Strangers

Snow tapped on the windshield.

The wind whispered susurrant secrets at the tightly shut windows. At last Jack Twist said, “That's all. I can't remember any more.”

“You will,” Dom said. “We all will. The blocks are crumbling.”

Jack slipped the pickup into gear again and started up the next slope, continuing their roundabout trek to Thunder Hill.

Colonel Leland Falkirk and Lieutenant Horner, accompanied by two heavily armed DERO corporals, took one of Shenkfield's Jeep Wagoneers to the roadblock at the western end of the quarantine zone. Two large Army transports had been parked across the wide eastbound lanes of I-80, effectively blocking them. (The westbound lanes were blocked on the other side of the Tranquility, ten miles from this point.) Emergency beacons mounted on sawhorses flashed in profusion. Half a dozen DERO men were in sight, dressed in Artic issue. Three of them were leaning down to the open windows of halted automobiles, talking to motorists, courteously explaining the situation.

Telling Horner and the two corporals to wait in the car, Leland got out and walked to the center of the blockade, to have a brief word with Sergeant Vince Bidakian, who was in charge of this aspect of the operation. “How's it going so far?” Leland asked.

“Good, sir,” Bidakian said, raising his voice slightly to compete with the wind. "Not too many people on the road. The storm hit to the west of here earlier, so most motorists with any common sense at all stopped earlier at Battle Mountain or even back at Winnemucca, until things clear. And it looks like virtually all the truckers decided to hole up rather than try to make it through to Elko. It'll take us an hour, I bet, before we've got even two hundred vehicles in line."

They were not turning the motorists back to Battle Mountain. They were telling everyone that the closure was expected to last only an hour and that the wait would not be insufferable.

A longer closure would have meant a massive backup even with the reduction in traffic brought by the storm. To deal with that larger number of inconvenienced travelers and to enforce a longer quarantine, Leland would have had to alert the Nevada State Police and the county sheriff by now. But he did not want to bring the police into it until that was unavoidable, for they would quickly seek confirmation of his authority from higher Army officialsand would soon learn that he had gone rogue. If the cops could be kept in the dark about the closure for just half an hour, and if they could be stalled for another few minutes once they did find out about it, no one would discover Leland's perfidy until it was too late. He needed only an hour to scoop up the witnesses at the motel and convey them into the deep vaults of Thunder Hill.

To Bidakian, Leland said, "Sergeant, make sure all the motorists have sufficient gasoline, and if any of them are running on low tanks, pump them ten gallons from that emergency supply you've brought."

“Yes, sir. That was my understanding, sir.”

“No sign of any cops or snow plows?”

“Not yet, sir,” Bidakian said, glancing beyond the short line of cars, where two new pairs of headlights appeared in the distant snowswaddled dusk. “But we'll see one or the other within ten minutes.”

“You know the story to give them?”

"Yes, sir. Truck bound for Shenkfield sprung a small leak. It's carrying harmless and toxic fluids, so we don't-"

“Colonel!” Lieutenant Horner was hurrying from the Wagoneer. He was wearing so many bulky clothes he looked halfagain as large as usual. "Message from Sergeant Fiw at Shenkfield, sir. Something's wrong at the motel. He hasn't heard a voice in fifteen minutes. Just a radio, playing real loud. He doesn't think anyone's there."

“They go back into the damn diner?”

“No, sir. Fiw thinks they're justgone, sir.”

“Gone? Gone where?” Leland demanded, neither expecting an answer nor waiting for one. Heart pounding, he ran back to the Wagoneer.

Her name was Talia Ervy, and she looked like Marie Dressler, who'd played Tugboat Annie in those wonderful old movies with Wallace Beery. Talia was even larger than Dressler, who'd been far from petite: big bones, broad face, wide mouth, strong chin. But she was the prettiest woman Parker Faine had seen in days, for she not only offered him and Father Wycazik a ride from the airport to the Tranquility, but refused to take any money for it. “Hell, I don't mind,” she said, sounding a little like Marie Dressler, too. "I wasn't going anywheres much special anyway. Just home to cook dinner for myself. I'm a flatout horrible cook, so this'll just put off the punishment for a bit. Fact is, when I think of my meatloaf, I figure maybe you're doing me a big favor."

Talia had a tenyearold Cadillac, a big boat of a car, with wintertread tires and snow chains. She claimed it would take her anywhere she wanted to go, regardless of the weather, and she called it “Old Paint.” Parker sat up front with her, and Father Wycazik sat in back.

