the truck, moving fast, though not because they feared being seen by
other traffic on that lonely road. No traffic would pass until they were
gone. The moment the Guardmaster unit had entered the flats, the last
two members of the robbery team, Hart and Dodd, had sealed off both ends
of the road with stolen vans that had been repainted and equipped with
Department of Highway signs. Against an impressive backdrop of
emergency beacons flashing on the roofs of their vans and on sawhorses
they had set out on the pavement, Dodd and Hart would turn back everyone
who wanted through, spinning a tale of a tanker-truck accident.
Clockwork.
When Jack and Pollard got to the rear of the truck, Chad Zepp was
already there. In the glow of a battery-powered light that he had fixed
to the truck with a magnet, Zepp was unscrewing the faceplate that
covered the lock mechanism on the doors to the cargo hold.
They had brought explosives, but when trying to peel a truck as
well-constructed as the Guardmaster, there was a risk that explosives
would fuse the lock pins, sealing the honeypot even tighter. They had
to try going in through the lock, leaving explosives as a last resort.
Some older armored cars had locks that operated with a key or pair of
keys, and some had combination dials, but this was a new vehicle with
state-of-the-art equipment. This lock was engaged and disengaged by
pressing a sequence of code numbers on a ten-digit keyboard that was the
size and appearance of the "dial" on a touch-tone telephone. To
activate the lock, the guard closed the doors and simply punched in the
middle number of the three-number code. To deactivate
it, he pressed all three numbers in the correct order. The code was
changed every morning, and of the two men crewing the truck, only the
driver knew it.
There were one thousand possible three-number sequences in ten digits.
Because it would take between four and five seconds to key in each
sequence and wait for it to be accepted or rejected, they would have to
delay at least an hour and a quarter to try every combination. That was
far too risky.
Chad Zepp removed the faceplate from the lock. The ten numbered buttons
remained, but now it was possible to see a bit of the mechanism between
and behind them.
Hung on a strap from Zepp's shoulder was a battery-powered,
attache-sized computer, which could assess and control the circuitry of
electronic locks and alarms. It was SLICKS, an acronym for Security
Lock Intervention and Circumvention Knowledge System. Intended solely
for military or intelligence-agency personnel with security clearance,
SLICKS was unavailable to the public. Unauthorized possession was a
criminal violation of the Defense Security Act. To obtain a SLICKS,
Jack had gone to Mexico City and had paid twentyfive thousand dollars to
a black-market arms dealer who had a contact inside the firm that
manufactured the device.
Zepp unslung the computer and held it so he and Jack and Pollard could
see the four-inch-square video display, which was dark. Three
retractable probes were slotted in the SLICKS, and Jack withdrew the
first of these from its niche: It looked like a copper-tipped steel
thermometer on a two-foot wire umbilical. Jack looked closely at the
partially exposed guts of the electronic lock and carefully inserted the
slender probe between the first two buttons, touching it to the contact
point at the base of the button marked #1. " The display screen
remained dark. He moved the probe to button number 2, then 3. Nothing.
But when he touched number 4, a pale green word-CURRENT-appeared on the
screen, plus numbers that measured trace-electricity in the contact.
This meant that the middle number of the three-digit lockcode was 4.
After loading sacks of money and checks into the cargo-hold at the last
stop on the route, the driver had pushed 4 to activate the lock. The
contact point of that button would remain closed until the entire code
With three unknown numbers, the possible combinations had been one
thousand. But now that they needed to find only the first and last
numbers, the search was reduced to one hundred combinations.
Ignoring the howling wind, Jack withdrew another instrument from the
SLICKS. This was also on a two-foot cord but resembled a watercolor
brush though with a single bristle. The bristle glowed with light and
was thicker than a sixtypound fishing line, stiff yet flexible. Jack
inserted it into a crack at the base of the #1 button on the lock
keyboard, glanced at the computer video display, but was not rewarded,
He moved the bristle-probe from number to number. The display screen
blinked, then showed a partial diagram of a circuit board.
The bristle that he had thrust inside the mechanism was actually the end
filament of an optical laser, a more sophisticated cousin of the similar
device which, in supermarket cash registers, read the bar codes on
grocery items. The SLICKS was not programmed to read bar codes but to
recognize circuitry patterns and render models of them on the display
screen. The screen would register nothing whatsoever until the
bristle-probe was aimed directly at a circuit or portion thereof, but
then it would faithfully reproduce the hidden pattern that it saw.
