was, they didn't go anywhere--just disappeared. He mulled this over for several moments and then cocked his head. 'Listen to that wind.'
'What?' Chuck said, wiping his mouth.
'The wind. Can't you hear it?'
The two of them went still, listening to the rhythmic pulsing sound that seemed to be coming from underneath them rather than from the peaks above. Steve could have sworn he felt vibrations in the seat of his pants.
Chuck finished the beer in two gulping swallows and crumpled the can in his fist. He glanced over his shoulder. 'I ain't never heard wind like that before,' he said in a low voice.
The sparse bushes that grew from the cracks in the rocks were perfectly still, the thin covering of dust on their leaves undisturbed. There wasn't a breath of wind.
The sound grew louder, rising and falling like a chant, making the hairs on the back of their necks stiffen.
'I bet it's a power plant,' said Steve suddenly. 'That regular beat, hear it? They must be working on the other side of the mountain and that's what we can hear. A generator or something.'
But the explanation didn't satisfy either of them. The sound was mournful, almost like a dirge, and Chuck thought it sounded strangely human. He found he was holding the squashed beer can and flung it away. 'Come on, let's move.' He gave a short nervous bark that was meant to be a laugh. 'We've been up since daybreak and haven't shot a damn thing.'
Steve started up the jeep. He didn't care to admit it, but this place gave him the creeps.
He pushed the stick into first and was about to drive off when he saw something that made his hands tighten clammily on the wheel. It was a figure, hunched, dressed in black, standing motionless on a rock. It was immediately above the point where the trail sloped down from the plateau. He spotted another, on the opposite side of the trail, and then three more materialized from the smooth blank faces of rock.
There might have been more of them, he wasn't sure, because by now he was too busy pumping the accelerator and concentrating on the gap in the rocks.
Dirt spurted from under the tires as the jeep lunged forward. Chuck grabbed the metal frame of the windshield for support and hung on, and as they reached the gap in the rocks he saw the 'figures on either side pointing, arms extended, as if guiding them. The next thing he saw he couldn't believe. From their fingers came tongues of fire. It was like a scene from a biblical epic.
In that same moment Steve realized what their intention was, and he jammed the accelerator to the floor in an act of desperate panic. It was to be his last conscious action, for as the jeep shot through the gap it was engulfed in an inferno.
Taking the shortest and fastest route down the mountain, the jeep sailed through the air like a flaming comet, bits of fiery debris scattering off it. Chuck Brant and Steve Fazioli were flung out like rag torches long before it hit bottom.
An arc of oily black smoke traced its progress and hung lazily in the warm still air. From their vantage point high above, the shrouded black figures watched for a few moments, dark specks against the wrinkled ocher scrub, before turning away and vanishing.
They arrived in Washington, D.C., during what was called a 'freak' electrical storm--freak implying uncommon. Yet these storms, spectacularly ferocious, now occurred two or three times a month.
The white cupola of the Capitol, bathed in a purplish glow, resembled a brain from a science-fiction movie. The great thunderheads of cloud were rent by razor-toothed lightning flashes that flickered around the stone spear of the Washington Monument, blackening its beveled tip. The air had the acrid stink of ozone molecules energized by millions of volts.
Thus far no one had come up with a satisfactory explanation for this vicious heavenly onslaught, though a number of quasi-religious groups claimed that it was the wrath of God--in each case their own particular god--and paraded up and down Constitution Avenue bearing banners differently worded but all on the theme of 'The Day of Judgment Is Nigh--Repent Before It's Too Late.'
This was Dan's first visit to Washington, and as he didn't want to spend it in a television studio, Cheryl took him on a tour of the Smithsonian Institution and the Air-Space Museum on Jefferson Drive while Chase went along to tape an interview for the CBS news and current affairs program 'Mainline.'
The storm clouds were clearing as Chase stepped out of the courtesy car and was taken by armed uniformed guard to the hospitality suite where Claudia Kane, instantly recognizable from her network news broadcasts, came lithely forward to greet him. She had the professional interviewer's ready smile and relaxed manner, only achieved after years of practice and iron discipline. It was to be a discussion rather than a straight interview, Claudia Kane informed him, leading him forward to meet his fellow guests: Professor Gene Lucas, head of atmospheric physics at Princeton, and Dr. Frank Hanamura of Jonan University, Tokyo.
Chase knew of Lucas, though they'd never met. A small, round-shouldered man with neatly parted gray hair and a neat gray moustache to match, it was Lucas, Chase recalled, who'd abruptly resigned--or been dismissed from, it was never made clear--the position of the president's senior scientific adviser sometime back in the nineties.
Hanamura, still a young man, had already established a brilliant reputation for his work on the biosphere, with specific reference to the effects of urban and industrial pollution. He was of mixed parentage, having been born in Kyoto of a Japanese father and an American mother. His father had died when Frank was thirteen after collapsing in a Tokyo street, stricken by the pollution that a few years later would make world headlines as the 'Tokyo Alert,' when thousands choked to death. It was this that had inspired him to take up his career. Tall and slender, with glossy jet-black hair, he had inherited the best physical attributes of both races, with dark expressive eyes in a strong, intelligent face. He was almost too perfectly handsome.
After outlining the program's format ('Mainline' always concerned itself with 'a major talking point of the day,' they were informed), Claudia Kane led them into the studio and seated them in a cozy circle in comfortable armchairs, with herself in the center on a revolving chair that could be spun around by remote control to face any of the participants. This was 'media interrogative debate,' as the jargon had it.
True to her breed, Claudia Kane astutely picked up a point of contention between Lucas and Hanamura, and she zeroed in on it like a shark scenting blood. Gene Lucas was given first crack.
'We're paying the price for two hundred and fifty years of indiscriminate growth brought about by greed, selfishness, and crass stupidity,' he expounded gloomily. 'And the truly frightening thing is, we refuse to learn from past mistakes and mend our ways. You can't save the world from what 1 see as inevitable destruction without changing human nature, and let's face it, you're never going to change human nature.'
'But you speak as though we're helpless, Professor.' Claudia Kane whirled around to take in Frank Hanamura's contribution. 'I don't think we are. I also think, with respect, that you are underestimating the regenerative capacity of our planet. There have been literally
'But you do believe there
The handsome Japanese spread lean brown hands. 'Sure I do, most definitely. Everyone can see that the biosphere is undergoing a fundamental change. Where I part company with Professor Lucas is in believing that we can do something about it.'
The camera picked up Lucas's gentle smile. He was hearing an echo of his former self. At sixty-three he didn't consider himself old, but he wondered that with hardening of the arteries, did advancing age also stiffen hope into despair?
'And what about you, Dr. Chase?' Claudia Kane spun around, flashing him her wide bright smile. Frank Hanamura might be conventionally handsome, but Chase's saturnine looks, set off by a close beard streaked with gray, had a far stronger appeal to a woman of her age. The shape of his lips entranced her. 'Which side are you on?'
'Is it a contest?' Chase inquired mildly.
'The two views we've heard expressed are diametrically opposed, I would have thought.'
The camera featured Chase full frame in close-up as he said, 'It's easy to score points and engage in a slugging match. The three of us could do that all night because no one knows for certain what the future holds. But
