Koontz, Dean R. - Strangers

by Strangers(Lit)

  friend of Orbella. The bishop was writing a book on the history of papal

  selection, and Brendan came laden with research material provided by the

  monsignor in Rome. It was his job to answer any questions about those

  documents. John Santefiore was a charming man with a sly dry wit, and

  the days flashed past.

  His task concluded, Brendan was left with two weeks to himself before he

  was required to report to his superiors in Chicago, his hometown, where

  he would be assigned as curate to some parish in that archdiocese. He

  spent a few days in Carmel, on the Monterey Peninsula. Then, making up

  his mind to see some of the country that he had never seen before,

  Brendan set out on a long drive eastward in a rental car.

  Now, Father Wycazik leaned forward, brandy snifter clasped in both

  hands. "I remembered about Bishop Santefiore, but I'd forgotten you

  drove from there to here. And you passed through Elko County, Nevada?"

  "Stayed there, at a motel in the middle of nowhere. Tranquility Motel.

  I stopped for the night, but it was so peaceful, the countryside so

  beautiful, that I stayed a few days. Now I've got to go back."

  "Why? What happened to you out there?"

  Brendan shrugged. "Nothing. I just relaxed. Napped. Read a couple

  books. Watched TV. They have good TV reception even way out there

  because they've got their own little receiver dish on the roof."

  Father Wycazik cocked his head. "What's wrong? There for a moment you

  sounded . . . odd. Wooden . . . as if repeating something you'd

  memorized."

  "I was just telling you what it was like."

  "So if nothing happened to you there, why is the place so special? What

  will happen when you go back there?"

  "I'm not sure. But it's going to be something . . . incredible."

  Finally revealing his frustration with his curate's obtuseness, Father

  Wycazik put the question bluntly: "Is it God calling you?"

  "I don't think so. But maybe. A slim maybe. Father, I want your

  permission to go. But if I can't have your blessing, I'll go anyway."

  Father Wycazik took a larger swallow of brandy than was his habit. "I

  think you should go, but I don't think you should go alone."

  Brendan was surprised. "You want to come with me?"

  "Not me. I've got St. Bette's to run. But you should be in the

  company of a qualified witness. A priest familiar with these things,

  one who can verify any miracle or miraculous visitation-"

  "You mean some cleric who has the Cardinal's imprimatur to investigate

  every hysterical report of weeping statues of the Holy Mother, bleeding

  crucifixes, and divine manifestations of all kinds."

  Father Wycazik nodded. "That's right. Someone who knows the process of

  authentication. I had in mind Monsignor Janney of the archdiocese's

  office of publications. He's had a lot of practice."

  Reluctant to disappoint his rector but determined to proceed in his own

  fashion, Brendan interrupted: "There's no visitation involved here, so

  there's no need for Monsignor Janney. None of this has an obvious

  Christian significance or source."

  "And who ever said God isn't permitted to be subtle?"

  Father Wycazik asked. His grin made it clear he expected to win this

  argument.

  "These things could all be merely psychic phenomena."

  "Bah! Claptrap. Psychic phenomena are just the nonbeliever's pathetic

  explanation for glimpses of the divine hand at work. Examine these

  events closely, Brendan; open your heart to the meaning of them, and

  you'll see the truth. God's calling you back to His bosom. And I

  believe a divine visitation is what this may be building toward."

  "But if this is building to a divine manifestation, why couldn't it

  happen right here? Why's it necessary to go all the way to Nevada?"

  "Perhaps it's a test of your obedience to the will of God, a test of

  your underlying desire to believe again. If your desire's strong

  enough, you'll discomfit yourself by taking this long journey, and as

  reward you'll be shown something to make you believe again."

  "But why Nevada? Why not Florida or Texas-or Istanbul?"

  "Only God knows."

  "And why would God go to all this trouble to recapture the heart of one

  fallen priest'?"

  "To Him who made the earth and stars, this is no trouble

  at all. And one heart is as important to Him as a million hearts."

  :"Then why did He let me lose my faith in the first place?"

  ' Perhaps losing and regaining it is a tempering process. You may have

  been put through it because God needs you to be stronger."

  Brendan smiled and shook his head in admiration. "You're never caught

  without an answer, are you, Father?"

  Looking self-satisfied, Stefan Wycazik settled back in his chair. "God

  blessed me with a quick tongue."

  Brendan was aware of Father Wycazik's reputation as a savior of troubled

  priests, and he knew the rector would not give up easily-or at all. But

  Brendan was determined not to go to Nevada with Monsignor Janney in tow.

  From the other armchair, over the rim of his brandy snifter, Father

  Wycazik watched Brendan with evident affection and iron determination,

  waiting eagerly for another argument that he could swiftly refute, for

  another thrust that he could parry with his unfailing Jesuitical aplomb.

