"Alison, my back's hurting a bit. Could you prop me up, please?"
"Detective, what do you take me for? I'm not dumb."
"I'd just like to be out of pain, that's all."
"…start giving you too much freedom, you're out like lightning."
She isn't buying anything. Still tethered to the seats, Patricia was out of commission. You'll have to do better, Patty. Either better or start praying for a miracle.
Alison said, "Now do you want to hear more or not? Because if I'm boring you, we could get this over right now."
"How could I possibly find this boring?" Patricia tried to sound indignant. "Of course, go on."
"Right, Detective. You just don't want me to do it."
Patricia sighed. "Alison, do whatever you want. I'm in no position to stop you."
A long pause which lengthened to about a minute.
Finally, Alison said, "Tell you what. I'm going to let you choose where."
"Choose what? Death by stoning or death by fire?"
"No, not the method, just the place." Alison went silent for a moment. "Okay, I just went past the guard's van outside the cattle guard about two minutes ago. We're officially inside the Nevada Test Site. Now where do you want to go to have it done?"
"How should I know?"
"Want me to tell you the choices?"
"Sure, Alison! Empower me."
"You're getting testy."
"It's all the radiation."
Alison thought over her statement. "You're probably right. Radiation does do strange things to the psyche. Tell you what. First let's get out of Mercury. The town's nothing but a two-bit government base—a bank, a steak house and a bowling alley and a couple of stores. Steve once knew a guy who worked at the sheriff's substation in Mercury, right here in Nye County. He was a real jerk. He made a pass at me. I wouldn't have minded, except he was uuuugly! How about Frenchman Flat? You know about Frenchman Flat?"
"No."
"That's where they dropped the first bomb. Everybody thinks it's Yucca, but it's Frenchman. I checked it out in my research. Frenchman Flat. Able was the shot. Like in Cain and Abel. I told you this place was trying to imitate the Bible. Even named it after the first family. Want to see it?"
"Alison, I can't see anything."
"Don't worry. I'll describe it to you in detail." Alison smiled to herself. "In lots and lots of detail."
FORTY-NINE
AS POE boarded one of Wackenhut's white Jeep Cherokees, security guard John Keeper handed him a map of the Nevada Test Site. The winds outside were strong, and visibility through the windshield was poor.
Keeper said, "I don't understand entirely what's going on. But if you think you're looking for a fugitive here, I suppose you'll need a map."
Translation: Keeper thought he was crazy.
Poe couldn't look him in the eye without a tinge of embarrassment. Feeling so justified an hour ago, he was now playing a part in some loony play, an obsessed man driven by an insane hunch. But Patricia had been his responsibility, and as long as LVMPD was looking for her in town, he might as well search NTS. Weinberg and the Nye County Sheriff's Department had helped him cut through the red tape. But Poe could tell that the loo was more than skeptical, even though Mick was acting supportive. However, there was that nagging feeling that Weinberg was only helping Poe to get him out of the way.
Keeper looked to be in his twenties, athletically built, with iron pumper arms and a wide neck. His hair was sparse and amber in color. His pink cheeks held the remnants of acne pitting. He said, "We called in the description of the car to Nye County. They're looking around the town of Mercury."
"I guarantee you that if they're here, they're not in any populated area." Poe regarded the map, commenting on the enormousness of the site.
"Eight hundred and sixty thousand acres," Keeper announced. "We're a state in a state. What is visible is just the tip of the iceberg. Mercury's completely surrounded by mountains. Beyond that ring are miles of empty land. It's also where all the action is…or was. Still some stuff going on, but not like in its heyday." He cleared his throat. "So where to?"
"Nye and not Wackenhut patrols the Mercury vicinity?"
"Nye does the town, we patrol everything else." Keeper started the motor, turned on the windshield wiper to remove a layer of dirt from the glass. "Sure you don't want a copter? A good beam of light would make your search a lot easier."
"It would also alert my fugitive. I wouldn't want to scare her off…make her do something nasty." He added under his breath, "If she's even here."
Keeper raised his eyebrows. "So what looks interesting, Sergeant?"
Poe studied the map. The Nevada Test Site seemed to be divided into seven major areas. Directly north, via the Mercury Highway, was the Frenchman Flat area, then Yucca Flat, and finally Rainier Mesa. If he backtracked south and headed west on Jackass Road, then went north, he'd hit Jackass Flats, Buckboard Mesa, then Pahute Mesa—the most northernly area of NTS and the highest in elevation.
"What's in Jackass Flats?" Poe asked.
"Mostly old research facilities, although some are still currently in operation."
"Alison wouldn't be there." Poe rubbed his eyes. "She'd be out in the open space."
