by P. J. Tracy
"He was telling the truth about the dead zones," Sharon finally called up from where she lay in the comfort of Annie's arms. Except for the few times that Halloran had touched her, each erotic memory seared in her mind, she hadn't felt genuine caring from another human being in years. Annie had been holding her close-probably to keep her still and silent-but the effect was identical to when her mother had held her as a child, chasing away the demons of the night. Mute tears leaked out of her brown eyes and onto Annie's plump forearm.
While Sharon was sitting up, wiping the embarrassing tears from her cheeks, Grace was wiping blood from her fingers. The radio had been covered with it. She looked up toward the building and wondered if Diebel had been telling the truth about the landline inside. "I'm going to try shooting off one of those padlocks."
"There should be bolt cutters in the trunk of the patrol."
Grace looked at Sharon, a little surprised by the strength she heard in her voice. "You okay?"
Sharon was already on her feet, collecting her weapon from where it had fallen in the grass beside her. "Better than that. I'm pissed." She extended a hand to Annie to help her up, then went to the car, reached into the front seat, and popped the trunk without glancing at the body a few inches from her arm, without even letting her brain acknowledge that it was there. She wiped her hand on her slacks when she was finished, but she never looked at what she was wiping off. Grace and Annie found the bolt cutters in the trunk, then the three of them moved toward the steel building together.
The inside was pitch-black and dead silent, except for a low, distant hum that they couldn't identify. Grace wished for the flashlight, wondered where she had dropped it. She found a bank of electrical switches on the wall and started flipping them up. The annoying buzz of a hundred fluorescents Bickering to life overhead, lighting the enormous space, ended the silence.
The women just stood and stared.
Seven enormous tanker trucks were neatly parked in a row facing the big rolling door. "Good Health Dairies" was emblazoned in bright blue across their silvery skin.
"Funny place to keep milk trucks," Sharon murmured.
Annie was frowning. "I thought milk trucks were those cute little white vans with the cute little bottles jangling inside."
"These are the bulk carriers. They travel from farm to farm to pick up raw milk and transport it to the dairy . . , oh, shit. Do you think these are the trucks?"
Grace looked at the lumbering, innocent-looking things with their happy blue lettering, thinking what better way to transport something lethal without detection? She pushed the thought to the back of her mind and turned away.
An elaborate computer setup on a desk against the far wall explained the humming sound. She couldn't see the phone but guessed it had to be there. By the time Annie and Sharon joined her, she had tracked the single phone line to the back of the computer and nowhere else.
"No phone set," she told them. "The only hookup runs through the modem."
Annie shrugged. "Good enough. We'll just sign on and text message Roadrunner, who is probably out of his mind by now." She jiggled the mouse impatiently and waited for the screen to wake up.
"Don't you need a password or something?" Sharon asked, and Annie chuckled.
"Oh, child, we have so much to teach you." She sat down in the cracked vinyl chair, frowned at the nonsense appearing on the monitor, then lifted her hands to the keyboard.
"ANNIE, STOP!"Grace shouted suddenly.
Annie jerked her hands up and back and froze. Sharon's eyes were wide, following Grace's terrified gaze around the side of the monitor to a rectangular box of the same color. Only it wasn't exactly a box, just a whitish brick of something that looked like modeling clay, with wires that led to the back of the computer.
"Oh, shit," Sharon whispered.
Annie was still frozen in position with her hands up by her shoulders. "Can I move?"
Grace's voice was shaking. "Just don't touch the keyboard or click the mouse."
Annie pushed well away from the desk and rolled the chair to the side to see what Grace and Sharon were looking at. She didn't trust her legs yet. "Oh, Lord in heaven, that's not Play-Doh, is it?"
Grace actually thought about it, but it didn't make sense. Why would anybody set up a dummy explosive and conceal it?
Sharon was coursing through her memories of the bomb squad demonstrating plastic explosives in her Academy class. "It looks like the real thing."