Jack had to move the probe three times, insert it into the lock
mechanism at three different points, before the computer was able to
piece together a picture of the entire circuitry from partial views. The
diagram glowed in bright green lines and symbols on the miniature video
display. After three seconds of consideration, the computer drew boxes
around two small portions of the diagram to indicate those points at
which a tap could easily be applied to the circuitry. Then it
superimposed an image of the ten-digit keyboard over the diagram, to
show where those two weak points were in relation to that portion of the
lock mechanism that was visible to Jack.
"There's a good tap-in spot below the number four button," Jack said.
"You need me to drill?" Pollard asked.
"I don't think so."
Jack returned the optical probe to its slot and withdrew a third slender
instrument with a spongy mesh tip of some material he could not
identify, which the designer of SLICKS had labeled the "tap-wand." He
inserted it through the tiny gap in the lock mechanism at the base of
the 4 button, slowly moved it up and down, left and right, until the
computer beeped and flashed INTERVENTION on the miniature video display.
While Jack held the tap-wand in place and Chad Zepp held the SLICKS
upright, Pollard used the computer's small programming board to quickly
type instructions. INTERVENTION disappeared, and onto the screen came
other words: SYSTEM CONTROL ESTABLISHED. The computer could now feed
commands directly to the microchip that processed the lock codes and
that directed the sliding steel bolts to either close or open.
Pollard hit two more keys, and the SLICKS began to send sequences of
three numbers to the microchip, one combination every six-hundredths of
a second, all of which used the already known 4 as the middle digit of
the code. SLICKS hit the right code-545-in only nine seconds.
With four simultaneous thumps, the lock bolts retracted as one.
Jack returned the tap-wand to its niche, switched off the computer. Only
four minutes had passed since the rifle-shot that had blown out the
truck's right front tire.
Clockwork.
As Zepp slung the SLICKS over his shoulder again, Pollard opened the
rear doors of the armored car. The money was theirs for the taking.
Zepp laughed with delight. With a gleeful whoop, Pollard clambered into
the truck and began to push out bulging canvas bags.
But Jack still felt empty and cold inside.
A few snow flurries suddenly appeared in the wind.
The unexplained change in Jack, which had begun weeks ago, had now
reached completion. He no longer cared about getting even with society.
He felt purposeless, as adrift as the wind-borne flakes of snow.
Elko County, Nevada.
Faye Block had turned on the NO VACANCY notice to ensure that they would
not be disturbed.
Sitting around the table in the cheery kitchen of their apartment above
the motel office, with the blinds shut against the night, the Blocks
sipped coffee and listened spellbound as Dom told his story.
The only point at which they registered disbelief was when he told them
of the impossible dance of paper moons in Zebediah Lomack's house in
Reno. But he was able to describe that startling event in such sharp
detail that he felt gooseflesh pimpling his arms, and he saw that his
own awe and fear were being transmitted to Faye and Ernie.
They appeared most impressed by the two Polaroid photographs that had
arrived in the mail from the unknown correspondent two days before Dom
had flown to Portland. They studied the picture in which the
zombie-faced priest was sitting at a writing desk, and they were certain
it had been taken in one of their motel rooms. The photo of the blond
in bed with an IV line in her arm was a closeup that showed nothing of
the room, but they recognized the floral-patterned bedspread visible in
one corner of the shot; it was the kind that had been in use in some
units until ten months ago.
To Dom's surprise, they had been sent a similar photograph. Ernie
remembered receiving it in a plain envelope on December 10, five days
before thee had flown to Milwaukee. Faye got it from the center drawer
of the desk in the downstairs office, and they hunched conspiratorially
over the kitchen table, studying the print. It was a shot of three
people-man, woman, child-standing in sunshine by the door to Room 9.
All three were dressed in shorts, T_shirts, and sandals.
"Do you recognize them?" Dom asked.
" No," Faye said.
"But I feel like I ought to remember them," Ernie said.
Dom said, "Sunshine . . . summer clothes . . . so we can almost
certainly conclude it was taken the summer before last, that weekend,
between Friday the sixth of July and the following Tuesday. These three
people were part of whatever happened. Maybe innocent victims like us.
And our unknown correspondent wants us to think about them, remember
them."
Ernie said, "Whoever sent the pictures would've been one of the people
who erased our memories. So why would he want to stir us up like this
after so much trouble was taken to make us forget?"
Dom shrugged. "Maybe he never believed it was rightwhat was done to us.
