Strangers

already under observation or even targeted for removal. "At the cemetery, I said I'd provide advice or background on mind-control techniques. But I warned you I wouldn't dig up information. I explained my position."
        "Well, even though you've been retired for years, you must still know people in many of the right places-"
        "Didn't you hear me, Doctor? I will not get actively involved in your problems. I simply can't afford to. I've got too much to lose."
        "Now, don't worry about digging up anything exotic or highly classified. We don't expect that," she said, as if she had not heard him. "Just the bare details of Falkirk's service record might help us understand him and form an idea of what to expect from him."
        "Please, I-"
        But she was indefatigable: "I also need to know about the Thunder Hill Depository, an Army facility here in Elko County."
        "No."
        "It's supposed to be an underground storage facility, and maybe that's all it was for a long time, or maybe it's always been something else, but I know it's not just an underground warehouse these days."
        "Doctor, I won't do this for you."
        "Colonel Leland Falkirk and Thunder Hill Depository. It's not so much to ask: no deep snooping, just what details you can glean. Talk to your old friends whore still in the game. Then report to either Dr. George Hannaby there in Boston or to Father Stefan Wycazik, a priest in Chicago."." She gave him phone numbers. "I can get in touch with them, and they won't mention your name when they tell me what you've reported. That way you don't have to call me direct, and you stay in the clear."
        He tried and failed to control the palsied shaking of his hands. "Doctor, I'm sorry I volunteered even limited assistance. I'm an old man who's afraid to die."
        "You're also worried about sins you might've committed in the name of duty," she said, repeating what he'd told her at the cemetery. "And you'd probably like to do something to atone for some of those sins, real or imagined. This would be atonement of a sort, Mr. Christophson. " She repeated the telephone numbers for Hannaby and Wycazik.
        "No. If you're interrogated, remember I said no, emphatically no."
        With maddening good cheer, she said, "Oh, and it would help if you had something for me within the next six or eight hours. I know that's a tall order. But then again, I'm only asking for basic information, whatever's in the unclassified files."
        "Goodbye, Doctor," he said pointedly.
        "I'll look forward to hearing from you."
        "You will not hear from me."
        "Toodle-oo," she said, and hung up on him first.
        "Christ!" he said, slamming the receiver down.
        She was an attractive woman, personable, intelligent, appealing in so many ways. But her absolute conviction that she would always get what she wanted-this was a trait he sometimes admired in a man, seldom or never in a woman. Well, she'd be disappointed this time. This time, she'd not get what she wanted. Damned if she would.
        Yet… with his Cross pen, he had made note of the telephone numbers for Hannaby and Wycazik, which she had given him.
        

        
        Dom and Ernie set out early Tuesday morning to reconnoiter at least part of the perimeter of Thunder Hill Depository. They went in Jack Twist's new Jeep Cherokee. Jack himself was sleeping back at the motel, having gone to bed only a few hours ago, after spending half the night driving around Elko, staying on the move with Brendan Cronin and Jorja Monatella. Both the Cherokee and the motel's Dodge van had four-wheel drive, but the Jeep was tougher, more maneuverable. The foothill and mountain roads up toward Thunder Hill might be icy in spots, and as the day promised new snow, they wanted the most reliable transportation.
        Dom did not like the look of the sky. Thick dark clouds hung low over the high plains, lower over the foothills, and obscured the tops of the mountains. The weather forecast called for the first big storm of the year (later than usual this season), as much as fourteen inches of snow in the higher elevations. Not a single flake had fallen yet.
        The raised and threatening lash of winter did not induce a pensive mood in Dom or Ernie; they were in high spirits upon setting out from the motel. They were finally doing something, acting not just reacting. In addition, there was the