They had gone less than a mile when they heard the emergency radio bulletin about the purported toxic spill and the closure of I-80 west of Elko. “Those muddleheaded, fumblefingered damn goofballs!” Talia said, turning the volume louder but raising her voice to talk over it. "Dangerous stuff like that, you'd think they'd treat it like a load of babies in glass cradles, but this here's twice in two years."

Neither Parker nor Father Wycazik was capable of commenting. They both knew that their worst fears for their friends were now coming true.

Talia Ervy said, “Well, gentlemen, what do we do now?”

Parker said, "Is there anyplace that rents cars? Fourwheeldrive is what we'll need. A Jeep, something like that."

:“There's a Jeep dealer,” Talia said.

'Can you take us there?" Parker asked.

" Me and Old Paint can take you anywheres, even if it starts putting down snowflakes big as dogs."

The salesman at the Jeep dealership, Felix Schellenhof, was far less colorful than Talia Ervy. Schellenhof wore a gray suit, gray tie, and palegray shirt, and spoke in a gray voice. No, he told Parker, they didn't rent vehicles by the day. Yes, they had many for sale. No, they couldn't complete a deal in just twenty minutes. The salesman said if Parker intended to finance, that would take until tomorrow. Even a check would not clinch the deal quickly because Parker was from out of state. “No checks,” Parker said. Schellenhof raised gray eyebrows at the prospect of cash. Parker said, "I'll put it on my American Express Gold Card," and Schelienhof looked grayly amused. They took American Express, he said, but in payment for accessories, repairs; no one had ever bought an entire vehicle with plastic. Parker said, "There's no purchase limit on the card. Listen, I was in Paris, saw a gorgeous Dali oil in a gallery, thirty thousand bucks, and they took my American Express!" With deliberate, plodding diplomacy, Schellenhof began to turn them away.

“For the love of God, man, move your tired butt!” Father Wycazik roared, slamming one fist into the top of Schellenhof's desk. He was flushed from his hairline to his backwards collar. "This is a matter of life or death for us. Call American Express." He raised his hand high, and the salesman's shocked gray eyes followed its swift upward are. "Find out if they'll authorize the purchase. For the love of God, hurry!" the priest shouted, slamming his fist down again.

The sight of such fury in a clergyman put some speed into the salesman at last. He took Parker's card and nearly sprinted out of his small office, across the showroom to the manager's glasswalled domain.

“Good grief, Father,” Parker said, "if you were a Protestant, you'd be a famous fireandbrimstone evangelist by now."

“Oh, Catholic or not, I've made a few sinners quake in my time.”

“I don't doubt it,” Parker assured him.

American Express approved the purchase. With hasty repentance, Schellenhof produced a sheaf of forms and showed Parker where to sign. “Quite a week!” the salesman said, though he was still drab and gray in spite of his new enthusiasm. "Late Monday a fella walks in, buys a new Cherokee with cashbundles of twentydollar bills. Must've hit it big in a casino. Now this. And the week's hardly started. Something, eh?"

“Fascinating,” Parker said.

Using the telephone on Schellenhof's desk, Father Wycazik placed a collect call to Michael Gerrano in Chicago and told him about Parker and about the closing of I-80. Then, when Schellenhof popped out of the room again, Wycazik said something that startled Parker: "Michael, maybe something'll happen to us, so you call Simon Zoderman at the Tribune the minute I hang up. Tell him everything. Blow it wide open. Tell Simon how Brendan ties in with Winton Tolk, the Halbourg girl, Calvin Sharkle, all of it. Tell him what happened out here in Nevada two summers ago, what they saw. If he finds it hard to believe, you tell him I believe it. He knows what a hardheaded customer I am."

When Father Wycazik hung up, Parker said, "Did I understand you right? My God, you know what happened to them on that July night?"

“I'm almost certain I do, yes,” Father Wycazik said.

Before the priest could say more, Schellenhof returned in a gray blur of polyester. Now that his commission seemed real to him, he was obviously determined not to exceed Parker's time limit.

“You've got to tell me,” Parker said to the priest.

“As soon as we're on our way,” Father Wycazik promised.

Ned drove Jack's Cherokee eastward across the snowswept slopes, moving at a crawl. Sandy and Faye rode up front with him, leaning forward, peering anxiously through the windshield, helping Ned spot the obstacles in the chaotic whiteness ahead of them.

