Strangers

erected in other caverns - sleeping quarters, cafeteria, recreation rooms, laboratories, machine shops, vehicle service center, computer rooms, even a PX, among other things. They were now occupied by the military and government personnel who were doing one- and two-year tours of duty at Thunder Hill. In the buildings, there was heat, better lighting, inside and outside telephone lines, kitchens, bathrooms, and all the myriad comforts of home. They were constructed of metal panels coated with baked blue or white or gray enamel, with only small windows and narrow metal doors. Though they had no wheels, they somewhat resembled motor homes or house trailers drawn in a circle, as if they were the property of a modern-day encampment of gypsies who had found their way to this snug haven, 240 feet below the winter snows.
        Now, turning from the forbidden chamber with the wooden doors, Leland walked across The Hub toward a white metal structure - Dr. Miles Bennell's offices. Lieutenant Horner fell in dutifully at his side.
        The summer before last, Miles Bennell (whom Leland Falkirk loathed) had moved into Thunder Hill to head all scientific inquiry into the events of that fateful July night. He'd only been out of the Depository on three occasions since then, never for longer than two weeks. He was obsessed with his assignment. Or something worse than obsessed.
        A dozen officers, enlisted men, and civilians were in sight within The Hub, some crossing from one adjoining cavern to another, some just standing in conversation with one another. Leland looked them over as he passed them, unable to understand what kind of person would volunteer to work underground for weeks and months at a stretch. They were paid a thirty percent hardship bonus, but to Leland's way of thinking, that was inadequate compensation. The Depository was less oppressive than Shenkfield's small, windowless warrens, but not by much.
        Leland supposed he was slightly claustrophobic. Being underground made him feel as if he were buried alive. As an admitted masochist, he should have relished his discomfort, but this was one kind of pain he did not seek or enjoy.
        Dr. Miles Bennell looked ill. Like nearly everyone in Thunder Hill, he was pasty-faced from being too long beyond the reach of sunlight. His curly black hair and beard only made his pallor more pronounced. In the fluorescent glare of his office, he looked almost like a ghost. He greeted Leland and Lieutenant Horner curtly, and he did not offer to shake hands with either of them.
        That suited the colonel fine. He was no friend of Bennell's. A handshake would have been sheer hypocrisy. Besides, Leland was half-afraid that Miles Bennell had been compromised, that the scientist was no longer who or what he appeared to be… was no longer entirely human. And if that crazy, paranoid possibility was in fact true, he wanted no physical contact with Bennell, not even a quick handshake.
        "Dr. Bennell," Leland said coldly, using the hard tone of voice and icy demeanor that always elicited quaverous obedience, "your handling of this security breach has been either criminally inept, or you're the traitor we're looking for. Now, hear me loud and clear: this time, we're going to find the bastard who sent those Polaroid snapshots - no more broken lie detectors, no more botched interrogations - and we're going to find out if he's the one who teased Jack Twist into returning, and we're going to come down on him so hard he'll wish he'd been born a fly and spent his life in a stable sucking up horseshit."
        Utterly unruffled, Miles Bennell smiled and said, "Colonel, that was the best Richard Jaeckel impression I've ever seen, but entirely unnecessary. I'm as anxious as you to find the leak and plug it."
        Leland wanted to punch the son of a bitch. This was one reason he loathed Miles Bennell: The bastard could not be intimidated.
        

        
        Calvin Sharkle lived on O'Bannon Lane in a pleasant middleclass residential neighborhood in Evanston. Father Wycazik had to stop twice at service stations to ask directions. When he got to the corner of O'Bannon and Scott Avenue, only two blocks from Sharkle's address, he was turned back by policemen manning an emergency barricade formed by two black-and-white cruisers and one paramedic van. There were also television crews running around with minicams.
        He also knew at once that the trouble