  Brendan sighed. It was going to be a long evening.

  Elko County, Nevada.

  After hurrying out of the Tranquility Grille in fear and confusion, into

  the last fading scarlet and purple light of dusk, Dom Corvaisis went

  directly to the motel office. There, he walked into the middle of a

  scene that initially appeared to be a domestic quarrel, though he

  quickly saw that it was something stranger than that.

  A squarely built man in tan slacks and a brown sweater stood in the

  center of the room, this side of the counter. He was only two inches

  taller than Dom, but in other dimensions he was considerably larger. He

  seemed to have been hewn from massive slabs of oak. The gray of his

  brush-cut hair, the weathered lines of his face, indicated he was in his

  fifties, although his bull-strong body had a younger presence and power.

  The big man was shaking, as if enraged. A woman stood beside him,

  staring up at him with an odd and urgent expression. She was a blond

  with vivid blue eyes, younger than him, though it was difficult to judge

  her age. The man's pale face was shiny with sweat. As Dom stepped

  across the threshold, he realized that his flash impression was wrong:

  This guy was not enraged but terrified.

  "Relax," the woman said. "Try to control your breathing."

  The big man was gasping. He stood with his thick neck bent, head

  lowered, shoulders hunched, staring at the floor, inhalation following

  exhalation in an arhythmic pattern that betrayed a growing panic.

  "Take deep slow breaths," the woman said. "Remember what Dr. Fontelaine

  taught you. When you're calm, we'll go outside for a walk."

  "No!" the big man said, shaking his head violently.

  "Yes, we will," the woman said, putting a reassuring hand on his arm.

  "We'll go outside for a walk, Ernie, and you'll see that
this darkness

  is no different from the darkness in Milwaukee."

  Ernie. The name chilled Dom and immediately brought to mind those four

  posters of the moon on which names had been scrawled in Zebediah

  Lomack's living room, in Reno.

  The woman glanced at Dom, and he said, " I need a room."

  "We're full," she said.

  "The vacancy sign is lit."

  "Okay," she said. "Okay, but not now. Please. Not now.

  Go over to the diner or something. Come back in half an hour. Please."

  Until that exchange, Ernie had seemed unaware of Dom's intrusion. Now,

  he looked up from the floor, and a moan of fear and despair escaped him.

  "The door. Close it before the darkness comes in!"

  "No, no, no," the woman told him, her voice firm yet full of compassion.

  "It's not coming in. Darkness can't hurt you, Ernie."

  "It's coming in," he insisted miserably.

  Dom realized that the room was unnaturally bright. Table lamps, a floor

  lamp, a desk lamp, and the ceiling fixtures blazed.

  The woman turned to Dom again. "For God's sake, close the door."

  He stepped in, rather than out, and shut the door behind him.

  "I meant, close it as you leave," the woman said pointedly.

  The expression on Ernie's face was part terror, part embarrassment. His

  eyes shifted from Dom to the window. "It's right there at the glass.

  All the darkness . . . pressing, pressing." He looked sheepishly at

  Dom, then lowered his head again, shut his eyes tight.

  Dom stood transfixed. Ernie's irrational fear was horribly like the

  terror which drove Dom to walk in his sleep and to hide in closets.

  Using anger to repress her tears, the woman turned to Dom. "Why won't

  you go? He's nyctophobic. He's afraid of the dark sometimes, and when

  he has one of these attacks, we have to work it out together."

  Dom remembered the other names scrawled on the posters in Lomack's

  house-Ginger, Faye-and he chose one by instinct. "It's all right, Faye.

  I think I understand a little of what you're going through."

  She blinked in surprise when he used her name. "Do I know you?"

  "Do you? I'm Dominick Corvaisis."

  "Means nothing to me," she said, staying with the big man as he turned

  and, eyes still closed, shuffled toward the back of the office.

  Ernie moved blindly toward the gate in the counter. ,Got to get

  upstairs, where I can pull the drapes, keep the dark out."

  Faye said, "No, Ernie, wait. Don't run from it."

  Stepping in front of Ernie, putting a hand on the man's chest to halt

  him, Dom said, "You have nightmares. When you wake up, you can't

  remember what they were, except they had something to do with the moon."

  Faye gasped.

  Ernie opened his eyes in surprise. " How'd you know that?"

  "I've had nightmares for over a month," Dom said. "Every night. And I

  know a man who suffered from them so bad he killed himself."

  They stared at him in astonishment.

  "In October," Dom said, "I started walking in my sleep. I'd creep out of

  bed, hide in closets, or gather weapons to protect myself. Once, I

  tried to nail the windows shut to keep something out. Don't you see,

  Ernie, I'm afraid of something in the dark. I'll bet that's what you're

  afraid of, too. Not just the dark itself but something else, something

  specific that happened to you"-he gestured toward the windows-"out there

  in the darkness on that same weekend, the summer before last."

