“Well, they weren’t from any investigative body I can tap, and I think I cover pretty much all of them, Mike.”
So the danger was still out there, and it was beyond the ability of Charles Gunn himself to detect.
In that instant, Mike decided that he had to cut off all contact with Charles. Without another word, he replaced the receiver. He would not communicate with him again until the operation was complete.
He glanced at his watch, then stepped away from the phone. Time was wasting. There was work to do.
He drove through the streets of the town. Too bad this car didn’t have tinted windows. A little thing like that could have been so helpful.
He approached the grain elevator carefully. The snow had not been plowed in its drive, only on the road in front. He got out of his car and surveyed the situation. There would be tracks, no matter how he approached the entrance. If a gust of wind blew snow over them, that would simply be a matter of luck. Time was flying, though, and soon these people weren’t going to be concerned about a few tracks in the snow.
IN THE OFFICE AT ALFRED, Lauren considered again what Crew had been saying. It looked as if the grays had won… whatever that might mean. “So, if Conner—if he’s now this extraordinary person, does that mean that Mike’s finished? That Conner will always be able to stay ahead of him?”
“Conner is like a newborn baby, confused and frightened and in need of support. Right now, he’s more helpless than he was before it happened.” He glanced at Rob, who said, “I’ve had my team in the Mountain burning satellite time looking for Mike. So far, no joy.”
Crew took a cell phone call, listened for a moment, then disconnected. The two of them waited, but he said nothing.
AT THE CALLAGHANS’, KATELYN RETREATED into the kitchen, largely to get away from watching Chris. He’d warmed to his subject, lying so well that it became agonizing.
Dan came in. “You know, the wonder of the whole thing is that they really are here. I mean, what a thing to know.”
“I wish we knew what they wanted with us and I wish especially that those strange military people weren’t involved. They make me think it’s all terribly dangerous, and Conner is vulnerable in some way that I can’t quite understand and that scares me. It’s affecting him, too, Dan, and it worries me. I almost thought he was reading my mind this afternoon.”
“In what sense?”
“He kept answering my thoughts. It was terrifying.”
“Was it—do you think…”
“I don’t know!”
At that moment, Conner appeared. His hair was a mess, his eyes were swollen, he shuffled along in a bag of a T-shirt. Katelyn tried to hug him but he stared at her fixedly for a moment, then shook her off.
He looked from one of them to the other, frowning.
“What?” Katelyn asked.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said.
“Are we?” Dan asked.
Conner was watching this sort of darkness that kept flickering between them. He could hear Dad moaning inside himself. Mom’s inner voice was crying and crying, like a little lost girl. The darkness flickered, grew more intense, seemed to come out of them, then toward him like a shadow full of claws.
He clapped his hands to his head and shut his eyes and screamed with all his might.
“Conner!”
“You have to stay married, you have to! Mom, Dad, don’t you end this family, don’t you dare!”
Katelyn stared at him, too amazed even to try to comfort him. His face was bright red, his eyes were swimming with tears, but his voice—his
Dan stood slowly, staring at Conner as if he could not understand what he was seeing. “Hey, there, Conner. Take it easy, son.”
“You’re not leaving me, either one of you. I need you, do you understand? I NEED YOU!”
“Conner, hey! You’re outta line!”
Conner pointed at him. “No. You are out of line. Both.” He turned and ran from the room. A moment later, music came roaring up from his basement.
“Two-thousand-one time,” Dan said. Katelyn came to him. They stood, staring toward Conner’s door, silent. He wanted to kiss her, but he was afraid he would feel that coldness again.
From downstairs, Conner’s voice came again, a boy’s voice but full of something else, something that neither of them could really identify—a strident roar, fierce and brooking no opposition. “Do it,” he cried. “DO IT, DAD!”
“How does he know?” Dan whispered.
She shook her head.
Dan kissed her hard and clumsily, like a scared teenager.
She did not close her eyes. When he stopped, he saw tears welling and rolling down her cheeks, and reached up and touched them away.
They embraced, but not like lovers, like people in a small boat in great waves.
IT WAS FREEZING ON THE roof of the grain elevator and Mike was concerned about frostbite, as well as slipping due to numb fingers.
He had waited until the light was leaving the sky to come out here. This time of year, the sun hung low in the west by four, and he hoped nobody would chance to look up and see the figure on the roofline installing an antenna.
When the transmitter was up and running, he got off the roof, sliding badly at one point, so far he thought he’d go over the edge. But he caught himself in time.
Even back inside the structure itself, it was frigid. Also dusty. He coughed a little, and held a handkerchief to his face. Leaving the conveyor running overnight had been more effective than he’d thought possible. He was in a haze of dust, and since the temperature wasn’t much above ten at the moment, the humidity would be effectively zero. He should have picked up a face mask at some hardware store. Well, he hadn’t, so he’d just have to live with it.
He hoped that nobody would make the Volvo. As far as satellite surveillance was concerned, they had probably located his cell phone by now, so they’d be certain he was here.
He wished he believed that this was all going as well as it seemed, but he had been dealing with the grays for too long to be anything but extremely uneasy about doing something they did not want done. If they’d been more open in their opposition, he would perhaps have felt better. This way, he could not know where he stood.
ACROSS TOWN, HIS FIRST LITTLE experiment came to fruition. Gene Ralph Petersen had run Petersen Texaco for thirty-one years, and his dad had run it before him. Before it was a garage, it had been Petersen- Michaelson, a stage stop, livery stable, and smithie. Just now, Gene was in the kitchen of his house behind the station. He was rustling up some coffee and fried ham. Ben, his dog, paced nervously. “You want out again, guy, in all that snow? It’s ten degrees out there.”
Ben stared at him, stared so hard that he stopped what he was doing and stared back. “Ben? Boy?” Was the dog having some kind of a fit? “Hey, Ben!”
When Gene took a step toward his dog, its lips lifted, it let out a window-rattling growl and it leaped at its master like a wolf leaping at a fawn.
Gene was not in any kind of shape at all, and he fell back against the stove, his arms windmilling. He hit the frying pan and the ham flew up in a mess of scalding grease, and he felt fire searing his back as the dog came at his throat.
Like a volcano that had been building pressure, Gene erupted. He grabbed the hot frying pan and slammed Ben with it, but Ben was filled with unstoppable rage, and got a piece of his neck and shoulder before he beat him
