened to us that July. And what if you could snap a few pictures of it and get back out alive. Surely, in that case, you'd try to escape. You're not saying that the hostage drama has to be a part of itare you?"

Jack said, “No, of course not.”

He was lying. Though there was at least a small chance of getting deep into the Depository, Jack knew there was little hope of getting all the way back out again undetected. As for finding something in there that would immediately explain what they had seen the summer before lastthere was no hope whatsoever. For one thing, they had no idea what they were looking for. It was possibleeven probablethat they would pass right by the thing they were after without knowing what they had seen. Furthermore, if dangerous experiments had been taking place in Thunder Hill, and if one of those experiments had gotten out of hand that July night, the answer to the mystery was likely to lie in paper or microfilm files or in lab reports; even if they could gain access to the labs, he and Dom and Ned would not have time to pore leisurely through tons of paperwork looking for the few pertinent ounces that would shed light upon their experience. He did not say any of this to Jorja or the others. He could not permit the meeting to degenerate into debate about potential risks and other options.

Outside, the wind howled.

Jorja said, "And if you absolutely insist on going in there, why couldn't the rest of us stay as near to you as possible? I mean, the seven of us could just go into Elko, to the offices of the Sentinel, and Brendan could demonstrate his power to the local press. We could start exposing the conspiracy here instead of in Chicago and Boston."

“No.” Jack was moved but also frustrated by her concern for him. (The hands on his wristwatch seemed to be spinning, for God's sake.) "The national media wouldn't pay quick enough attention to a smalltown newspaper's report that it had turned up a man with psychic powers and a major government conspiracy. It would be viewed as just another jerkwater story in the same league as reports of abominable snowmen and UFOS. Our enemies would find you and squash yousquash any local reporters you spoke withlong before the national media would bother sending anyone to check it out. You've got to go, Jorja. The way I've outlined itthat's our best hope."

She slumped in her chair with a defeated look.

“Dom,” Jack said, “are you with me?”

“Yeah, I guess I am,” the writer said, as Jack had known he would. Corvaisis was one of those standup types you could rely on, though he probably didn't see himself that way. He smiled ironically and said, “But, Jack, mind telling me why the honor fell on my shoulders?”

"Sure. Ernie's still not entirely over his nyctophobia, so it's hard enough on him just to ride all night to Pocatello. He isn't up to making a- nightassault on the Depository. Which leaves you and Ned. And frankly, Dom, it won't hurt our case if one of the hostages in Thunder Hill is a novelist, a celebrity of sorts. That adds one more bit of the kind of sensationalism the press thrives on."

Ginger Weiss had been frowning as Jack outlined his plan. Now she spoke: "You're a great strategist, Jack, but you're also chauvinistic. You're only considering men for the expedition into Thunder Hill. I think the three who go should be you, Dom, and me."

“But-”

“Hear me out,” she said, getting up, moving around to the far end of the table, drawing everyone's attention from Jack to her. Jack was aware of how she focused her intellect, will, and beauty upon him, for her techniques were similar to his own methods of compelling everyone to accept his plans without argument. "Ned and Sandy could go to Chicago, which would still give Brendan two adults to back up his story. Jorja and Marcie could go with Faye and Ernie to the Hannabys in Boston, with a note from me. George and Rita will take them seriously, get them an audience. My note alone will assure they're welcome and listened to. But their reception is doubly assured because in ten minutes Rita will recognize herself in Faye, and they'll be like sisters, and Rita will go to the mat for her. My presence is not essential there. I'm needed more here. For one thing, the infiltration of the Depository will be a dangerous undertaking. Either of youDom, Jackmight be hurt and need emergency medical attention. We don't know for sure that Dom has the same healing power as Brendan, and even if he has it, he might not be able to control it. So a doctor might come in handy, huh? Second, if it'll help having a famous authorall right, Dom, moderately famousas a hostage, then we'll get even more press attention if a woman's held in Thunder Hill. God damn it, you really need me, Jack!"