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Listen to me and boost me . . . boost me up! Do you understand? Boost me up! This is your only chance, so BOOST ME UP!

They did it as instinctively as people whistling a tune or clapping to a beat. If he'd given them time to think about it, it probably would have been harder, perhaps even impossible, but he didn't. Most of them had been sleeping, and he caught the infected ones, the telepaths, with their minds wide open.

Operating on instinct himself, Henry sent a series of images: soldiers wearing masks surrounding the barn, most with guns, some with backpacks connected to long wands. He made the faces of the soldiers into editorial-page caricatures of cruelty. At an amplified order, the wands unleashed streams of liquid fire: napalm. The sides of the barn and roof caught at once.

Henry shifted to the inside, sending pictures of screaming, milling people. Liquid fire dripped through holes in the blazing roof and ignited the hay in the lofts. Here was a man with his hair on fire; there a woman in a burning ski-parka still decorated with lift-tickets from Sugarloaf and Ragged Mountain.

They were all looking at Henry now — Henry and his linked friends. Only the telepaths were receiving the images, but perhaps as many as sixty per cent of the people in the barn were infected, and even those who weren't caught the sense of panic; a rising tide lifts all boats.

Clamping Bill's hand tightly with one of his own and Marsha's with the other, Henry switched the images back to the outside per­spective again. Fire; encircling soldier; an amplified voice shouting for the soldiers to be sure no one got clear.

The detainees were on their feet now, speaking in a rising babble of frightened voices (except for the deep telepaths; they only stared at him, haunted eyes in byrus-speckled faces). He showed them the barn burning like a torch in the snow-driven night, the wind turning an inferno into an explosion, a firestorm, and still the napalm hoses poured it on and still the amplified voice exhorted: 'THAT'S RIGHT, MEN, GET THEM ALL, DON'T LET ANY OF THEM GET A WAY, THERRE THE CANCER AND WE'RE THE CURE!'

Imagination fully pumped up now, feeding on itself in a kind of frenzy, Henry sent images of the few people who managed to find the exits or to wriggle out through the windows. Many of these were in flames. One was a woman with a child cradled in her arms. The soldiers machine-gunned all of them but the woman and the child, who were turned into napalm candles as they ran.

'No!' several women screamed in unison, and Henry realized with a species of sick wonder that all of them, even those without children, had put their own faces on the burning woman.

They were up now, milling around like cattle in a thunderstorm. He had to move them before they had a chance to think once, let alone twice.

Gathering the force of the minds linked to his, Henry sent them an image of the store.

THERE! he called to them. IT'S YOUR ONLY CHANCE! THROUGH THE STORE IF YOU CAN, BREAK DOWN THE FENCE IF THE DOOR'S BLOCKED! DON'T STOP, DON'T HESITATE! GET INTO THE WOODS! HIDE IN THE WOODS! THEY'RE COMING TO BURN THIS PLACE DOWN, THE BARN AND EVERYONE IN IT, AND THE WOODS ARE YOUR ONLY CHANCE! NOW, NOW!



Deep in the well of his own imagination, flying on the pills Owen had given him and sending with all his strength — images of possible safety there, of certain death here, images as simple as those in a child's picture-book — he was only distantly aware that he had begun chanting aloud: 'Now, now, now.'

Marsha Chiles picked it up, then her brother-in-law, then Charles, the man with the overgrown solar sex-panel.

'Now! Now! Now!'

Although immune to the byrus and thus no more telepathic than the average bear, Darren was not immune to the growing vibe, and he also joined in.

'Now! Now! Now!'

It 'umped from person to person and group to group, a panic­-induced infection more catching than the byrus: 'Now! Now! Now!'

The barn shook with it. Fists were pumping in unison, like fists at a rock concert.

'NOW! NOW! NOW!'

Henry let them take it over and build it, pumping his own fist without even realizing it, flinging his hand into the air to the farthest reach of his aching arm even as he reminded himself not to be caught up in the cyclone of the mass mind he had created: when they went north, he was going south. He was waiting for some point of no return to be reached — the point of ignition and spontaneous combustion.

It came.

'Now,' he whispered.

He gathered Marsha's mind, Bill's, Charlie's . . . and then the others that were close and particularly locked in. He merged them, compressed them, and then flung that single word like a silver bullet into the heads of the three hundred and seventeen people in Old Man Gosselin's barn:

NOW.

There was a moment of utter silence before hell's door flew open.

 

 

Just before dusk, a dozen two-man sentry huts (they were actually Porta-Potties with the urinals and toilet-seats yanked out) had been set up at intervals along the security fence. These came equipped with heaters that threw a stuporous glow in the small spaces, and the guards had no interest in going outside them. Every now and then one of them would open a door to allow in a snowy swirl of fresh air, but that was the extent of the guards' exposure to the outside world. Most of them were peacetime soldiers with no gut understanding of how high the current stakes were, and so they swapped stories about sex cars, postings, sex, their families, their future, sex, drinking and drugging expeditions, and sex. They had missed Owen Underhill's two visits to the shed (he would have been clearly visible from both Post 9 and Post 10) and they were the last to be aware that they had a full-scale revolt on their hands.

Seven other soldiers, boys who had been with Kurtz a little longer and thus had a little more salt on their skins, were in the back of the store near the woodstove, playing five-card stud in the same office where Owen had played Kurtz the ne nous blessez pas tapes roughly two centuries ago. Six of the card-players were sentries. The seventh was Dawg Brodsky's colleague Gene Cambry. Cambry hadn't been able to sleep. The reason was concealed by a stretchy cotton wristlet. He didn't know how long the wristlet would serve, however, because the red stuff under it was spreading. If he wasn't careful, someone would see it . . . and then, instead of playing cards in the office, he might be out there in the barn with the John Q's.

And would he be the only one? Ray Parsons had a big wad of cotton in one ear. He said it was an earache, but who knew for sure? Ted Trezewski had a bandage on one meaty forearm and claimed he'd gouged himself stringing compound barbed wire much earlier in the day. Maybe it was true. George Udall, the Dawg's immediate superior in more normal times, was wearing a knitted cap over his bald head; damn thing made him look like some kind of elderly white rapper. Maybe there was nothing under there but skin, but it was warm in here for a cap, wasn't it? Especially a knitted one.

'Kick a buck,' Howie Everett said.

'Call,' said Danny O'Brian.

Parsons Called; so did Udall. Cambry barely heard. In his mind there rose an image of a woman with a child cradled in her arms. As she struggled across the drifted-in paddock, a soldier turned her into a napalm road-flare. Cambry winced, horrified, thinking this image had been served up by his own guilty conscience.

'Gene?' Al Coleman asked. 'Are you going to call, or—'

'What's that?' Howie asked, frowning.

'What's what?' Ted Trezewski said.

