"Good, sir," Bidakian said, raising his voice slightly to compete with
the wind. "Not too many people on the road. The storm hit to the west
of here earlier, so most motorists with any common sense at all stopped
earlier at Battle Mountain or even back at Winnemucca, until things
clear. And it looks like virtually all the truckers decided to hole up
rather than try to make it through to Elko. It'll take us an hour, I
bet, before we've got even two hundred vehicles in line."
They were not turning the motorists back to Battle Mountain. They were
telling everyone that the closure was expected to last only an hour and
that the wait would not be insufferable.
A longer closure would have meant a massive backup even with the
reduction in traffic brought by the storm. To deal with that larger
number of inconvenienced travelers and to enforce a longer quarantine,
Leland would have had to alert the Nevada State Police and the county
sheriff by now. But he did not want to bring the police into it until
that was unavoidable, for they would quickly seek confirmation of his
authority from higher Army officials-and would soon learn that he had
gone rogue. If the cops could be kept in the dark about the closure for
just half an hour, and if they could be stalled for another few minutes
once they did find out about it, no one would discover Leland's perfidy
until it was too late. He needed only an hour to scoop up the witnesses
at the motel and convey them into the deep vaults of Thunder Hill.
To Bidakian, Leland said, "Sergeant, make sure all the motorists have
sufficient gasoline, and if any of them are running on low tanks, pump
them ten gallons from that emergency supply you've brought."
"Yes, sir. That was my understanding, sir."
"No sign of any cops or snow plows?"
"Not yet, sir," Bidakian said, glancing beyond the short line of cars,
where two new pairs of headlights appeared in the distant snow-swaddled
dusk. "But we'll see one or the other within ten minutes."
"You know the story to give them?"
"Yes, sir. Truck bound for Shenkfield sprung a small leak. It's
carrying harmless and toxic fluids, so we don't-"
"Colonel!" Lieutenant Horner was hurrying from the Wagoneer. He was
wearing so many bulky clothes he looked half-again as large as usual.
"Message from Sergeant Fiw at Shenkfield, sir. Something's wrong at the
motel. He hasn't heard a voice in fifteen minutes. Just a radio,
playing real loud. He doesn't think anyone's there."
"They go back into the damn diner?"
"No, sir. Fiw thinks they're just-gone, sir."
"Gone? Gone where?" Leland demanded, neither expecting an answer nor
waiting for one. Heart pounding, he ran back to the Wagoneer.
Her name was Talia Ervy, and she looked like Marie Dressler, who'd
played Tugboat Annie in those wonderful old movies with Wallace Beery.
Talia was even larger than Dressler, who'd been far from petite: big
bones, broad face, wide mouth, strong chin. But she was the prettiest
woman Parker Faine had seen in days, for she not only offered him and
Father Wycazik a ride from the airport to the Tranquility, but refused
to take any money for it. "Hell, I don't mind," she said, sounding a
little like Marie Dressler, too. "I wasn't going anywheres much special
anyway. Just home to cook dinner for myself. I'm a flat-out horrible
cook, so this'll just put off the punishment for a bit. Fact is, when I
think of my meatloaf, I figure maybe you're doing me a big favor."
Talia had a ten-year-old Cadillac, a big boat of a car, with
winter-tread tires and snow chains. She claimed it would take her
anywhere she wanted to go, regardless of the weather, and she called it
"Old Paint." Parker sat up front with her, and Father Wycazik sat in
back.
They had gone less than a mile when they heard the emergency radio
bulletin about the purported toxic spill and the closure of I-80 west of
Elko. "Those muddle-headed, fumblefingered damn goofballs!" Talia said,
turning the volume louder but raising her voice to talk over it.
"Dangerous stuff like that, you'd think they'd treat it like a load of
babies in glass cradles, but this here's twice in two years."
Neither Parker nor Father Wycazik was capable of commenting. They both
knew that their worst fears for their friends were now coming true.
Talia Ervy said, "Well, gentlemen, what do we do now?"
Parker said, "Is there anyplace that rents cars? Four-wheeldrive is
what we'll need. A Jeep, something like that."
:"There's a Jeep dealer," Talia said.
'Can you take us there?" Parker asked.
" Me and Old Paint can take you anywheres, even if it starts putting
down snowflakes big as dogs."