Maybe he only went along with it because he had to, and maybe it's been
on his conscience ever since. Whoever he is, he's afraid to come right
out with what he knows. He's got to do it indirectly."
Abruptly, Faye pushed her chair back from the table. "Five weeks of
mail piled up while we were away. Might be something more in it."
As the sound of Faye's descending footsteps echoed up from the stairs,
Ernie said, "Sandy-that's our waitress at the Grille-sorted through the
mail and paid the bills as they arrived. But the rest of the mail she
just dropped in a paper sack. Since we came back this morning, we've
been so busy getting the place open, we didn't bother looking to see
what the postman brought."
Faye returned with two plain white envelopes. In a state of high
excitement, they opened the first. It contained a Polaroid of a man
lying on his back in bed, an intravenous needle in his arm. He was in
his fifties. Dark hair, baking. In ordinary circumstances, he probably
had a jovial look, for he resembled W. C. Fields. But he was staring
blankly toward the camera, face bleak. Zombie eyes....
"My God, it's Calvin!" Faye said.
"Yeah," Ernie said. "Cal Sharkle. He's a long-haul trucker movin'
freight between Chicago and San Francisco."
"He stops at the Grille most every trip," Faye said. "Sometimes, when
he's beat, he stays overnight. Calvin's such a nice man."
"What company's he drive for?" Dom asked.
"He's independent," Ernie said. "Owns his own rig."
"Would you know how to get in touch with him?"
"Well," Ernie said, "he signs the registry every time he checks in, so
we'll have his address . . . around Chicago somewhere, I think."
"We'll check later. First, let's look in that other envelope."
Faye opened it and produced another Polaroid. Again, it was a shot of a
man lying in one of the Tranquility Motel's beds, an IV line in one arm.
Like all the others, he had no expression whatsoever, and soulless eyes
that reminded Dom of horror movies about the living dead.
But this time, they all recognized the man in the bed. It was Dom.
Las Vegas, Nevada.
When Marcie's bedtime came, she was sitting at the little desk in the
corner of her room, occupied with her collection of moons.
Jorja stood in the doorway, watching. The girl was so thoroughly
engaged by the task that she remained unaware she was being observed.
A box of crayons lay beside the album full of moons. Marcie was hunched
over the work surface, carefully coloring one of the lunar faces. This
was a new development, and Jorja wondered what it meant.
In the week since Marcie had begun her collection with magazine
clippings, she had filled the album. She had few sources for photos, so
she drew hundreds of pictures to add to the monotonous gallery. Using
templets as varied as coins, jar lids, vases, drinking glasses, cans,
and thimbles, she traced lunar forms of all sizes on tablet paper,
construction paper, paper bags, envelopes, and wrapping, paper. She did
not spend most of her time with the album, but each day she devoted a
bit more time to it than she had the day before.
Dr. Ted Coverly, the psychologist treating Marcie, believed the anxiety
that had generated the girl's irrational fear of doctors had not been
relieved. Now, the child was expressing that anxiety through her lunar
preoccupation. When Jorja noted that Marcie did not seem to be
particularly frightened of the moon, Coverly said, "Well, her anxiety
do
esn't have to seek expression in another phobia. It can show itself
in other ways . . . such as an obsession." Jorja could not understand
where her daughter's extraordinary anxiety came from. Coverly said,
"That's why the therapy-to seek understanding. Don't worry, Miss
Monatella."
But Jorja was worried.
She was worried because Alan had killed himself only yesterday. Jorja
had not yet told Marcie of her father's death. On leaving Pepper
Carrafield's apartment, she had called Coverly to ask his advice. He
was astonished to learn that Alan, too, had been dreaming of the moon
and had independently developed an intense lunar fascination of his own.
That one would take time to ponder. Meanwhile, Coverly thought it wise
to withhold the bad news from Marcie until Monday. "Come with her to
the appointment. We'll tell her
together." Jorj a was afraid that, in spite of Alan's inattention,
Marcie would be devastated by his death.
As she stood in the bedroom doorway, watching Marcie diligently applying
a crayon to one of the moons, Jorja was stricken by an acute awareness
of the girl's fragility. Although she was seven years old and in second
grade, the three-quarterscale chair was still too big for her, and only
the toes of her sneakers touched the floor. Even for a macho man
armored with muscles, life was tenuous, and every additional day of
existence was against the odds. But for a child as petite as Marcie,
continued life seemed downright miraculous. Jorja realized how easily