Strangers

piecing together these people's identities, gradually determining if they were his adversaries. He was too hungry to wait that long for his own dinner, such as it was. With a few rocks, he made a brace for the microphone to keep it angled toward the window. He unwrapped the Hamwich and bit into that "pulverized, blended, and remolded" treat. It tasted like sawdust soaked in rancid bacon fat. He spat out the gummy mouthful and settled down to a meager meal of dried beef and doughnuts, which would have been more satisfying if he had not had to listen to those strangers indulging in a modern version of a harvest feast.
        Soon, Jack had heard enough of the conversation in the apartment to know these people were not his enemies. Strangely, one way or another, they had been drawn or summoned here, as he'd been. Monitoring them, he began to think their voices were curiously familiar, and he was overcome with the feeling that he belonged among them as a brother among family.
        A woman named Ginger and a man - either Don or Dom - began to tell the others about research they'd done earlier in the offices of the Elko Sentinel. Listening to talk of toxic spills, roadblocks, and highly trained DERO troops, Jack felt his appetite fading. DERO! Shit, he'd heard about the DERO companies, though they'd been formed after he'd left the service. They were gung-ho types who'd happily accept an order to go into a pit against a grizzly bear, armed only with a meat grinder; and they were tough enough to make sausages out of the bear. Forced to choose between a quick, painless suicide and hand-to-hand combat with a DERO, the ordinary man would be well-advised to blow his own brains out and save himself pain. Jack realized he was involved in something far bigger and more dangerous than fratellanza revenge or any of the other things he had hypothesized during his flight from New York.
        Although the picture he got from eavesdropping was full of holes, he began to grasp that these people had come together to discover what had happened to them the summer before last, the same weekend Jack had stayed here. They'd made considerable headway in their investigation, and Jack winced as they openly discussed their progress. They were so naive that they thought closed doors and covered windows ensured privacy. He wanted to shout: Hey, for God's sake, shut up already! If I can hear you, they can hear you.
        DERO. That bit of news made him even sicker than the Hamwich.
        In the motel they continued to chatter, revealing their strat egy to the enemy even as they worked it out, and at last Jack tore off the earphones, frantically grabbed his guns and equipment, and hurried down through the darkness toward the Tranquility Motel.
        

        
        The apartment had no dining room, just the alcove in the kitchen, but that area was too small to seat nine. In the living room, they moved the furniture against the walls, brought in the kitchen table, and used both extra leaves to extend it, accommodating everyone. To Dom, the impromptu arrangements contributed to the feeling of a family gathering and to the mood of cautious festivity.
        Rather than have to repeat themselves, Dom and Ginger had waited until dinner, when the group was gathered, to report on their research at the newspaper in Elko. Now, over the clinking of silverware, they revealed that the Army had blockaded I-80 minutes before the toxic spill that Friday night. Which meant that choppers full of soldiers had been dispatched from distant Shenkfield at least half an hour earlier, and that the Army knew in advance the "accident" was going to happen.
        Tearing a crescent roll, Dom said, "If Falkirk and a DERO company flew in and took over security on the quarantine line so soon after the crisis hit… well, it means the Army must've had advance warning."
        "But then why didn't they stop it from happening?" Jorja Monatella asked as she cut her daughter's serving of turkey into bite-size pieces.
        "Apparently, they couldn't stop it," Dom said.
        "Maybe there was a terrorist attack on the truck, and maybe Army Intelligence only got wind of it just before it went down," Ernie said.
        "Maybe," Dom said doubtfully. "But they would've gone public with that kind of story if it happened. So it must've been something else. Something involving top-secret data of such importance that only DERO troops could be trusted to keep