by Dean Koontz
“I thought you said we had enough to interest a good newsman. The pistol you took off that man . . . my house being blown up . . .”
“That might be enough. Certainly, for the Las Vegas paper, it ought to be sufficient. This city still remembers the Jaborski group, the Sierra accident. It was a local tragedy. But if we go to the press in Los Angeles or New York or some other city, the reporters there aren’t going to have a whole lot of interest in it unless they see an aspect of the story that lifts it out of the local-interest category. Maybe we’ve already got enough to convince them it’s big news. I’m not sure. And I want to be damn sure before we try to go public with it. Ideally, I’d even like to be able to hand the reporter a neat theory about what really happened to those scouts, something sensational that he can hook his story onto.”
“Such as?”
He shook his head. “I don’t have anything worked out yet. But it seems to me the most obvious thing we have to consider is that the scouts and their leaders saw something they weren’t supposed to see.”
“Project Pandora?”
He sipped his beer and used one finger to wipe a trace of foam from his upper lip. “A military secret. I can’t see what else would have brought an organization like Vince’s so deeply into this. An intelligence outfit of that size and sophistication doesn’t waste its time on Mickey Mouse stuff.”
“But military secrets . . . that seems so far out.”
“In case you didn’t know it, since the Cold War ended and California took such a big hit in the defense downsizing, Nevada has more Pentagon-supported industries and installations than any state in the union. And I’m not just talking about the obvious ones like Nellis Air Force Base and the Nuclear Test Site. This state’s ideally suited for secret or quasi-secret, high-security weapons research centers. Nevada has thousands of square miles of remote unpopulated land. The deserts. The deeper reaches of the mountains. And most of those remote areas are owned by the federal government. If you put a secret installation in the middle of all that lonely land, you have a pretty easy job maintaining security.”
Arms on the table, both hands clasped around her glass of beer, Tina leaned toward Elliot. “You’re saying that Mr. Jaborski, Mr. Lincoln, and the boys stumbled across a place like that in the Sierras?”
“It’s possible.”
“And saw something they weren’t supposed to see.”
“Maybe.”
“And then what? You mean . . . because of what they saw, they were killed?”
“It’s a theory that ought to excite a good reporter.”
She shook her head. “I just can’t believe the government would murder a group of little children just because they accidentally got a glimpse of a new weapon or something.”
“Wouldn’t it? Think of Waco—all those dead children. Ruby Ridge—a fourteen-year-old boy shot in the back by the FBI. Vince Foster found dead in a Washington park and officially declared a suicide even though most of the forensic evidence points to murder. Even a primarily good government, when it’s big enough, has some pretty mean sharks swimming in the darker currents. We’re living in strange times, Tina.”
The rising night wind thrummed against the large pane of glass beside their booth. Beyond the window, out on Charleston Boulevard, traffic sailed murkily through a sudden churning river of dust and paper scraps.
Chilled, Tina said, “But how much could the kids have seen? You’re the one who said security was easy to maintain when one of these installations is located in the wilderness. The boys couldn’t have gotten very close to such a well-guarded place. Surely they couldn’t have managed to get more than a glimpse.”
“Maybe a glimpse was enough to condemn them.”
“But kids aren’t the best observers,” she argued. “They’re impressionable, excitable, given to exaggeration. If they had seen something, they’d have come back with at least a dozen different stories about it, none of them accurate. A group of young boys wouldn’t be a threat to the security of a secret installation.”
“You’re probably right. But a bunch of hard-nosed security men might not have seen it that way.”
“Well, they’d have had to be pretty stupid to think murder was the safest way to handle it. Killing all those people and trying to fake an accident—that was a whole lot riskier than letting the kids come back with their half-baked stories about seeing something peculiar in the mountains.”
“Remember, there were two adults with those kids. People might have discounted most of what the boys said about it, but they’d have believed Jaborski and Lincoln. Maybe there was so much at stake that the security men at the installation decided Jaborski and Lincoln had to die. Then it became necessary to kill the kids to eliminate witnesses to the first two murders.”
“That’s . . . diabolical.”
“But not unlikely.”
Tina looked down at the wet circle that her glass had left on the table. While she thought about what Elliot had said, she dipped one finger in the water and drew a grim mouth, a nose, and a pair of eyes in the circle; she added two horns, transforming the blot of moisture into a little demonic face. Then she wiped it away with the palm of her hand.
“I don’t know . . . hidden installations . . . military secrets . . . it all seems just too incredible.”
“Not to me,” Elliot said. “To me, it sounds plausible if not probable. Anyway, I’m not saying that’s what really happened. It’s only a theory. But it’s the kind of theory that almost any smart, ambitious reporter will go for in a big, big way—if we can come up with enough facts that appear to support it.”
“What about Judge Kennebeck?”
“What about him?”
“He could tell us what we want to know.”
“We’d be committing suicide if we went to Kennebeck’s place,” Elliot said. “Vince’s friends are sure to be waiting for us there.”
“Well, isn’t there any way that we could slip past them and get at Kennebeck?”
He shook his head. “Impossible.”