'If you listen, you'll hear it,' Howie replied. Dumb Polack: Cambry heard this unspoken corollary in his head, but paid it no mind. Once it had been called to their attention, the chant was clear enough, rising above the wind, quickly taking on strength and urgency.

'Now! Now! Now! Now! NOW!'

It was coming from the barn, directly behind them.

'What in the blue hell?' Udall asked in a musing voice, blinking over the folding table with its scatter of cards, ashtrays, chips, and money. Gene Cambry suddenly understood that there was nothing under the stupid woolen cap but skin, after all. Udall was nominally in charge of this little group, but he didn't have a clue. He couldn't see the pumping fists, couldn't hear the strong thought-voice that was leading the chant.

Cambry saw alarm on Parsons's face, on Everett's, on Coleman's. They were seeing it, too. Understanding leaped among them while the uninfected ones only looked puzzled.

'Fuckers're gonna break out,' Cambry said.

'Don't be stupid, Gene,' George Udall said. 'They don't know what's coming down. Besides, they're civilians. They're just letting off a little st—'

Cambry lost the rest as a single word — NOW — ripped through his brain like a buzzsaw. Ray Parsons and Al Coleman winced. Howie Everett cried out in pain, his hands going to his temples, his knees connecting with the underside of the table and sending chips and cards everywhere. A dollar bin landed atop the hot stove and began to bum.

'Aw, fuck a duck, look what you d—' Ted began.

'They're coming,' Cambry said. 'They're coming at us.'

Parsons, Everett, and Coleman lunged for the M-4 carbines leaning beside Old Man Gosselin's coatrack. The others looked at them, surprised, still three steps behind . . . and then there was a vast thud as sixty or more of the internees struck the barn doors. Those doors had been locked from the outside — big steel locks, Army issue. They held, but the old wood gave with a splintering crack.

The prisoners charged through the gap, yelling 'Now! Now!' into the snowy mouth of the wind and trampling several of their number underfoot.

Cambry also lunged, got one of the compact assault rifles, then had it snatched out of his hands. 'That's mine, muhfuh,' Ted Trezewski snarled.

There was less than twenty yards between the shattered barn doors and the back of the store. The mob swept across the gap, shouting NOW! NOW! NOW!

The poker-table went over with a crash, spilling crap every­where. The perimeter alarm went off as the first internees struck the double-strung fence and were either fried or hooked like fish on the oversized bundles of barbs. Moments later the alarm's honking, pulsing bray was joined by a whooping siren, the General Quarters alert which was sometimes referred to as Situation Triple Six, the end of the world. In the plastic Porta-Potty sentry huts, surprised and frightened faces peered out dazedly.

'The barn!' someone shouted. 'Collapse in on the barn! It's an escape!'

The sentries trotted out into the snow, many of them bootless, moving along the outside of the fence, unaware that it had been shorted out by the weight of more than eighty kamikaze deer­hunters, all screaming NOW at the top of their lungs, even as they jittered and fried and died.

No one noticed the single man — tall, skinny, wearing a pair of old-fashioned horn-rim specs — who left from the back of the barn and set out diagonally across the drifts filling the paddock. Although Henry could neither see nor sense anyone paying attention to him, he began to run. He felt horribly exposed under the brilliant lights, and the cacophony of the siren and the perimeter alarm made him feel panicky and half-crazy . . . made him feel the way Duddits's crying had, that day behind Tracker Brothers.

He hoped to God Underhill was waiting for him. He couldn't tell, the snow was too thick to see the far end of the paddock, but he would be there soon enough and then he would know.

 

 

Kurtz had everything on but one boot when the alarm went off and the emergency lights went on, flooding this godforsaken piece of ground with even more glare. He felt no surprise, no dismay, only a mixture of relief and chagrin. Relief that whatever had been chewing on his nerve-endings was now out in the open. Chagrin that this fucking mess hadn't held off for another two hours. Another two hours and he could have balanced the books on the whole deal.

He jerked open the door of the Winnebago with his right hand, still holding his other boot in his left. A savage roaring came from the barn, the sort of warrior's cry to which his heart responded in spite of everything. The gale-force wind thinned it a little, but not much; they were all in it together, it seemed. From somewhere in their well-fed, timorous, it-can't-happen-here ranks, a Spartacus had arisen — who would have thunk it?

It's the goddam telepathy, he thought. His instincts, always superb, told him this was serious trouble, that he was watching an operation go tits-up on a truly grand scale, but he was smiling in spite of that. Got to be the goddam telepathy. They smelled out what was coming . . . and someone decided to do something about it.

As he watched, a motley mob of men, most in parkas and orange hats, came moiling through the sagging, shattered barn doors. One fell on a splintered board and was impaled like a vampire. Some stumbled in the snow and were trampled under. AR the lights were on now. Kurtz felt like a man with a ringside seat at a prizefight. He could see everything.

Wings of escapees, fifty or sixty in each complement, peeled off as neatly as squads in a drill-team and charged at the fence on either side of the ratty little store. Either they didn't know there was a lethal dose of electricity coursing through the smoothwire or they didn't care. The rest of them, the main body, charged directly at the back of the store. That was the weakest point in the perimeter, but it didn't matter. Kurtz thought it was all going to go.

Never in any of his contingency plans had he so much as considered this scenario: two or three hundred overweight November warriors mounting a no-guts-no-glory banzai charge. He had never expected them to do anything but stay put, clamoring for due process right up to the point where they were barbecued.

'Not bad, boys,' Kurtz said. He smelled something else starting to burn — probably his goddam career — but the end had been coming anyway, and he'd picked one hell of an operation to go out on, hadn't he? As far as Kurtz was concerned, the little gray men from space were strictly secondary. If he ran the news, the headline above the fold would read: SURPRISE! NEW-AGE AMERICANS SHOW SOME BACKBONE! Outstanding. It was almost a shame to cut them down.

The General Quarters siren rose and fell in the snowy night. The first wave of men hit the back of the store. Kurtz could almost see the whole place shudder.

'That goddam telepathy,' Kurtz said, grinning. He could see his guys responding, the first wave from the sentry huts, more coming from the motor-pool, the commissary, and the semi trailer-boxes that were serving as makeshift barracks. Then the smile on Kurtz's face began to fade, replaced by an expression of puzzlement. 'Shoot them,' he said. 'Why don't you shoot them?'

Some were firing, but not enough — nowhere near enough. Kurtz thought he smelled panic. His men weren't shooting because they had gone chickenshit. Or because they knew they were next.

'The goddam telepathy,' he said again, and suddenly automatic­ rifle fire began inside the store. The windows of the office where he and Owen Underhill had had their original conference lit up in brilliant stutterflashes of light. Two of them blew out. A man attempted to exit the second of these, and Kurtz had time to recognize George Udall before George was seized by the legs and jerked back inside.

The guys in the office were fighting, at least, but of course they would; in there they were fighting for their lives. The laddie-bucks who had come running were, for the most part, still running. Kurtz thought about dropping his boot and grabbing his nine-millimeter. Shooting a few skedaddlers. Bagging his limit, in fact. It was falling down all around him, why not?

