Koontz, Dean R. - Strangers

by Strangers(Lit)

  they could handle. But as Stefan went, some reached out to touch him,

  to squeeze his hand or shoulder, not with religious fervor but with an

  emotional camaraderie. Stefan was overcome by the need to touch them as

  well, to share a profound sense of the community of humankind, which had

  filled everyone -in the room, to share the conviction that they were

  being swept toward some great destiny.

  In Boston, at ten o'clock, Alexander Christophson, former United States

  Senator and Ambassador to Great Britain, former Director of the CIA, now

  retired for a decade, was reading the morning newspaper when he received

  a telephone call from his brother, Philip, the antiques dealer in

  Greenwich, Connecticut. They spoke for five minutes about nothing

  important, just two brothers keeping in touch, but the conversation had

  a secret purpose. At the end Philip said, "Oh, by the way, I spoke with

  Diana just this morning. Do you remember her?"

  "I certainly do," Alex said. "How's she doing?"

  "Oh, she has her troubles," Philip said. "Too boring to discuss. But

  she says hello." Then he changed the subject, recommending two new books

  that Alex might enjoy, as if Diana were of no real importance.

  Diana was the code word that meant Ginger Weiss had phoned Philip and

  needed to speak with Alex. The moment he had seen Ginger at Pablo's

  funeral, her silver-blond hair a-shimmer as if with a light of its own,

  she had made him think of Diana, goddess of the moon.

  After he said goodbye to Philip, he told his wife, Elena, that he

  intended to drive to the mall. "I want to stop at the bookstore and

  pick up a couple of novels that Philip recommended."

  He actually went to the mall, but before he bought the books, he found a

  public phone booth and, using his AT&T credit card, called Philip to get

  the number that Ginger Weiss had left.

  "She says it's a pay phone in Elko, Nevada," Philip told him.

  When Alex put the Nevada call through, Ginger Weiss did not answer until

  the fifth ring. "Sorry," she said. "I was in the car, parked beside

  the booth. It was just too cold to stand here and wait."

  "What are you doing in Nevada?" Alex asked.

  "If I understood you correctly at Pablo's funeral, you really don't want

  me to answer questions like that."

  "Right. Less I know, the better. What did you want to ask me?"

  She explained, with a minimum of detail, that she had found others

  suffering from memory blocks similar to hers, some with different false

  memories covering the same time span. Since Alex was the expert on

  brainwashing, Ginger wanted to know if implanting fake memories that

  included threads of reality was more difficult than implanting entirely

  false recollections, and he was able to assure her that, indeed, it was.

  "That's what we figured," Ginger said. "But it's good to hear you

  confirm it. Shows we're on the right track. Now, one more thing: I

  want you to get some information for us. We need to know whatever you

  can learn about a Colonel Leland Falkirk, an officer in one of the

  Army's elite DERO companies. I also need-"

  "Wait, wait," Alex said, looking nervously through the glass door of the

  booth at shoppers walking past in the mall, as if he were already under

  observation or even targeted for removal. "At the cemetery, I said I'd

  provide advice or background on mind-control techniques. But I warned

  you I wouldn't dig up information. I explained my position."

  "Well, even though you've been retired for years, you must still know

  people in many of the right places-"

  "Didn't you hear me, Doctor? I will not get actively involved in your

  problems. I simply can't afford to. I've got too much to lose."

  "Now, don't worry about digging up anything exotic or highly classified.

  We don't expect that," she said, as if she had not heard him. "Just the

  bare details of Falkirk's service record might help us understand him

  and form an idea of what to expect from him."

  "Please, I-" But she was indefatigable: "I also need to know about the

  Thunder Hill Depository, an Army facility here in Elko County."

  "No."

  "It's supposed to be an underground storage facility, and maybe that's

  all it was for a long time, or maybe it's always been something else,

  but I know it's not just an underground warehouse these days."

  "Doctor, I won't do this for you."

  "Colonel Leland Falkirk and Thunder Hill Depository. It's not so much

  to ask: no deep snooping, just what details you can glean. Talk to your

  old friends whore still in the game. Then report to either Dr. George

  Hannaby there in Boston or to Father Stefan Wycazik, a priest in

  Chicago."." She gave him phone numbers. "I can get in touch with them,

  and they won't mention your name when they tell me what you've reported.

  That way you don't have to call me direct, and you stay in the clear."

  He tried and failed to control the palsied shaking of his hands.

  "Doctor, I'm sorry I volunteered even limited assistance. I'm an old

  man who's afraid to die."

  "You're also worried about sins you might've committed in the name of

  duty," she said, repeating what he'd told her at the cemetery. "And

  you'd probably like to do something to atone for some of those sins,

  real or imagined. This would be atonement of a sort, Mr. Christophson.

