Instead he approached the box again and dropped to his knees before it, a posture too much like worship for his liking.

He stripped off one of the gloves, touched the ground beside the thing, then snatched his hand back. Hot. Bits of burning apron had scorched some of the grass. Next he reached for the box itself, steeling himself for another burn or another shock… although neither was what he was most afraid of; he was afraid of seeing those leather shapes again, those not-quite-heads bent together in some laughing conspiracy.

But there was nothing. No visions and no heat. The gray box was cool to the touch, even though he'd seen the lead apron on top of it bubbling up and then actually catching fire.

The purple light flashed out. Rusty was careful not to put his hand in front of it. Instead, he gripped the thing's sides, mentally saying goodbye to his wife and girls, telling them he was sorry for being such a damn fool. He waited to catch fire and burn. When he didn't, he tried to lift the box. Although it had the surface area of a dinner plate and wasn't much thicker, he couldn't budge it. The box might as well have been welded to the top of a pillar planted in ninety feet of New England bedrock—except it wasn't. It was sitting on top of a grassy mat, and when he wriggled his fingers deeper beneath, they touched. He laced them together and tried again to lift the thing. No shock, no visions, no heat; no movement, either. Not so much as a wiggle.

He thought: My hands are gripping some sort of alien artifact. A machine from another world. I may have even caught a glimpse of its operators.

The idea was intellectually amazing—flabbergasting, even—but it had no emotional gradient, perhaps because he was too stunned, too overwhelmed with information that did not compute.

So what next? fust what the hell next?

He didn't know. And it seemed he wasn't emotionally flat after all, because a wave of despair rolled through him, and he was only just able to stop from vocalizing that despair in a cry. The four people downi below might hear it and think he was in trouble. Which, of course, he was. Nor was he alone.

He got to his feet on legs that trembled and threatened to give out beneath him. The hot, close air seeined to lie on his skin like oil. He made his way slowly back toward the van through the apple-heavy trees. The only thing he was sure of was that under no circumstances could Big Jim Rennie learn of the generator. Not because he would try to destroy it, but because he'd very likely set a guard around it to make sure it wasn't destroyed. To make sure it kept right on doing what it was doing, so he could keep on doing what he was doing. For the time being, at least, Big Jim liked things just the way they were.

Rusty opened the door of the van and that was when, less than a mile north of Black Ridge, a huge explosion rocked the day. It was as if God had leaned down and fired a heavenly shotgun.

Rusty shouted in surprise and looked up. He immediately shielded his eyes from the fierce temporary sun burning in the sky over the border between TR-90 and Chester's Mill. Another plane had crashed into the Dome. Only this time it had been no mere Seneca V. Black smoke billowed up from the point of impact, which Rusty estimated as being at least twenty thousand feet. If the black spot left by the missile strikes was a beauty mark on the cheek of the day, then this new mark was a skin tumor. One that had been allowed to run wild.

Rusty forgot about the generator. He forgot about the four people waiting for him. He forgot about his own children, for whom he had just risked being burned alive and then discorporated. For a space of two minutes, there was no room for anything in his mind but black awe.

Rubble was falling to earth on the other side of the Dome. The smashed forward quarter of the jetliner was followed by a flaming motor; the motor was followed by a waterfall of blue airline seats, many with passengers still strapped into them; the seats were followed by a vast shining wing, seesawing like a sheet of paper in a draft; the wing was followed by the tail of what was probably a 767. The tail was painted dark green. A lighter green shape had been superimposed on it. It looked to Rusty like a clover.

Not a clover, a shamrock.

Then the body of the plane crashed to earth like a defective arrow and lit the woods on fire.

18

The blast rocks the town and they all come out to see. All over Chester's Mill, they come out to see. They stand in front of their houses, in driveways, on sidewalks, in the middle of Main Street. And although the sky north of their prison is mostly cloudy, they have to shield their eyes from the glare—what looked to Rusty, from his place atop Black Ridge, like a second sun.

They see what it is, of course; the sharper-eyed among them can even read the name on the body of the plummeting plane before it disappears below the treeline. It is nothing supernatural; it has even happened before, and just this week (although on a smaller scale, admittedly). But in the people of Chester's Mill, it inspires a kind of sullen dread that will hold sway over the town from then until the end.

Anyone who has ever cared for a terminal patient will tell you that there comes a tipping point when denial dies and acceptance finds its way in. For most people in Chester's Mill, the tipping point came at midmorning on October twenty-fifth, while they stood either alone or with their neighbors, watching as more than three hundred people plunged into the woods of TR-90.

Earlier that morning, perhaps fifteen percent of the town was wearing blue 'solidarity' armbands; by sundown on this Wednesday in October, it will be twice that. When the sun conies up tomorrow, it will be over fifty percent of the population.

Denial gives way to acceptance; acceptance breeds dependence. Anyone who's ever cared for a terminal patient will tell you that, too. Sick people need someone who will bring them their pills and glasses of cold sweet juice to wash them down with. They need someone to soothe their aching joins with arnica gel. They need someone to sit with them when the night is dark and the hours stretch out. They need someone to say, Sleep now, it will be better in the morning. I'm here, so sleep. Sleep now. Sleep and let me take care of everything.

Sleep.

19

Officer Henry Morrison got Junior to the hospital—by then the kid had regained a soupy semblance of consciousness, although he was still talking gibberish—and Twitch wheeled him away on a gurney. It was a relief to see him go.

Henry got Big Jim's home and Town Hall office numbers from directory assistance, but there was no answer at either—they were landlines. He was listening to a robot tell him that James Rennie's cell-phone number was unlisted when the jetliner exploded. He

rushed out with everyone else who was ambulatory and stood in the turnaround, looking at the new black mark on the Dome's invisible surface. The last of the debris was still fluttering down.