Underhill, that was why not. Owen Underhill had played a part in this snafu. Kurtz knew that as well as he knew his own name. This stank of line-crossing, and crossing the line was an Owen Underhill specialty.

More shooting fi7om Gosselin's office screams of pain . . . then triumphant howls. The computer-savvy, Evian-drinking, salad­-eating Goths had taken their objective. Kurtz slammed the Winne­bago's door on the scene and hurried back to the bedroom to call Freddy Johnson. He was still carrying his boot.

 

 

Cambry was on his knees behind Old Man Gosselin's desk when the first wave of prisoners smashed its way in. He was opening drawers, looking frantically for a gun. The fact that he didn't find one very likely saved his life.

'NOW! NOW! NOW!' the oncoming prisoners screamed.

There was a monstrous thud against the back of the store, as if a truck had driven into it. From outside, Cambry could hear a juicy crackling sound as the first detainees hit the fence. The lights in the office began to flicker.

'Stand together, men!' Danny O'Brian cried. 'For the love of Christ, stand toge—'

The rear door came off its hinges with so much force that it actually skittered backward across the room, shielding the first of the screaming men who clogged the doorway. Cambry ducked, hands laced over the back of his head, as the door fell on the desk at an angle with him beneath it, in the kneehole.

The sound of rifles on full auto was deafening in the tiny room, drowning out even the screams of the wounded, but Cambry understood that not all of them were firing. Trezewski, Udall, and O'Brian were, but Coleman, Everett, and Ray Parsons were only standing there with their weapons held to their chests and dazed expressions on their faces.

From his accidental shelter, Gene Cambry saw the prisoners charge across the room, saw the first of them caught by the bullets and thrown like scarecrows; saw their blood splash across the walls and the bean-supper posters and the OSHA notices. He saw George Udall throw his gun at two beefy young men in orange, then whirl and lunge at one of the windows. George got halfway out and was then yanked back; a man with Ripley growing on his cheek like a birthmark sank his teeth into George's calf as if it were a turkey drumstick while another man silenced the screaming head at the other end of George's body by jerking it briskly to the left. The room was blue with powdersmoke, but he saw Al Coleman throw his gun down and pick up the chant — 'Now! Now! Now!' And he saw Ray Parsons, normally the most pacific of men, turn his rifle on Danny O'Brian and blow his brains out.

Now the matter was simple. Now it was just the infected versus the immune.

The desk was hit and slammed against the wall. The door fell on top of Cambry, and before he could get up, people were running over the door, squashing him. He felt like a cowboy who has fallen off his horse during a stampede. I'm going to die under here, he thought, and then for a moment the murderous pressure was gone. He lunged to his knees, driving with adrenaline-loaded muscles, and the door slid off him to the left, saying goodbye with a vicious dig of the doorknob into his hip. Someone dealt him a passing kick in the ribcage, another boot scraped by his right ear, and then he was up. The room was thick with smoke, crazy with shouts and screams. Four or five bulky hunters were propelled into the woodstove, which tore free of its pipe and went crashing over on its side, spilling flaming chunks of maple onto the floor. Money and playing cards caught fire. There was the rancid smell of melting plastic poker chips. Those were Ray's, Cambry thought incoherently. He had them in the Gu!f. Bosnia, too.

He stood ignored in the confusion. There was no need for the escaping internees to use the door between the office and the store; the entire wall — no more than a flimsy partition, really — had been smashed flat. Pieces of this stuff were also catching fire from the overturned stove.

'Now,' Gene Cambry muttered. 'Now.' He saw Ray Parsons running with the others toward the front of the store, Howie Everett at his heels. Howie snatched a loaf of bread as he ran down the center aisle.

A scrawny old party in a tassled cap and an overcoat was pushed forward onto the overturned stove, then stomped flat. Cambry heard his high-pitched, squealing screams as his face bonded to the metal and then began to boil.

Heard it and felt it.

'Now!' Cambry shouted, giving in and joining the others. 'Now!'

He broad-jumped the growing flames from the stove and ran, losing his little mind in the big one.

For all practical purposes, Operation Blue Boy was over.

 

 

Three quarters of the way across the paddock, Henry paused, gasping for breath and clutching at his hammering chest. Behind him was the pocket armageddon he had unleashed; ahead of him he could see nothing but darkness. Fucking Underhill had run out on him, had—

Easy, beautiful — easy.

Lights flashed out twice. Henry had been looking in the wrong place, that was all; Owen was parked a little to the left of the paddock's southwest comer. Now Henry could see the Sno-Cat's boxy outline clearly. From behind him came screams, shouts, orders, shooting. Not as much shooting as he would have expected, but this was no time to wonder why.

Hurry up! Owen cried. We have to get out of here!

I'm coming as fast as I can — hold on.

Henry got moving again. Whatever had been in Owen's kickstart pills was already wearing off, and his feet felt heavy. His thigh itched maddeningly, and so did his mouth. He could feel the stuff creeping over his tongue. It was like a soft-drink fizz that wouldn't go away.

Owen had cut the fence — both the barbed wire and the smooth. Now he stood in front of the Sno-Cat (it was white to match the snow, and it was really no wonder Henry hadn't seen it) with an automatic rifle propped against his hip, attempting to look everywhere at once. The multiple lights gave him half a dozen shadows; they radiated out from his boots like crazy clock-hands.

Owen grabbed Henry around the shoulders. You okay?

Henry nodded. As Owen began to pull him toward the Sno-Cat, there was a loud, high-pitched explosion, as if someone had just fired the world's largest carbine. Henry ducked, stumbled over his own feet, and would have fallen if Owen hadn't held him up.

What—?

LP gas. Gasoline, too, maybe. Look.

Owen took him by the shoulders and turned him around. Henry saw a vast pillar of fire in the snowy Might. Bits of the store — boards, shingles, flaming boxes of Cheerios, burning rolls of toilet paper — rose into the sky. Some of the soldiers were watching this, mesmerized. Others were running for the woods. In pursuit of the prisoners, Henry assumed, although he was hearing their panic in his head — Run! Run! Now! Now! — and simply could not credit it. Later, when he had time to think, he would understand that many of the soldiers were also fleeing. Now he understood nothing. Things were happening too fast.

Owen turned him around again and boosted him into the Sno-Cat's passenger seat, pushing him past a hanging canvas flap that smelled strongly of motor oil. It was blessedly warm in the 'Cat's cab. A radio bolted to the rudimentary dashboard chattered and squawked. The only thing Henry could make out clearly was the panic in the voices. It made him savagely happy — happier than he'd been since the afternoon the four of them had put the fear of God into Richie Grenadeau and his bullyrag buddies. And that's who was running this operation, as far as Henry could see: a bunch of grownup Richie Grenadeaus, armed with guns instead of dried-up pieces of dogshit.

