Cell

him. 'I said get close to them, not drive right the fuck into them!'

'I did it'—Whooo-ooop! —'for the Head.' There was defiance as well as zbreathlessness in Jordan's voice now. 'They killed the Head. Them and their Raggedy Man. Them and their stupid President of Harvard. I wanted to make them pay. I want him to pay.'

'What took you so long to get going?' Denise asked. 'We waited and waited!'

'There are dozens of them up and around,' Jordan said. 'Maybe hundreds. Whatever's wrong with them . . . or right. . .or just changing . . . it's spreading really fast now. They're walking every which way, like totally lost. I had to keep changing course. I ended up coming to the bus from halfway down the midway. Then—' He laughed breathlessly. 'Itwouldn't start! Do you believe it? I turned the key and turned the key and got nothing but a click every time. I just about freaked, but I wouldn't let myself. Because I knew the Head would be disappointed if I did that.'

'Ah, Jordy . . .' Tom breathed.

'You know what it was? I had to buckle the stupid seatbelt. You don't need em for the passenger seats, but the bus won't start unless the driver's wearing his. Anyway, I'm sorry it took me so long, but here I am.'

'And may we assume that the luggage compartment wasn't empty?' Dan asked.

'You can assume the shit out of that. It's full of what look like red bricks. Stacks and stacks of them.' Jordan was getting his breath back now. 'They're under a blanket. There's a cell phone lying on top of them. Ray attached it to a couple of those bricks with an elastic strap, like a bungee cord. The phone's on, and it's the kind with a port, like for a fax or so you can download data to a computer. The power-cord runs down into the bricks. I didn't see it, but I bet the detonator's in the middle.' He grabbed another deep breath. 'And there were bars on the phone. Three bars.'

Clay nodded. He'd been right. Kashwakamak was supposed to be a cell dead zone once you got beyond the feeder-road leading to the Northern Counties Expo. The phoners had plucked that knowledge from the heads of certain normies and had used it. The Kashwak=No-Fo graffiti had spread like smallpox. But had any of the phoners actually tried making a cell-call from the Expo fairgrounds? Of course not. Why would they? When you were telepathic, phones were obsolete. And when you were one member of the flock—one part of the whole—they became doubly obsolete, if such a thing was possible.

But cell phones did work within this one small area, and why? Because the carnies were setting up, that was why—carnies working for an outfit called the New England Amusement Corporation. And in the twenty-first century, carnies—like rock-concert roadies, touring stage productions, and movie crews on location—depended on cell phones, especially in isolated places where landlines were in short supply. Were there no cell phone towers to relay signals onward and upward? Fine, they would pirate the necessary software and install one of their own. Illegal? Of course, but judging by the three bars Jordan was reporting, it had been workable, and because it was battery-powered, it was still workable. They had installed it on the Expo's highest point.

They had installed it on the tip of the Parachute Drop.

12

Dan recrossed the hall, got up on the snack machine, and looked out. 'They're three deep around the bus,' he reported. 'Four deep in front of the headlights. It's like they think there's some big pop star hiding inside. The ones they're standing on must be getting crushed.' He turned to Clay and nodded at the dirty Motorola cell phone Clay was now holding. 'If you're going to try this, I suggest you try it now, before one of them decides to get in and try driving the damn bus away.'

'I should have turned it off, but I thought the headlights would go out if I did,' Jordan said. 'And I wanted them to see by.'

'It's okay, Jordan,' Clay said. 'No harm done. I'm going to—' But there was nothing in the pocket from which he'd taken the cell phone. The scrap of paper with the telephone number on it was gone.

13

Clay and tom were looking for it on the floor—frantically looking for it on the floor—and Dan was dolefully reporting from atop the snack machine that the first phoner had just stumbled on board the bus when Denise bellowed, 'Stop! SHUT UP!'

They all stopped what they were doing and looked at her. Clay's heart was fluttering high in his throat. He couldn't believe his own carelessness. Ray died for that, you stupid shit! part of him kept shouting at the rest of him. He died for it and you lost it!

Denise closed her eyes and put her hands together over her bowed head. Then, very rapidly, she chanted, 'Tony, Tony, come around, something's lost that can't be found.'

'What the fuck is that?' Dan asked. He sounded astonished.

'A prayer to St. Anthony,' she said calmly. 'I learned it in parochial school. It always works.'

'Give me a break,' Tom almost groaned.

She ignored him, focusing all her attention on Clay. 'It's not on the floor, is it?'

'I don't think so, no.'

'Another two just got on the bus,' Dan reported. 'And the turn signals are going. So one of them must be sitting at the—'

'Will you please shut up, Dan,' Denise said. She was still looking at Clay. Still calm. 'And if you lost it on the bus, or outside somewhere, it's lost for good, right?'

'Yes,' he said heavily.

'So we know it's not in either of those places.'

'Why do we know that?'

'Because God wouldn't let it be.'

'I think . . . my head's going to explode,' Tom said in a strangely calm voice.

Again she ignored him. 'So which pocket haven't you checked?'

'I checked every —' Clay began, then stopped. Without taking his eyes from Denise's, he investigated the small watch-pocket sewn into the larger right front pocket of his jeans. And the slip of paper was there. He didn't remember putting it there, but it was there. He pulled it out. Scrawled on it in the dead man's laborious printing was the number: 207-919-9811.

'Thank St. Anthony for me,' he said.

'If this works,' she said, 'I'll ask St. Anthony to thank God.'

'Deni?' Tom said.

She turned to him.

'Thank Him for me, too,' he said.

14

The four of them sat together against the double doors through which they had entered, counting on the steel cores to protect them. Jordan was crouched down in back of the building, below the broken window through which he had escaped.

'What are we going to do if the explosion doesn't blow any holes in the side of this place?' Tom asked.

'We'll think of something,' Clay said.

'And if Ray's bomb doesn't go off?' Dan asked.

'Drop back twenty yards and punt,' Denise said. 'Go on, Clay. Don't wait for the theme-music.'

He opened the cell phone, looked at the dark LED readout, and realized he should have checked for bars on this one before sending Jordan out. He hadn't thought of it. None of them had thought of it. Stupid. Almost as stupid as forgetting he'd put the scrap of paper with the number written on it in his watch pocket. He pushed the power button now. The phone beeped. For a moment there was nothing, and then three bars appeared, bright and clear. He punched in the number, then settled his thumb lightly on the button marked call.