She sighed, slumped back in the booth.
“Besides,” Elliot said, “Kennebeck probably doesn’t know the whole story. He’s just like the two men who came to see me. He’s probably been told only what he needs to know.”
Elvira arrived with their food. The cheeseburgers were made from juicy ground sirloin. The French fries were crisp, and the coleslaw was tart but not sour.
By unspoken agreement, Tina and Elliot didn’t talk about their problems while they ate. In fact they didn’t talk much at all. They listened to the country music on the jukebox and watched Charleston Boulevard through the window, where the desert dust storm clouded oncoming headlights and forced the traffic to move slowly. And they thought about those things that neither of them wanted to speak of: murder past and murder present.
When they finished eating, Tina spoke first. “You said we ought to come up with more evidence before we go to the newspapers.”
“We have to.”
“But how are we supposed to get it? From where? From whom?”
“I’ve been pondering that. The best thing we could do is get the grave reopened. If the body were exhumed and reexamined by a topnotch pathologist, we’d almost certainly find proof that the cause of death wasn’t what the authorities originally said it was.”
“But we can’t reopen the grave ourselves,” Tina said. “We can’t sneak into the graveyard in the middle of the night, move a ton of earth with shovels. Besides, it’s a private cemetery, surrounded by a high wall, so there must be a security system to deal with vandals.”
“And Kennebeck’s cronies have almost certainly put a watch on the place. So if we can’t examine the body, we’ll have to do the next best thing. We’ll have to talk to the man who saw it last.”
“Huh? Who?”
“Well, I guess . . . the coroner.”
“You mean the medical examiner in Reno?”
“Was that where the death certificate was iss
ued?”
“Yes. The bodies were brought out of the mountains, down to Reno.”
“On second thought . . . maybe we’ll skip the coroner,” Elliot said. “He’s the one who had to designate it an accidental death. There’s a better than even chance he’s been co-opted by Kennebeck’s crowd. One thing for sure, he’s definitely not on our side. Approaching him would be dangerous. We might eventually have to talk to him, but first we should pay a visit to the mortician who handled the body. There might be a lot he can tell us. Is he here in Vegas?”
“No. An undertaker in Reno prepared the body and shipped it here for the funeral. The coffin was sealed when it arrived, and we didn’t open it.”
Elvira stopped by the table and asked if they wanted anything more. They didn’t. She left the check and took away some of the dirty dishes.
To Tina, Elliot said, “Do you remember the name of the mortician in Reno?”
“Yes. Bellicosti. Luciano Bellicosti.”
Elliot finished the last swallow of beer in his glass. “Then we’ll go to Reno.”
“Can’t we just call Bellicosti?”
“These days, everyone’s phone seems to be tapped. Besides, if we’re face-to-face with him, we’ll have a better idea of whether or not he’s telling the truth. No, it can’t be done long-distance. We have to go up there.”
Her hand shook when she raised her glass to drink the last of her own Coors.
Elliot said, “What’s wrong?”
She wasn’t exactly sure. She was filled with a new dread, a fear greater than the one that had burned within her during the past few hours. “I . . . I guess I’m just . . . afraid to go to Reno.”
He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “It’s okay. There’s less to be frightened of up there than here. It’s here we’ve got killers hunting us.”
“I know. Sure, I’m scared of those creeps. But more than that, what I’m afraid of . . . is finding out the truth about Danny’s death. And I have a strong feeling we’ll find it in Reno.”
“I thought that was exactly what you wanted to know.”
“Oh, I do. But at the same time, I’m afraid of knowing. Because it’s going to be bad. The truth is going to be something really terrible.”
“Maybe not.”
“Yes.”
“The only alternative is to give up, to back off and never know what really happened.”
“And that’s worse,” she admitted.
“Anyway, we have to learn what really happened in the Sierras. If we know the truth, we can use it to save ourselves. It’s our only hope of survival.”
“So when do we leave for Reno?” she asked.
“Tonight. Right now. We’ll take my Cessna Skylane. Nice little machine.”
“Won’t they know about it?”
“Probably not. I only hooked up with you today, so they haven’t had time to learn more than the essentials about me. Just the same, we’ll approach the airfield with caution.”
“If we can use the Cessna, how soon would we get to Reno?”
“A few hours. I think it would be wise for us to stay up there for a couple of days, even after we’ve talked to Bellicosti, until we can figure a way out of this mess. Everyone’ll still be looking for us in Vegas, and we’ll breathe a little easier if we aren’t here.”
“But I didn’t get a chance to pack that suitcase,” Tina said. “I need a change of clothes, at least a toothbrush and a few other things. Neither one of us has a coat, and it’s damn cold in Reno at this time of year.”
“We’ll buy whatever we need before we leave.”
“I don’t have any money with me. Not a penny.”
“I’ve got some,” Elliot said. “A couple hundred bucks. Plus a wallet filled with credit cards. We could go around the world on the cards alone. They might track us when we use the cards, but not for a couple of days.”