The salesman at the Jeep dealership, Felix Schellenhof, was far less
colorful than Talia Ervy. Schellenhof wore a gray suit, gray tie, and
pale-gray shirt, and spoke in a gray voice. No, he told Parker, they
didn't rent vehicles by the day. Yes, they had many for sale. No, they
couldn't complete a deal in just twenty minutes. The salesman said if
Parker intended to finance, that would take until tomorrow. Even a
check would not clinch the deal quickly because Parker was from out of
state. "No checks," Parker said. Schellenhof raised gray eyebrows at
the prospect of cash. Parker said, "I'll put it on my American Express
Gold Card," and Schelienhof looked grayly amused. They took American
Express, he said, but in payment for accessories, repairs; no one had
ever bought an entire vehicle with plastic. Parker said, "There's no
purchase limit on the card. Listen, I was in Paris, saw a gorgeous Dali
oil in a gallery, thirty thousand bucks, and they took my American
Express!" With deliberate, plodding diplomacy, Schellenhof began to turn
them away.
"For the love of God, man, move your tired butt!" Father Wycazik roared,
slamming one fist into the top of Schellenhof's desk. He was flushed
from his hairline to his backwards collar. "This is a matter of life or
death for us. Call American Express." He raised his hand high, and the
salesman's shocked gray eyes followed its swift upward are. "Find out
if they'll authorize the purchase. For the love of God, hurry!" the
priest shouted, slamming his fist down again.
The sight of such fury in a clergyman put some speed into the salesman
at last. He took Parker's card and nearly sprinted out of his small
office, across the showroom to the manager's glass-walled domain.
"Good grief, Father," Parker said, "if you were a Protestant, you'd be a
famous fire-and-brimstone evangelist by now."
"Oh, Catholic or not, I've made a few sinners quake in my time."
"I don't doubt it," Parker assured him.
American Express approved the purchase. With hasty repentance,
Schellenhof produced a sheaf of forms and showed Parker where to sign.
"Quite a week!" the salesman said, though he was still drab and gray in
spite of his new enthusiasm. "Late Monday a fella walks in, buys a new
Cherokee with cash-bundles of twenty-dollar bills. Must've hit it big
in a casino. Now this. And the w
eek's hardly started. Something, eh?"
"Fascinating," Parker said.
Using the telephone on Schellenhof's desk, Father Wycazik placed a
collect call to Michael Gerrano in Chicago and told him about Parker and
about the closing of I-80. Then, when Schellenhof popped out of the
room again, Wycazik said something that startled Parker: "Michael, maybe
something'll happen to us, so you call Simon Zoderman at the Tribune the
minute I hang up. Tell him everything. Blow it wide open. Tell Simon
how Brendan ties in with Winton Tolk, the Halbourg girl, Calvin Sharkle,
all of it. Tell him what happened out here in Nevada two summers ago,
what they saw. If he finds it hard to believe, you tell him I believe
it. He knows what a hard-headed customer I am."
When Father Wycazik hung up, Parker said, "Did I understand you right?
My God, you know what happened to them on that July night?"
"I'm almost certain I do, yes," Father Wycazik said.
Before the priest could say more, Schellenhof returned in a gray blur of
polyester. Now that his commission seemed real to him, he was obviously
determined not to exceed Parker's time limit.
"You've got to tell me," Parker said to the priest.
"As soon as we're on our way," Father Wycazik promised.
Ned drove Jack's Cherokee eastward across the snowswept slopes, moving
at a crawl. Sandy and Faye rode up front with him, leaning forward,
peering anxiously through the windshield, helping Ned spot the obstacles
in the chaotic whiteness ahead of them.
Riding in back-crowded in with Brendan and Jorja, with Marcie on her
mother's lap-Ernie tried to convince himself that he would not succumb
to panic when the last light of the storm-dimmed dusk gave way to
darkness. Last night, when he'd snuggled under the covers in bed,
staring at the shadows beyond the reach of the lamp's glow, his anxiety
had been only a fraction of what he'd come to expect. He was improving.
Ernie also took hope from Dom's resurrected memory of jets buzzing the
diner. If Dom could remember, so could Ernie. And when the memory
block crumbled away, when at last he recalled what he'd seen that July
night, he would stop being afraid of darkness.
"County road," Faye said as the Jeep came to a stop.
They had indeed reached the first county road, the same one that ran
past the Tranquility and under I-80. The motel lay about two miles
south, and Thunder Hill lay eight miles north along that ribbon of
blacktop. It had been plowed already, and recently, because the federal
government paid the county to keep the approach to the Depository open
at all times.
"Quickly," Sandy urged Ned.
Ernie knew what she was thinking: Someone going from or to Thunder Hill
might appear and accidentally discover them.
Gunning the engine, Ned drove hurriedly across the empty road, into the
foothills on the other side, traversing a series of ruts with such haste
that Brendan and Jorja were thrown repeatedly against Ernie, who sat
between them. Once more, they took cover in the snow which fell like a
storm of ashes from a coldly burning sky. Another north-south county
artery-Vista Valley Road-lay six miles east, and that was where they
were headed. Once there, they would turn south and go to a third county
road that paralleled I-80 and that would carry them into Elko.