Riding in backcrowded in with Brendan and Jorja, with Marcie on her mother's lapErnie tried to convince himself that he would not succumb to panic when the last light of the stormdimmed dusk gave way to darkness. Last night, when he'd snuggled under the covers in bed, staring at the shadows beyond the reach of the lamp's glow, his anxiety had been only a fraction of what he'd come to expect. He was improving.

Ernie also took hope from Dom's resurrected memory of jets buzzing the diner. If Dom could remember, so could Ernie. And when the memory block crumbled away, when at last he recalled what he'd seen that July night, he would stop being afraid of darkness.

“County road,” Faye said as the Jeep came to a stop.

They had indeed reached the first county road, the same one that ran past the Tranquility and under I-80. The motel lay about two miles south, and Thunder Hill lay eight miles north along that ribbon of blacktop. It had been plowed already, and recently, because the federal government paid the county to keep the approach to the Depository open at all times.

“Quickly,” Sandy urged Ned.

Ernie knew what she was thinking: Someone going from or to Thunder Hill might appear and accidentally discover them.

Gunning the engine, Ned drove hurriedly across the empty road, into the foothills on the other side, traversing a series of ruts with such haste that Brendan and Jorja were thrown repeatedly against Ernie, who sat between them. Once more, they took cover in the snow which fell like a storm of ashes from a coldly burning sky. Another northsouth county arteryVista Valley Roadlay six miles east, and that was where they were headed. Once there, they would turn south and go to a third county road that paralleled I-80 and that would carry them into Elko.

Ernie suddenly realized twilight was falling to the shadow armies of the night. Darkness had nearly stolen up on them. It was standing just a little way off, not in distance but in time, only a few minutes away, but he could see it watching them from billions of peepholes between billions of whirling snowflakes, creeping closer each time he blinked, soon to leap through the curtains of snow and seize him. . . .

No. There were too many other things worth fearing to waste energy on a nonsensical phobia. Even with a compass, they could get lost at night in this shrieking maelstrom. With visibility reduced to a few yards, they might drive off the edge of a ridge crest or into a rocky chasm, unaware of the hole until it swallowed them. Driving blindly to their own destruction was such a real threat that Ned could make no speed but could only nurse the Cherokee forward at a cautious crawl.

I fear what's worth fearing, Ernie told himself adamantly. I don't fear you, Darkness.

Faye looked over her shoulder from the front seat. He smiled and made an OK signonly slightly shakywith thumb and forefinger.

Faye started to give him an OK sign of her own, and that was when little Marcie screamed.

In his office along the wall of The Hub, deep inside Thunder Hill, Dr. Miles Bennell sat in darkness, thinking, worrying. The only light was the wan glow at two windows that faced into the central cavern of the Depository's second level, illumination insufficient to reveal any details of the room.

On the desk in front of him lay six sheets of paper. He'd read them twenty or thirty times during the past fifteen months; he did not need to read them again tonight to recall, word for word, what was typed on them. It was an illegally obtained printout of Leland Falkirk's psychological profile, stolen from the computerstored personnel records of the elite Domestic Emergency Response Organization.

Miles BennellPh D. in biology and chemistry, dabbler in physics and anthropology, musician proficient on the guitar and piano, author of books as diverse as a text on neurohistology and a scholarly study of the works of John D. MacDonald, connoisseur of fine wine, aficionado of Clint Eastwood movies, the nearest thing to a latetwentiethcentury Renaissance manwas among other things a computer hacker of formidable skill. He had begun adventuring through the complex worldwide network of electronic information systems when he had been a college student. Eighteen months ago, when his work on the Thunder Hill project threw him into frequent contact with Leland Falkirk, Miles Bennell had decided that the colonel was a psychologically disturbed individual who would have been declared unfit for military service even as a privatebut for one thing: He was apparently one of those rare paranoids who had learned how to use his special brand of insanity to mold himself into a smoothly functioning machineman who looked and acted normal enough. Miles had wanted to know more. What made Falkirk tick? What stimulus might make him explode unexpectedly?

The answers were to be found only at DERO headquarters. So sixteen months ago, Miles began using his personal terminal and modern to seek a route into DERO files in Washington.

The first time he'd read the profile, Miles had been frightened, though he had developed a thousand rationalizations for staying on the job even if it meant working with a dangerous and violent man like the colonel. There was less chance of trouble if Miles treated Falkirk with the coolness and grudging respect that a controlled paranoid would understand. You dared not be buddybuddy with such a manor flatter himfor he would assume you were hiding something. Polite disdain was the best attitude.