Strangers

working with him are of the opinion that there is no threat whatsoever and never was. They've been convinced of it for many months now. Their arguments are quite persuasive."
        Leland tried to make them see that Bennell and his people might be infected and unreliable. No one inside Thunder Hill could be trusted any more. But he was a military leader, not a debater, and in a contest with Foster Polnichev, Leland knew he sounded like a raving paranoid.
        Leland did not even get much support from the one source on which he had counted most: General Maxwell Riddenhour. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was noncommittal at first, listening carefully to every point of view, playing the role of mediator, for his position put him somewhere between a political appointee and a career soldier. But it soon became clear that he agreed more with Polnichev, Foxworth, and Herton than he did with Leland Falkirk.
        "I understand your instincts in this situation, Colonel, and I admire them," General Riddenhour said. "But I believe the matter has gone beyond the scope of our authority. It requires the input not just of soldiers but of neuropathologists, biologists, philosophers, and others before precipitous action can be taken. Upon disclosure of any evidence of an imminent threat, I will of course change my mind; I'll favor the roundup of the witnesses at the motel, order the quarantine on Thunder Hill continued indefinitely, and take most of the other strong measures you now favor. But for the moment, in the absence of a grave and obvious threat, I believe we should move a bit more cautiously and leave open the possibility that the cover-up will have to be undone."
        "With all due respect," Leland said, barely able to control his fury, "the threat seems both grave and obvious to me. I don't believe there's time for neuropathologists or philosophers. And certainly not for the spineless equivocating of a bunch of gutless politicians."
        That honest appraisal brought a stormy reaction from Foxworth and Herton, the mealy spawn of politicians. When they shouted at Leland, he lost his usual reserve and shouted back at them. In an instant the conference call degenerated into a noisy verbal brawl that ended only when Riddenhour exerted control. He forced a quick agreement that no moves would be made against the witnesses or any steps taken to further cement the cover-up, while at the same time no steps would be taken to weaken the cover-up, either. "I'll seek an emergency meeting with the President the instant I end this call," Riddenhour said. "In twenty-four hours, forty-eight at the latest, we'll try to have a plan that satisfies everyone from the Commander-in-Chief to Bennell and his boys out there in Thunder Hill."
        That, Leland thought sourly, is impossible.
        When Leland hung up, the ill-fated conference call having concluded in unanticipated humiliation, he stood for at least a minute at his desk in the windowless room at Shenkfield, seething with such pure anger that he did not trust himself to summon Lieutenant Horner. He did not want Horner to know that the tide had gone against him, did not want Horner to have any reason to suspect that the operation he was about to launch was in absolute contradiction of General Riddenhour's orders.
        His duty was clear. Grim, terrible - but clear.
        He would order the closure of I-80 under the pretense of a toxic spill, in order to isolate the Tranquility Motel. He would then take the witnesses into custody and transport them directly to the Thunder Hill Depository. When they were all underground with Dr. Miles Bennell and the other suspect workers staffing the Depository, trapped behind massive blast doors, Leland would take them - and himself - out with a pair of the five-megaton backpack nukes that were stored among the munitions in the subterranean facility. A couple of five-megatoners would incinerate everyone and everything inside the mountain, reduce them all to ash and bone fragments. That would eliminate the primary source of this hideous contamination, the home nest of the enemy. Of course, other potential sources of contamination would remain: the Tolk family, the Halbourg family, all remaining witnesses whose brainwashing had not developed holes and who had not returned to Nevada, others… But Leland was confident that, once he had taken the courageous action required to eliminate the largest and primary source of