  Still baffled by this turn of events, Ernie glanced at the night beyond

  the windows, then immediately looked away. "I don't understand."

  "Let's go upstairs, where you can draw the drapes," Dom said. "I'll

  tell you what I know. The important thing is you aren't alone in this.

  You're not alone any more. And, thank God, neither am I."

  New Haven County, Connecticut.

  Clockwork. Jack Twist's heists always ticked along like clockwork

  mechanisms. The armored-car job was no exception.

  The night was solidly roofed with clouds. No stars, no moon. No snow

  was falling, but a cold moist wind swept up from the southwest.

  The Guardmaster truck rumbled past empty fields, coming from the

  northeast toward the knoll from which Jack had watched it Christmas Eve.

  Its headlights bored through thin ragged sheets of patchy winter fog. In

  the snow-wrapped fields, the county lane resembled a strip of black

  satin ribbon.

  Dressed in a white ski suit with hood, Jack lay half buried in snow,

  south of the roadway, across from the knoll. On the other side of the

  road, at the foot of the knoll, the second member of the team, Chad

  Zepp, also in white camouflage, sprawled in another drift.

  The third member of the team, Branch Pollard, was halfway down the knoll

  with a Heckler and Koch HK91 heavy assault rifle.

  The truck was two hundred yards away. Refracting the headlights, fog

  formations drifted across the road, into the lightless fields.

  Suddenly the muzzle of the HK91 flashed up on the hillside.

  A shot cracked above the sound of the grinding engine.

  The HK91, perhaps the finest combat rifle made, could fire hundreds of

  rounds without jamming. Extremely accurate, effective at a thousand

  yards, the HK91 could put a 7.62 NATO round through a tree or concrete

  wall, with sufficient punch left to kill someone on the other side.

  Tonight, however, they did not intend to kill anyone. Aided by an

  infra-red telescopic sight, Pollard put the first shot where he wanted

  it, blowing out the right front tire of the Guardmaster transport.

  The truck swerved wildly. Encountering ice, it began to slide.

  Even while the armored transport was sliding, its fate unsettled, Jack

  was up and running. He leaped a ditch and dashed onto the road in front

  of the vehicle, which loomed like a tank. At the last moment, when it

  seemed bound inexorably for the ditch, the driver regained control and

  brought the truck to a jerky halt thirty feet from Jack.

  He saw one of the Guardmaster crewmen talking excitedly into a radio

  handset. That call for help was futile. The moment Pollard had fired

  from the knoll, Chad Zepp, still concealed in the snow north of the

  road, had switched on a batterypowered transmitter, jamming the

  transport's radio frequency with shrill electronic static.

  As the rising wind harried fog-ghosts past Jack, he stood in the middle

  of the road, feeling naked in the blazing headlights, taking time to aim

  the tear-gas rifle at the truck's grille. The gun was of British

  manufacture, designed for anti-terrorist squads. Other tear-gas weapons

  fired grenades that spewed disabling fumes on impact, requiring the

  marksman to aim at windows. But upon seizing an embassy, terrorists

  usually boarded up the windows. The new British gun, which Jack had

  acquired from a black-market arms dealer in Miami, had a two-inch bore

  and fired a high-velocity, steel-jacketed tear-gas shell that could

  penetrate most wooden doors or punch through a boarded window. When

  Jack fired, the shell smashed through the truck's grille into the engine

  compartment. A noxious yellow vapor began roiling into the cab by way

  of its ventilation system.
/>   The guards had been trained to remain in their secure roost in a crisis,

  for the cab had steel doors and bulletproof glass. But when they

  switched off the heater and closed the vents too late, they found

  themselves choking in the gas-filled cabin. They opened their locked

  doors, spilled out into the cold winter night, wheezing, coughing'

  In spite of the blinding, suffocating gas, the driver had drawn his

  revolver. Dropping to his knees, gagging, he squinted his copiously

  watering eyes in search of a target.

  But Jack kicked the gun out of his hand, grabbed him by the coat, and

  dragged him to the front of the truck, where he handcuffed him to a

  support strut on the bumper.

  After firing the shot that disabled the truck, Branch Pollard had

  sprinted down the knoll. Now, at the other end of the front bumper, he

  handcuffed the other protesting guard to another strut.

  Both guards were blinking furiously, trying to clear their gas-blurred

  vision to get a look at their attackers' faces, but that was wasted

  effort because Jack, Pollard, and Zepp were wearing ski masks.

  Leaving the securely shackled men, Jack and Pollard ran to the back of