they could handle. But as Stefan went, some reached out to touch him,
to squeeze his hand or shoulder, not with religious fervor but with an
emotional camaraderie. Stefan was overcome by the need to touch them as
well, to share a profound sense of the community of humankind, which had
filled everyone -in the room, to share the conviction that they were
being swept toward some great destiny.
In Boston, at ten o'clock, Alexander Christophson, former United States
Senator and Ambassador to Great Britain, former Director of the CIA, now
retired for a decade, was reading the morning newspaper when he received
a telephone call from his brother, Philip, the antiques dealer in
Greenwich, Connecticut. They spoke for five minutes about nothing
important, just two brothers keeping in touch, but the conversation had
a secret purpose. At the end Philip said, "Oh, by the way, I spoke with
Diana just this morning. Do you remember her?"
"I certainly do," Alex said. "How's she doing?"
"Oh, she has her troubles," Philip said. "Too boring to discuss. But
she says hello." Then he changed the subject, recommending two new books
that Alex might enjoy, as if Diana were of no real importance.
Diana was the code word that meant Ginger Weiss had phoned Philip and
needed to speak with Alex. The moment he had seen Ginger at Pablo's
funeral, her silver-blond hair a-shimmer as if with a light of its own,
she had made him think of Diana, goddess of the moon.
After he said goodbye to Philip, he told his wife, Elena, that he
intended to drive to the mall. "I want to stop at the bookstore and
pick up a couple of novels that Philip recommended."
He actually went to the mall, but before he bought the books, he found a
public phone booth and, using his AT&T credit card, called Philip to get
the number that Ginger Weiss had left.
"She says it's a pay phone in Elko, Nevada," Philip told him.
When Alex put the Nevada call through, Ginger Weiss did not answer until
the fifth ring. "Sorry," she said. "I was in the car, parked beside
the booth. It was just too cold to stand here and wait."
"What are you doing in Nevada?" Alex asked.
"If I understood you correctly at Pablo's funeral, you really don't want
me to answer questions like that."
"Right. Less I know, the better. What did you want to ask me?"
She explained, with a minimum of detail, that she had found others
suffering from memory blocks similar to hers, some with different false
memories covering the same time span. Since Alex was the expert on
brainwashing, Ginger wanted to know if implanting fake memories that
included threads of reality was more difficult than implanting entirely
false recollections, and he was able to assure her that, indeed, it was.
"That's what we figured," Ginger said. "But it's good to hear you
confirm it. Shows we're on the right track. Now, one more thing: I
want you to get some information for us. We need to know whatever you
can learn about a Colonel Leland Falkirk, an officer in one of the
Army's elite DERO companies. I also need-"
"Wait, wait," Alex said, looking nervously through the glass door of the
booth at shoppers walking past in the mall, as if he were 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 pleasant fellowship that exists when men who
like each other set out on an adventure together-a fishing trip or an
expedition to a ballpark. Or a scouting trip to explore the perimeter
defenses of a military installation.
In no little measure, their excellent mood grew from the unexpected
peacefulness of the night just past. For the first time in weeks, Dom's
sleep hadn't been disturbed by nightmares or sleepwalking. He'd dreamed
only of an undetailed chamber filled with golden light, evidently the
same place that featured in Brendan's dreams. Likewise, instead of
lying awake in fear of the shadows beyond the glow of the bedside lamp,
Ernie had drifted off to sleep at once. The others also said it was the
most restful night in recent memory. Ginger's theory, put forth over a
quick cup of coffee this morning, was that their worst dreams had been
related not to the mysterious events they'd witnessed on the night of
July 6, but to the subsequent brainwashing. Therefore, now that they
had an idea of what they'd endured at the hands of the mindcontrol
experts, the subconscious pressure related to those experiences was
relieved, eliminating the source of those particular bad dreams.
And Dom had a reason of his own to feel good about the day. This
morning, no one had looked warily at him or treated him with deference
because of his telekinetic power. At first he was baffled by their
quick adjustment to his new status. Then he realized what must be going
through their minds: Since they had shared his experiences of the summer
before last, it was logical that they would also share his strange power
sooner or later. They must believe their own development of paranormal
abilities was merely lagging behind his. Eventually, if they did not
acquire the power, they might build the emotional, intellectual, and
psychological walls between them and him that would isolate him, as he
feared. But for the moment, anyway, they were acting as if no gulf
separated them from him, and he was grateful.
Now, humming softly, Ernie drove north on the two-lane county road,
leaving the motel and the interstate behind them. They climbed some of
the same rugged hills down which Jack Twist had come last night when
making his clandestine approach to the Tranquility (although Jack had
traveled overland), and Dom studied the changing terrain with interest.
