Strangers

law-enforcement agencies, And a Star Tron MK 202A, a compact, hand-held "night vision" device that could also be rifle-mounted. And a few other things.
        Although he distributed the heaviest weapons and equipment equally among the three large suitcases, none of the bags was light when he finally closed and locked them. Any one who helped him with his luggage might wonder about the contents, but no one would ask embarrassing questions or raise an alarm. That was the advantage of leasing a Lear jet for the journey: He would not be required to pass through airport security, and no one would inspect his baggage.
        From his apartment, he taxied to La Guardia.
        The waiting Lear would take him to Salt Lake City, Utah, the nearest major airport to Elko, a shade closer than Reno International, and a lot closer if you considered the necessity of overflying to Reno and then doubling back in a conventional-engine commuter plane to Elko. Elite Flights had told him that Reno was anticipating a major snowstorm that might close them down later in the day, and the same was true of the two smaller fields in southern Idaho that were capable of handling Lear-size jets. But the weather forecast for Salt Lake City was good throughout the day. At Jack's request, Elite was already arranging the lease of a conventional-engine plane from a Utah company to carry him from Salt Lake to the little county airport in Elko. Although it was in the easternmost fourth of Nevada, Elko was still within the Pacific time zone, so he would benefit from a gain of three hours, though he did not think he would arrive in Elko much before nightfall.
        That was all right. He'd need darkness for what he was planning.
        To Jack, the taunting postcards, retrieved from his safedeposit boxes, implied there were people in Nevada who had learned everything worth knowing about his criminal life. The cards seemed to be saying that he could reach those people through the Tranquility Motel or perhaps find them in residence there. The postcard was an invitation. Or a summons. Either way, he could ignore it only at his peril.
        He did not know if he was being followed to La Guardia; he did not bother looking for a tail. If his apartment phone was tapped, they knew he was coming the moment he called Elite Flights. He wanted them to see him approaching openly, for then they might be off-guard when, on arrival in Elko, he suddenly shook loose of them and went underground.
        

        
        Monday morning, after breakfast, Dom and Ginger went into Elko, to the offices of the Sentinel, the county's only news paper. The biggest town in the county, Elko boasted a population of less than ten thousand, so its newspaper's offices were not housed in a gleaming glass high-rise but in a humble one-story concrete-block building on a quiet street.
        Like most papers, the Sentinel provided access to its back-issue files to anyone with legitimate research needs, though permission for the use of the files was granted judiciously.
        In spite of the financial success of his first novel, Dom still had difficulty identifying himself as a writer. To his own ears, he sounded pretentious and phony, though he realized his uneasiness was a holdover from his days as an excessively self-effacing Milquetoast.
        The receptionist, Brenda Hennerling, did not recognize his name, but when he mentioned the title of his novel that Random House had just shipped to the stores, she said, "It's the book-club selection this month! You wrote it? Really?" She had ordered it a month ago from the Literary Guild, and it had just arrived in the mail. She was (she said) an avid reader, two books a week, and it was truly a thrill to meet a genuine novelist. Her enthusiasm only added to Dom's embarrassment. He was of a mind with Robert Louis Stevenson, who had said, "The important thing is the tale, the well-told tale, not he who tells it."
        The Sentinel's back-issue files were kept in a narrow, windowless chamber. There were two desks with typewriters, a microfilm reader, a file of microfilm spools, and six tall filing cabinets with oversize drawers containing those editions of the newspaper that had not yet been transferred to film. The exposed concrete-block walls were painted pale gray, and the acoustic-tile ceiling was gray, too, and the fluorescent lights shed a cold glare. Dom had the odd sensation that they were in a submarine, far