"It's all open space." Keeper paused. "Sergeant, we've got about two hundred security vehicles, and they've all been alerted. If your fugitive's out there, someone'll find her. I don't know what we can do that they can't do."
I can outthink her, guy, that's what I can do.
Poe said, "Where did the Department of Energy do its bombing? All over?"
"All over," Keeper repeated. "The underground shots were mostly up north in Buckboard and Pahute Mesa. Majority of the atmospheric shots were done in Yucca Flat, although the first bomb was dropped in Frenchman Flat. You have to go through the Frenchman acreage to get to Yucca. So if you're not interested in the Jackass vicinity, we might as well go due north."
"Sounds good."
Keeper put the Jeep in first gear. The machine bucked, then jolted forward. Immediately, Poe felt the force of the wind against the four-wheeler. What a night to be out. A full moon shining down its rays while the wind made radioactive dust boogie in the breeze. By the time Poe returned home, he'd probably glow in the dark. He kept his eyes glued out the windows. Back and forth, his vision scanning across the open plains like radar. He said, "Tell me about the place."
Keeper hooked onto Mercury Highway and said, "What do you want to know?"
"I'm not sure. But I'll know it when I hear it."
"I could point out things of interest for you."
"Sure. But first, how about if we get off the highway?"
"Why?"
"Because most likely my fugitive wouldn't be driving on the road—too visible. She has a four-wheel-drive."
Keeper said, "You know, Sergeant, to get into Frenchman Flat, I'm going to have to cross through the mountains. Which means I'm going to have to use the road. I care more about your safety than I do about your fugitive."
"How far is it to Frenchman Flat?"
"Around two miles."
"Okay, if you have to use the road, use the road."
They sat in silence as the Jeep wound its way through tight mountain curves. When it exited, it sped along a flat, desolate wilderness.
Poe said, "Can you move off the road now?"
"I suppose. Although in this wind, it's not a good idea." Keeper licked his lips. "How about if I take you on a tour via some smaller roads? I know the paths, and it'll give you a good cross section of what's here."
"Fair enough."
"Hold on." Keeper gripped the wheel as the car made the transition from smooth road to unpaved terrain with little fuss. "We take a lot of visitors to this area, since there's leftover debris from the shots. Mostly from Priscilla, which was detonated in the late 1950s. If you look to your left and squint through all the grit out there, you might be able to make out a big dome."
"I see it."
&nb
sp; Keeper said, "Those were experimental. If the visibility was better, you'd see remnants of a two-inch concrete dome which collapsed under the pressure of the shot. The dome still standing is six-inch-thick concrete, and that held up just fine."
"I'll keep that in mind the next time I build a bomb shelter."
Keeper smiled. "You're cynical now. But back then, the nuclear edge was what this country was all about. The facilities here still do a lot of important scientific research. Right here in Frenchman Flat, we have the largest spill test facility in the world. We shoot all sorts of toxic material into the environmentally controlled rooms and wind tunnels to study its dispersion into the atmosphere. That way we can devise modern and efficient cleanup protocol."
Poe said, "NTS got you doing some PR work, Mr. Keeper?"
The guard smiled. "People think in black and white, and that's never reality. The liberals all think of NTS as some Frankenstein laboratory. They don't have a clue to what NTS and the Department of Energy are doing here now."
"Uh-huh." Poe kept his eyes peeled to the muddied air, looking for any signs of motion and disturbance, any flicker of light. Whipping himself for his inadequacies.
Think, you asshole!
If Alison was going to butcher Patricia as she had the others, she'd need a working surface. It was too windy to work outdoors. Which would mean she'd either have to do her slaughtering in her car or find a preexisting domain that would protect her from the wind.
"Any way to go into those domes?" Poe asked.
"What?"
"Can you get inside the bomb shelters?"
"The domes? No, they're strictly off-limits. Boarded up. You never know about the internal structure. They may collapse at any minute."
So the shelters were out.
How far would she travel into the test site? Would she take Steve's Explorer all the way up those mountains to the highest elevations? Poe doubted it. It would take her too long to get there, and every moment she drove on open ground made her more vulnerable. Poe guessed that Alison would play it close to the entrance, not riding too deep into the site. If for no other reason than to decrease the likelihood of her car breaking down.
If I were Alison, and I didn't want to go far, where would I go to do my dirty work?
Poe said, "How many bombs were dropped here?"
"Here? Meaning Frenchman Flat?"
"Yeah."
"Not many compared to Yucca Flat. Here, maybe you had around fifteen, twenty drops. But the first shot—Able—it was dropped here. That was back in 'fifty-one. The Operation Ranger series. Ever heard of it?"
Poe shook his head no. Would Alison go to the place of the first bomb drop, figuring that was the start of her and her mother's ills?
