Under the Dome

beneath the rock anchoring the pile. Brenda had a Penlite in her purse and shone the beam on the headline.

“Seeing it in print should make it easier to believe, but it doesn’t,” she said.

“No,” he agreed.

“You and Julia collaborated on this to make sure James couldn’t cover it up,” she said. “Isn’t that so?”

Barbie shook his head. “He wouldn’t try, because it can’t be done. When that missile hits, it’s going to make one hell of a bang. Julia just wanted to make sure Rennie doesn’t get to spin the news his way, whatever way that might be.” He tapped the one-sheet. “To be perfectly blunt, I see this as insurance. Selectman Rennie’s got to be thinking, ‘If he was ahead of me on this, what other information is he ahead of me on?’”

“James Rennie can be a very dangerous adversary, my friend.” They began walking again. Brenda folded the paper and tucked it under her arm. “My husband was investigating him.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know how much to tell you,” she said. “The choices seem to come down to all or nothing. And Howie had no absolute proof—that’s one thing I do know. Although he was close.”

“This isn’t about proof,” Barbie said. “It’s about me staying out of jail if tomorrow doesn’t go well. If what you know might help me with that—”

“If staying out of jail is the only thing you’re worried about, I’m disappointed in you.”

It wasn’t all, and Barbie guessed the widow Perkins knew it. He had listened carefully at the meeting, and although Rennie had taken pains to be at his most ingratiating and sweetly reasonable, Barbie had still been appalled. He thought that, beneath the goshes and gollies and doggone-its, the man was a raptor. He would exert control until it was wrested from him; he would take what he needed until he was stopped. That made him dangerous for everybody, not just for Dale Barbara.

“Mrs. Perkins—”

“Brenda, remember?”

“Brenda, right. Put it this way, Brenda: if the Dome stays in place, this town is going to need help from someone other than a used-car salesman with delusions of grandeur. I can’t help anybody if I’m in the calabozo.”

“What my husband believed is that Big Jim was helping himself.”

“How? To what? And how much?”

She said, “Let’s see what happens with the missile. If it doesn’t work, I’ll tell you everything. If it does, I’ll sit down with the County Attorney when the dust settles… and, in the words of Ricky Ricardo, James Rennie will have some ’splainin to do.”

“You’re not the only one waiting to see what happens with the missile. Tonight, butter wouldn’t melt in Rennie’s mouth. If the Cruise bounces off instead of punching through, I think we may see his other side.”

She snapped off the Penlite and looked up. “See the stars,” she said. “So bright. There’s the Dipper… Cassiopeia… the Great Bear. All just the same. I find that comforting. Do you?”

“Yes.”

They said nothing for a little while, only looked up at the glimmering sprawl of the Milky Way. “But they always make me feel very small and very… very brief.” She laughed, then said—rather timidly: “Would you mind if I took your arm, Barbie?”

“Not at all.”

She grasped his elbow. He put his hand over hers. Then he walked her home.

9

Big Jim adjourned the meeting at eleven twenty. Peter Randolph bade them all good night and left. He planned to start the evacuation on the west side of town at seven AM sharp, and hoped to have the entire area around Little Bitch Road clear by noon. Andrea followed, walking slowly, with her hands planted in the small of her back. It was a posture with which they had all become familiar.

Although his meeting with Lester Coggins was very much on his mind (and sleep; he wouldn’t mind getting a little damned sleep), Big Jim asked her if she could stay behind a moment or two.

She looked at him questioningly. Behind him, Andy Sanders was ostentatiously stacking files and putting them back in the gray steel cabinet.

“And close the door,” Big Jim said pleasantly.

Now looking worried, she did as he asked. Andy went on doing the end-of-meeting housework, but his shoulders were hunched, as if against a blow. Whatever it was Jim wanted to talk to her about, Andy knew already. And judging by his posture, it wasn’t good.

“What’s on your mind, Jim?” she asked.

“Nothing serious.” Which meant it was. “But it did seem to me, Andrea, that you were getting pretty chummy with that Barbara fellow before the meeting. With Brenda, too, for that matter.”

“Brenda? That’s just…” She started to say ridiculous, but that seemed a little strong. “Just silly. I’ve known Brenda for thirty yea—”

“And Mr. Barbara for three months. If, that is, eating a man’s waffles and bacon is a basis for knowing him.”

“I think he’s Colonel Barbara now.”

Big Jim smiled. “Hard to take that seriously when the closest thing he can get to a uniform is a pair of bluejeans and a tee-shirt.”

“You saw the President’s letter.”

“I saw something Julia Shumway could have composed on her own gosh-darn computer. Isn’t that right, Andy?”

“Right,” Andy said without turning around. He was still filing. And then refiling what he’d already filed, from the look of it.

“And suppose it was from the President?” Big Jim said. The smile she hated was spreading on his broad, jowly face. Andrea observed with some fascination that she could see stubble on those jowls, maybe for the first time, and she understood why Jim was always so careful to shave. The stubble gave him a sinister Nixonian look.

“Well…” Worry was now edging into fright. She wanted to tell Jim she’d only been being polite, but it had actually been a little more, and she guessed Jim had seen that. He saw a great deal. “Well, he is the Commander in Chief, you know.”

Big Jim made a pshaw gesture. “Do you know what a commander is, Andrea? I’ll tell you. Someone who merits loyalty and obedience because he can provide the resources to help those in need. It’s supposed to be a fair trade.”

“Yes!” she said eagerly. “Resources like that Cruiser missile thing!”

“And if it works, that’s all very fine.”

“How could it not? He said it might have a thousand-pound war-head!”

“Considering how little we know about the Dome, how can you or any of us be sure? How can we be sure it won’t blow the Dome up and leave nothing but a mile-deep crater where Chester’s Mill used to be?”

She looked at him in dismay. Hands in the small of her back, rubbing and kneading at the place where the pain lived.

“Well, that’s in God’s hands,” he said. “And you’re right, Andrea—it may work. But if it doesn’t, we’re on our own, and a commander in chief who can’t help his citizens isn’t worth a squirt of warm pee in a cold chamberpot, as far as I’m concerned. If it doesn’t work, and if they don’t blow all of us to Glory, somebody is going to have to take hold in this town. Is it going to be some drifter the President taps with his magic wand, or is it going to be the elected officials already in place? Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“Colonel Barbara seemed very capable to me,” she whispered.

“Stop calling him that!” Big Jim shouted. Andy dropped a file, and Andrea took a step backward, uttering a squeak of fear as she did so.

Then she straightened, momentarily recovering some of the Yankee steel that had given her the courage to