“But it’s a holiday and—”
“And this is Las Vegas,” Elliot said. “There’s always a store open somewhere. And the shops in the hotels won’t be closed. This is one of their busiest times of the year. We’ll be able to find coats and whatever else we need, and we’ll find it all in a hurry.” He left a generous tip for the waitress and got to his feet. “Come on. The sooner we’re out of this town, the safer I’ll feel.”
She went with him to the cash register, which was near the entrance.
The cashier was a white-haired man, owlish behind a pair of thick spectacles. He smiled and asked Elliot if their dinner had been satisfactory, and Elliot said it had been fine, and the old man began to make change with slow, arthritic fingers.
The rich odor of chili sauce drifted out of the kitchen. Green peppers. Onions. Jalapeños. The distinct aromas of melted cheddar and Monterey Jack.
The long wing of the diner was nearly full of customers now; about forty people were eating dinner or waiting to be served. Some were laughing. A young couple was plotting conspiratorially, leaning toward each other from opposite sides of a booth, their heads almost touching. Nearly everyone was engaged in animated conversations, couples and cozy groups of friends, enjoying themselves, looking forward to the remaining three days of the four-day holiday.
Suddenly Tina felt a pang of envy. She wanted to be one of these fortunate people. She wanted to be enjoying an ordinary meal, on an ordinary evening, in the middle of a blissfully ordinary life, with every reason to expect a long, comfortable, ordinary future. None of these people had to worry about professional killers, bizarre conspiracies, gas-company men who were not gas-company men, silencer-equipped pistols, exhumations. They didn’t realize how lucky they were. She felt as if a vast unbridgeable gap separated her from people like these, and she wondered if she ever again would be as relaxed and free from care as these diners were at this moment.
A sharp, cold draft prickled the back of her neck.
She turned to see who had entered the restaurant.
The door was closed. No one had entered.
Yet the air remained cool — changed.
On the jukebox, which stood to the left of the door, a currently popular country ballad was playing:
“Baby, baby, baby, I love you still. Our love will live; I know it will And one thing on which you can bet Is that our love is not dead yet. No, our love is not dead— not dead — not dead — not dead—”
The record stuck.
Tina stared at the jukebox in disbelief.
“not dead— not dead— not dead— not dead—”
Elliot turned away from the cashier and put a hand on Tina’s shoulder. “What the hell . . . ?”
Tina couldn’t speak. She couldn’t move. The air temperature was dropping precipitously. She shuddered.
The other customers stopped talking and turned to stare at the stuttering machine.
“not dead— not dead— not dead— not dead—”
The image of Death’s rotting face flashed into Tina’s mind.
“Stop it,” she pleaded.
Someone said, “Shoot the piano player.”
Someone else said, “Kick the damn thing.”
Elliot stepped to the jukebox and shook it gently. The two words stopped repeating. The song proceeded smoothly again—but only for one more line of verse. As Elliot turned away from the machine, the eerily meaningful repetition began again:
“not dead— not dead— not dead—”
Tina wanted to walk through the diner and grab each of the customers by the throat, shake and threaten each of them, until she discovered who had rigged the jukebox. At the same time, she knew this wasn’t a rational thought; the explanation, whatever it might be, was not that simple. No one here had rigged the machine. Only a moment ago, she had envied these people for the very ordinariness of their lives. It was ludicrous to suspect any of them of being employed by the secret organization that had blown up her house. Ludicrous. Paranoid. They were just ordinary people in a roadside restaurant, having dinner.
“not dead— not
dead— not dead—”
Elliot shook the jukebox again, but this time to no avail. The air grew colder still. Tina heard some of the customers commenting on it.
Elliot shook the machine harder than he had done the last time, then harder still, but it continued to repeat the two-word message in the voice of the country singer, as if an invisible hand were holding the pick-up stylus or laser-disc reader firmly in place.
The white-haired cashier came out from behind the counter. “I’ll take care of it, folks.” He called to one of the waitresses: “Jenny, check the thermostat. We’re supposed to have heat in here tonight, not air conditioning.”
Elliot stepped out of the way as the old man approached. Although no one was touching the jukebox, the volume increased, and the two words boomed through the diner, thundered, vibrated in the windows, and rattled silverware on the tables.
“NOT DEAD— NOT DEAD— NOT DEAD—”
Some people winced and put their hands over their ears.
The old man had to shout to be heard above the explosive voices on the jukebox. “There’s a button on the back to reject the record.”
Tina wasn’t able to cover her ears; her arms hung straight down at her sides, frozen, rigid, hands fisted, and she couldn’t find the will or the strength to lift them. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t make a sound.
Colder, colder.
She became aware of the familiar, spiritlike presence that had been in Angela’s office when the computer had begun to operate by itself. She had the same feeling of being watched that she’d had in the parking lot a short while ago.
The old man crouched beside the machine, reached behind it, found the button. He pushed it several times.
“NOT DEAD— NOT DEAD— NOT DEAD—”
“Have to unplug it!” the old man said.
The volume increased again. The two words blasted out of the speakers in all corners of the diner with such incredible, bone-jarring force that it was difficult to believe that the machine had been built with the capability of pouring out sound with this excessive, unnerving power.
