believe that God existed, that He cherished Laura, that He would not allow her to suffer in the misery of absolute isolation, that He permitted Noah’s voice and the meaning of his words to reach Laura’s cloistered heart, thus providing her comfort.
To carry the burden of each day and to keep breathing under the weight of every night, Noah Farrel held fast to the idea that this service to Laura might eventually redeem him. The hope of atonement was the only nourishment that his soul received, and the possibility of redemption watered the desert of his heart.
Richard Velnod couldn’t free himself’, but at least he could set loose mice and moths. Noah could free neither himself nor his sister, and could take satisfaction only from the possibility that his voice, like a rag rubbing soot from a window, might facilitate the passage of a thin but precious light into the darkness where she dwelt.
Chapter 18
Hurrying out of the employee parking lot, dangerously exposed on an open field of blacktop, circling the truck-stop complex, and into the civilian car park where no big rigs are allowed, the boy thinks he hears sporadic gunfire. He can’t be sure. His explosive breathing and the slap of his sneakers on the pavement mask other noises; the desert breeze breaks over him, and in the shells of his ears, this stir of air fosters the dry sound of a long-dead sea.
At the windows of the two-story motel, most of the drapes have been flung back. Curious, worried lodgers peer out in search of the source of the tumult.
Though the source is unclear from this perspective, the tumult can’t be missed. Fleeing customers are jammed in the bottleneck at the restaurant’s front door, not in danger of trampling one another like agitated fans at a soccer match or like music-mad celebrity-besotted attendees at a rock concert, but surely suffering tromped toes and elbow-poked ribs aplenty. The tangled escapees ravel out of the restaurant like a spring-loaded joke snake erupting from a trick can labeled PEANUTS. Released, they run alone or in pairs, or in families, toward their vehicles, some glancing back in fear as more gunfire — Curtis hears it for sure this time — erupts, muffled but unmistakable, from the depths of the building.
Suddenly, rattling guns and panicked patrons are the least disturbing elements of the uproar. Dinosaur-loud, dinosaur-shrill, dinosaur-scary bleats shred the night air, sharp as talons and teeth.
With repeated blasts of its air horn to clear the way, a semi roars down the exit ramp from the interstate, straight toward the service area. The driver is flashing his headlights, too, signaling that he’s got a runaway eighteen-wheeler under his butt.
Some of the station’s huge storage tanks hold diesel fuel, which is combustible but not highly explosive, although other tanks contain gasoline, which is without doubt a valid ticket to an apocalypse. If the hurtling truck slams into the pumps and sheers them off as though they were fence pickets, the explosions should convince locals in a ten-mile radius that Almighty God, in His more easily disappointed Old Testament persona, has finally seen too much of human sin and is angrily stomping out His creations with giant fiery boots.
Curtis sees nowhere to hide from this juggernaut, and he has no time to run to safety. He’s not at serious risk of being flattened by the speeding truck, because it would have to plow through too many service-station pumps and barricades of parked vehicles to reach him. Billowing balls of fire, arcing jets of burning gasoline, airborne flaming debris, and a bullet-fast barrage of shrapnel are more likely to be what the coroner will certify as the cause of his death.
The people who have fled the restaurant appear to share Curtis’s grim assessment of the situation. All but a few of them freeze at the sight of the runaway semi, riveted by the impending disaster.
Engine screaming, klaxons shrieking, lights flashing as though with the fury of dragon eyes, the Peterbilt roars through an empty service bay, between islands of pumps. Station attendants, truckers, and on-foot motorists scatter before it. For them, certain death is instantly transformed into a terrific story to tell the grandkids someday, because the big truck doesn’t clip even one pump, doesn’t barrel into any of the vehicles hooked to the hoses and guzzling from the nozzles, but flies out from under the long service-bay canopy and angles toward the buildings, downshifting with a hack and grind of protesting gear teeth.
The plosive squeal of air brakes, recklessly applied so late, reveals the driver not as a man at the mercy of an out-of-control machine, after all, but as a drunk or a lunatic. The tires suddenly churn up clouds of pale blue smoke and appear to stutter on the pavement.
The Peterbilt sways, seems certain to jackknife and roll. Bursts of noise erupt from the brakes, and a series of hard yelps issues from the abused tires, as the driver judiciously pumps the pedal instead of standing on it.
An alligator of tread strips away from one wheel and lashes across the pavement, snapping like a whipping tail. The dog whimpers.
So does Curtis.
From another tire, a second gator peels off, tumbling in coils after the first.
A tire blows, the trailer bounces, the stacks bark as loud as a mortar lobbing hundred-millimeter rounds toward enemy positions, another tire blows. An air line ruptures and pressure falls and the brakes automatically lock, so the truck skates like a pig on ice, with a lot more squeal than grace, though the biggest prize hog ever judged couldn’t have weighed a fraction of the tonnage at which this behemoth tips the scales. In a reek of scorched rubber, with one last attenuated grunt of protesting gears, it shudders to a halt in front of the motel, next to the restaurant, still upright, hissing and rumbling, smoking and steaming.
With a whimper, the dog squats and pees.
Curtis successfully resists the urge to water the pavement, too, but he counts himself fortunate to have used the restroom only a short while ago.
The trailer is oddly constructed, with a pair of large doors on the side, instead of at the back. An instant after the semi comes to a full stop, these doors slide open, and men in riot gear jump out of the rig, not staggering and bewildered, as they ought to be, but instantly balanced and oriented, as though they have been delivered with all the gentle consideration that might have been accorded a truckload of eggs.
At least thirty men, dressed in black, debark from the trailer: not merely a SWAT team, not even a SWAT squad, but more accurately a SWAT platoon. Shiny black riot helmets. Shatterproof acrylic face shields feature built-in microphones to allow continuous strategic coordination of every man in the force. Kevlar vests. Utility belts festooned with spare magazines of ammunition, dump pouches, cans of Mace, lasers, slim grenades, handcuffs. Automatic pistols are holstered at their hips, but they arrive with more powerful weapons in hand.
They are here to kick ass.
Perhaps Curtis’s ass, among others.
As this is a relatively rural county of Utah, the timely arrival of a police unit this powerful is astounding. Not even a major city, with a fat budget and crime-busting mayor, could turn out a force of this size and sophistication on just a five-minute notice, and Curtis doubts that even five minutes have passed since the first shots were fired in the kitchen.
Even as the troops are pouring out of the trailer, a helmetless man throws open the passenger’s-side door on the truck cab and jumps to the pavement. Although he was riding shotgun position beside the driver, he’s the only member of this contingent who’s not carrying either a pistol-grip 12-gauge or an Uzi. He’s wearing a headset with an extension arm that puts the penny-size microphone two inches in front of his lips, and though the other platoon members bear no identifying legends or insignia, this man is wearing a dark blue or black windbreaker with white letters that don’t stand for Free Beer on Ice.
From at least a score of movies, Curtis has learned that the Bureau possesses the resources to mount an operation like this in the Utah boondocks as easily as in Manhattan — although not with a mere five-minute warning. They’ve obviously been tracking the hunters who have been tracking Curtis and his family. Consequently, they must know the entire story; and although it must seem improbable to them, they clearly have developed sufficient evidence to overcome all their doubts.
If the Bureau knows what those two cowboys are up to, and if it understands how many others are combing this part of the West in close coordination with the cowboys, then these FBI agents must also know the identity of their quarry: which is one small boy. Curtis. Standing here in plain sight. Perhaps ten yards from them. Under a parking-lot arc lamp.