Alison hadn't even been born in 1951.
Something twinged his gut. He knew she wasn't here.
If she was anywhere, she was in Yucca Flat. He stated, "Yucca Flat was where most of the bombs were detonated?"
"Yes, sir."
"So what's there today?"
"Mostly subsidence craters. Lots of Yucca looks like the surface of the moon. The ground falling inward under the intense pressure of the bomb—"
"Anything original left?"
"Original?"
"Structures from the time of the bomb drops."
"Mostly it's open spaces with lots of craters."
"How about the army bunkers used to house the soldiers?"
"Gone. The News Knob is still there, the place where the reporters watched. And we do have some of the original viewing bleachers—"
"But no original buildings?"
"We have the control point facilities, where the engineers controlled the bomb shots. They're still in use."
"So you have security around those facilities?"
"Tight security."
"What else?"
"In Yucca Flat…as far as existing buildings…" Keeper thought a moment. "There're some plutonium storage and radioactive waste facilities. Uh…there's the Big Experimental Explosive Facility."
"Keep going."
"Oh, there's Japan Town—"
"What's that?" Poe sat up in his seat.
"NTS built Japanese-like buildings and dropped bombs on them. Then they measured the radiation that remained in the houses. It helped to give the government some base levels for Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
"Does Japan Town still exist?"
"The framing's still there, yes."
Poe was disappointed. "All that's left is the framing?"
"Yep." Keeper gripped hard on the wheel to keep the winds from knocking over the car. "You might want to take a peek at the 'typical American homes.' NTS built this typical American town—you know a café, a movie house, a library, a school, a town hall—then bombed it with the Annie II shot. They did it to measure the effects of radiation on a typical American small town."
Poe broke in, "And most of what's left is framing as well?"
"Actually, we still have the two prototypes of the typical American houses. You know, a two-story structure with a living room, a dining room, a couple of bedrooms, and a kitchen. Some of them even had food—"
"And they're still standing?"
"More or less. They're pretty rickety by now."
"But the structure is intact?"
"Yes."
"And you can go inside them?"
"Yeah, I can give you a quick tour."
Poe wasn't interested in a tour. He said, "How far away are we from this typical American house?"
"About twenty minutes."
A lifetime in murder years.
Poe said, "Are we the nearest car to the place?"
Keeper said, "I can check."
Poe waited as the guard made the call, driving the Jeep at the same time. He repressed a compulsion to snap and fidget and bounce through the vehicle's roof. Finally, Keeper hung up the mike. "We're the nearest. Got another car about ten minutes farther. Should I tell him to meet us there?"
"Yes, please."
"So you think that's where she is?"
"Maybe," Poe answered.
"How 'bout we give it a shot, then?" Keeper grinned at the pun.
Poe, however, remained stone-faced. It was…happening…any minute…any second. Bits and pieces…happening. The last…she knew…fight it…fight it…don't…let her…
Horribly, she knew what was going on. She knew it would be the last time…the last…
The urge to give in…the urge to fight…fading, fading, fading.
The urge to sleep…
Sleep…sleep…wonderful sleep.
FIFTY
PATRICIA WAS out cold, so the desire was overwhelming. True, she had promised that she'd be dead first, but flesh tasted so much better when eaten as the heart still pumped flowing, warm blood. Besides, would she really know the difference?
The detective's eyes were still open. Open but not focusing. Alison held up a feather and tickled her nose. Then she tickled her feet, hit a couple other areas, then ended up with the hatpinthrough-the-palm test. No response—not a twitch, flick, or blink. Doped to the max, she shouldn't be feeling a thing.
So why not relinquish to a higher order? Let the powers turn her into that luscious state—from rational being to a beast programmed by instinct. She stared into Patricia's vacant eyes and once again told her it was nothing personal. Then she poked her stomach—rich and ripe with lots of juicy fat.
Females always tasted better.
Sitting on the wooden floor of the deserted house. The plan was to do her here, then leave the note for Rommie, telling him where he could find Deluca. Give the woman—or what would be left of her—a decent burial. She'd also give Poe a few more pieces of the puzzle. It was up to him to figure the rest out. Not that she believed he would ever get it. Eventually, she'd have to show him through demonstration.
The thought made her smile.
Detective Patricia Deluca—all laid out on a white linen tablecloth—a tasty meal for the typical American family
in the typical American house. She would have laid her out in the dining room, but the living room was bigger—a comfortable area with a fireplace and big windows. Or what once had been windows, because the glass was gone, and all that remained was the holes. The furious winds were blowing in sand and gravel, coating Patricia in dirt. No matter. Grit was good for digestion. That was why animals ate bones.
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