Annie laid a hand over her heart, as if to hold it in.
"Did you see this clock?" Sharon asked.
"What clock ?" Grace moved to get a better look at the monitor. Red numbers were blinking at the top of the screen, counting down. Three hours, thirty-seven minutes, forty-two seconds, forty-one seconds. . .
"This thing is counting down the time until ten, when the other two trucks are supposed to blow."
Grace was staring at the monitor, speed-reading through the lines of text, taking quick, shallow breaths. "Look at those names halfway down the screen."
Annie and Sharon scrolled down with their eyes and saw the words that had caught Grace's attention.
Schrader-off-line Ambros-target acquired Ritter-target acquired
Grace hugged her stomach and whispered, "Oh, Christ, not that," then broke down and ran toward the trucks. She jumped up on a running board, peeked in the window, then ran to the next truck to do the same thing, then disappeared around the other side.
Annie and Sharon found her on the far side of the trucks, staring at the three empty spaces right next to the big rolling door. She was still clutching her stomach, but now she was rocking back and forth. "Every one of these trucks has a small computer unit on the dash. The ones in here are turned off, but there are three trucks missing. See the tread marks? Three sets, going right out the door. Back at the lake, that soldier said the Four Corners thing was an accident-truck number one. But he was waiting for two others to get where they were supposed to be, and according to that computer, they're on target. That computer is the control. It sends the signal for the other trucks to blow, and unless we find somebody who can disable that bomb, we can't get into it to stop them."
In the next second, they were all running back toward the little door, out onto the grass, and toward the cars.
"If we can't find any keys, a couple of those look old enough to hotwire," Sharon panted.
"We don't have time." Grace veered back toward the patrol car. "There are already keys in this one."
Sharon closed her eyes.
HARLEY HAD THE RV pushed up to forty on a road that any sane man wouldn't have tried to negotiate on foot. Where it wasn't washhoard, the dips in the hardpan were so deep that a few times, the rear wheels almost left the ground. An enormous rooster tail of dust followed them.
Everyone was holding their jaws open to keep their teeth from clattering together, hands grasping whatever was nailed down. Bonar had Charlie next to him on the sofa, one beefy arm wrapped around the dog's wriggling body to keep him from flying into space. No one told Harley to slow down. They had tied the thinnest of threads together in an impossible tapestry of hope, every one of them willing to believe at that moment that everyLassie episode they had ever seen was real, and that Charlie was even more amazing than Lassie had ever been, because without believing that, they had no hope at all, and no idea where to go.
Roadrunner was clutching the back of the driver's seat, angled like a Tinkertoy man to peer out through the windshield, breathing lime over Harley's shoulder. "Okay! You're almost there! Slow down, then take a right," he shouted over the noise of the big rig. The washboard jittered his voice, making him sound like Porky Pig.
Harley slowed long enough at the intersection of dirt and tar to make sure there were no fire trucks coming, then slammed the accelerator to the floor when rubber hit asphalt and found some traction.
"Two miles, maybe less," Roadrunner said, as Halloran, Magozzi, and Bonar all stood, jamming into the space closest to the door,
every heart beating fast and hard.
Charlie was weaving between their legs, whining, tap-dancing, tongue dripping doggy sweat. He gave one short howl, which frightened Magozzi. Once you started to believe in any kind of dog magic, you had to consider it all, like those stories about dogs howling when their masters had died, long before anyone else knew it.
"There it is! See it? See it?!" Roadrunner shouted. "That dirt track into the field! Slow down! Slow down!"
Harley slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel hard to the right, fishtailing the fifty-foot rig as if it were one of his Porsches. It wasn't really a road, just two tracks through the grass of an overgrown field, and this time he had to slow down.
They all saw it at the same time. Some kind of big building at the back of the field with a bunch of cars parked around it. One of them was a patrol car with the driver's door open. Three filthy, haggard people were tugging a bloody body out of the front seat. One of them straightened and turned to look in their direction, and Magozzi felt a vise tighten around his heart. He moved his lips, but no sound cameout:Thanks you.