Ernie suddenly realized twilight was falling to the shadow armies of the
night. Darkness had nearly stolen up on them. It was standing just a
little way off, not in distance but in time, only a few minutes away,
but he could see it watching them from billions of peepholes between
billions of whirling snowflakes, creeping closer each time he blinked,
soon to leap through the curtains of snow and seize him. . . .
No. There were too many other things worth fearing to waste energy on a
nonsensical phobia. Even with a compass, they could get lost at night
in this shrieking maelstrom. With visibility reduced to a few yards,
they might drive off the edge of a ridge crest or into a rocky chasm,
unaware of the hole until it swallowed them. Driving blindly to their
own destruction was such a real threat that Ned could make no speed but
could only nurse the Cherokee forward at a cautious crawl.
I fear what's worth fearing, Ernie told himself adamantly. I don't fear
you, Darkness.
Faye looked over her shoulder from the front seat. He smiled and made
an OK sign-only slightly shaky-with thumb and forefinger.
Faye started to give him an OK sign of her own, and that was when little
Marcie screamed.
In his office along the wall of The Hub, deep inside Thunder Hill, Dr.
Miles Bennell sat in darkness, thinking, worrying. The only light was
the wan glow at two windows that faced into the central cavern of the
Depository's second level, illumination insufficient to reveal any
details of the room.
On the desk in front of him lay six sheets of paper. He'd read them
twenty or thirty times during the past fifteen months; he did not need
to read them again tonight to recall, word for word, what was typed on
them. It was an illegally obtained printout of Leland Falkirk's
psychological profile, stolen from the computer-stored personnel records
of the elite Domestic Emergency Response Organization.
Miles Bennell-Ph D. in biology and chemistry, dabbler in physics and
anthropology, musician proficient on the guitar and piano, author of
books as diverse as a text on neurohistology and a scholarly study of
the works of John D. MacDonald, connoisseur of fine wine, aficionado of
Clint Eastwood movies, the nearest thing to a late-twentieth-century
Renaissance man-was among other things a computer hacker of formidable
skill. He had begun adventuring through the complex worldwide network
of electronic information systems when he had been a college student.
Eighteen months ago, when his work on the Thunder Hill project threw him
into frequent contact with Leland Falkirk, Miles Bennell had decided
that the colonel was a psychologically disturbed individual who would
have been declared unfit for military service even as a private-but for
one thing: He was apparently one of those rare paranoids who had learned
how to use his special brand of insanity to mold himself into a smoothly
functioning machine-man who looked and acted normal enough. Miles had
wanted to know more. What made Falkirk tick? What stimulus might make
him explode unexpectedly?
The answers were to be found only at DERO headquarters. So sixteen
months ago, Miles began using his personal terminal and modern to seek a
route into DERO files in Washington.
The first time he'd read the profile, Miles had been frightened, though
he had developed a thousand rationalizations for staying on the job even
if it meant working with a dangerous and violent man like the colonel.
There was less chance of trouble if Miles treated Falkirk with the
coolness and grudging respect that a controlled paranoid would
understand. You dared not be buddy-buddy with such a man-or flatter
him-for he would assume yo
u were hiding something. Polite disdain was
the best attitude.
But now Miles was totally in Falkirk's power, sealed beneath the earth,
to be judged and sentenced according to the colonel's warped view of
guilt and innocence. He was scared sick.
The Army psychologist who'd written the profile was neither very well
educated as psychologists went nor too perceptive. Nevertheless, though
he had proclaimed the colonel more than fit enough for the elite DERO
companies, he had noted peculiarities of the man's personality that made
his report disturbing reading for Miles, who could read not only what
was on the paper but what lay hidden between the lines.
First: Leland Falkirk feared and despised all religion. Because love of
God and country were prized in career military men, Falkirk tried to
conceal his antireligious sentiments. Evidently, these attitudes sprang
from a difficult childhood in a family of fanatics.
Miles Bennell decided that this fault in Falkirk was especially
troublesome because the current undertaking, in which he and the colonel
were involved, had a multiplicity of mystical connotations. Aspects of
it had undeniable religious overtones and associations that were certain
to trigger intense negative reactions in the colonel.
Second: Leland Falkirk was obsessed with control. He needed to dominate
every aspect of his environment and everyone he encountered. This
urgent need to control the external world was a reflection of his
constant internal struggle to control his own rages and paranoid fears.
Miles Bennell shuddered when he thought of the terrible strain this
Koontz, Dean R. - Strangers Page 84