There was something between the seats, a box with two blinking amber lights. As Henry bent over it, curious, Owen Underhill snatched back the tarp hanging beside the driver's seat and flung himself into the 'Cat. He was breathing hard and smiling as he looked at the burning store.

'Be careful of that, brother,' he said. 'Mind the buttons.' Henry lifted the box, which was about the size of Duddits's beloved Scooby-Doo lunchbox. The buttons of which Owen had spoken were under the blinking lights. 'What are they?'

Owen turned the ignition key and the Sno-Cat's hot engine rumbled into immediate life. The transmission ran off a high stick, which Owen jammed into gear. Owen was still smiling. In the bright light falling through the Sno-Cat's windshield, Henry could now see a reddish-orange thread of byrus growing beneath each of the man's eyes, like mascara. There was more in his brows.

'Too much light in this place,' he said. 'We're gonna dial em down a little.' He turned the 'Cat in a surprisingly smooth circle; it was like being on a motorboat. Henry collapsed back against the seat, holding the box with the blinking lights on his lap. He felt that if he didn't walk again for five years, that would be about right.

Owen glanced at him as he drove the Sno-Cat on a diagonal toward the snowbank-enclosed ditch that was the Swanny Pond Road. 'You did it,' he said. 'I doubted that you could, I freely admit it, but you pulled the fucker off.'

'I told you — I'm a motivational master.' Besides, he sent, most of them really are going to die anyway.

Doesn't matter. You gave them a chance. And now

There was more shooting, but it wasn't until a bullet whined off the metal just above their heads that Henry realized it was aimed at them. There was a brisk clank as another slug ricocheted off one of the Sno-Cat's treads and Henry ducked . . . as if that would do any good.

Still smiling, Owen pointed a gloved hand off to his right. Henry peered in that direction as two more slugs ricocheted off the 'Cat's squat pillbox body. Henry cringed both times; Owen seemed not even to notice.

Henry saw a cluster of trailer-boxes, some with brand names like Sysco and Scott Paper on them. In front of the trailers was a colony of motor homes, and in front of the biggest, a Winnebago that looked to Henry like a mansion on wheels, were six or seven men, all firing at the Sno-Cat. Although the range was long, the wind high, and the snow still heavy, too many were hitting. Other men, some only partially dressed (one bruiser came sprinting through the snow displaying a bare chest that would have looked at home on a comic-book superhero) were Joining the group. At its center stood a tall man with gray hair. Beside him was a stockier guy. As Henry watched, the skinny man raised his rifle and fired, seemingly without bothering to aim. There was a spanng sound and Henry sensed something pass right in front of his nose, a small wicked droning thing.

Owen actually laughed. 'The skinny one with the gray hair is Kurtz. He's in charge, and can that fucker shoot.'

More bullets spanged off the 'Cat's treads, its body. Henry sensed another of those buzzing, hustling presences in the cab, and suddenly the radio was silent. The distance between them and the shooters clustered around the Winnebago was getting longer, but it didn't seem to matter. As far as Henry was concerned, all those fuckers could shoot. It was only a matter of time before one of them took a hit . . . and yet Owen looked happy. It occurred to Henry that he had hooked up with someone even more suicidal than himself.

'The guy beside Kurtz is Freddy Johnson. Those Mouseketeers are all Kurtz's boys, the ones who were supposed to — whoops, look out!'

Another spang, another whining steel bee — between them, this time — and suddenly the knob on the transmission stick was gone. Owen burst out laughing. 'Kurtz!' he shouted. 'Bet you a nickel! Two years from mandatory retirement age and he still shoots like Annie Oakley!' He hammered a fist on the steering yoke. 'But that's enough. Fun is fun and done is done. Turn out their lights, beautiful.'

'Huh?'

Still grinning, Owen jerked a thumb at the box with the blinking amber bulbs. The curved streaks of byrus under his eyes now looked like warpaint to Henry. 'Push the buttons, bub. Push the buttons and yank down the shades.'

 

 

Suddenly — it was always sudden, always magical — the world fell away and Kurtz was in the zone. The scream of the blizzard wind, the pelt of the snow, the howl of the siren, the beat of the buzzer — all gone. Kurtz lost his awareness of Freddy Johnson next to him and the other Imperial Valleys gathering around. He fixed on the departing Sno-Cat and nothing else. He could see Owen Underhill in the left seat, right through the steel shell of the cab he could see him, as if he, Abe Kurtz, were all at once equipped with Superman's X-ray vision. The distance was incredibly long, but it didn't matter. The next round he fired was going right into the back of Owen Underhill's treacherous, line-crossing head. He raised the rifle, sighted down—

Two explosions ripped the night, one of them close enough to hammer Kurtz and his men with the shockwave. A trailer-box with the words INTEL INSIDE printed on it rose into the air, turned over, and came down on Spago's, the cook-tent. 'Holy Christ!' one of the men shouted.

Not all of the lights went out — a half hour wasn't long and Owen had had time to equip only two of the gennies with thermite charges (all the time muttering 'Banbury Cross, Banbury Cross, ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross' under his breath), but suddenly the fleeing Sno-Cat was swallowed in moving fire-flecked shadows, and Kurtz dropped his rifle into the snow without discharging it.

'Fuck a duck,' he said tonelessly. 'Cease firing. Cease firing, you humps. Quit it, praise Jesus. Inside. Every one of you but Freddy. join hands and pray for God the Father Almighty to get our asses out of the sling they're in. Come here, Freddy. Step lively.'

The others, nearly a dozen, trooped up the steps to the Win­nebago, looking uneasily at the burning generators, the blazing cook-tent (already the commissary-tent next door was catching; the infirmary and the morgue would be next). Half the pole lights in the compound were out.

Kurtz put his arm around Freddy Johnson's shoulders and walked him twenty paces into the blowing snow, which the wind was now lifting and carrying in veils that looked like mystic steam. Directly ahead of the two men, Gosselin's — what was left of it ­was burning merry hell. The barn had already caught. Its shattered doors gaped.

'Freddy, do you love Jesus? Tell me the truth.'

Freddy had been through this before. It was a mantra. The boss was clearing his head.

'I love Him, boss.'

'Do you swear that's true?' Kurtz looking keenly. Looking through him, more than likely. Planning ahead, if such creatures of instinct could be said to plan. 'As you face the eternal pit of hell for a lie?'

'I swear it's true.'

'You love Him a lot, do you?'

'Lots, boss.'

'More than the group? More than going in hot and getting the job done?' A pause. 'More than you love me?'

Not questions you wanted to answer wrong if you wanted to go on living. Fortunately, not hard ones, either. 'No, boss.'

'Telepathy gone, Freddy?'

'I had a touch of something, I don't know if it was telepathy, exactly, voices in my head—'

Kurtz was nodding. Red-gold flames the color of the Ripley fungus burst through the roof of the barn.