  " She repeated the telephone numbers for Hannaby and Wycazik.

  "No. If you're interrogated, remember I said no, emphatically no."

  With maddening good cheer, she said, "Oh, and it would help if you had

  something for me within the next six or eight hours. I know that's a

  tall order. But then again, I'm only asking for basic information,

  whatever's in the unclassified files."

  "Goodbye, Doctor," he said pointedly.

  "I'll look forward to hearing from you."

  "You will not hear from me."

  "Toodle-oo," she said, and hung up on him first.

  "Christ!" he said, slamming the receiver down.

  She was an attractive woman, personable, intelligent, appealing in so

  many ways. But her absolute conviction that she would always get what

  she wanted-this was a trait he sometimes admired in a man, seldom or

  never in a woman. Well,

  she'd be disappointed this time. This time, she'd not get what she

  wanted. Damned if she would.

  Yet ... with his Cross pen, he had made note of the telephone numbers

  for Hannaby and Wycazik, which she had given him.

  Dom and Ernie set out early Tuesday morning to reconnoiter at least part

  of the perimeter of Thunder Hill Depository. They went in Jack Twist's

  new Jeep Cherokee. Jack himself was sleeping back at the motel, having

  gone to bed only a few hours ago, after spending half the night driving

  around Elko, staying on the move with Brendan Cronin and Jorja

  Monatella. Both the Cherokee and the motel's Dodge van had four-wheel

  drive, but the Jeep was tougher, more maneuverable. The foothill and

  mountain roads up toward Thunder Hill might be icy in spots, and as the

  day promised new snow, they wanted the most reliable transportation.

  Dom did not like the look of the sky. Thick dark clouds hung
low over

  the high plains, lower over the foothills, and obscured the tops of the

  mountains. The weather forecast called for the first big storm of the

  year (later than usual this season), as much as fourteen inches of snow

  in the higher elevations. Not a single flake had fallen yet.

  The raised and threatening lash of winter did not induce a pensive mood

  in Dom or Ernie; they were in high spirits upon setting out from the

  motel. They were finally doing something, acting not just reacting. In

  addition, there was the pleasant fellowship that exists when men who

  like each other set out on an adventure together-a fishing trip or an

  expedition to a ballpark. Or a scouting trip to explore the perimeter

  defenses of a military installation.

  In no little measure, their excellent mood grew from the unexpected

  peacefulness of the night just past. For the first time in weeks, Dom's

  sleep hadn't been disturbed by nightmares or sleepwalking. He'd dreamed

  only of an undetailed chamber filled with golden light, evidently the

  same place that featured in Brendan's dreams. Likewise, instead of

  lying awake in fear of the shadows beyond the glow of the bedside lamp,

  Ernie had drifted off to sleep at once. The others also said it was the

  most restful night in recent memory. Ginger's theory, put forth over a

  quick cup of coffee this morning, was that their worst dreams had been

  related not to the mysterious events they'd witnessed on the night of

  July 6, but to the subsequent brainwashing. Therefore, now that they

  had an idea of what they'd endured at the hands of the mindcontrol

  experts, the subconscious pressure related to those experiences was

  relieved, eliminating the source of those particular bad dreams.

  And Dom had a reason of his own to feel good about the day. This

  morning, no one had looked warily at him or treated him with deference

  because of his telekinetic power. At first he was baffled by their

  quick adjustment to his new status. Then he realized what must be going

  through their minds: Since they had shared his experiences of the summer

  before last, it was logical that they would also share his strange power

  sooner or later. They must believe their own development of paranormal

  abilities was merely lagging behind his. Eventually, if they did not

  acquire the power, they might build the emotional, intellectual, and

  psychological walls between them and him that would isolate him, as he

  feared. But for the moment, anyway, they were acting as if no gulf

  separated them from him, and he was grateful.

  Now, humming softly, Ernie drove north on the two-lane county road,

  leaving the motel and the interstate behind them. They climbed some of

  the same rugged hills down which Jack Twist had come last night when

  making his clandestine approach to the Tranquility (although Jack had

  traveled overland), and Dom studied the changing terrain with interest.

  The rising land seemed leaner the higher it rose, revealing less flesh

  and more rocky bones that poked up everywhere in clavicles and scapulae

  and sternums of limestone, in fibulae and femurs of crumbling shale, in

  occasional ribs and spines of formidable granite. As if in awareness of

  the colder air of higher altitudes, the land wore more clothes: thicker

  petticoats of grass; more lavish skirts of sage and other bushes; then

  trees, trees, more trees-mountain mahogany, tall pines, cedar,

  quaking-aspen, and on eastern slopes, an occasional spruce or fir.