"LORD ALMIGHTY, I don't believe it," Annie murmured as she watched the RV lumbering toward them.
"What is it?" Sharon asked, gaping at what surely had to be a mirage, or else a Rolling Stones tour bus.Special engagement, one nightonly, right here in this Missaqua County farm field. . .
"The Monkeewrench coach," Grace said, bloody hands hanging at her sides, refusing to believe what she was looking at until the rig stopped and Charlie shot out like a soaring, hairy meteor to race toward her, smiling like he always did. She wiped her hands on her jeans and caught Charlie, all eighty pounds of him, in midair. During the few seconds that she permitted this disgraceful display, she saw the men clambering out of the rig.
Her breath caught when she saw Magozzi, and then, oh my God, Gino, Halloran, and even Bonar, right there with Harley and Roadrunner. She glanced over at Sharon and saw her lips quivering and her eyes threatening to fill, staring at Halloran like he was the only thing in the world to see, and she had to look away fast.
Goddamnit. This was totally bizarre, just like all those stupid fairy tales when the men come riding in to save the women in the nick of time and the women cry and throw their arms around them.
Too bad they didn't have time for any of that.
The women sprinted toward the bus, and the men stopped as a unit, startled. Grace didn't look in any faces-she wouldn't have been able to stand that-as she raced past them up into the rig, and down the long aisle to the office. Apparently Sharon and Annie hadn't stopped, either, because they were right beside her when she grabbed the headset for the sat phone and punched frantically at the buttons.
Magozzi and Halloran were standing outside, staring at the empty air where the women they'd come to save had just raced by them as if they weren't there. It wasn't quite the reunion either man had pictured. Harley, Roadrunner, Bonar, and Gino were already following the women into the RV while the two big, tough guys trailed behind, just a little off-balance. They could hear Grace yelling the second they came through the door.
"What's the matter with this goddamned thing! It won't connect!" She was pounding one hand on the console, banging numbers uselessly with the other. No one in that room had ever seen Grace that out of control. It was Roadrunner who gently took her blood-smeared hands in his and said quietly, "Let me do it, Grace. Who do you want to call?"
"The FBI, Roadrunner," Annie said quietly. "We need them right now."
Roadrunner had Agent Knudsen on the line within ten seconds, and then all the men listened as Grace began to talk very fast. Before she finished, a hundred emotions had crossed every face in the room. Harley grabbed three bottles of water from the office fridge and handed them to women who had been through more than he could imagine-more than he'd certainly heard, because Grace was condensing everything. He came to Annie last.
She stood there in her tattered, manure-covered dress with her chaotic hair and filthy face and said, "What took you so long?" She took the opened bottle, drank from it, then reached out and patted his cheek. Harley had to look down at the Boor, because that was the nicest thing she'd ever done to him.
He saw her feet-one bare, the other in a purple high-top. "Jesus, Annie. You look like friggin' Cinderella."
Agent Knudsen had been in his car when Grace had called, only a few miles from the fire that had troubled him ever since he got the first call in Sheriff Pitala's office. Maybe Magozzi had been right: Coincidencewas the connection.
Knudsen made a dozen calls in the ten minutes it took to get to the machine shed. By the time he arrived, an astounding-looking collection of people were running from a big RV toward the shed, led by three women who looked as though they'd been to hell and back, and a dog that looked like he'd gone with them.
Knudsen joined them at the door. There was no time for introductions, but a tall, black-haired woman nodded to him brusquely, as if she fully expected he would know who she was. The woman on the phone, he decided.
"Don't touch one thing in there," she commanded them all, then opened the door and led them all to a computer against the far wall. "Just read."
The men crowded in a circle around the screen as she started to explain what was on the monitor. Every face looked ashen and ghastly under the fluorescent lights-Knudsen's most of all, and, surprisingly, Bonar's.