'—but that's gone.'

'Other men in the group?'

'Imperial Valley, you mean?' Freddy nodded toward the Winnebago.

'Who else would I mean, The Firehouse Five Plus Two?

Yes, them!'

'They're clean, boss.'

'That's good, but it's also bad. Freddy, we need a couple of infected Americans. And when I say we, I mean you and I. I want Americans who are crawling with that red shit, under­stand me?'

'I do.' What Freddy didn't understand was why, but at the moment the why didn't matter. He could see Kurtz taking hold, visibly taking hold, and that was a relief. When Freddy needed to know, Kurtz would tell him. Freddy looked uneasily at the blazing store, the blazing barn, the blazing cook-tent. This situation was FUBAR.

Or maybe not. Not if Kurtz was taking hold.

'Goddam telepathy's responsible for most of this,' Kurtz mused, 'but it wasn't telepathy that triggered it. That was pure human fuckery, praise Jesus. Who betrayed Jesus, Freddy? Who gave him that traitor's kiss?'

Freddy had read his Bible, mostly because Kurtz had given it to him. 'Judas Iscariot, boss.'

Kurtz was nodding rapidly. His eyes were moving everywhere, tabulating the destruction, calculating the response, which would be severely limited by the storm. 'That's right, buck. Judas betrayed Jesus and Owen Philip Underhill betrayed us. Judas got thirty pieces of silver. Not much of a payday, do you think?'

'No, boss.' He delivered this reply partially turned away from Kurtz because something in the commissary had exploded. A steel hand clutched his shoulder and turned him back. Kurtz's eyes were wide and burning. The white lashes made them look like ghost-eyes.

'Look at me when I talk to you,' Kurtz said. 'Listen to me when I speak to you.' Kurtz put his free hand on the nine-millimeter's grip. 'Or I'll blow your guts out on the snow. I have had a hard night here and don't you make it any worse, you hound, do you understand me? Catch the old drift-ola?'

Johnson was a man of good physical courage, but now he felt something turn over in his stomach and try to crawl away. 'Yes, boss, I'm sorry.'

'Accepted. God loves and forgives, we must do the same. I don't know how many pieces of silver Owen got, but I can tell you this: we're going to catch him, we're going to spread his cheeks, and we are going to tear that boy a splendid new asshole. Are you with me?'

'Yes.' There was nothing Freddy wanted more than to find the person who had turned his previously ordered world upside down and fuck that person over. 'How much of this do you reckon Owen's responsible for, boss?'

'Enough for me,' Kurtz said serenely. 'I have an idea I'm finally going down, Freddy—'

'No, boss.'

'—but I won't go down alone.' Ann still around Freddy's shoulders, Kurtz began to lead his new second back toward the 'Bago. Squat, dying pillars of fire marked the burning gennies. Underhill had done that; one of Kurtz's own boys. Freddy still found it difficult to believe, but he had begun to get steamed, just the same. How many pieces of silver, Owen? How many did you get, you traitor?

Kurtz stopped at the foot of the steps.

'Which one of those fellows do you like to command a search-and-destroy mission, Freddy?'

'Gallagher, boss.'

'Kate?'

'That's right.'

'Is she a cannibal, Freddy? The person we leave in charge has to be a cannibal.'

'She eats em raw with slaw, boss.'

'Okay,' Kurtz said. 'Because this is going to be dirty. I need two Ripley Positives, hopefully Blue Boy guys. The rest of them . . . like the animals, Freddy. Imperial Valley is now a search-and-destroy mission. Gallagher and the rest are to hunt down as many as they can. Soldiers and civilians alike. From now until 1200 hours tomorrow, it's feeding time. After that, it's every man for himself Except for us, Freddy.' The firelight painted Kurtz's face with byrus, turned his eyes into weasel's eyes. 'We're going to hunt down Owen Underhill and teach him to love the Lord.'

Kurtz bounded up the Winnebago's steps, sure as a mountain ­goat on the packed and slippery snow. Freddy Johnson followed him.

 

 

The Sno-Cat plunged down the embankment to the Swanny Pond Road fast enough to make Henry's stomach roll over. It slued, then turned south. Owen worked the clutch and mangled the stick-shift, working the 'Cat up through the gears and into high. With the galaxies of snow flying at the windshield, Henry felt as if they were travelling at approximately mach one. He guessed it might actually be thirty-five miles an hour. That would get them away from Gosselin's, but he had an idea Jonesy was moving much faster.

Turnpike ahead? Owen asked. It is, isn't it?

Yes. About four miles.

We'll need to switch vehicles when we get there.

No one gets hurt if we can help it. And no one gets killed.

Henry . . . I don't know how to break it to you, but this isn't high­ school basketball.

'No one gets hurt. No one gets killed. At least not when we're swapping vehicles. Agree to that or I'm rolling out this door right now.'

Owen glanced at him. 'You would, too, wouldn't you? And goddam what your friend's got planned for the world.'

'My friend isn't responsible for any of this. He's been kid­napped.'

'All right. No one gets hurt when we swap over. If we can help it. And no one gets killed. Except maybe us. Now where are we going?'

Derry.

That's where he is? This last surviving alien?

I think so. In any case, I have a friend in Derry who can help us. He sees the line.

What line?

'Never mind,' Henry said, and thought: It's complicated.

'What do you mean, complicated? And no bounce, no play ­what's that?'

I'll tell you while we're driving south. If I can.

The Sno-Cat rolled toward the Interstate, a capsule preceded by the glare of its lights.

'Tell me again what we're going to do,' Owen said.

'Save the world.'

'And tell me what that makes us — I need to hear it.'

'It makes us heroes,' Henry said. Then he put his head back and closed his eyes. In seconds he was asleep.


P A R T T H R E E

 

QUABBIN

 

 

As I was going up the stair

I met a man who wasn't there;

He wasn't there again today!

I wish, I wish he'd stay away.

 

Hughes Meams


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 

THE CHASE BEGINS

 

Jonesy had no idea what time it was when the green DYSART'S Sign twinkled out of the snowy gloom — the Ram's dashboard clock was bitched up, just flashing 12:00 A.M. over and over — but it was still dark and still snowing hard. Outside of Derry, the plows were losing their battle with the storm. The stolen Ram was 'a pretty good goer', as Jonesy's Pop would have said, but it too was losing its battle, slipping and slueing more frequently in the deepening snow, fighting its way through the drifts with increasing difficulty. Jonesy had no idea where Mr Gray thought he was going, but Jonesy didn't believe he would get there. Not in this storm, not in this truck.

The radio worked, but not very well; so far everything that came through was faint, blurred with static. He heard no time-checks, but picked up a weather report. The storm had switched over to rain from Portland south, but from Augusta to Brunswick, the radio said, the precipitation was a wicked mix of sleet and freezing rain. Most communities were without power, and nothing without chains on its wheels was moving.

Jonesy liked this news just fine.

