Under the Dome

news for themselves.”

All those charges had gone away. He had paid good money to make them go away. “The people in my town know those news shows will put on any ridiculous thing if it sells a few more tubes of hemorrhoid cream and a few more bottles of sleeping pills.”

“There’s more. According to the State of Maine Attorney General, the previous Police Chief—the one who died last Saturday—was investigating you for tax fraud, misappropriation of town funds and town property, and involvement in illegal drug activity. We have released none of this latest stuff to the press, and have no intention of doing so… if you’ll compromise. Step down as Town Selectman. Mr. Sanders should likewise step down. Name Andrea Grinnell, the Third Selectman, as the officer in charge, and Jacqueline Wettington as the President’s representative in Chester’s Mill.”

Big Jim was startled out of what remained of his good temper. “Man, are you insane? Andi Grinnell is a drug addict—hooked on OxyContin—and the Wettington woman doesn’t have a brain in her cotton-picking head!”

“I assure you that’s not true, Rennie.” No more Mister ; the Era of Good Feelings seemed to be over. “Wettington was given a citation for helping to break up an illegal drug ring operating out of the Sixty-seventh Combat Support Hospital in Wurzburg, Germany, and was personally recommended by a man named Jack Reacher, the toughest goddam Army cop that ever served, in my humble opinion.”

“There’s nothing humble about you, sir, and your sacrilegious language doesn’t go down well with me. I am a Christian.”

“A drug-selling Christian, according to my information.”

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Especially under the Dome, Big Jim thought, and smiled. “Do you have any actual proof?”

“Come on, Rennie—as one hardass to another, does it matter? The Dome is a bigger press event than nine- eleven. And it’s sympathetic big press. If you don’t start compromising, I’ll tar you so thick you’ll never get it off. Once the Dome breaks, I’ll see you before a Senate subcommittee, a grand jury, and in jail. I promise you that. But step down and it all goes away. I promise you that, too.”

“Once the Dome breaks,” Rennie mused. “And when will that be?”

“Maybe sooner than you think. I plan to be the first one inside, and my first order of business will be to snap handcuffs on you and escort you to an airplane which will fly you to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where you will be held as a guest of the United States pending trial.”

Big Jim was rendered momentarily speechless by the boldfaced audacity of this. Then he laughed.

“If you really wanted what’s best for the town, Rennie, you’d step down. Look what’s happened on your watch: six murders—two at the hospital last night, we understand—a suicide, and a food riot. You’re not up to this job.”

Big Jim’s hand closed on the gold baseball and squeezed. Carter Thibodeau was looking at him with a worried frown.

If you were here, Colonel Cox, I’d give you a taste of what I gave Coggins. With God as my witness, I would.

“Rennie?”

“I’m here.” He paused. “And you’re there.” Another pause. “And the Dome isn’t coming down. I think we both know that. Drop the biggest A-bomb you’ve got on it, render the surrounding towns uninhabitable for two hundred years, kill everybody in Chester’s Mill with the radiation if the radiation goes through, and still it won’t come down.” He was breathing fast now, but his heart was beating strong and steady in his chest. “Because the Dome is God’s will.”

Which was, in his deepest heart, what he believed. As he believed it was God’s will that he take this town and carry it through the weeks, months, and years ahead.

“What?”

“You heard me.” Knowing he was wagering everything, his entire future, on the continued existence of the Dome. Knowing some people would think he was crazy for doing so. Also knowing those people were unbelieving heathens. Like Colonel James O. Cotton-Picker Cox.

“Rennie, be reasonable. Please.”

Big Jim liked that please ; it brought his good humor back in a rush. “Let’s recap, shall we, Colonel Cox? Andy Sanders is in charge here, not me. Although I appreciate the courtesy call from such a high mucky-muck as yourself, naturally. And while I’m sure Andy will appreciate your offer to manage things—by remote control, as it were—I think I can speak for him when I say you can take your offer and tuck it away where the sun doesn’t shine. We’re on our own in here, and we’re going to handle it on our own.”

“You’re crazy,” Cox said wonderingly.

“So unbelievers always call the religious. It’s their final defense against faith. We’re used to it, and I don’t hold it against you.” This was a lie. “May I ask a question?”

“Go on.”

“Are you going to cut off our phones and computers?”

“You’d sort of like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course not.” Another lie.

“The phones and Internet stay. So does the press conference on Friday. At which you’ll be asked some difficult questions, I assure you.”

“I won’t be attending any press conferences in the foreseeable future, Colonel. Neither will Andy. And Mrs. Grinnell wouldn’t make much sense, poor thing. So you can just cancel your—”

“Oh, no. Not at all.” Was that a smile in Cox’s voice? “The press conference will be held at noon on Friday, in plenty of time to sell lots of hemorrhoid cream on the evening news.”

“And who do you expect will be attending from our town?”

“Everyone, Rennie. Absolutely everyone. Because we’re going to allow their relatives to come to the Dome at the Motton town line—site of the airplane crash in which Mr. Sanders’s wife died, you may remember. The press will be there to record the whole thing. It’s going to be like visiting day at the state prison, only no one’s guilty of anything. Except maybe you.”

Rennie was infuriated all over again. “You can’t do that!”

“Oh, but I can.” The smile was there. “You can sit on your side of the Dome and thumb your nose at me; I can sit on mine and do the same. The visitors will be lined up, and as many as will agree to do so will be wearing tee-shirts reading DALE BARBARA IS INNOCENT and FREE DALE BARBARA and IMPEACH JAMES RENNIE. There will be tearful reunions, hands pressing against hands with the Dome in between, maybe even attempts to kiss. It will make excellent TV footage, and it will make excellent propaganda. Most of all, it’s going to make people in your town wonder what they’re doing with an incompetent like you at the controls.”

Big Jim’s voice descended to a thick growl. “I won’t allow it.”

“How are you going to stop it? Over a thousand people. You couldn’t shoot them all.” When he spoke again, his voice was calm and reasonable. “Come on, Selectman, let’s work this out. You can still come out of it clean. You only need to let go of the controls.”

Big Jim saw Junior drifting down the hall toward the front door like a ghost, still wearing his pajama pants and slippers, and barely noticed. Junior could have dropped dead in the hallway and Big Jim would have remained hunched over his desk, the gold baseball clutched in one hand and the telephone in the other. One thought beat in his head: putting Andrea Grinnell in charge, with Officer Tiddies as her second.

It was a joke.

A bad joke.

“Colonel Cox, you can go fuck yourself.”

He hung up, swiveled his desk chair, and hurled the gold baseball. It hit the signed photo of Tiger Woods. The glass shattered, the frame fell to the floor, and Carter Thibodeau, who was used to striking fear into hearts but who rarely had fear struck into his own, jumped to his feet.

“Mr. Rennie? Are you all right?”

He didn’t look all right. Irregular purple patches flared on his cheeks. His small eyes were wide and bulging from their sockets of hard fat. The vein in his forehead pulsed.