Big Jim was indeed in his Town Hall office, but he had killed the phone so he could work on both speeches—the one to the cops tonight, the one to the entire town tomorrow night—without interruption. He heard the explosion and rushed outside. His first thought was that Cox had set off a nuke. A cotton-picking nuke! If it broke through the Dome, it would ruin everything!

He found himself standing next to Al Timmons, the Town Hall janitor. Al pointed north, high in the sky, where smoke was still rising. It looked to Big Jim like an anti-aircraft burst in an old World War II movie.

'It was an airplane!' Al shouted. 'And a big one! Christ! Didn't they get the word?'

Big Jim felt a cautious sense of relief, and his triphammering heart slowed a bit. If it was a plane… just a plane and not a nuke or some kind of super-missile…

His cell phone tweeted. He snatched it from the pocket of his suit coat and snapped it open. 'Peter? Is that you?'

'No, Mr Rennie. Colonel Cox here.'

'What did you do?' Rennie shouted. 'What in God's name did you people do now?'

'Nothing.' There was none of the former crisp authority in Cox's voice; he sounded stunned. 'It—was nothing to do with us. It was… hold on a minute.'

Rennie waited. Main Street was full of people staring up into the sky with their mouths gaped open. To Rennie they looked like sheep dressed in human clothing. Tomorrow night they would crowd into the Town Hall and go baaa baaa baaa, when'll it get better? And baaa baaa baaa, take care of us until it does. And he would. Not because he wanted to, but because it was God's will.

Cox came back on. Now he sounded weary as well as stunned. Not the same man who had hectored Big Jim about stepping down. And that's the way I want you to sound, pal, Rennie thought. Exactly the way.

'My initial information is that Air Ireland flight 179 has struck the Dome and exploded. It originated in Shannon and was bound for Boston. We already have two independent witnesses who claim to have seen a shamrock on the tail, and an ABC crew that was filming just outside the quarantine zone in Harlow may have gotten… one more second.'

It was much more than a second; more than a minute. Big Jim's heart had been slowing toward its normal speed (if a hundred and twenty beats per minute can be so characterized), but now it sped up again and took one of those looping misbeats. He coughed and pounded at his chest. His heart seemed almost to settle, then went into a full-blown arrhythmia. He felt sweat pop on his brow The day formerly dull, all at once seemed too bright.

'Jim?' It was Al Timmons, and although he was standing right beside Big Jim, his voice seemed to be coming from a galaxy far, far away. 'You okay?'

'Fine,' Big Jim said. 'Stay right there. I may want you.'

Cox was bacL'It was indeed the Air Ireland flight. I just watched ABC's streamed footage of the crash. A reporter was doing a stand-up, and it occurred right behind her. They caught the whole thing.'

'I'm sure their ratings will go up.'

'Mr Rennie, we may have had our differences, but I hope you'll convey to your constituents that this is nothing for them to worry about.'

'Just tell me how a thing like that—' His heart looped again. His breath tore in, then stopped. He pounded his chest a second time—harder—and sat down on a bench beside the brick path which ran from the Town Hall to the sidewalk. Al was looking at him instead of at the crash scar on the Dome now, his forehead furrowed with concern—and, Big Jim thought, fright. Even now, with all this happening, he was glad to see that, glad to know he was seen as indispensable. Sheep need a shepherd.

'Rennie? Are you there?'

'I'm here.'And so was his heart, but it was far from right. 'How did it happen? How could it? I thought you people got the word out.'

'We're not positive and won't be until we recover the black box, but we've got a pretty good idea. We sent out a directive warning all commercial air carriers away from the Dome, but this is 179 s usual flight path. We think someone neglected to reprogram the autopilot. Simple as that. I'll get you further details as soon as we get them here, but right now the important thing is to quell any panic in town before it can take hold.'

But under certain circumstances, panic could be good. Under certain circumstances, it could—like food riots and acts of arson—have a beneficial effect.

'This was stupidity on a grand scale, but still just an accident,' Cox was saying. 'Make sure your people know that.'

They'll know what I tell them and believe what J want them to, Rennie thought.

His heart skittered like grease on a hot griddle, settled briefly into a more normal rhythm, then skittered again. He pushed the red END CALL button without responding to Cox and dropped the phone back into his pocket. Then he looked at At.

T need you to take me to the hospital,' he said, speaking as calmly as he could manage. 'I seem to be in some discomfort here.'

Al—who was wearing a Solidarity Armband—looked more alarmed than ever.'Accourse, Jim. You just sit right there while I get my car. We can't let anything happen to you. The town needs you.'

Don't I know it, Big Jim thought, sitting on the bench and looking at the great black smear on the sky.

'Find Carter Thibodeau and tell him to meet me there. I want him on hand.'

There were other instructions he wanted to give, but just then his heart stopped completely. For a moment forever yawned at his feet, a clear dark chasm. Rennie gasped and pounded his chest. It burst into a full gallop. He thought at it: Don't you quit on me now, I've got too much to do. Don't you dare, you cotton-picker. Don't you dare.

20

'What was it?' Norrie asked in a high, childish voice, and then answered her own question. 'It was an airplane, wasn't it? An airplane full of people.' She burst into tears. The boys tried to hold their own tears back, and couldn't. Rommie felt like crying himself.

'Yuh,' he said. 'I think that's what it was.'

Joe turned to look at the van, now heading back toward them. When it got to the foot of the ridge it sped up, as if Rusty couldn't wait to get back. When he arrived and jumped out, Joe saw he had another reason for hurry: the lead apron was gone.

