Dean Koontz - (1989)
Page 60
men detached from a Marine Assault Unit-accompanied by Cobra gunships.
turning around, looking in every direction Tessa said, "I don't see
them."
"You won't, " Sam said.
"Not until they're almost on top of US.
"They fly without lights?"
"No. They're equipped with blue lights, which can't be seen well from
the ground, but which give them a damned good view, through their
night-vision goggles."
Ordinarily, when responding to a terrorist threat, the CH-46 called the
"Sea Knight," officially, but referred to as "The Frog" by grunts-would
have gone, with its Cobra escorts, to the north end of town. Three fire
teams, composed of four men each, would have disembarked and swept
through Moonlight Cove from north to south, checking out the situation,
rendezvousing at the other end for evacuation as necessary.
But because of the message Sam had sent to the Bureau before Sun's links
to the outside world had been cut off, and because the situation did not
involve terrorists and was, in fact, singularly strange, SOP was
discarded for a bolder approach. The choppers overflew the town
repeatedly, descending to within twenty of thirty feet of the treetops.
At times their strange bluish-green lights were visible, but nothing
whatsoever could be seen of their shape or size; because of their
Fiberglas blades, which were much quieter than the old metal blades that
once had been used, the choppers at times seemed to glide silently in
the distanced, and might have been alien craft from a far world even
stranger than this one.
At last they hovered near the circle of light in the park.
They did not put down at once. With the powerful rotors, flinging the
fog away, they played a searchlight over the people, in the park who
stood outside the illuminated landing pad, and they spent minutes
examining the grotesque bodies in the street.
Finally, while the Cobras remained aloft, the CH-46 settled down almost
reluctantly in the ring of cars. The men who poured from - 457 the
chopper were toting automatic weapons, but otherwise didn't look like
soldiers because, thanks to Sam's message, they were dressed in
biologically secure white suits, carrying CH-46 helicopter carrying the
recon team itself-probably their'- own own air-supply tanks on their
backs. They might have been astronauts instead of Marines.
Lieutenant Ross Dalgood, who looked baby-faced behind the faceplate of
his helmet, came straight to Sam and Tessa, gave his name and rank, and
greeted Sam by name, evidently because he'd been shown a photograph
before his mission had gotten off the ground.
"Biological hazard, Agent Booker?"
"I don't think so," Sam said, as the chopper blades cycled down from a
hard rhythmic cracking to a softer, wheezing chug.
"But you don't know?"
"I don't know," he admitted.
"We're the advance," Dalgood said.
"Lots more on the way-regular Army and your Bureau people are coming in
by highway. Be here soon."
The three of them-Dalgood, Sam, and Tessa-moved between two of the
encircling cars, to one of the dead things that lay on a sidewalk
bordering the park.
"I didn't believe what I saw from the air," Dalgood said.
"Believe it," Tessa said.
"What the hell?" Dalgood said.
Sam said, "Boogeymen."
38 Tessa was worried about Sam. She and Chrissie and Harry returned to
Harry's house at one in the morning, after being debriefed three times
by men in decontamination suits. Although they had terrible nightmares,
they managed to get a few hours' sleep. But Sam was gone all night. He
had not returned by the time they finished breakfast at eleven o'clock
Wednesday morning.
"He may think he's indestructible "You care about him," Harry said.
"Of course I care about him."
"I mean care about him."
,Well . . . I don't know."
"I know."
"I know too," Chrissie said.
Sam returned at one o'clock, grimy and gray-faced. She'd made up the
spare bed with fresh sheets, and he tumbled into it still half dressed.
She sat in a chair by the bed, watching him sleep. occasionally he
groaned and thrashed. He called her name and Chrisie's-and sometimes
Scott's-as if he had lost them and was wandering in search of them
through a dangerous and desolate place.
Bureau men in decontamination suits came for him at six o'clock,
Wednesday evening, after he'd slept less than five hours, He went away
for the rest of that night.
By then all the bodies, in their multitudinous biologies, had been
collected from where they had fallen, tagged, sealed in plastic bags,
and put into cold storage for the attention of the pathologists.
That night Tessa and Chrissie shared the same bed. Lying -in the
half-dark room, where a towel had been thrown over a lamp to make a
night-light, the girl said, "They're gone."
"Who?"
'My mom and dad."
'I think they are."
"Dead. I'm sorry, Chrissie."
I Oh, I know. I know you are. You're very nice." Then for while she
cried in Tessa's arms.
