“I’ll ask for the current operator in a minute. But first I want to send greetings to every damned office in the country, make them all sit up and take notice.”
“Greetings?”
From the extensive FBI KEY menu, Sam called up item G — IMMEDIATE INTEROFFICE TRANSMISSION. He intended to send a message to every Bureau field office in the country, not just to San Francisco, which was the closest and the one from which he hoped to obtain help. There was one chance in a million that the night operator in San Francisco would overlook the message among reams of other transmissions, in spite of the ACTION ALERT heading he would tag on to it. If that happened, if someone was asleep at the wheel at this most inopportune of moments, they wouldn’t be asleep for long, because every office in the country would be asking HQ for more details about the Moonlight Cove bulletin and requesting an explanation of why they had been fed an alert about a situation outside their regions.
He did not understand half of what was happening in this town. He could not have explained, in the shorthand of a Bureau bulletin, even as much as he did understand. But he quickly crafted a summary which he believed was as accurate as it had to be—and which he hoped would get them off their duffs and running.
ACTION ALERT
MOONLIGHT COVE, CALIFORNIA
* SCORES DEAD. CONDITION DETERIORATING.
HUNDREDS MORE COULD DIE WITHIN HOURS.
* NEW WAVE MICROTECHNOLOGY ENGAGED IN
ILLICIT EXPERIMENTS ON HUMAN SUBJECTS,
WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE. CONSPIRACY OF
WIDEST SCOPE.
* THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE CONTAMINATED.
* REPEAT, ENTIRE POPULATION OF TOWN
CONTAMINATED.
* SITUATION EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.
* CONTAMINATED CITIZENS SUFFER LOSS OF
FACULTIES, EXHIBIT TENDENCY TO EXTREME
VIOLENCE.
* REPEAT. EXTREME VIOLENCE.
* REQUEST IMMEDIATE QUARANTINE BY ARMY
SPECIAL FORCES. ALSO REQUEST IMMEDIATE,
MASSIVE, ARMED BACKUP BY BUREAU PERSONNEL.
He gave his position at the high school on Roshmore, so incoming support would have a place to start looking for him, though he was not certain that he, Tessa, and Chrissie could safely continue to take refuge there until reinforcements arrived. He signed off with his name and Bureau ID number.
That message was not going to prepare them for the shock of what they would find in Moonlight Cove, but at least it would get them on the move and encourage them to come prepared for anything.
He typed TRANSMIT, but then he had a thought and wiped the word from the screen. He typed REPEAT TRANSMISSION.
The computer asked NUMBER OF REPEATS?
He typed 99.
The computer acknowledged the order.
Then he typed TRANSMIT again and pressed the ENTER button.
WHAT OFFICES?
He typed ALL.
The screen went blank. Then: TRANSMITTING.
At the moment every KEY laser printer in every Bureau field office in the country was printing out the first of ninety-nine repeats of his message. Night staffers everywhere soon would be climbing the walls.
He almost whooped with delight.
But there was more to be done. They were not out of this mess yet.
Sam quickly returned to the KEY menu and tapped selection A — NIGHT OPERATOR. Five seconds later he was in touch with the agent manning the KEY post at the Bureau’s central communications room in Washington. A number flashed on the screen—the operator’s ID—followed by a name, ANNE DENTON. Taking immense satisfaction in using high technology to bring the downfall of Thomas Shaddack, New Wave, and the Moonhawk Project, Sam entered into a long-distance, unspoken, electronic conversation with Anne Denton, intending to spell out the horrors of Moonlight Cove in more detail.
12
Though Loman no longer was interested in the activities of the police department, he switched on the VDT in his car every ten minutes or so to see if anything was happening. He expected Shaddack to be in touch with members of the department from time to time. If he was lucky enough to catch a VDT dialogue between Shaddack and other cops, he might be able to pinpoint the bastard’s location from something that was said.
He didn’t leave the computer on all the time because he was afraid of it. He didn’t think it would jump at him and suck out his brains or anything, but he did recognize that working with it too long might induce in him a temptation to become what Neil Penniworth and Denny had become—in the same way that being around the regressives had given rise to a powerful urge to devolve.
He had just pulled to the side of Holliwell Road, where his restless cruising had taken him, had switched on the machine, and was about to call up the dialogue channel to see if anyone was engaged in conversation, when the word ALERT appeared in large letters on the screen. He pulled his hand back from the keyboard as if something had nipped at him.
The computer said, SUN REQUESTS DIALOGUE.
Sun? The supercomputer at New Wave? Why would it be accessing the police department’s system?
Before another officer at headquarters or in another car could query the machine, Loman took charge and typed DIALOGUE APPROVED.
REQUEST CLARIFICATION, Sun said.
Loman typed YES, which could mean GO AHEAD.
Structuring its questions from its own self-assessment program, which allowed it to monitor its own workings as if it were an outside observer, Sun said, ARE TELEPHONE CALLS TO AND FROM UNAPPROVED NUMBERS IN MOONLIGHT COVE AND ALL NUMBERS OUTSIDE STILL RESTRICTED?