Before Rusty could say anything, his cell phone rang. He flipped it open, looked at the number, and took the call. He expected Ginny, but it was the new guy, Thurston Marshall. 'Yes, what? If it's about the plane, I saw—' He listened, frowning a little, then nodding. 'Okay, yes. Right. I'm coming now. Tell Ginny or Twitch to give him two milligrams of Valium, IV push. No, better make it three. And tell him to be calm. That's foreign to his nature, but tell him to try. Give his son five milligrams.'

He closed his phone and looked at them. 'Both Rennies are in the hospital, the elder with heartbeat arrhythmia, which he's had before.The damn fool has needed a pacemaker for two years.Thurston says the younger has symptoms that look to him like a glioma. I hope he's wrong.'

Norrie turned her tearstained face up to Rusty's. She had her arm around Benny Drake, who was furiously wiping at his eyes. When Joe came and stood next to her, she put her other arm around him.

'That's a brain tumor, right?' she said. 'A bad one.'

'When they hit kids Junior Rennie's age, almost all of them are bad.'

'What did you find up there?' Rommie asked.

'And what happened to your apron?' Benny added.

'I found what Joe thought I'd find.'

'The generator?' Rommie said. 'Doc, are you sure?'

'"Yeah. It's like nothing I ever saw before. I'm pretty sure no one on Earth's seen anything like it before.'

'Something from another planet,' Joe said in a voice so low it was a whisper. 'I knew'

Rusty looked at him hard. 'You can't talk about it. None of us can. If you're asked, say we looked and found nothing.'

'Even to my mom?' Joe asked plaintively.

Rusty almost relented on that score, then hardened his heart. This was a secret now shared among five people, and that was far too many. But the kids had deserved to know, and Joe McClatchey had guessed anyway.

'Even her, at least for now.'

'I can't lie to her,' Joe said. 'It doesn't: work. She's got Mom Vision.'

'Then just say I swore you to secrecy and it's better for her that way. If she presses, tell her to talk to me. Come on, I need to get back to the hospital. Rommie, you drive. My nerves are shot.'

'Aren't you gonna—' Romniie began.

'I'll tell you everything. On the way back. Maybe we can even figure out what the hell to do about it.'

21

An hour after the Air Ireland 767 crashed into the Dome, Rose Twitchell marched into the Chester's Mill PD with a napkin-covered plate. Stacey Moggin was back on the desk, looking as tired and distracted as Rose felt.

'What's that?' Stacey asked.

'Lunch. For my cook. Two toasted BLTs.'

'Rose, I'm not supposed to let you go down there. I'm not supposed to let anyone go down there.'

Mel Searles had been talking with two of the new recruits about a monster truck show he'd seen at the Portland Civic Center last spring. Now he looked around. 'I'll take em to him, Miz Twitchell.'

'You will not,' Rose said.

Mel looked surprised. And a little hurt. He had always liked Rose, and thought she liked him.

'I don't trust you not to drop the plate,' she explained, although this wasn't the exact truth; the fact was, she didn't trust him at all. 'I watched you play football, Melvin.'

'Aw, come on, I ain't that clumsy.'

'Also because I want to see if he's all right.'

'He's not supposed to have any visitors,' Mel said. 'That's from Chief Randolph, and he got it direct from Selectman Rennie.'

'Well, I'm going down.You'll have to use yourTaser to stop me, and if you do that, I'll never make you another strawberry waffle the way you like them, with the batter all runny in the middle.' She looked around and sniffed. 'Besides, I don't see either of those men here right now. Or am I missing something?'

Mel considered getting tough, if only to impress the fresh fish, and then decided not to. He really did like Rose. And he liked her waffles, especially when they were a little gooshy. He hitched up his belt and said, 'Okay But I hafta go with you, and you ain't taking him nothing until I look under that napkin.'

She raised it. Underneath were two BLTs, and a note written on the back of a Sweetbriar Rose customer check. Stay strong, it said. We believe in you.

Mel took the note, crumpled it, and threw it toward the waste-basket. It missed, and one of the recruits scurried to pick it up. 'Come on,' he said, then stopped, took half a sandwich, and tore out a monster bite. 'He couldn't eat all that, anyway' he told Rose.

Rose said nothing, but as he led her downstairs, she did briefly consider braining him with the plate.

She got halfway down the lower corridor before Mel said, 'That's as close as you go^ Miz Twitchell, I'll take it the rest of the way'

She handed the plate over and watched unhappily as Mel knelt, pushed the plate through the bars, and announced: 'Lunch is served, mon-sewer.'

Barbie ignored him. He was looking at Rose. 'Thank you. Although if Anson made those, I don't know how grateful I'll be after the first bite.'

'I made them,' she said. 'Barbie—why did they beat you up? Were you trying to get away? You look awful'

'Not trying to get away, resisting arrest. Wasn't I, Mel?'

'You want to quit the smart talk, or I'll come in there and take them simwidges away from you.'

'Well, you could try,' Barbie said. 'We could contest the matter.' When Mel showed no inclination to take him up on this offer, Barbie turned his attention to Rose once more.'Was it an airplane? It sounded like an airplane. A big one.'

'ABC says it was an Air Ireland jetliner. Fully loaded.'

'Let me guess. It was on its way to Boston or New York and some not-so-bright spark forgot to reprogram the autopilot.'

'I don't know. They're not saying about that part yet.'

'Come on.' Mel came back and took her arm. 'That's enough chitter-chatter. You need to leave before I get in trouble.'

'Are you okay?' Rose asked Barbie, resisting this command—at least for a moment.

'Yeah,' Barbie said. 'How about you? Did you patch it up with Jackie Wettington yet?'

And what was the correct answer to that one? So far as Rose knew, she had nothing to patch up with Jackie. She thought she saw Barbie give a tiny shake of the head, and hoped it wasn't just her imagination.

'Not yet,' she said.

'You ought to. Tell her to stop being a bitch.'