Agent Knudsen bolted from the building without explanation. The rest of them continued to stare at the screen, at the ominous row of trucks, at the block of plastique sitting placidly next to the computer.
An irritated Gino shoved his hands in his pockets, trying to make sense of what he'd just read on the monitor. "I don't get all the numbers. Or the stupid names. 'Schrader-off-line, Ambros-target acquired.' What the hell does that mean? I don't get any of it."
"Schrader, Ambros, Ritter," Bonar recited in a flat voice. "They're missing one-Linde-but that doesn't count for much. Germans. Those were the men who discovered sarin in the thirties. They named the trucks after them."
Every face turned toward him.
"Sarin?" Magozzi whispered.
Bonar pushed his lips out and nodded. "One of the first-generation nerve gases."
"Jesus Christ, the Feebs got it right," Gino said, looking over at the trucks, then back at the blinking numbers on the monitor: 03:14:17... 16 . .. 15 ...
THEY FOUND Agent Knudsen pacing a furrow in the long grass near his car, phone clutched in one white-knuckled hand that swung back and forth as he walked. Sharon hung back a little-the agent's car was a little too close to Doug Lee's patrol- and Halloran stayed with her.
"We've got to get rid of that bomb so we can get into the computer," Grace was telling Knudsen. "Those trucks in there all have remote computer units. The one inside that building is the host, and obviously it already sent out the detonation command. There's got to be an abort in there somewhere."
Knudsen gestured with his phone. "Nearest bomb squad is in Green Bay. We'll get them on a chopper, along with some computer experts."
"How long?" Magozzi asked.
"Two hours. At least."
Grace checked her watch and moved her head impatiently. "Not fast enough. There's less than three hours until those trucks blow."
Knudsen shot her a furious look, as if she were the enemy. Why the hell was the woman wearing riding boots? Damn things had to be hotter than hell. And that big ugly mutt glued to her leg looked like he wanted to rip his throat out. "You think I don't know that? I'm waiting for a callback from Bill Turner. He's the best bomb man in the country, but he's in D.C, and we're having trouble locating him. It's Sunday morning. He's probably in some goddamned church somewhere."
Magozzi looked at the agent who looked both twenty years younger and a thousand years older than he had ten minutes ago, a little surprised by his choice of adjectives. He was starting to sound more like a person and less like FBI, and that was not necessarily a good sign. "Even if you find this guy in the next few seco
nds, what's he going to be able to do from D.C?"
"He can walk me through deactivation."
"You've done this before?"
Knudsen narrowed his eyes at Grace. She sounded like an interrogator. "No. But we've run out of options. We don't even know where the targets are, those two trucks are already on-site. . . ."
"And filled with sarin," Bonar said matter-of-factly, and Knudsen jerked his head to glare at him.
"You want to tell me how you know which nerve gas it is?"
Bonar opened his hands. "The names they gave the trucks, of course."
Knudsen closed his eyes. Too many people knew too many things these days. The information age was killing them.
"What about all the other information on the screen in there?" Gino asked. "A bunch of those numbers keep changing. Maybe that's latitude or some of that shit that tells where the trucks are."
Knudsen shook his head. "The trucks aren't moving anymore, according to that computer. Besides, I know what those tables are. I've seen them before. They estimate initial dispersal distances based on a lot of factors, like wind speed, direction, humidity . . ."
"Hey." Roadrunner turned to Harley. "We could plug those numbers into that stat program and link up with the National Weather Service. What are the chances that any two locations in this country are having exactly the same fluctuations in weather conditions at exactly the same time?"
"Sounds good, but it'll take a while."
Knudsen was frowning at the two of them, then his face cleared. "Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. Kingsford County undercover computer crimes, right?"
Grace and Annie looked sideways at their partners.
"Right," Harley said.
"It was a good thought, but even if we found those trucks in the next ten minutes, chances are they're in an urban area and we won't be able to get them to a safe disarmament location in time."
"So we're right back where we started," Grace said. "We have to get into that computer and find the abort."