Strange Highways

moved toward the jeep from the other side, carrying a long pole at the base of which were attached a pair of angled mirrors and a light. He was accompanied by a much taller man, similarly dressed, who had a shotgun. The shorter guard thrust the lighted mirrors beneath the jeep and squinted at the reflection of the undercarriage that the first mirror threw onto the second.
     "They're looking for bombs!" Tommy said from the rear seat.
     "Bombs?" Meg said disbelievingly. "Hardly."
     The man with the mirror moved slowly around the jeep wagon, and his armed companion stayed close at his side. Even in the obscuring snow, Meg could see that their faces were lined with anxiety.
     When the pair had circled the jeep, the armed guard waved an all-clear to the other four at the roadblock, and at last one man approached the driver's window. He wore jeans and a bulky, brown leather flight jacket with sheepskin lining, without a Biolomech patch. A dark blue toboggan cap caked with snow was pulled half over his ears.
     He leaned down to the open window. "I'm real sorry for the inconvenience, ma'am."
     He was handsome, with an appealing - but false - smile. His gray-green eyes were disturbingly direct.
     "What's going on?" she asked.
     "Just a security alert," he said, the words steaming from him in the icy air. "Could I see your driver's license, please?"
     He was evidently a Biolomech employee, not a police officer, but Meg saw no reason to decline to cooperate.
     As the man was holding her wallet, studying the license, Tommy said, "Spies try to sneak in there tonight?"
     That same insincere smile accompanied the man's response: "Most likely just a short circuit in the alarm system, son. Nothing here that spies would be interested in."
     Biolomech was involved in recombinant-DNA research and the application of their discoveries to commercial enterprises. Meg knew that in recent years genetic engineering had produced a man-made virus that threw off pure insulin as a waste product, a multitude of wonder drugs, and other blessings. She also knew that the same science could engender biological weapons - new diseases as deadly as nuclear bombs - but she always avoided pondering the frightening possibility that Biolomech, half a mile overland from their house, might be engaged in such dangerous work. In fact, a few years ago rumors had surfaced that Biolomech had landed a major defense contract, but the company had assured the county that it would never perform research related to bacteriological warfare. Yet their fence and security system seemed more formidable than necessary for a commercial facility limited to benign projects.
     Blinking snow off his lashes, the man in the sheepskin-lined jacket said, "You live near here, Mrs. Lassiter?"
     "Cascade Farm," she said. "About a mile down the road."
     He passed her wallet back through the window.
     From the backseat, Tommy said, "Mister, do you think terrorists with bombs are maybe gonna drive in there and blow the place up or something?"
     "Bombs? Whatever gave you that idea, son?"
     "The mirrors on the pole," Tommy said.
     "Ah! Well, that's just part of our standard procedure in a security alert. Like I said, it's probably a false alarm. Short circuit, something like that." To Meg he said, "Sorry for the trouble, Mrs. Lassiter."
     As the man stepped back from the station wagon, Meg glanced past him at the guards with shotguns and at more distant figures combing the eerily lighted grounds. These men did not believe that they were investigating a false alarm. Their anxiety and tension were visible not only in the faces of those nearby but in the way that all of them stood and moved in the blizzard-shot night.
     She rolled up the window and put the car in gear.
     As she pulled forward, Tommy said, "You think he was lying?"
     "It's none of our business, honey."
     "Terrorists or spies," Tommy said with the enthusiasm for a good crisis that only young boys could muster.
     They passed the northernmost end of Biolomech's land. The sodium-vapor security lights receded into the gloom behind them, while the night and snow closed in from all sides.
     More leafless oaks thrust spiky arms over the lane. Among their thick trunks, the jeep headlights stirred brief-lived, leaping