Much later, nearer sleep, she said, "You talked to Sam little. Did he
say if they figured out . . . about those animals last night . . .
where they were all running to?"
'No," Tessa said.
"They haven't gouctantly in the ring of cars. The men who poured from -
457 the chopper were toting automatic weapons, but otherwise didn't look
like soldiers because, thanks to Sam's message, they were dressed in
biologically secure white suits, carrying CH-46 helicopter carrying the
recon team itself-probably their'- own own air-supply tanks on their
backs. They might have been astronauts instead of Marines.
Lieutenant Ross Dalgood, who looked baby-faced behind the faceplate of
his helmet, came straight to Sam and Tessa, gave his name and rank, and
greeted Sam by name, evidently because he'd been shown a photograph
before his mission had gotten off the ground.
"Biological hazard, Agent Booker?"
"I don't think so," Sam said, as the chopper blades cycled down from a
hard rhythmic cracking to a softer, wheezing chug.
"But you don't know?"
"I don't know," he admitted.
"We're the advance," Dalgood said.
"Lots more on the way-regular Army and your Bureau people are coming in
by highway. Be here soon."
The three of them-Dalgood, Sam, and Tessa-moved between two of the
encircling cars, to one of the dead things that lay on a sidewalk
bordering the park.
"I didn't believe what I saw from the air," Dalgood said.
"Believe it," Tessa said.
"What the hell?" Dalgood said.
Sam said, "Boogeymen."
38 Tessa was worried about Sam. She and Chrissie and Harry returned to
Harry's house at one in the morning, after being debriefed three times
by men in decontamination suits. Although they had terrible nightmares,
they managed to get a few hours' sleep. But Sam was gone all night. He
had not
returned by the time they finished breakfast at eleven o'clock
Wednesday morning.
"He may think he's indestructible "You care about him," Harry said.
"Of course I care about him."
"I mean care about him."
,Well . . . I don't know."
"I know."
"I know too," Chrissie said.
Sam returned at one o'clock, grimy and gray-faced. She'd made up the
spare bed with fresh sheets, and he tumbled into it still half dressed.
She sat in a chair by the bed, watching him sleep. occasionally he
groaned and thrashed. He called her name and Chrisie's-and sometimes
Scott's-as if he had lost them and was wandering in search of them
through a dangerous and desolate place.
Bureau men in decontamination suits came for him at six o'clock,
Wednesday evening, after he'd slept less than five hours, He went away
for the rest of that night.
By then all the bodies, in their multitudinous biologies, had been
collected from where they had fallen, tagged, sealed in plastic bags,
and put into cold storage for the attention of the pathologists.
That night Tessa and Chrissie shared the same bed. Lying -in the
half-dark room, where a towel had been thrown over a lamp to make a
night-light, the girl said, "They're gone."
"Who?"
'My mom and dad."
'I think they are."
"Dead. I'm sorry, Chrissie."
I Oh, I know. I know you are. You're very nice." Then for while she
cried in Tessa's arms.
Much later, nearer sleep, she said, "You talked to Sam little. Did he
say if they figured out . . . about those animals last night . . .
where they were all running to?"
'No," Tessa said.
"They haven't got a clue yet."
'That spooks me."
"Me too."
'l mean, that they haven't got a clue."
'I know," Tessa said.
"That's what I mean too."
A she said, "but he's not$ 39 By Thursday morning, teams of Bureau
technicians and outside consultants from the private sector had pored
through enough of die Moonhawk data in Sun to determine that the project
had dealt strictly with the implantation of a nonbiological control
mechanism that had resulted in profound physiological changes in the
victims. No one yet had the glimmer of an idea as to how it worked, as
to how the microspheres could have resulted in such radical
metamorphoses, but they were certain no bacteria, virus, or other
engineered organism had been involved. It was purely a matter of
machines.
.The Ariny troops, enforcing the quarantine against newsmedia
interlopers and civilian curiosity-seekers, still had their work to do,
but they were grateful to be able to strip out of their hot and clumsy
decon suits. So were the hundreds of scientists and Bureau agents who
were bivouacked throughout town.
Although Sam would surely be returning in the days ahead, he and Tessa
and Chrissie were cleared for evacuation early Friday morning. A
sympathetic court, with the counsel of a host of federal and state
officials, had already granted Tessa temporary custody of the girl. The
three of them said see-you-soon to Harry, not goodbye, and were lifted
out by one of the Bureau's Bell Jeftnger executive helicopters.
