Strangers

authority to do so, Army units attached to Shenkfield had established roadblocks and closed a ten-mile stretch of I-80 immediately after the accident; they had not even informed the Elko County Sheriff or the Nevada State Police of the crisis until they had secured the quarantine zone. That was a startling breach of standard procedure. Throughout the emergency, the sheriff and state police complained with increasing vehemence that the Army was freezing them out of every aspect of crisis management and usurping civilian authority; state and local police were neither included in the maintenance of the quarantine line nor consulted on essential contingency planning for the possibility that increased winds or other factors might spread the nerve gas beyond the initial area of danger. Clearly, the military trusted only its own people to keep the secret of what was actually happening in the quarantine zone.
        Following two days of frustration, Foster Hanks, the Elko County Sheriff, had complained to a Sentinel reporter that: "This here's my bailiwick, by God, and the people elected me to keep peace. This is no military dictatorship. If I don't get some cooperation from the Army, I'll see a judge first thing tomorrow and get a court order to make them respect the legal jurisdictions in this matter." The Tuesday Sentinel reported that Hanks had, indeed, gone before a judge, but before a determination could be made, the crisis was drawing to an end and the argument about jurisdiction was moot.
        Huddling over the newspaper with Dom, Ginger said, "So we don't have to worry that all authorities are aligned against us in this. The state and local police weren't part of it. Our only adversary is-"
        "The United States Army," Dom finished, laughing at the unconscious element of graveyard humor in her assessment of the enemy.
        She also laughed sourly. "Us against the Army. Even with state and local police out of the battle, it's hardly a fair match, is it?"
        According to the Sentinel, the Army kept sole and iron control of the roadblocks on I-80, the only east-west artery through forbidden territory, and also closed eight miles of the north-south county road. Civilian air traffic was restricted from passing over the contaminated area, necessitating the rerouting of flights, while the Army maintained continuous helicopter patrols of the perimeter of the proscribed land. Obviously, substantial manpower was required to secure eighty square miles, but regardless of expense and difficulty, they were determined to stop anyone entering the danger zone on foot, on horseback, or in four-wheel-drive vehicles. The choppers flew in daylight and after dark, as well, sweeping the night with searchlights. Rumors circulated that teams of soldiers, equipped with infrared surveillance gear, were also patrolling the perimeter at night, looking for interlopers who might have slipped past the big choppers' searchlights.
        "Nerve gases rate among the deadliest substances known to man," Ginger said as Dom turned a page of the newspaper they were currently perusing. "But even so, this much security seems excessive. Besides, though I'm no expert on chemical warfare, I can't believe any nerve gas would pose a threat at such a distance from a single point of release. I mean, according to the Army, it was only one cylinder of gas, not an enormous quantity, not a whole tanker truck as Ernie and Faye remembered it. And it's the nature of gas to disperse, to expand upon release. So by the time the stuff spread a couple of miles, it would've been diluted to such a degree that surely the air would've contained no more of it than a few parts per billion. In three miles… not even one part per billion. Not enough to endanger anyone."
        "This supports your idea that it was biological contamination."
        "Possibly," Ginger said. "It's too early to say. But it was certainly more serious than the nerve-gas story they put out."
        By Saturday, July 7, less than one day after the interstate was closed, an alert wire-service reporter had noted that the uniforms of many of the soldiers in the quarantine operation bore - in addition to rank and standard insignia - an unusual company patch: a black circle with an emerald-green star in the center. This was different from the markings on the uniforms of the men from Shenkfield Testing Grounds. Among those wearing the green star, the ratio of officers to enlisted men