'As if,' Mel muttered. He locked onto Rose's arm. 'Come on, now; don't make me drag you.'

'Tell her I said you're all right,' Barbie called as she went up the stairs, this time leading the way with Mel at her heels. 'You two really should talk. And thanks for the sandwiches.'

Tell her I said you're all right.

That was the message, she was quite sure of it. She didn't think Mel had caught it; he'd always been dull, and life under the Dome did not seem to have smartened him up any. Which was probably why Barbie had taken the risk.

Rose made up her mind to find Jackie as soon as possible, and pass on the message: Barbie says I'm all right. Barbie says you can talk to me.

'Thank you, Mel,' she said—when they were back in the ready room. 'It was kind of you to let me do that.'

Mel looked around, saw no one of greater authority than himself, and relaxed. 'No problem-o, but don't think you're gettin down there again with supper, because it ain't happenin.' He considered, then waxed philosophical. 'He deserves somethin nice though, I guess. Because come next week this time, he's gonna be as toasty as those samwidges you made im.'

We'll see about that, Rose thought.

22

Andy Sanders and The Chef sat beside the WOK storage barn, smoking glass. Straight ahead of them, in the field surrounding the radio tower, was a mound of earth marked with a cross made out of crate-slats. Beneath the mound lay Sammy Bushey, torturer of Bratz, rape victim, mother of Little Walter. Chef said that later on he might steal a regular cross from the cemetery by Chester Pond. If there was time. There might not be.

He lifted his garage door opener as if to emphasize this point.

Andy felt sorry for Sammy, just as he felt sorry about Claudette and Dodee, but now it was a clinical sorrow, safely stored inside its own Dome: you could see it, could appreciate its existence, but you couldn't exactly get in there with it. Which was a good thing. He tried to explain this to Chef Bushey, although he got a little lost in the middle—it was a complex concept. Chef nodded, though, then passed Andy a large glass bong. Etched on the side were the words NOT LEGAL FOR TRADE

'Good, ain't it?' Chef said.

'Yes!'Andy said.

For a little while then they discussed the two great texts of born-again dopers: what good shit this was, and how fucked up they were getting on this good shit. At some point there was a huge explosion to the north. Andy shielded his eyes, which were burning from all the smoke. He almost dropped the bong, but Chef rescued it.

'Holy shit, that's an airplanel' Andy tried to get up, but his legs, although buzzing with energy, wouldn't hold him. He settled back.

'No, Sanders,' Chef said. He puffed at the bong. Sitting with legs akimbo as he was, he looked to Andy like an Indian with a peace pipe.

Leaning on the side of shed between Andy and Chef were four full-auto AK-47s, Russian in manufacture but imported—like many other fine items stocked in the storage facility—from China. There were also five stacked crates filled with thirty-round clips and a box of RGD-5 grenades. Chef had offered Andy a translation of the ideograms on the box of grenades: Do Not Drop This Motherfucker.

Now Chef took one of the AKs and laid it across his knees. 'That was not an airplane,' he amplified.

'No? Then what was it?'

'A sign from God.' Chef looked at what he had painted on the side of the storage barn: two quotes (liberally interpreted) from the Book of Revelation with the number 31 featured prominently. Then he looked back at Andy. To the north, the plume of smoke in the sky was dissipating. Below it, fresh smoke was rising from where the plane had impacted in the woods. 'I got the date wrong,' he said in a brooding voice. 'Halloween really is coming early this year. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after tomorrow.'

'Or the day after that,' Andy added helpfully.

'Maybe,' Chef allowed,'but I think it'll be sooner. Sanders!'

'What, Chef?'

'Take you a gun. You're in the Lord's army now. You're a Christian soldier. Your days of licking that apostate son of a bitch's ass are over.'

Andy took an AK and laid it across his bare thighs. He liked the weight of it and the warmth of it. He checked to make sure the safety was on. It was. 'What apostate son of a bitch are you talking about, Chef?'

Chef fixed him with a look of utter contempt, but when Andy reached for the bong, he handed it over willingly enough. There was plenty for both of them, would be from now until the end, and yea, verily, the end would not be long. 'Rennie. That apostate son of a bitch.'

'He's my friend—my pal—but he can be a harctass, all right,' Andy admitted. 'My goodness but this is good shit.'

'It is,' Chef agreed moodily, and took the bong (which Andy now thought of as the Smokeum Peace Pipe) back. 'It's the longest of long glass, the purest of the pure, and what is it, Sanders?'

'A medicine for melancholy!' Andy returned smartly.

'And what is that?' Pointing at the new black mark on the Dome.

'A sign! From God!!'

'Yes,' Chef said, mollified. 'That's exactly what it is. We're on a God-trip now, Sanders. Do you know what happened when God opened the seventh seal? Have you read Revelation?'

Andy had a memory, from the Christian camp he'd attended as a teenager, of angels popping out of that seventh seal like clowns from the little car at the circus, but he didn't want to say it that way. Chef might consider it blasphemous. So he just shook his head.

'Thought not,' Chef said. 'You might have gotten preaching at Holy Redeemer, but preaching is not education. Preaching is not the true visionary shit. Do you understand that?'

What Andy understood was that he wanted another hit, but he nodded his head.

'When the seventh seal was opened, seven angels appeared with seven trumpets. And each time one blew the boogie, a plague smote down on the earth. Here, toke this shit, it'll help your concentration.'

How long had they been out here smoking? It seemed like hours. Had they really seen a plane crash? Andy thought so, but now he wasn't completely sure. It seemed awfully farfetched. Maybe he should take a nap. On the other hand, it was wonderful to the point of ecstasy just to be out here with Chef, getting stoned and educated. 'I almost killed myself, but God saved me,' he told Chef. The thought was so wonderful that tears filled his eyes.