YES.
ARE SUN’S RESERVED TELEPHONE LINES INCLUDED IN AFOREMENTIONED PROHIBITION? the New Wave computer asked, speaking of itself in third person.
Confused, Loman typed UNCLEAR.
Patiently leading him through it step by step, Sun explained that it had its own dedicated phone lines, outside the main directory, by which its users could call other computers all over the country and access them.
He already knew this, so he typed YES.
ARE SUN’S RESERVED TELEPHONE LINES INCLUDED IN AFOREMENTIONED PROHIBITION? it repeated.
If he’d had Denny’s interest in computers, he might have tumbled immediately to what was happening, but he was still confused. So he typed WHY?—meaning WHY DO YOU ASK?
OUTSYSTEM MODEM NOW IN USE.
BY WHOM?
SAMUEL BOOKER.
Loman would have laughed if he had been capable of glee. The agent had found a way out of Moonlight Cove, and now the shit was going to hit the fan at last.
Before he could query Sun as to Booker’s activities and whereabouts, another name appeared on the upper left corner of the screen—SHADDACK—indicating that New Wave’s own Moreau was watching the dialogue on his VDT and was cutting in. Loman was content to let his maker and Sun converse uninterrupted.
Shaddack asked for more details.
Sun responded: FBI KEY SYSTEM ACCESSED.
Loman could imagine Shaddack’s shock. The beast master’s demand appeared on the screen: OPTIONS. Which meant he desperately wanted a menu of options from Sun to deal with the situation.
Sun presented him with five choices, the fifth of which was SHUT DOWN, and Shaddack chose that one.
A moment later Sun reported: FBI KEY SYSTEM LINK SHUT DOWN.
Loman hoped that Booker had gotten enough of a message out to blow Shaddack and Moonhawk out of the water.
On the screen, from Shaddack to Sun: BOOKER’S TERMINAL?
YOU REQUIRE LOCATION?
YES.
MOONLIGHT COVE CENTRAL SCHOOL, COMPUTER LAB.
Loman was three minutes from Central.
He wondered how close Shaddack was to the school. It didn’t matter. Near or far, Shaddack would bust his ass to get there and prevent Booker from compromising the Moonhawk Project—or to take vengeance if it had already been compromised.
At last Loman knew where he could find his maker.
13
&nbs
p; When Sam was only six exchanges into his dialogue with Anne Denton in Washington, the link was cut off. The screen went blank.
He wanted to believe that he had been disconnected by ordinary line problems somewhere along the way. But he knew that wasn’t the case.
He got up from his chair so fast that he knocked it over.
Chrissie jumped up in surprise, and Tessa said, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“They know we’re here,” Sam said. “They’re coming.”
14
Harry heard the doorbell ring down in the house below him.
His stomach twisted. He felt as if he were in a roller coaster, just pulling away from the boarding ramp.
The bell rang again.
A long silence followed. They knew he was crippled. They would give him time to answer.
Finally it rang again.
He looked at his watch. Only 7:24. He took no comfort in the fact that they had not put him at the end of their schedule.
The bell rang again. Then again. Then insistently.
In the distance, muffled by the two intervening floors, Moose began barking.
15
Tessa grabbed Chrissie’s hand. With Sam, they hurried out of the computer lab. The batteries in the flashlight must not have been fresh, for the beam was growing dimmer. She hoped it would last long enough for them to find their way out. Suddenly the school’s layout—which had been uncomplicated when they had not been in a life-or-death rush to negotiate its byways—seemed like a maze.
They crossed a junction of four halls, entered another corridor, and went about twenty yards before Tessa realized they were going the wrong direction. “This isn’t how we came in.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “Any door out will do.”
They had to go another ten yards before the failing flashlight beam was able to reach all the way to the end of the hall, revealing that it was a dead end.
“This way,” Chrissie said, pulling loose of Tessa and turning back into the darkness from which they’d come, forcing them either to follow or abandon her.
16
Shaddack figured they wouldn’t have tried to break into Central on any side that faced a street, where they might be seen—and the Indian agreed—so he drove around to the back. He passed metal doors that would have provided too formidable a barrier, and studied the windows, trying to spot a broken pane.
The last rear door, the only one with glass in the top, was in an angled extension of the building. He was driving toward it for a moment, just before the service road swung to the left to go around that wing, and from a distance of only a few yards, with all the other panes reflecting the glare of his headlights, his attention was caught by the missing glass at the bottom right.
“There,” he told Runningdeer.
“Yes, Little Chief.”
He parked near the door and grabbed the loaded Remington 12-gauge semiautomatic pistol-grip shotgun from the van’s floor behind him. The box of extra shells was on the passenger seat. He opened it, grabbed four or five, stuffed them in a coat pocket, grabbed four or five more, then got out of the van and headed toward the door with the broken window.
