Strangers

and destruction, but he found only the deep, dark, solemn silence of the plains. No smoke or blackened rubble marked the source of an explosion. At the bottom of the hill on which the Tranquility Motel and Grille stood, widely separated cars and trucks moved on the interstate. Over at the motel, drawn by the commotion, a few guests had come outside in their nightclothes. The sky above was full of stars. The air was numbingly cold, but there was no wind, only a soft breeze, like the frigid sigh of Death. Nothing in sight could have caused the thunder, shaking, or implosion of the windows.
        Dom Corvaisis came out of the Grille, bewildered. "What the hell?"
        "I was hoping you'd know," Ned responded.
        "It's what happened the summer before last."
        "I know." ,'But just the start of it. Damn it, I can't remember what happened that night after the windows blew in."
        "Me neither," Ned replied.
        Corvaisis turned his hands palms-up, held them out for inspection. In the blue neon light from the sign on the diner's roof, Ned saw rings of swollen flesh in the writer's palms. Because the light was blue, he could not ascertain the true color of the marks. But from what Corvaisis had told them earlier, Ned knew the rings were an angry red.
        "What the hell?" Corvaisis said again.
        Sandy was standing in the open door of the diner, backlit by the fluorescent glow from inside, and Ned went to her, embraced her. He felt one shudder after another passing through her. But he did not realize how badly he was trembling until she said, "You're shaking like a leaf."
        Ned Sarver was scared sick. With an almost clairvoyant vividness, he sensed that they were involved in something of monumental importance, something unimaginably dangerous, and that it was likely to end in death for some or all of them. He was a natural-born fixer of both inanimate objects and people, a damned good repairman. But this time he was up against a force with which he did not know how to tinker. What if Sandy were killed? He took pride in his talents, but even the best fixer in the whole damned world could not undo the wreckage wrought by Death.
        For the first time since meeting her in Tucson, Ned felt powerless to protect his wife.
        At the horizon, the moon had begun to rise.

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    FIVE
        

    January 12-January 14

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    1.
        

    Sunday, January 12
        
        Air as dense as molten iron.
        In the nightmare, Dom could not draw breath. A tremendous pressure bore down on him. He was choking violently. He was dying.
        He could not see much; his vision was clouded. Then two men came close, both wearing white vinyl decontamination suits with dark-visored helmets similar to those of astronauts. One man was at Dom's right, frantically disconnecting the IV line, withdrawing the intravenous spike from his arm. The other man, on the left, was cursing the cardiological data on the video readout of the EKG machine. One of them unbuckled the straps and tore off the electrodes connecting Dom to the EKG, and the other lifted him into a sitting position. They pressed a glass to his lips, but he could not drink, so they tipped his head back and forced his mouth open and poured some noxious stuff down his throat.
        The men communicated with each other via radios built into their helmets, but they were leaning so close to Dom that he could hear their voices clearly even through the muffling Plexiglas of their dark visors. One of them said, "How many detainees were poisoned?" And the other said, "Nobody's sure yet. Looks like at least a dozen." The first said, "But who'd want to poison them?" And the second said, "One guess." The first said, "Colonel Falkirk. Colonel fucking Falkirk." The second man said, "But we'll never prove it, never nail the bastard."
        Flash-cut. The motel bathroom. The men were holding Dom on his feet, forcing his face down into the sink. This time, he understood what they were saying to him. With growing urgency, they were insisting that he vomit. Colonel fucking Falkirk had somehow had him poisoned, and these guys had made him drink a foul-tasting emetic, and now he was supposed to purge himself of the poison that was killing him. But even as sick as he was, he still could not puke. He gagged, retched; his stomach roiled; sweat poured off him like melting fat off a broiling chicken; but he could not rid