Seize the Night

brief inhalation of the garment, and then he tracked a scent along the pavement once more, moving in a widening spiral, from time to time lifting his head to savor the air, all the while appearing suitably quizzical. He padded to the warehouse, where he raised one leg and relieved himself against the concrete foundation, sniffed the deposit he had made, returned for another whiff of the pajama top, spent half a minute investigating an old rusted socket wrench lying on the pavement, paused to scratch behind his right ear with one paw, returned to the weed with the yellow flowers, sneezed, and had just risen to the top of my List of People or Animals I Most Want to Choke Senseless, when he suddenly went rigid, turned his green eyes toward our animal communicator, and hissed.
    “He's got it,” Roosevelt said.
    Mungojerrie hurried along the serviceway, and we set out after him.
    Bobby joined us on foot, armed with his shotgun, while Doogie and Sasha followed in the Hummer.
    Taking a different route from the one I'd chosen the previous night, we proceeded along a blacktop road, across an athletic field gone to weeds, across a dusty parade ground, between ranks of badly weathered barracks, through a residential neighborhood of Dead Town that I had never explored, where the cottages and bungalows were identical to those on other streets, and overland again, to another service area.
    After more than half an hour at a brisk pace, we arrived at the last place I wanted to go, the huge, seven-story, Quonset-roofed hangar, as large as a football field, that stands like an alien temple above the egg room.
    As it became clear where we were headed, I decided it wouldn't be wise to drive up to the entrance, because the Hummer's engine was noticeably less quiet than the mechanism of a Swiss watch. I waved Doogie toward a passageway between two of the many smaller service buildings that surrounded the giant structure, about a hundred yards from our ultimate destination.
    When Doogie killed the engine and the parking lights, the Hummer all but vanished in this nook.
    As we gathered behind the vehicle to study the enormous hangar from a distance, the dead night began to breathe. A few miles to the west, the Pacific had exhaled a cool breeze, which now caused a loose sheet-metal panel to vibrate in a nearby roof.
    I recalled Roosevelt's words, relayed from Mungojerrie, outside the Stanwyk house: Death lives here. I was getting identical but much stronger vibes from the hangar. If Death lived at the Stanwyk place, that was only his pied-a-terre. Here was his primary residence.
    “This can't be right,” I said hopefully.
    “They're in that place,” Roosevelt insisted.
    “But we were here last night,” Bobby protested. “They weren't in the damn place last night.”
    Roosevelt scooped up the cat, stroked the furry head, chucked the mungo man under the chin, murmured to him, and said, “They were here then, the cat says, and they're here now.”
    Bobby scowled. “This reeks.”
    “Like a Calcutta sewer,” I agreed.
    “No, trust me,” Doogie said. “A Calcutta sewer is in a class all by itself.”
    I decided not to pursue the obvious question.
    Instead, I said, “If these kids were snatched just to be studied and tested, snatched because their blood samples indicate they're somehow immune to the retrovirus, then they must have been taken to the genetics lab. Wherever that may be, it isn't here.”
    Roosevelt said, “According to Mungojerrie, the lab he came from is far to the east, in what appears to be open land, where they once had an artillery range. It's very deep underground, hidden out there. But Jimmy, at least, is here. And Orson.”
    After a hesitation, I said, “Alive?”
    Roosevelt said, “Mungojerrie doesn't know.”
    “Cats know things,” Sasha reminded him.
    “Not this thing,” Roosevelt said.
    As we stared at the hangar, I'm sure each of us was remembering Delacroix's audiotape testimony about the Mystery Train. Red sky. Black trees. A fluttering within …
    Doogie removed the backpack from the Hummer, slipped it over his shoulders, closed the tailgate, and said, “Let's go.”
    During the brief time that the cargo-hold light was on, I saw the weapon he was carrying. It was a wicked-looking piece.
    Aware of my interest, he said, “Uzi machine pistol. Extended magazine.”
    “Is that legal?”
    “It would be if it wasn't converted to full automatic fire.”
    Doogie headed toward the hangar. With the