 

 

When Mr Gray turned the steering wheel to head up the ramp toward the beckoning green sign, the Ram pickup slid broadside, spraying up great clouds of snow. Jonesy knew he likely would have gone off the exit ramp and into the ditch if he'd been in control, but he wasn't. And although he was no longer immune to Jonesy's emotions, Mr Gray seemed much less prone to panic in a stress situation. Instead of wrenching blindly against the skid, Mr Gray turned into it, held the wheel over until the slide stopped, then straightened the truck out again. The dog sleeping in the passenger footwell never woke up, and Jonesy's pulse barely rose. If he had been in control, Jonesy knew, his heart would have been hammering like hell. But, of course, his idea of what to do with the car when it stormed like this was to put it in the garage.

Mr Gray obeyed the stop-sign at the top of the ramp, although Route 9 was a drifted wasteland in either direction. Across from the ramp was a huge parking lot brilliantly lit by arc-sodiums; beneath their glare, the wind-driven snow seemed to move like the frozen respiration of an enormous, unseen beast. On an ordinary night, Jonesy knew, that yard would have been full of rumbling diesel semis, Kenworths and Macks and Jimmy-Petes with their green and amber cab-lights glimmering. Tonight the area was almost deserted, except for the area marked LONG-TERM SEE YARD MANAGER MUST HAVE TICKET. In there were a dozen or more freight-haulers, their edges softened by the drifts. Inside, their drivers would be eating, playing pinball, watching Spank-O-Vision in the truckers' lounge, or trying to sleep in the grim dormitory out back, where ten dollars got you a cot, a clean blanket, and a scenic view of a cinderblock wall. All of them no doubt thinking the same two thoughts: When can I roll? And How much is this going to cost me?

Mr Gray stepped down on the gas, and although he did it gently, as Jonesy's file concerning winter driving suggested, all four of the pickup's wheels spun, and the truck began to jitter sideways, digging itself in.

Go on! Jonesy cheered from his position at the office window. Go on, stick it! Stick it right up to the rocker-panels! Because when you're stuck in a four-wheel drive, you're really stuck!

Then the wheels caught — first the front ones, where the weight of the motor gave the Ram a little more traction — then the back ones. The Ram trundled across Route 9 and toward the sign marked ENTRANCE. Beyond it was another: WELCOME TO THE BEST TRUCK STOP IN NEW ENGLAND. Then the truck's headlights picked out a third, snowcaked but readable: HELL, WELCOME TO THE BEST TRUCK STOP ON EARTH.

Is this the best truck stop on earth? Mr Gray asked.

Of course, Jonesy said. And then — he couldn't help it — he burst out laughing.

Why do you do that? Why do you make that sound?

Jonesy realized an amazing thing, both touching and terrifying: Mr Gray was smiling with Jonesy's mouth. Not much, just a little, but it was a smile. He doesn't really know what laughter is, Jonesy thought. Of course he hadn't known what anger was, either, but he had proved to be a remarkably fast learner; he could now tantrum with the best of them.

What you said struck me funny.

What exactly is funny?

Jonesy had no idea how to answer the question. He wanted Mr Gray to experience the entire gamut of human emotions, suspecting that humanizing his usurper might ultimately be his only chance of survival — we have met the enemy and he is us, Pogo had once said. But how did you explain funny to a collection of spores from another world? And what was funny about Dysart's proclaiming itself the best truck stop on earth?

Now they were passing yet another sign, one with arrows pointing left and right. BIGUNS it said beneath the left arrow. And LITTLEUNS under the right.

Which are we? Mr Gray asked, stopping at the sign.

Jonesy could have made him retrieve the information, but what would have been the point? We're a littleun, he said, and Mr Gray turned the Ram to the right. The tires spun a little and the truck lurched. Lad raised his head, let fly another long and fragrant fart, then whined. His lower midsection had swelled and distended; anyone who didn't know better would no doubt have mistaken him for a bitch about to give birth to a good-sized litter.

There were perhaps two dozen cars and pickups parked in the littleuns' lot, the ones most deeply buried in snow belonging to the help — mechanics (always one or two on duty), waitresses, short-order cooks. The cleanest vehicle there, Jonesy saw with sharp interest, was a powder-blue State Police car with packed snow around the roof-lights. Being arrested would certainly put a spike in Mr Gray's plans; on the other hand, Jonesy had already been present at three murder-sites, if you counted the cab of the pickup. No witnesses at the first two crime scenes, and probably no Gary Jones fingerprints, either, but here? Sure. Plenty of them. He could see himself standing in a courtroom somewhere and saying, But Judge, it was the alien inside me who committed those murders. It was Mr Gray. Another joke that Mr Gray wouldn't get.

That worthy, meanwhile, had been rummaging again. Dry Farts, he said. Why do you call this place Dry Farts when the sign says Dysart's?

It's what Lamar used to call it, Jonesy said, remembering long, hilarious breakfasts here, usually going or coming back from Hole in the Wall. And this fit night into the tradition, didn't it? My Dad called it that, too.

Is it funny?

Moderately, I guess. It's a pun based on similar sounds. Puns are what we call the lowest form of humor.

Mr Gray parked in the rank closest to the lighted island of the restaurant, but all the way down from the State Police cruiser. Jonesy had no idea if Mr Gray understood the significance of the lightbars on top or not. He reached for the Ram's headlight knob and pushed it in. He reached for the ignition, then stopped and issued several hard barks of laughter: 'Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!'

How'd that feel? Jonesy asked, more than a little curious. A little apprehensive, too.

'Like nothing,' Mr Gray said flatly, and turned off the ignition. But then, sitting there in the dark with the wind howling around the cab of the truck, he did it again, and with a little more conviction: 'Ha! Ha, ha, ha!' In his office refuge, Jonesy shivered. It was a creepy sound, like a ghost trying to remember how to be human.

Lad didn't like it either. He whined again, looking uneasily at the man behind the steering wheel of his master's truck.

 

 

Owen was shaking Henry awake, and Henry responded reluctantly. He felt as if he had gone to sleep only seconds ago. His limbs all seemed to have been dipped in cement.

'Henry.'

'I'm here.' Left leg itching. Mouth itching even worse; the goddam byrus was growing on his lips now, too. He rubbed it off with his forefinger, surprised at how easily it broke free. Like a crust.

'Listen up. And look. Can you look?'

Henry looked up the road, which was now dim and snow­-ghostly — Owen had pulled the Sno-Cat over and turned off the lights. Farther along, there were mental voices in the dark, the auditory equivalent of a campfire. Henry went to them. There were four of them, young men with no seniority in . . . in . . .

Blue Group, Owen whispered. This time we're Blue Group.

Four young men with no seniority in Blue Group, trying not to be scared . . . trying to be tough . . . voices in the dark . . . a little campfire of voices in the dark . . .

