“For this operation?” Thorp said. “Yes. Much better.”
“Then give them shotguns.”
A brilliant explosion of lightning flashed against the windows. The effect was stroboscopic: everyone and every object in the room seemed to jump rapidly back and forth for an instant, although in reality nothing moved.
Overhead the fluorescent lights flickered.
Thorp went to the metal firearms cabinet behind his desk, unlocked it, and fetched two shotguns.
“Do you know how to use these?” Salsbury asked the men in the yellow raincoats.
One of them nodded.
The other said, “Not much to it. These babies pack a hell of a lot of punch. You pretty much just have to point in the general direction of the target and pull the trigger.” He gripped the gun with both hands, admired it, smiled at it.
“Good enough,” Salsbury said. “The two of you will go out to the parking lot behind this building, get in the spare patrol car, and drive to the east end of town. Understand me so far?”
“To the east end,” one of them said.
“A hundred yards short of the turn at the mouth of the valley, you’ll park the cruiser across the highway and block both lanes as best you can.”
“A roadblock,” one of them said, obviously pleased with the way the game was developing.
“Exactly,” Salsbury said. “If anyone wants to enter Black River — logging trucks, local citizens, maybe visitors from out of town, anyone at all — you’ll let them in. However, you’ll send them here, straight to this office. You’ll tell them that a state of emergency has been declared in Black River and that they absolutely must, without exception, check in with the chief of police before they go on about their business.”
“What kind of emergency?”
“You don’t need to know.”
One of them frowned.
The other said, “Everyone we stop will want to know.”
“If they ask, tell them that the chief will explain it.”
Both men nodded.
Thorp distributed a dozen shotgun shells to each of them.
“If anyone tries to
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Every time you send someone to see Bob, whether they were coming into town or trying to get out of it, you’ll radio this office. That way, if they don’t show up within a few minutes, we’ll know that we’ve got some renegades on our hands. Understood?”
They both said, “Yes.”
Salsbury took his handkerchief from his hip pocket and blotted the perspiration from his face. “If anyone leaving town tries to run your roadblock, stop them. If you can’t stop them any other way, use the guns.”
“Shoot to kill?”
“Shoot to kill,” Salsbury said. “But only if there’s no other way to stop them.”
One of the men tried to look like John Wayne receiving orders at the Alamo, shook his head, solemnly, and said, “Don’t worry. You can count on us.”
“Any questions?”
“How long will we be in charge of this roadblock?”
“Another team of men will relieve you in six hours,” Salsbury said. “At eight o’clock this evening.” He jammed his handkerchief back into his pocket. “One other thing. When you leave this room, you will forget that you ever met me. You’ll forget that I was here. You’ll remember everything I’ve said to you prior to what I’m saying to you now, every precious exchange of this conversation we’ve just had — but you’ll think that Bob Thorp gave you your instructions. Is that perfectly clear?”
“Yes.”
“Perfectly. ”
“Then get moving. ”
The two men went out of the room, forgetting him the moment they set foot in the corridor.
A fiercely white pulse of lightning washed over the town, and a crack of thunder followed, rattling the windows.
“Close those blinds,” Salsbury said irritably.
Thorp did as he was told.
Salsbury sat down behind the desk.
When he had drawn the Venetian blinds, Bob Thorp returned to the desk and stood in front of it.
Salsbury looked up at him and said, “Bob, I want to seal this burg up tight. Real tight.” He made a fist with his right hand by way of example. “I want to make damned sure that no one can get out of town. Is there anything else that I should block in addition to the highway?”
Scratching his beetled brow, Thorp said, “You need two more men at the east end of the valley. One to watch the river. He should be armed with a rifle so he can pick off anyone in a boat if he has to do that. The other man should be stationed in the trees between the river and the highway. Give him a shotgun and tell him to stop anyone who tries to sneak out through the woods.”
“The man at the river — he’d have to be an expert with a rifle, wouldn’t he?” Salsbury asked.
“You wouldn’t need a master rifleman. But he would have to be a fairly good shot.”
“Okay. We’ll use one of your deputies for that. They’re all good with a rifle, aren’t they?”
“Oh, sure.”
“Good enough for this?”
“No doubt about it.”
“Anything else?”
Thorp thought about the situation for almost a minute. Finally he said, “There’s a series of old logging roads that lead up to the mountains and eventually hook up with a second series of roads that come from the lumber operations around Bexford. A lot of that route has been abandoned. None of it’s paved. A few sections may be graveled if they haven’t been washed out this summer, but mostly it’s just dirt. Narrow. Full of weeds. But I guess if a man was determined enough, he could drive out that way.”
“Then we’ll block it,” Salsbury said, getting up from the chair. He paced nervously to the windows and back to the desk. “This town is mine.
The situation had gotten incredibly far out of hand. He would have to call Dawson. Sooner or later. Probably sooner. Couldn’t be avoided. But before he placed that call, he wanted to be certain that he had done everything that he could possibly do without Leonard’s help, without Klinger’s help. Show them he was decisive. Clever. A good man to have around. His efficiency might impress the general. And that Christ-kissing bastard. Impress them enough to compensate for his having caused the crisis in the first place. That was very important. Very important. Right now the trick was to survive his partners’ wrath.
The air in Sam’s library was stale and humid.
Rain drummed on the outside window, and hundreds of tiny beads of dew formed on the inside.
Still numb with the discovery of his son’s body, Paul sat in one of the easy chairs, his hands on the arms of the chair and his fingertips pressed like claws into the upholstery.
Sam stood by one of the bookcases, pulling volumes of collected psychology essays from the stacks and leafing through them.
On the wide window ledge, an antique mantel clock ticked hollowly, monotonously.
Jenny came into the room from the hall, letting the door stand open behind her. She knelt on the floor beside Paul’s chair and put her hand over his.
“How’s Rya?” he asked.