The rising land seemed leaner the higher it rose, revealing less flesh
and more rocky bones that poked up everywhere in clavicles and scapulae
and sternums of limestone, in fibulae and femurs of crumbling shale, in
occasional ribs and spines of formidable granite. As if in awareness of
the colder air of higher altitudes, the land wore more clothes: thicker
petticoats of grass; more lavish skirts of sage and other bushes; then
trees, trees, more trees-mountain mahogany, tall pines, cedar,
quaking-aspen, and on eastern slopes, an occasional spruce or fir.
They'd gone only three miles when they reached the snow line. A thin
mantle flanked the road at first, but in the next two miles it deepened
to eight inches. Although a winter drought had held sway from September
until early December, and although no major storm had swept the area yet
this season, a few light snows had put down a respectable groundcover,
also frosting the bristled boughs of the evergreens.
But for a few small scattered patches of ice, the county road was
cleared for easy travel. "They always keep it clean as far as Thunder
Hill, even in killing weather," Ernie explained. "But up beyond the
Depository, the road crews don't do as thorough a job."
In no time they had gone ten miles, always following the crest of the
valley that fell away on the east, and always with rising mountains on
the west. They passed several dirt and gravel lanes leading to isolated
homes and ranches in the eastward-sloping lands to their right, and at
the ten-mile point they reached the guarded entrance road to Thunder
Hill Depository, also on the right.
Ernie slowed the Cherokee but did not turn into the entranceway.
"Haven't been this far up here in a long time. They've made changes
since I saw the place last. Didn't used to look this formidable."
A sign announced the Depository. Beside the sign another paved road
branched off the county lane, leading away between towering pines of
light. Fifteen feet in from the turnoff, the lane was blocked by long
metal spikes that speared up from the pavement, precisely angled to
puncture the tires of any vehicle that tried to proceed farther, but
also large enough to catch on the axle of a hurtling truck or car and
instantly arrest its progress. Twenty feet beyond the spikes, there was
a massive steel gate, crowned with spears, painted red. A
concrete-block guardhouse-twenty feet by ten-stood inside the gate, and
its black metal door looked capable of withstanding a bazooka barrage.
Ernie pulled to the edge of the main road and slowed almost to a full
stop as they eased past the entrance to Thunder Hill. He pointed to a
yard-square post at the verge of the entrance lane, just this side of
the wicked spikes. "Looks like an intercom to the guardhouse. Not just
a voice link, either. One of those systems like they have in drive-in
banks, with a video monitor so they can see you in your car. The man in
the guardhouse approves' a visitor before the road spikes lower and the
gate opens. Even then, I'll bet there're permanently emplaced machine
guns to take you out if the guard decides he's been duped after he's
already opened the gates."
From each end of the gate, an eight-foot-high chainlink fence with a
barbed-wire overhang disappeared into the trees, and Dom noted a white
sign with red lettering that warned DANGER-ELECTRiFIED. Although the
perimeter fence led into the forest, no trees overhung it; from the
small sections that he could see flanking the main gate, there appeared
to be a twenty-foot-wide no-man's-land on each side.
Dom's good mood faded. He'd thought that the security along the
perimeter of the facility would be minimal. After all, once you got
onto the grounds, the actual entrance to Thunder Hill was through eight-
or ten-foot-thick blast doors set in the hillside. That barrier was so
impregnable that it seemed wasteful to install maximum security around
the entire outer edge of the property. Yet that was what they had done.
Which meant the secret they were guarding was so important that they did
not even trus
t nuclearproof doors and subterranean limestone vaults to
keep it safe.
"The spikes in the road are new," Ernie said. "And the gate they had a
couple of years ago was pretty flimsy by comparison. The fence was
always here, but it wasn't electrified before."
"We've no hope at all of getting a look inside."
Although no one had said as much (for fear of sounding foolish), they
all hoped they might get as far as the blast doors of the facility, have
a look around the newly expanded grounds that had been taken from
ranchers Brust and Dirkson, and be fortunate enough to stumble across
another piece of the puzzle they were committed to solve. Dom had never
imagined they would actually get inside the underground rooms of Thunder
Hill. That was an improbable scenario. But from the comfort of the
Tranquility Motel, getting onto the grounds and snooping around had not
seemed like an impossible dream. Until now.
Dom wondered if his newly discovered telekinetic powers might be used to
circumvent the Depository's fortifications, but he dismissed that
thought as quickly as it occurred to him. Until he could control the
gift, it was of little use. It scared him. He sensed that the power
was sufficient to cause tremendous destruction and death if he lost
control of it, and he would not take the chance again-except under very
tightly controlled conditions.
"Well," Ernie said, "it was never our intention to try waltzing through
the front gate. Let's have a look along some of the perimeter fence."
He touched his foot lightly on the accelerator. Looking in the rearview
mirror, he said, "Oh, and by the way, we're being followed."