Strangers

was high. When questioned, the Army identified the green-star soldiers as a little-known, super-elite company of Special Forces troops. "We call them DERO, which stands for Domestic Emergency Response Organization," an Army spokesman was quoted by the Sentinel. "The men of DERO are superbly trained, and they've all had extensive field experience in combat situations, and all of them carry top-security clearances, as well, which is essential because they may find themselves operating in highly classified areas, witness to sensitive sights."
        Dom translated that to mean DERO men were chosen, in part, for their ability and willingness to keep their goddamn mouths shut.
        The Sentinel quoted the Army spokesman further: "They're the cream of our young career soldiers, so naturally many have attained the rank of at least sergeant by the time they qualify for DERO. Our intention is to create a superbly trained force to deal with extraordinary crises, such as terrorist attacks on domestic military installations, nuclear emergencies on bases housing atomic weapons, and other unusual problems. Not that there's any aspect of terrorism involved in this case. And there's no nuclear emergency here, either. But several DERO companies are stationed around the country, and since one was near when this nerve-gas situation arose, it seemed prudent to bring in the best we had to insure public safety." He refused to tell reporters where this DERO company had been stationed, how far they had been flown, or how many were involved. "That's classified information." Not one of the DERO men would speak with any member of the press.
        Ginger grimaced and said, "Shmontses!"
        Dom blinked. "Huh?"
        "Their whole story," she said, leaning back in her chair and rolling her head from side to side to work out a cramp in her lovely neck. "It's all just shmontses."
        "But what's shmontses?"
        "Oh. Sorry. Yiddish word, adapted from German, I guess. One of my father's favorites. It means something of no value, something foolish, absurd, nonsense, worthy of contempt or scorn. This stuff the Army put out is just shmontses." She stopped rolling her head, leaned forward in her chair, and stabbed one finger at the newspaper. "So this DERO team just happened to be hanging around here in the middle of nowhere precisely when this crisis arose, huh? Too damned neat.
        Dom frowned. "But, Ginger, according to these stories, although the roadblocks on I-80 were set up by men from Shenkfield, the DERO team took over little more than an hour later. So if they didn't just happen to be nearby, the only way they could've gotten here so quickly was if they were airborne and on their way before the accident ever happened."
        "Exactly."
        "You're saying they knew in advance there'd be a toxic spill?"
        She sighed. "At most, I'm willing to accept a DERO team might've been at one of the nearest military bases… in western Utah or maybe up in southern Idaho. But even that's not near enough to make the Army's scenario work. Even if they dropped everything and flew in here the moment they heard about the spill, they couldn't have been manning those roadblocks within an hour. No way. So, yeah, it sure looks to me as if they had a little advance warning that something was going to happen out at the western end of Elko County. Not much warning, mind you. Not days. But maybe a one- or two-hour advance notice."
        "Which means the toxic spill couldn't have been an accident. In fact, probably wasn't a spill at all, neither chemical nor biological. So why in hell were they wearing decontamination suits when they were treating us?" Dom was frustrated by the elaborate maze of this mystery, which twisted and turned inward but not toward a solution, toward nothing but twistier and more complex pathways that led into ever deeper puzzlement. He had the irrational urge to tear the newspapers to shreds, as if, by ripping them to pieces, he would also be ripping apart the Army's lies and would somehow find the truth revealed, at last, in the resultant confetti.
        With a note of frustration that matched his own, Ginger said, "The only reason the Army called in a DERO company to enforce the quarantine was because the men patrolling the zone would have a view of something highly classified, something absolutely top-secret. The Army felt they couldn't trust ordinary soldiers who didn't have the very highest