people down, to get them in line. Every officer she sent to chase down an unruly motorist was one less officer she had for the door-to-door search.
A call came in from the mayor. Did she think she would find the coffins in time? Did she think that this could be resolved without loss of life? Did she think the mayor and his staff should be evacuated by the helicopter they’d seen circling the town?
No, no, and no. Caxton closed her eyes for a moment and waited for the mayor to stop talking. She said no a few more times, barely listening to the questions.
“Nothing to report,” Glauer said, over the radio in her car. “I’d estimate we’ve searched twenty percent of the buildings in town.”
It was already three o’clock.
Caxton sat up straight, hung up on the mayor. So much time had passed and there was still so much to do. People were lined up around the block at the post office, at the town hall, at the visitor’s center.
Waiting for buses to take them away.
She called the National Guard again. Begged.
“The governor, or in an emergency, the lieutenant governor…”
She flipped her phone closed. Tried to breathe through her nose. Then she opened the phone again.
She called the state police again, got them to send every available liquor enforcement officer. Getting the LEOs onboard doubled the number of people she had who could work traffic details, man roadblocks, help search.
The press called her. Over and over. Did she think they would find the coffins in time? Did she really believe that Gettysburg was about to be overrun with vampires? Didn’t she think that story was a little hard to swallow?
She did not waste time on the press.
More calls, more to do. She got through to the sergeant at arms at the Harrisburg headquarters.
Outlined the equipment she needed as if she were ordering out of the L.L. Bean catalog. Except instead of sweaters and fleece vests she wanted patrol rifles and riot gear. The man hung up on her once, so she called back and threatened him, pulled rank. Then she pleaded: please, please, please.
“Even if I have that stuff I need a special order, in writing, from the Commissioner, and he’s out of his office right now,” the sergeant at arms told her.
The National Guard had everything she needed. They had piles of it, all kept in perfect working order, oiled up, ready to go. Mountains of ammunition, rack after rack of rifles. Plus plenty of people to carry them, including more than a few veterans from Iraq. Soldiers. Real soldiers.
The lieutenant governor was meeting with an educational task force and no, his personal assistant didn’t think he could deliver a message right now.
“Do you understand what is going to happen? Do you understand how many people are going to die?”
He didn’t have to understand. That wasn’t his job.
She called the Commissioner of the state police in Harrisburg. Got put on hold. She didn’t have time to wait on hold. She couldn’t afford not to talk to him. She put her phone on speaker, borrowed Chief Vicente’s cell, and kept making calls.
By four-thirty the Commissioner was available to talk to her. “Yes, I understand how serious this situation is. I know it’s an emergency. You want to tell me what kind? I’m a little in the dark here. I sent you in there to chase one vampire, and you come back to me saying you might have a hundred of them.
If this is a mistake, if you blow this—”
“I won’t,” she promised. If she did blow it, if she failed, she doubted she would live long enough to have to worry about losing her job. “You have to trust me. I have a chain of evidence as long as my arm, I have information from trusted informants, but I don’t have time to write it up in a report and send it to you. I need you to just do what I say, and not ask any more questions. Otherwise a lot of people are going to die. Tonight.”
“You don’t think you’ll be able to find the coffins before sunset?”
The last report she’d had from Glauer said that they’d covered maybe forty percent of the town.
“No,” she said. “I don’t. I’d like to say yes, but I can’t afford to be wrong.”
There was a long, deadly pause on the line. Caxton could hear the Commissioner breathing, but that was about it.
“Alright.”
Caxton could hardly believe her ears. “You’re saying yes?”
“I am.”
She couldn’t thank him enough.
The governor called her next. He apologized for taking so long getting back to her. Asked her how she was holding up, and what she needed, and what he could do to help. He would mobilize the National Guard immediately, send the troop transports she needed, send helicopters, soldiers, weapons. As fast as humanly possible. “A small force should arrive before sunset tonight. More will be sent out as they become available. Please, Trooper, I am asking you to please protect the Commonwealth.”
“Sir, I’m truly grateful,” she said, meaning it. “I just—I didn’t expect you to—I didn’t—”
“You have some interesting friends, Trooper,” the governor said. “So—is there anything else you need?”
“Can you send any tanks?”
He laughed, in a good-natured way.
She ended the call. Dialed Arkeley. “I don’t know what you did, but—”
He sounded distorted and weird. As if he were in a car moving under speed, or maybe it was just the rain interfering with the signal. She didn’t know where he was or what he was up to, didn’t have time to ask. His reply was to the point. “I’ve earned a lot of favors over the last twenty years, because I knew a day like this would come. I used up every ounce of political capital I had.”
As a U.S. Marshal, Arkeley had guarded a lot of courthouses in his time and gotten to know a lot of judges. Politicians listened to judges. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“That’s enough.” Arkeley was silent for a moment. “There’s one more thing I might be able to do for you. It’s drastic.”
“These are drastic times,” she said.
“Okay. Let me get back to work.”
Caxton agreed and hung up.
One more phone call.
She dialed her own home number, waited for Clara to pick up. It took six or seven rings.
“Hello?”
“Hello?”
The words wouldn’t come out of her mouth. None of them.
“Laura? I know you’re there—I saw it on the caller ID. What’s going on?”
Caxton opened her mouth. Forced something out. “I love you,” she said.
Nothing from the other end. Then a low, soft sound. “I love you, too,” so low, whispered so gently that it could have been an echo on the line.
Caxton flipped her phone shut. She couldn’t say another word.
Shaking and dizzy with lack of sleep, lack of food, overdoses of caffeine and terror, she climbed out of her car for the first time in hours. She walked half a block down to the post office, where a big white uparmored personnel carrier was loading the very frightened citizens of Gettysburg. National Guardsmen in full uniform helped them climb up through the rear hatches, smiled at them, told them it was going to be alright.
She looked at her watch: six-twenty-three.
66.
