The Day Before Midnight

“Yessir. It crossed the crest, whirled down the mountain, out of control. We lost sight of it from here. But there was an explosion at the base of the mountain.”

“Did you see it hit?”

“No, sir. It hit behind some trees. Down there you can see how thick the trees are. It hit right there. A few seconds later there was an explosion.”

“Was the explosion exactly at the point of impact?”

“Sir, it’s hard to say. It seemed to be more or less at the point of impact. Perhaps the machine bounced when it hit, then exploded. It’s—”

But Alex was already gone.

“Sergeant,” he shouted, “I want you to put together a team of ten of your very best men. I think something’s up, something I don’t like. I don’t know what. I want you to go down the hill and check out that helicopter wreck.”

1600

“I don’t know,” said Delta Three. “I hate to go in blind. It’s against everything they teach us.” He was looking through binoculars from well back in the room of a house on Main Street, in Burkittsville, at the front of Jack Hummel’s place some two hundred yards down the road.

“We don’t have time for a recon,” said Jim Uckley. “Listen, it’s even possible there’s no one in there except the mother and her two sick little girls.”

“Then what happens,” said Delta Three, “if I get a peripheral cue, turn and fire and blow away a child? It’s no good, Mr. Uckley. I’m not going to risk civilians like that. I couldn’t live with myself if—”

Some Delta! thought Uckley.

“Look, man,” he said, “we don’t have a lot of time. We got to help those guys on the mountain. We’ve got to improvise something.”

“I’m not going in without a floorplan, sure information on how many guys there are and a good idea of where they are in the house and where these children might be. And I’m not going in without multiple simultaneous entries. You’re too fat a target. I don’t mind taking chances. I was hit twice in Vietnam, in fact. But goddammit, I’m not going in and risk kids’ lives.”

Delta Three was a sanctimonious Southerner in his late thirties with the righteous jaw set of a zealot. He was raw-boned and tough, a master sergeant. Uckley hated him. The other three Deltas — he didn’t have time to learn their names so he’d simply christened them Deltas One through Four — seemed like decent kids. But goddamn this adult!

“Officer,” Uckley called to the Burkittsville cop who was with them in the house. “Any chance you could, uh, get us a floorplan or something. So we knew—”

“No,” said the cop. “That house is one hundred years old and they didn’t make floorplans in those days, they just built ’em and built ’em a damn sight better ’n they do now.”

Great. Another zealot who loved to express his opinions. The cop was about fifty-five and plainly pissed off that all this government beef had come gunslinging into his town. But in a phase four emergency, federal officers called the shots, and he’d buy the idea that young Uckley was calling these.

“Neighbors,” said Delta Four. “They’d have been in the house, right? Maybe you could round one up and get some kind of a drawing or diagram. Then we’d at least have some idea.”

The cop chewed this one over. Finally, he allowed that Kathy Reed lived next door.

“Call her,” said Uckley. “Tell her it’s an emergency, ask her to walk down the street to us.”

“That’s good,” said Delta Four. “Maybe we can rock and roll after all.”

In a few minutes, Kathy Reed, her twin boys, Mick and Sam, and a scroungy mutt that turned out to be named Theo showed up. Kathy was in her housedress still and looked as though a few days had passed since she’d last washed her hair.

“Bruce is away,” she began to explain, “I’m sorry about the way I look, but it’s so hard to—”

“Mrs. Reed?” Uckley asked. “I’m James Uckley, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation. These men here with me are a special assault team from the Army’s Delta Group.”

He watched her mouth lengthen, then form the perfect rictus of an O. She was a woman who at one time or other might have been attractive but had been ground to a nub by the trenchwork of motherhood. She swallowed, her eyes going big, then said, “Is this about the mountain. There’s something going on on the mountain, right?”

“Yes, this does have to do with the mountain. Now, what I wanted to ask you about was your neighbor, Mrs. Hummel.”

“Beth? Is Beth in trouble?”

“Well, that’s what I want you to tell me. Did you talk to her today?”

“Yes, sir. About an hour ago.”

“And how did she seem?”

“Uh, the same.”

“The same?”

“It was just Beth, that’s all. I was the scared one. Because I thought there was gas or an atom bomb on the mountain. She said she’d drive us out of here if there was an evacuation. Bruce has the car. He travels a lot.”

“Did she invite you in?”

“Uh, no.”

“Was that unusual?”

“Well, we have coffee nearly every morning. Beth’s my best friend. She’s everybody’s best friend. I guess it was.”

“Was she nervous? Unsettled?”

“Come to think of it, yes, I suppose she was.”

“What about her kids?”

“What about them?”

“Did she say anything about them being sick?”

“Sick! What have they got? Sam was with Poo all yesterday. That means Sam will be coming down with it. Did she tell you they were sick?”

“They’re not in school. She called in.”

“That’s peculiar. I know she would have said something about it. But she didn’t mention it.”

“Mrs. Reed, I’d like you to talk to the sergeant here. I want you to draw us a diagram of Mrs. Hummel’s house. Meanwhile, I think I’ll go down there and knock on the door and see what I can see.”

“Be careful,” said Delta Three.

“Oh, I will,” said Uckley.

The knock on the door surprised them. Herman looked at his men, then at the lady and her children. Goddamn! Who could this be?

“All right,” he said. “As before. Remember, no fancy stuff, lady. These men here are with your children. You don’t want anything happening, do you understand?”

Beth Hummel nodded gravely.

“Don’t hurt my children.”

“Nobody gets hurt,” said Herman.

He knelt at the foot of the cellar steps, crouching in the darkness. His silenced Uzi covered the entrance. He watched the lady walk to the door, peek out, then open it.

“Mrs. Hummel?”

“Yes.”

Herman could see a bland young man in a sports coat and tie under a bland black raincoat. He looked to be