17
Four soft thuds reverberated through the house, even into the attic, and Harry thought he heard glass breaking far away.
Moose barked furiously. He sounded like the most vicious attack dog ever bred, not a sweet black Lab. Maybe he would prove willing to defend home and master in spite of his naturally good temperament.
Don’t do it, boy, Harry thought. Don’t try to be a hero. Just crawl away in a corner somewhere and let them pass, lick their hands if they offer them, and don’t—
The dog squealed and fell silent.
No, Harry thought, and a pang of grief tore through him. He had lost not just a dog but his best friend.
Moose, too, had a sense of duty.
Silence settled over the house. They would be searching the ground floor now.
Harry’s grief and fear receded as his anger grew. Moose. Dammit, poor harmless Moose. He could feel the flush of rage in his face. He wanted to kill them all.
He picked up the .38 pistol in his one good hand and held it on his lap. They wouldn’t find him for a while, but he felt better with the gun in his hand.
In the service he had won competition medals for both rifle sharpshooting and performance with a handgun. That had been a long time ago. He had not fired a gun, even in practice, for more than twenty years, since that faraway and beautiful Asian land, where on a morning of exceptionally lovely blue skies, he had been crippled for life. He kept the .38 and the .45 cleaned and oiled, mostly out of habit; a soldier’s lessons and routines were learned for life—and now he was glad of that.
A clank.
A rumble-purr of machinery.
The elevator.
18
Halfway down the correct hallway, holding the dimming flashlight in his left hand and the revolver in his other, just as he caught up with Chrissie, Sam heard a siren approaching outside. It was not on top of them, but it was too close. He couldn’t tell if the patrol car was actually closing in on the back of the school, toward which they were headed, or coming to the front entrance.
Apparently Chrissie was uncertain too. She stopped running and said, “Where, Sam? Where?”
From behind them Tessa said, “Sam, the doorway!”
For an instant he didn’t understand what she meant. Then he saw the door swinging open at the end of the hall, about thirty yards away, the same door by which they had entered. A man stepped inside. The siren was still wailing, drawing nearer, so there were more of them on the way, a whole platoon of them. The guy who’d come through the door was just the first—tall, six feet five if he was one inch, but otherwise only a shadow, minimally backlighted by the security lamp outside and to the right of the door.
Sam squeezed off a shot with his .38, not bothering to determine if this man was an enemy, because they were all enemies, every last one of them—their name was legion—and he knew the shot was wide. His marksmanship was lousy because of his injured wrist, which hurt like hell after their misadventures in the culvert. With the recoil, pain burst out of that joint and all the way back to his shoulder, then back again, Jesus, pain sloshing around like acid inside him, from shoulder to fingertips. Half the strength went out of his hand. He almost dropped the gun.
As the roar of Sam’s shot slammed back to him from the walls of the corridor, the guy at the far end opened fire with a weapon of his own, but he had heavy artillery. A shotgun. Fortunately he was not good with it. He was aiming too high, not aware of how the kick would throw the muzzle up. Consequently the first blast went into the ceiling only ten yards ahead of him, tearing out one of the unlit fluorescent fixtures and a bunch of acoustic tiles. His reaction confirmed his lack of experience with guns; he overcompensated for the kick, swinging the muzzle too far down as he pulled the trigger a second time, so the follow-up round struck the floor far short of target.
Sam did not remain an idle observer of the misdirected gunfire. He seized Chrissie and pushed her to the left, across the corridor and through a door into a dark room, even as the second flock of buckshot gouged chunks out of the vinyl flooring. Tessa was right behind them. She threw the door shut and leaned against it, as if she thought that she was Super-woman and that any pellets penetrating the door would bounce harmlessly from her back.
Sam shoved the woefully dim flashlight at her. “With my wrist, I’m going to need both hands to manage the gun.”
Tessa swept the weak yellow beam around the chamber. They were in the band room. To the right of the door, tiered platforms—full of chairs and music stands—rose up to the back wall. To the left was a large open area, the band director’s podium, a blond-wood and metal desk. And two doors. Both standing open, leading to adjoining rooms.
Chrissie needed no urging to follow Tessa toward the nearer of those doors, and Sam brought up the rear, moving backward, covering the
hall door through which they had come.
Outside, the siren had died. Now there would be more than one man with a shotgun.
19
They had searched the first two floors. They were in the third-floor bedroom.
Harry could hear them talking. Their voices rose to him through their ceiling, his floor. But he couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.
He almost hoped they would spot the attic trap in the closet and would decide to come up. He wanted a chance to blow a couple of them away. For Moose. After twenty long years of being a victim, he was sick to death of it; he wanted a chance to let them know that Harry Talbot was still a man to be reckoned with—and that although Moose was only a dog, his was nevertheless a life taken only with serious consequences.
20
In the eddying fog, Loman saw the single patrol car parked beside Shaddack’s van. He braked next to it just as Paul Amberlay got out from behind the wheel. Amberlay was lean and sinewy and very bright, one of Loman’s best young officers,