By its light, Henry discovered he could see dimly: snow, of course, and a few flashing yellow lights illuminating a turnpike entrance ramp. There was also the lid of a pizza carton seen in the light of an instrument panel. It had been turned into a tray. On it were Saltines, several blocks of cheese, and a Swiss Army knife. The Swiss Army knife belonged to the one named Smitty, and they were all using it to cut the cheese. The longer Henry looked, the better he saw. It was like having your eyes adjust to the dark, but it was more than that too: what he saw had a creepy-giddy depth, as if all at once the physical world consisted not of three dimensions but of four or five. It was easy enough to understand why: he was seeing through four sets of eyes, all at the same time. They were huddled together in the

Humvee, Owen said, delighted. It's a fucking Humvee, Henry! Custom-equipped for snow, too! Bet you anything it is!

The young men were sitting close together, yes, but still in four different places, looking at the world from four different points of view, and with four different qualities of eyesight, ranging from eagle-eye sharp (Dana from Maybrook, New York) to the merely adequate. Yet somehow Henry's brain was processing them, just as it turned multiple still images on a reel of film into a moving picture. This wasn't like a movie, though, nor like some tricky 3-D image. It was an entirely new way of seeing, the kind that could produce a whole new way of thinking.

If this shit spreads, Henry thought, both terrified and wildly excited, if it spreads . . .

Owen's elbow thumped into his side. 'Maybe you could save the seminar for another day,' he said. 'Look across the road.'

Henry did so, employing his unique quadruple vision and realizing only belatedly that he had done more than look; he had moved their eyeballs so he could peer over to the far side of the turnpike. Where he saw more blinking lights in the storm.

'It's a choke-point,' Owen muttered. 'One of Kurtz's insurance policies. Both exits blocked, no movement onto the turnpike without authorization. I want the Humvee, it's the best thing we could have in a shitstorm like this, but I don't want to alert the guys on the other side. Can we do that?'

Henry experimented with their eyes again, moving them. He discovered that as soon as they weren't all looking at the same thing, his sense of godlike four- or five-dimensional vision evaporated, leaving him with a nauseating, shattered perspective his processing equipment couldn't cope with. But he was moving them. Not much, just their eyeballs, but . . .

I think we can if we work together, Henry told him. Get closer. And stop talking out loud. Get in my head. Link up.

Suddenly Henry's head was fuller. His vision clarified again, but this time the perspective wasn't quite as deep. Only two sets of eyes instead of four: his and Owen's.

Owen put the Sno-Cat into first gear and crept forward with the lights off. The engine's low growl was lost beneath the constant shriek of the wind, and as they closed the distance, Henry felt his hold on those minds ahead tightening.

Holy shit, Owen said, half-laughing and half-gasping.

What? That is it?

It's you, man — it's like being on a magic carpet. Christ, but you're strong.

You think I'm strong, wait'll you meet Jonesy.

Owen stopped the Sno-Cat below the brow of a little hill. Beyond it was the turnpike. Not to mention Bernie, Dana, Tommy, and Smitty, sitting in their Humvee at the top of the southbound ramp, eating cheese and crackers off their makeshift tray. He and Owen were safe enough from discovery. The four young men in the Humvee were clean of the byrus and had no idea they were being scoped.

Ready? Henry asked,

I guess. The other person in Henry's head, cool as that storied cucumber when Kurtz and the others had been shooting at them, was now nervous. You take the lead, Henry. I'm just flying support this mission.

Here we go.

What Henry did next he did instinctively, binding the four men in the Humvee together not with images of death and destruction, but by impersonating Kurtz. To do this he drew on both Owen Underhill's energy — much greater than his own, at this point — and Owen Underhill's vivid knowledge of his OIC. The act of binding gave him a brilliant stab of satisfaction. Relief, as well. Moving their eyes was one thing; taking them over completely was another. And they were free of the byrus. That could have made them immune. Thank God it had not.

There's a Sno-Cat over that rise east of you, laddies, Kurtz said. Want you to take it back to base. Right now, if you please — no questions, no comments, just get moving. You'll find the quarters a little tight compared to your current accommodations, but I think you can all fit in, praise Jesus. Now move your humps, God love you.

Henry saw them getting out, their faces calm and blank around the eyes. He started to get out himself, then saw Owen was still sitting in the Sno-Cat's driver's seat, his own eyes wide. His lips moved, forming the words in his head: Move your humps, God love you.

Owen! Come on!

Owen looked around, startled, then nodded and pushed out through the canvas hanging over his side of the 'Cat.

 

 

Henry stumbled to his knees, picked himself up, and looked wearily into the streaming dark. Not far to go, God knew it wasn't, but he didn't think he could slog through another twenty feet of drifted snow, let alone a hundred and fifty yards. On and on the eggman went, he thought, and then: I did it. 7hat's the answer, Of course. I offed myself and now I'm in hell. This is the eggman in h

Owen's arm went around him . . . but it was more than his arm. He was feeding Henry his strength.

Thank y

Thank me later. Sleep later, too. For now, keep your eye on the ball.

There was no ball. There were only Bernie, Dana, Tommy, and Smitty trooping through the snow, a line of silent somnambulists in coveralls and hooded parkas. They trooped east on the Swanny Pond Road toward the Sno-Cat while Owen and Henry struggled on west, toward the abandoned Humvee. The cheese and Saltines had also been abandoned, Henry realized, and his stomach rumbled.

Then the Humvee was dead ahead. They'd drive it away, no headlights at first, low gear and quiet-quiet-quiet, skirting the yellow flashers at the base of the ramp, and if they were lucky, the fellows guarding the northbound ramp would never know they were gone.

If they do see us, could we make them forget? Owen asked. Give them — oh, I don't know — give them amnesia?

Henry realized they probably could.

Owen?

What?

If this ever got out, it would change eve thing. Everything.

A pause as Owen considered this. Henry wasn't talking about knowledge, the usual coin of Kurtz's bosses up the food-chain; he was talking about abilities that apparently went well beyond a little mind-reading.

I know, he replied at last.

 

 

They headed south in the Humvee, south into the storm. Henry Devlin was still gobbling crackers and cheese when exhaustion turned out the lights in his overstimulated head.

He slept with crumbs on his lips.

And dreamed of Josie Rinkenhauer.

 

 

Half an hour after it caught fire, old Reggie Gosselin's barn was no more than a dying dragon's eye in the booming night, waxing and waning in a black socket of melted snow. From the woods east of the Swanny Pond Road came the pop-pop-pop of rifle fire, heavy at first, then diminishing a little in both frequency and volume as the Imperial Valleys (Kate Gallagher's Imperial Valleys now) pursued the escaped detainees. It was a turkey shoot, and not many of the turkeys were going to get away. Enough of them to tell the tale, maybe, enough to rat them all out, but that was tomorrow's worry.