'Yeah, yeah, that's obvious. This other stuff isn't. So listen.'

'I am.'

'First angel blew and hailed down blood on the earth. Second angel blew and a mountain of fire was cast into the sea. That's your volcanoes and shit.'

'Yes!' Andy shouted, and inadvertendy squeezed the trigger of the AK-47 lying across his lap.

'You want to watch that,' Chef said. 'If the safety hadn't been on, you would have blown my tickle-stick into yonder pine tree. Hit on this shit.' He handed Andy the bong. Andy couldn't even remember giving it back to him, but he must have done. And what time was it? It looked like midafternoon, but how could that be? He hadn't gotten hungry for lunch and he always got hungry for lunch, it was his best meal.

'Now listen, Sanders, because this is the important part.'

Chef was able to quote from memory because he had made quite a study of the book of Revelations since moving out here to the radio station; he read and reread it obsessively, sometimes until dawn streaked the horizon.'"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven! Burning as if it were a lamp!'"

'We just saw that!'

Chef nodded. His eyes were fixed on the black smutch where Air Ireland 179 had met her end.'"And the name of the star is called Wormwood, and many men died because they were made bitter." Are you bitter, Sanders?'

'No!' Andy assured him.

'No. We're mellow. But now that Star Wormwood has blazed in the sky, bitter men will come. God has told me this, Sanders, and it's no bullshit. Check me out and you find I'm all about zero bullshit. They're gonna try to take all this away from us. Rennie and his bullshit cronies.'

'No way!'Andy cried. A sudden and horribly intense paranoia swept over him. They could be here already! Bullshit cronies creeping through those trees! Bullshit cronies driving down Little Bitch Road in a line of trucks! Now that Chef had brought it up, he even saw why Rennie would want to do it. He'd call it: 'getting rid of the evidence.'

'Chef!' He gripped his new friend's shoulder.

'Let up a little, Sanders. That hurts.'

He let up a little. 'Big Jim's already talked about coming up and getting the propane tanks—that's the first stepV

Chef nodded. 'They've already been here once. Took two tanks. I let em.' He paused, then patted the grenades. 'I won't let em again. Are you down with that?'

Andy thought of the pounds of dope inside the building they were leaning against, and gave the answer Chef had expected. 'My brother,' he said, and embraced Chef.

Chef was hot and stinky, but Andy hugged with enthusiasm. Tears were rolling down his face, which he had neglected to shave on a weekday for the first time in over twenty years. This was great. This was… was…

Bonding!

'My brother,' he sobbed into Chef's ear.

Chef thrust him back and looked at him solemnly.'We are agents of the Lord,' he said.

And Andy Sanders—now all alone in the world except for the scrawny prophet beside him—said amen.

23

Jackie found Ernie Calvert behind his house, weeding his garden. She was a little worried about approaching him in spite of what she'd told Piper, but she needn't have been. He gripped her shoulders with hands that were surprisingly strong for such a portly little man. His eyes shone.

'Thank God someone sees what that windbag's up to!' He dropped his hands. 'Sorry. I smudged your blouse.'

'That's all right.'

'He's dangerous, Officer Wettington.You know that, don't you?'

'Yes.'

'And clever. He set up that damned food riot the way a terrorist would plant a bomb.'

'I have no doubt of it.'

'But he's also stupid. Clever and stupid is a terrible combin-• ation. You can persuade people to go with you, you see. All the way to hell. Look at that fellow Jim Jones, remember him?'

'The one who got all his followers to drink poison. So you'll come to the meeting?'

'You bet. And mum's the word. Unless you want me to talk to Lissa Jamieson, that is. Glad to do it.'

Before Jackie could answer, her cell phone rang. It was her personal; she had turned in the one issued to her by the PD along with her badge and gun.

'Hello, this is Jackie.'

'Mihi portatoe vulneratos, Sergeant Wettington,' an unfamiliar voice said.

The motto of her old unit in Wiirzburg—bring me your wounded— and Jackie responded without even thinking:'On stretchers, crutches, or in bags, we put em together with spit and rags. Who the hell is this?'

'Colonel James Cox, Sergeant.'

Jackie moved the phone away from her mouth. 'Give me a minute, Ernie?'

He nodded and went back to his garden. Jackie strolled toward the shakepole fence at the foot of the yard. 'What can I do for you, Colonel? And is this line secure?'

'Sergeant, if your man Rennie can tap cell phone calls made from beyond the Dome, we're in a world of hurt.'

'He's not my man.'

'Good to know.'

'And I'm no longer in the Army. The Sixty-seventh isn't even in my rearview mirror these days, sir.'

'Well, that's not exactly true, Sarge. By order of the President of the United States, you've been stop-lossed. Welcome back.'

'Sir, I don't know whether to say thank you or fuck you very much.'

Cox laughed without much humor. 'Jack Readier says hello.'

'Is that where you got this number?',

'That and a recommendation. A recommendation from Reacher goes a long way. You asked what you can do for me. The answer is twofold, both parts simple. One, get Dale Barbara out of the mess he's in. Unless you think he's guilty of the charges?'

'No, sir. I'm sure he's not. That is to say, we are. There are several of us.'

'Good. Very good.' There was no mistaking the relief in the man's voice. 'Number two, you can knock that bastard Rennie off his perch.'

'That would be Barbie's job. If… you're positive this line's secure?'

'Positive.'

'If we can get him out.'

'That's in work, is it?*

'Yes, sir, I believe so.'

'Excellent. How many brownshirts does Rennie have?'

'Currently about thirty, but he's still hiring. And here in The Mill they're blueshirts, but I take your meaning. Don't sell him short, Colonel. He's got most of this town in his pocket. We're going to try to get Barbie out, and you better hope we succeed, because I can't do much about Big Jim on my own. Toppling dictators with no help from the outside world is about six miles above my pay grade. And just FYI, my own days on the Chester's Mill PD are over. Rennie shitcanned me.'

