“No,” said Herman. “I think we’d better stay here. It will be very hot. The firemen will take care of it.”
“Is the man all right?”
“The man?”
“The man that drives the airplane. Is he all right?”
“I’m sure he’s all right. Poo, I’ll tell you, they push a button and the tops fly off and they pop out. Just like toast from a toaster. And they float down to the ground under a big umbrella and they’re all right.”
“Do they get another airplane? If they break their airplane, do they get another airplane?”
“Oh, yes. They get another airplane.”
Just then, the Burkittsville fire engine went crashing by the house, and headed out the road toward the field.
Beth Hummel looked at Herman now. She’d made the connection between the whirling jets and the crashed airplane and her vanished husband and Herman.
“Who are you? What do you want? Why are you here?”
“Please, lady,” he said. “We mean you no harm. Please, okay, you just do what we want, no harm comes
“Oh, Lord. Why?
“It has to happen,” Herman said. “It has to happen. It’s for everybody’s own good.”
Just then there was a knock at the door. They could hear it from downstairs. It grew louder.
Dick Puller put down the microphone, lit a cigarette. A loud roar rose and beat at them as four medevac choppers rushed overhead to the base of the mountain to pick up the wounded.
“How bad?” asked Skazy.
“He wasn’t making a lot of sense,” said Puller. “I gather it was pretty bad. Of the hundred and forty men in the company, he had confirms on forty fatals sure. Maybe fifty. He said he had a lot of men shot up. The walking wounded got a lot of them off the hill. Not too many guys left untouched. Unit morale shattered. Nonexistent. I told him he had to go back.”
Puller smiled a crooked, sardonic smile.
“And?”
“And he told me to get fucked. His manners aren’t any better than yours, Major.”
“The CO?”
“Didn’t make it back. He was last seen on the M-60, giving covering fire. I don’t even know his name.”
“I think it was Barnard.”
“I think you’re right,” said Puller. He could see the choppers on the ground, far off, their rotors glistening in the bright sunlight, the dust and snow stirring and whirling. Tiny figures rushed around them. Above them, the mountain rose in a rainbow arc, implacable and immutable. The little red and white aerial seemed to wink at them over the black stain of the tarpaulin. They hadn’t even found out what was under the tarp.
“You’ve got to send Delta in now, Colonel Puller. You can’t let them have time to regroup or those men will have died for nothing.”
“They were never ungrouped, Major Skazy. Don’t you understand that yet? Delta goes when I say and not a second before. I’d advise you to back the fuck off, young Major,” said Puller.
He fixed his eyes on Skazy, who met his gaze fiercely.
“When are we going?” the major said, his face impassive, his eyes unlit.
“After dark. We’ve got to let those rats see if they’ve got a chance at opening a back door. We’ve got to get Thiokol time to get us beyond the door of the elevator shaft. I’ll get you your goddamned chance, Major. You have my word.”
He turned and found a seat on a folding lawn chair some thoughtful trooper had pulled out for him. He checked his watch. There was going to be a long night ahead.
“Colonel Puller! Colonel Puller!”
It was Peter Thiokol, his demeanor adolescent and abandoned in excitement, jumping crazily as he ran toward them.
“Who would that be?” Herman demanded.
“I–I don’t know,” Beth Hummel stammered.
“Is it the airplane driver?” Poo asked.
“Mommy, I bet it’s my teacher,” said Bean. “They want to know why I’m not in school.”
Herman pulled Beth close to him.
“Who?” he demanded.
“Herman, you’re hurting Mommy,” said Poo. “You’ll make her cry. You’ll make Mommy cry. Herman, don’t hurt my mommy.”
Poo began to cry.
“If it’s a neighbor, they’ll know I’m in here,” said Beth.
Herman thought in a frenzy.
“All right,” he said finally, “you go answer. Say nothing. Remember, I’ll be behind the door. I’ll hear it all. Don’t do anything stupid. Please, these other men will be here with the children, don’t do anything stupid, don’t force us to do anything we don’t want to do.”
He released her.
“Don’t do anything stupid. Please.” He pressed the muzzle of the silenced Uzi against her ribs, just once, lightly, so she could feel it.
Beth climbed the steps. She could see the shape in the window of the door and went to it.
“Yes?”
God, it was Kathy Reed, from next door.
“Beth, what is going on, have you heard? Three planes have crashed. Someone says there’s terrible shooting going on at South Mountain and that the state police have closed all the roads. There was an explosion on the road up to the mountain in the morning. They say there are helicopters in the valley and soldiers and—”
“I don’t know. There’s nothing on the news.”
“God, do you suppose they have gas or something up there, and there’s some kind of leak. What kind of telephone station could it be?”
“I–I don’t know,” said Beth. “If there were any danger, I’m sure the government would tell us.”
“I’m so scared, Beth. Bruce is away. Beth, he’s got the car. If there’s an evacuation, will you take us? God, Beth, I’ve got the twins and—”
“Oh, Kathy, don’t worry. I’ll take you if it comes to that. I swear it. You go inside now and relax. If I hear anything, I’ll tell you. I promise.”
“You won’t forget?”
“No, I swear. I swear it.”
“Thank you, Beth. It means so much.”
She went back to her own house. Beth closed the door.
“Mommy, why was Mrs. Reed crying? Was she scared of Herman?”
“No, honey. No, she was just upset. Was that all right?”
“That was fine,” said Herman. “That was okay, lady, you did real good.”
“Who are you?” said Poo. “You’re not from around here at all, are you? You’re from far away.”
“Very far away,” he answered.
“Yes, what is it, Dr. Thiokol?” Dick Puller asked, pulling himself away from Skazy.
“Something’s just occurred to me. I–I should have thought of it earlier.” He was momentarily put off by the sense of distance between the two officers; he had the sudden, awkward sense of being an outsider at some kind of intense family dispute. But he plunged on.
“It may be of some help. You ought to hear this, too, Major Skazy.”
“Go on.”