  They'd gone only three miles when they reached the snow line. A thin

  mantle flanked the road at first, but in the next two miles it deepened

  to eight inches. Although a winter drought had held sway from September

  until early December, and although no major storm had swept the area yet

  this season, a few light snows had put down a respectable groundcover,

  also frosting the bristled boughs of the evergreens.

  But for a few small scattered patches of ice, the county road was

  cleared for easy travel. "They always keep it clean as far as Thunder

  Hill, even in killing weather," Ernie explained. "But up beyond the

  Depository, the road crews don't do as thorough a job."

  In no time they had gone ten miles, always following the crest of the

  valley that fell away on the east, and always with rising mountains on

  the west. They passed several dirt and gravel lanes leading to isolated

  homes and ranches in the eastward-sloping lands to their right, and at

  the ten-mile point they reached the guarded entrance road to Thunder

  Hill Depository, also on the right.

  Ernie slowed the Cherokee but did not turn into the entranceway.

  "Haven't been this far up here in a long time. They've made changes

  since I saw the place last. Didn't used to look this formidable."

  A sign announced the Depository. Beside the sign another paved road

  branched off the county lane, leading away between towering pines of

  such a dark-green hue they seemed nearly black in the somber prestorm

  light. Fifteen feet in from the turnoff, the lane was blocked by long

  metal spikes that speared up from the pavement, precisely angled to

  puncture the tires of any vehicle that tried to proceed farther, but

  also large enough to catch on the axle of a hurtling truck or car and

  instantly arrest its progress. Twenty feet beyond the spikes, there was

  a massive steel gate, crowned with spears, painted red. A

  concrete-block guardhouse-twenty feet by ten-stood inside the gate, and

  its black metal door looked capable of withstanding a bazooka barrage.

  Ernie pulled to the edge of the main road and slowed almost to a full

  stop as they eased past the entrance to Thunder Hill. He pointed to a

  yard-square post at the verge of the entrance lane, just this side of

  the wicked spikes. "Looks like an intercom to the guardhouse. Not just

  a voice link, either. One of those systems like they have in drive-in

  banks, with a video monitor so they can see you in your car. The man in

  the guardhouse approves' a visitor before the road spikes lower and the

  gate opens. Even then, I'll bet there're permanently emplaced machine

  guns to take you out if the guard decides he's been duped after he's

  already opened the gates."

  From each end of the gate, an eight-foot-high chainlink fence with a

  barbed-wire overhang disappeared into the trees, and Dom noted a white

  sign with red lettering that warned DANGER-ELECTRiFIED. Although the

  perimeter fence led into the forest, no trees overhung it; from the

  small sections that he could see flanking the main gate, there appeared

  to be a twenty-foot-wide no-man's-land on each side.

  Dom's good mood faded. He'd thought that the security along the

  perimeter of the facility would be minimal. After all, once you got

  onto the grounds, the actual entrance to Thunder Hill was through eight-

  or ten-foot-thick blast doors set in the hillside. That barrier was so

  impregnable that it seemed wasteful to install maximum security around

  the entire outer edge of the property. Yet that was what they had done.

  Which meant the secret they were guarding was so important that they did

  not even trus
t nuclearproof doors and subterranean limestone vaults to

  keep it safe.

  "The spikes in the road are new," Ernie said. "And the gate they had a

  couple of years ago was pretty flimsy by comparison. The fence was

  always here, but it wasn't electrified before."

  "We've no hope at all of getting a look inside."

  Although no one had said as much (for fear of sounding foolish), they

  all hoped they might get as far as the blast doors of the facility, have

  a look around the newly expanded grounds that had been taken from

  ranchers Brust and Dirkson, and be fortunate enough to stumble across

  another piece of the puzzle they were committed to solve. Dom had never

  imagined they would actually get inside the underground rooms of Thunder

  Hill. That was an improbable scenario. But from the comfort of the

  Tranquility Motel, getting onto the grounds and snooping around had not

  seemed like an impossible dream. Until now.

  Dom wondered if his newly discovered telekinetic powers might be used to

  circumvent the Depository's fortifications, but he dismissed that

  thought as quickly as it occurred to him. Until he could control the

  gift, it was of little use. It scared him. He sensed that the power

  was sufficient to cause tremendous destruction and death if he lost

  control of it, and he would not take the chance again-except under very

  tightly controlled conditions.

  "Well," Ernie said, "it was never our intention to try waltzing through

  the front gate. Let's have a look along some of the perimeter fence."

  He touched his foot lightly on the accelerator. Looking in the rearview

  mirror, he said, "Oh, and by the way, we're being followed."