'Keep me informed when and as you can. Spring Barbara and turn your resistance operation over to him. We'll see who ends up getting shitcanned.'

'Sir, you sort of wish you were in here, don't you?'

'With all my heart.' No hesitation. 'I'd dewheel that sonofabitch's little red wagon in about twelve hours.'

Jackie doubted that, actually; things were different under the Dome. Outsiders couldn't: understand. Even time was different. Five days ago, everything had been normal. Now look.

'One other thing,' Colonel Cox said. 'Take some time out of your busy schedule to look at the TV. We're going to do our level best to make Rennie's life uncomfortable.'

Jackie said goodbye and broke the connection. Then she walked back to where Ernie was gardening. 'Got a generator?' she asked.

'Died last night,' he said with sour good cheer.

'Well, let's go someplace where there's a working TV. My friend says we should check out the news.'

They headed for Sweetbriar Rose. On their way they met Julia Shumway and brought her along.

BUSTED

1

Sweetbriar was closed until 5 p.m., at which time Rose planned to offer a light supper, mostly leftovers. She was making potato salad and keeping an eye on the TV over the counter when the knocking on the door started. It was Jackie Wettington, Ernie Calvert, and Julia Shumway. Rose crossed the empty restaurant, wiping her hands on her apron, and unlocked the door. Horace the Corgi trotted at Julia's heel, ears up, grinning companionably. Rose made sure the CLOSED sign was still in place, then relocked the door behind them.

'Thanks,'Jackie said.

'Not at all,' Rose replied. 'I wanted to see you anyway.'

'We came for that,'Jackie said, and pointed to the TV. 'I was at Ernie's, and we met Julia on our way here. She was sitting across the street from her place, mooning at the wreckage.'

'I was not mooning,' Julia said. 'Horace and I were trying to figure how we're going to get a paper out after the town meeting. It'll have to be small—probably just two pages—but there will be a paper. My heart is set on it.'

Rose glanced back at the TV. On it, a pretty young woman was doing a stand-up. Beneath her was a banner reading EARLIER TODAY COURTESY ABC. All at once there was a bang and a fireball bloomed in the sky. The reporter flinched, cried out, wheeled around. By that point her cameraman was already zooming her out of the picture, homing in on the earthbound fragments of the Air Ireland.

'There's nothing but reruns of the plane-crash footage,' Rose said. 'If you haven't seen it before, be my guest. Jackie, I saw Barbie late this morning—I took him some sandwiches and they let me go downstairs to where the cells are. I had Melvin Searks as my chaperone.'

'Lucky you,' Jackie said.

'How is he?'Julia asked. 'Is he okay?'

'He looks like the wrath of God, but I think so, yes. He said… maybe I should tell you privately, Jackie.'

'Whatever it is, I think you can say it in front of Ernie and Julia.'

Rose considered this, but only for a moment. If Ernie Calvert and Julia Shumway weren't all right, nobody was. 'He said I was supposed to talk to you. Make up with you, as if we'd had a fight. He said to tell you that I'm all right.'

Jackie turned to Ernie and Julia. It seemed to Rose that a question was asked and answered. 'If Barbie says you are, then you are,' Jackie said, and Ernie nodded emphatically. 'Hon, we're putting together a little meeting tonight. At the Congo parsonage. It's kind of a secret—'

'Not kind of, it is', Julia said. 'And given the way things are in town right now, the secret better not get out.'

'If it's about what I think it's about, I'm in.'Then Rose lowered her voice. 'But not Anson. He's wearing one of those goddam armbands.'

Just then the CNN BREAKING NEWS logo came on the TV screen, accompanied by the annoying minor-key disaster music the network was now playing with each new Dome story. Rose expected either Anderson Cooper or her beloved Wolfie—both were now based in Castle Rock—but it was Barbara Starr, the network's Pentagon correspondent. She was standing outside the tent-and-trailer village serving as the Army's forward base in Harlow.

'Don, Kyra—Colonel James O. Cox, the Pentagon's point man since the mammoth mystery known as the Dome came into being last Saturday, is about to speak to the press for only the second time since this crisis began. The subject was announced to reporters just moments ago, and it's sure to galvanize the tens of thousands of Americans with loved ones in the beleaguered town of Chester's Mill. We were told—' She listened to something in her earpiece. 'Here's Colonel Cox.'

The four in the restaurant sat on stools at the counter, watching as the picture switched to the mside of a large tent… There were perhaps forty reporters seated in folding chairs, and more standing in the back.They were murmuring among themselves. A makeshift stage had been set up at one end of the tent. On it was a podium festooned with microphones and flanked by American flags. There was a white screen behind it.

'Pretty professional, for an on-the-fly operation,' Ernie said.

'Oh, I think this has been in the works,' Jackie said. She was recalling her conversation with Cox. We're going to do our level best to make Rennie's life uncomfortable, he'd said.

A flap opened to the left side of the tent, and a short, fit-looking man with graying hair strode briskly to the makeshift stage. No one had thought to put down a couple of stairs or even a box to stand on, but this presented no problem, to the featured speaker; he hopped up easily, not even breaking stride. He was dressed in plain khaki BDUs. If he had medals, they weren't in evidence. There was nothing on his shirt but a strip reading COL. J. COX. He held no notes. The reporters quieted immediately, and Cox gave them a little smile.

'This guy should have been holding press conferences all along,' Julia said. 'He looks good:

'Hush, Julia,' Rose said.

'Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming,' Cox said. 'I'll be brief, and then I'll take a few questions. The situation as regards Chester's Mill and what we're all now calling the Dome is as it was: the town continues to be cut off, we still have no idea about what is causing this situation or what brought it about, and we have as yet had no success in breaching the barrier. You would know, of course, if we had. The best scientists in America—the best in the entire world—are on the case, however, and we're considering a number of options. Do not ask me about these, because you'll get no answers at this time.'

The reporters murmured discontentedly. Cox let them. Below him, the CNN super switched to NO ANSWERS AT THIS TIME. When the murmuring died, Cox went on.

'As you're aware, we have established a no-go zone around the Dome, initially of a mile, expanded to two on Sunday and four on Tuesday. There were a number of reasons for this, the most important being that the Dome is dangerous to people with certain implants, such as pacemakers. A second reason is that we were concerned the field generating the Dome might have other harmful effects which would be less clearly recognized.'

'Are you talking about radiation, Colonel?' someone called.

Cox froze him with a glance, and when he seemed to consider the reporter properly chastised (not Wolfie, Rose was pleased to see, but that half-bald no-spin yapper from FOX News), he went on.

'We now believe that there are no harmful effects, at least in the short term, and so we have designated Friday, October twenty-seventh—the day after tomorrow—as Visitors Day at the Dome.'

A perfect fury of thrown questions went up at this. Cox waited it out, and when the audience had quieted down, he took a remote from the shelf under the podium and pressed a button. A high-resolution photograph (much too good to have been downloaded from Google Earth, in Julia's estimation) popped up on the white screen. It showed The Mill and both towns to the south, Motton and Castle Rock. Cox put down the controller and produced a laser-pointer.

The super at the bottom of the screen now read FRIDAY DESIGNATED VISATORS DAY AT THE DOME. Julia smiled. Colonel Cox had caught CNN with its spell-checker down.

'We believe we can process and accommodate twelve hundred visitors,' Cox said crisply. 'These will be limited to close relatives, at least this time… and all of us hope and pray there will never have to be a next time. Rally points will be here, at the Castle Rock Fairgrounds, and here, at Oxford Plains Speedway' He highlighted both locations. 'We will lay on two dozen buses, twelve at each location. These will be provided by six surrounding school districts, which are canceling classes that day to help in this effort, and we offer them our greatest thanks. A twenty-fifth bus will be available for press at Shiner's Bait and Tackle in Motton.' Dryly: 'Since Shiner's is also an agency liquor store, I'm sure most of you know it. There will also be one, I repeat, one, video truck allowed on this trip. You'll arrange pool coverage, ladies and gentlemen, the coverage provider to be chosen by lottery'

A groan went up at this, but it was perfunctory.

'There are forty-eight seats on the press bus, and obviously there are hundreds of press representatives here, from all over the world—'

'Thousands!' a gray-haired man shouted, and there was general laughter.

'Boy, I'm glad someone's havin fun,' Ernie Calvert said bitterly.

Qox allowed himself a smile. 'I stand corrected, Mr Gregory. Seats will be allocated according to your news organization—TV networks, Reuters, Tass, AP, and so on—and it's up to those organizations to pick their representatives.'

'Better be Wolfie from CNN, that's all I can say,' Rose announced.

The reporters were babbling excitedly.

'May I go on?' Cox asked. 'And those of you sending text messages, kindly stop.'

'Ooo,' Jackie said. 'I love a forceful man.'

'Surely you folks recall that you're not the story here? Would you behave this way if it was a mine cave-in, or people trapped under collapsed buildings after an earthquake?'

Silence greeted this, the kind that fills over a fourth-grade class after the teacher finally loses his temper. He really was forceful, Julia thought, and for a moment wished with all her heart that Cox were here under the Dome, and in charge. But of course, if pigs had wings, bacon would be airborne.

'Your job, ladies and gentlemen, is twofold: to help us get the word out, and to make sure that things go smoothly on Visitors Day once it does.'

The CNN super became PRESS TO AID VISATORS ON FRIDAY.

'The last thing we want to do is start a stampede of relations from all over the country to western Maine. We've already got close to ten thousand relatives of those trapped under the Dome in this immediate area; the hotels, motels, and camping areas are full to bursting. The message to relatives in other parts of the country is, "If you're not here, don't come." Not only will you not be granted a visitors' pass, you'll be turned around at checkpoints here, here, here, and here.' He highlighted Lewiston, Auburn, North Windham, and Conway, New Hampshire.

'Relatives currently in the area should proceed to registration officers who are already standing by at the Fairgrounds and the Speedway. If you're planning to jump into your car right this minute, don't. This isn't the Filene s White Sale, and being first in line guarantees you nothing. Visitors will be chosen by lottery, and you must register to get in. Those applying to visit will need two photo IDs. We'll attempt to give priority to visitors with two or more relatives in The Mill, hut no promises on that. And a warning, people: if you show up on Friday to board one of the buses and you have no pass or a counterfeit pass—if you clog up our operation, in other words—you'll find yourself in jail. Do not test us on this.

'Embarkation on Friday morning will commence at 0800 hours. If this goes smoothly, you'll have at least four hours with your loved ones, maybe longer. Gum up the works and everyone's time Domeside goes down. Buses will depart the Dome at seventeen hundred hours.'

'What's the visitors' site?' a woman shouted.

'I was just getting to that, Andrea.' Cox picked up his controller and zoomed in on Route 119. Jackie knew the area well; she had damned near broken her nose on the Dome out there. She could see the roofs of the Dinsmore farmhouse, outbuildings, and dairy barns.

'There's a flea market site on the Motton side of the Dome.' Cox binged it with his pointer. 'The buses will park there. Visitors will debark and walk to the Dome. There's plenty of field on both sides where people can gather. All the wreckage out there has been removed.'

'Will the visitors be allowed to go all the way up to the Dome?' a reporter asked.