While this was going on — also while the traitorous Owen Underhill was getting farther and farther ahead of them — Kurtz and Freddy Johnson stood in the command post (except, Freddy supposed, it was now nothing but a Winnebago again; that feeling of power and importance had gone), flipping playing-cards into a hat.

No longer telepathic in the slightest, but as sensitive to the men under him as ever — that his command had been reduced to a single soldier really made no difference — Kurtz looked at Freddy and said, 'Make haste slowly, buck — that's one saw that's still sharp.' 'Yes, boss,' Freddy said without much enthusiasm.

Kurtz flipped the two of spades. It fluttered down through the air and landed in the hat. Kurtz crowed like a child and prepared to flip again. There was a knock at the 'Bago's door. Freddy turned in that direction, and Kurtz fixed him with a forbidding look. Freddy turned back and watched Kurtz flip another card. This one started out well, then went long and landed on the cap's bill. Kurtz muttered something under his breath, then nodded at the door. Freddy, with a mental prayer of thanks, went to open it.

Standing on the top step was Jocelyn McAvoy, one of the two female Imperial Valleys. Her accent was soft country Tennessee; the face under the boy-cropped blonde hair was hard as stone. She was holding a spectacularly non-reg Israeli burp-gun by the strap. Freddy wondered where she had gotten such a thing, then decided it didn't matter. A lot of things had ceased to matter, most of them in the last hour or so.

'Joss,' Freddy said. 'What's up with your bad self?' 'Delivering two Ripley Positives as ordered.' More shooting from the woods, and Freddy saw the woman's eyes shift minutely in that direction. She wanted to get back over there across the road, wanted to bag her limit before the game was gone. Freddy knew how she felt.

'Send them in, lassie,' Kurtz said. He was still standing over the cap on the floor (the floor that was still faintly stained with Cook's Third Melrose's blood), still holding the deck of cards in his hand, but his eyes were bright and interested. 'Let's see who you found.' Jocelyn gestured with her gun. A male voice at the foot of the stairs growled, 'The fuck up there. Don't make me say it twice.' The first man to step past Jocelyn was tall and very black. There was a cut down one of his cheeks and another on his neck. Both cuts had been clogged with Ripley. More was growing in the creases in his brow. Freddy knew the face but not the name. The old man, of course, knew both. Freddy supposed he remembered the names of all the men he had commanded, both the quick and the dead.

'Cambry!' Kurtz said, eyes lighting even more brightly. He dropped the playing cards into the hat, approached Cambry, seemed about to shake hands, thought better of it, and snapped off a salute instead. Gene Cambry did not return it. He looked sullen and disoriented. 'Welcome to the justice League of America.'

'Spotted him running through the woods along with the detainees he was supposed to be guarding,' Jocelyn McAvoy said. Her face was expressionless; all her contempt was in her voice.

'Why not?' Cambry asked. He looked at Kurtz. 'You were going to kill me, anyway. Kill all of us. Don't bother lying about it, either. I can see it in your mind.'

Kurtz wasn't discomfited by this in the slightest. He rubbed his hands together and smiled at Cambry in a friendly way. 'Do a good job and p'raps you'll change my mind, buck. Hearts were made to be broken and minds were made to be changed, that's a big praise God. Who else have you got for me, Joss?'

Freddy regarded the second figure with amazement. Also with pleasure. The Ripley could not have found a better home, in his humble opinion. Nobody liked the son of a bitch much in the first place.

'Sir . . . boss . . . I don't know why I'm here . . . I was in proper pursuit of the escapees when this . . . this . . . I'm sorry, I have to say it, when this officious bitch pulled me out of the sweep area and . . .'

'He was running with them,' McAvoy said in a bored voice. 'Running with them and infected up the old wazoo.'

'A he!' said the man in the doorway. 'A total lie! I'm perfectly clean! One hundred per cent—'

McAvoy snatched off the watchcap her second prisoner was wearing. The man's thinning blond hair was much thicker now, and appeared to have been dyed red.

'I can explain, sir,' Archie Perlmutter said, his voice fading even as he spoke. 'There is . . . you see . . . Then it died away entirely.

Kurtz was beaming at him, but he had donned his filter-mask again — they all had — and it gave his reassuring smile an oddly sinister look, the expression of a child molester inviting a little kid in for a piece of pie.

'Pearly, it's going to be all right,' Kurtz said. 'We're going for a ride, that's all. There's someone we need to find, someone you know—'

'Owen Underhill,' Perlmutter whispered.

'That's right, buck,' Kurtz said. He turned to McAvoy. 'Bring this soldier his clipboard, McAvoy. I'm sure he'll feel better once he has his clipboard. Then you can carry on hunting, which I feel quite sure you're eager to do.'

'Yes, boss.'

'But first, watch this — a little trick I learned back in Kansas.' Kurtz sprayed the cards. In the crazy blizzard-wind coming through the door, they flew every whichway. Only one landed faceup in the hat, but it was the ace of spades.

 

 

Mr Gray held the menu, looking at the lists of stuff — meatloaf, sliced beets, roast chicken, chocolate silk pie — with interest and an almost total lack of understanding. Jonesy realized it wasn't just not knowing how food tasted; Mr Gray didn't know what taste was. How could he? When you cut to the chase, he was nothing but a mushroom with a high IQ.

Here came a waitress, moving under a vast tableland of frozen ash-blonde hair. The badge on her not inconsiderable bosom read WELCOME TO DYSART'S, I AM YOUR WAITRESS DARLENE.

'Hi, hon, what can I get you?'

'I'd like scrambled eggs and bacon. Crisp, not limp.'

'Toast?'

'How about canpakes?'

She raised her eyebrows and looked at him over her pad. Beyond her, at the counter, the State Trooper was eating some kind of drippy sandwich and talking with the short-order cook.

'Sorry — cakepans, I meant to say.'

The eyebrows went higher. Her question was plain, blinking at the front of her mind like a neon sign in a saloon window: was this guy a mushmouth, or was he making fun of her?

Standing at his office window, smiling, Jonesy relented.

'Pancakes,' Mr Gray said.

'Uh-huh, I sort of figured. Coffee with that?'

'Please.'

She snapped her pad closed and started away. Mr Gray was back at the locked door of Jonesy's office at once, and furious all over again.

How could you do that? he asked. How could you do that from in there? An ill-natured thump as Mr Gray hit the door. And he was more than angry, Jonesy realized. He was frightened, as well. Because if Jonesy could interfere, everything was in jeopardy.

I don't know, Jonesy said, and truthfully enough. But don't take it so hard. Enjoy your breakfast. I was just fucking with you a little.

Why? Still furious. Still drinking from the well of Jonesy's emotions, and liking it in spite of himself. Why would you do that?

Call it payback for trying to roast me in my office while I was sleeping, Jonesy said.

With the restaurant section of the truck stop almost deserted, Darlene was back with the food in no time. Jonesy considered seeing if he could gain control of his mouth long enough to say something outrageous (Darlene, can I bite your hair? was what cam


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