To keep onsite researchers from having their views colored by
sensationalistic and inaccurate news accounts, a media blackout was in
force in Moonlight Cove, and Sam did not fully realize the impact of the
Moonhawk story until they flew over the Army roadblock near the
interstate. Hundreds of press vehicles were strewn along the road and
parked in fields. The pilot flew low enough for Sam to see all the
cameras turned upward to shoot as, they Passed over the mob.
"It's almost as bad on the county route, north of Holliwell Road," the
chopper pilot said, "where they set up the other block. Reporters from
all over the world, sleeping on the ground 'cause they don't want to go
away to some motel and wake up to find that Moonlight Cove was opened to
the press while they were snoozing."
"They don't have to worry," Sam said.
"It's not going to be opened to the press-or to anyone but
researchers-for weeks. The JetRanger transported them to San Francisco
International Airport, where they had reservations for three seats on
PSA flight south to Los Angeles. In the terminal, scanning the news
racks, Sam read a couple of headlines ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BEHIND
COVE TRAGEDY SUPERCOMPUTER RUNS AMOK That was nonsense, of course. New
Wave's supercomputer, Sun, was not an artificial intelligence. No such
thing had yet been built anywhere on earth, though legions of scientists
were racing to be the first to father a true, thinking, electronic mind.
Sun had not run amok; it had only served, as all computers do.
Paraphrasing Shakespeare, Sam thought the fault lies not in.
our technology but in ourselves.
These days, however, people blamed screwups in the system on
computers-just as, centuries ago, members of less sophisticated cultures
had blamed the alignment of celestial bodies.
Tessa quietly pointed out another headline SECRET PENTAGON EXPERIMENT
BEHIND MYSTERIOUS DISASTER The Pentagon was a favorite Boogeyman in some
circles, al most beloved for its real and imagined evils because
believing it was the root of all malevolence made life simpler and
easier to understand. To those who felt that way, the Pentagon almost
the bumbling old Frankenstein monster in his clodhopper shoes and
too-small black suit, scary but understandable, verse and to be shunned
yet comfortably predictable and preferably to consideration of worse and
more complex villains.
Chrissie pulled from the rack a rare special edition of a - 461
sensational tabloid, filled with stories about Moonlight Cove. She
showed them the main headline ALIENS LAND ON CALIFORNIA COAST RAVENOUS
FLESH-EATERS SACK TOWN They looked at one another solemnly for a moment,
then nodded. For the first time in a couple of days, Chrissie laughed.
It was not a hearty laugh, just a chuckle, and there might have been a
touch of irony in it that was too sharp for an eleven-year-old girl. not
to mention a trace of melancholy, but it was a laugh.
hearing her laugh, Sam felt better.
40 Lowel Ganowicz, of United Press International, had been on the
perimeter of Moonlight Cove, at one roadblock or another, since early
Wednesday morning. He bunked in a sleeping bag on the ground, used the
woods as a toilet, and paid an unemployed waiter from Aberdeen Wells to
bring meals to him. Never in his career had he been so committed to a
story, willing to rough it to this extent. And he was not sure why.
Yes, certainly, it was the biggest story of the decade, maybe bigger
than that. But why did he feel this need to hang in there, to learn
every scrap of the truth? Why was he obsessed? His behavior was a
puzzle to him.
He wasn't the only one obsessed.
Though the story of Moonlight Cove had been leaked to the press in
piecemeal fashion over three days and
had been explained in detail
during a four-hour press conference on Thursday g, and though reporters
had exhaustively interviewed many the two hundred survivors, no one had
had enough. The singular horror of the deaths of the victims-and the
number, nearly three thousand, many times the number at
Jonestown-stunned newspaper and TV audiences no matter how often they
heard the specifics. By Friday morning the story was hotter than Yet
Joel sensed that it wasn't even the grisliness of the deaths or the
spectacular statistics that gripped the public interest, it was
something deeper than that.
At ten o'clock Friday morning, Joel was sitting on his bedroll in a
field alongside the county route, just ten yards away fror4 invitingly
warm October morning and thinking about that very thing He was starting
to believe that maybe this news hit home han because it was about not
just the relatively modern conflict of man and machine but about the
eternal human conflict, since time immemorial, between responsibility
and irresponsibility, between civilization and savagery, between
contradictory human impulses toward faith and nihilism.
Joel was still thinking about that when he got up and started to walk.