Cox once more faced the camera, addressing the potential visitors directly. Rose could just imagine the hope and fear those people—watching in bars and motel TVs, listening on their car radios—must be feeling right now. She felt plenty of both herself.

'Visitors will be allowed within two yards of the Dome,' Cox said. 'We consider that a safe distance, although we make no guarantees. This isn't an amusement park ride that's been safety-tested. People with electronic implants must stay away. You re on your own with that; we can't check each and every chest; for a pacemaker scar. Visitors will also leave all electronic devices, including but not limited to iPods, cell phones, and BlackBerries, on the buses. Reporters with mikes and cameras will be kept at a distance. The close-up space is for tjhe visitors, and—what goes on between them and their loved ones is no one's business but their own. People, this will work if you help us make it work. If I can put it in Star Trek terms, help us make it so.' He put the pointer down. 'Now I'll take a few questions. A very few | Mr Blitzer.'

Rose's face lit up. She raised a fresh cup of coffee and toasted the TV screen with it.'Lookin good, Wolfie! You can eat crackers in my bed anytime you want.'

'Colonel Cox, are there any plans to add a press conference with the town officials?We understand that Second Selectman James Rennie is the actual man in charge. What's going on with that?'

'We are trying to make a press conference happen, with Mr Rerinie and any other town officials who might be in attendance. That would be at noon, if things run to the schedule we have in mind.'

A round of spontaneous applause from the reporters greeted this. There was nothing they liked better than a press conference, unless it was a high-priced politician caught; in bed with a high-priced whore.

Cox said, 'Ideally, the presser will take place right there on the road, with the town spokespersons, whoever they might be, on their side and you ladies and gentlemen on this one.'

Excited gabble. They liked the visual possibilities.

Cox pointed. 'Mr Holt.'

Lester Holt from NBC shot to his feet. 'How sure are you that Mr i Rennie will attend? I ask because there have been reports of financial mismanagement on his part, and some sort of criminal investigation into his affairs by the State of Maine Attorney General.'

'I've heard those reports,' Cox said.'I'm not prepared to comment on them, although Mr Rennie may want to.' He paused, not quite smiling. 'I'd certainly want to.'

'Rita Braver, Colonel Cox, CBS. Is it true that Dale Barbara, the man you tapped as emergency administrator in Chester's Mill, has been arrested for murder? That the Chester's Mill police in fact believe him to be a serial killer?'

Total silence from the press; nothing but attentive eyes. The same was true of the four people seated at the counter in Sweetbriar Rose.

'It's true,' Cox said. A muted mutter went up from the assembled reporters.'But we have no way of verifying the charges or vetting whatever evidence there may be. What we have is the same telephone and Internet chatter you ladies and gentlemen are no doubt getting. Dale Barbara is a decorated officer. He's never been arrested. I have known him for many years and vouched for him to the President of the United States. I have no reason to say I made a mistake based on what I know at this time.'

'Ray Suarez, Colonel, PBS. Do you believe the charges against Lieutenant Barbara—now Colonel Barbara—may have been politically motivated? That James Rennie may have had him jailed to keep him from taking control as the President ordered?'

And that's what the second half of this dog-and-pony show is all about, Julia realized. Cox has turned the news media into the Voice of America, and we're the people behind the Berlin Wall. She was all admiration.

'If you have a chance to question Selectman Rennie on Friday, Mr Suarez, you be sure to ask him that.' Cox spoke with a kind of stony calm. 'Ladies and gentlemen, that's all I have.'

He strode off as briskly as he'd entered, and before the assembled reporters could even begin shouting more questions, he was gone.

'Holy wow,' Ernie murmured.

'Yeah,'Jackie said.

Rose killed the TV. She looked glowing, energized. 'What time is this meeting? I don't regret a thing that Colonel Cox said, but this could make Barbie's life more difficult.'

2

Barbie found out about Cox's press conference when a red-faced Manuel Ortega came downstairs and told him. Ortega, formerly Alden Dinsmore's hired man, was now wearing a blue workshirt, a tin badge that looked homemade, and a.45 hung on a second belt that had been buckled low on his hips, gunslinger-style. Barbie knew him as a mild fellow with thinning hair and perpetually sun-burned skin who liked to order breakfast for dinner—pancakes, bacon, eggs over easy—and talk about cows, his favorite being the Belted Galloways that he could never persuade Mr Dinsmore to buy. He was Yankee to the core in spite of his name, and had a dry Yankee sense of humor. Barbie had always liked him. But this was a different Manuel, a stranger with all the good humor boiled dry. He brought news of the latest development, most of it shouted through the bars and accompanied by a considerable dose of flying spit. His face was nearly radioactive with rage.

'Not a word about how they found your dog tags in that poor girl's hand, not word-fucking-of«' about that! And then the tin-pants bastid went and took after Jim Rennie, who's held this town together by himself since this happened! By himself! With SPIT and BALING WIRE!'

'Take it easy, Manuel,' Barbie said.

'That's Officer Ortega to you, motherfucker!'

'Fine. Officer Ortega.'Barbie was sitting on the bunk and thinking about just how easy it would be for Ortega to unholster the elderly.45 Schofield on his belt and start shooting. 'I'm in here, Rennie's out there. As far as he's concerned, I'm sure it's all good.'

'SHUT UP!' Manuel screamed. 'We're ALL in here! All under the fucking Dome! Alden don't do nothing but drink, the boy that's left won't eat, and Miz Dinsmore never stops crying over Rory. Jack Evans blew his brains out, do you know that? And those military pukes out there can't think of anything better to do than sling mud. A k)t of lies and trumped-up stories while you start supermarket riots and then burn down our newspaper! Probably so Miz Shumway couldn't publish WHAT YOU ARE!'

Barbie kept silent. He thought that one word spoken in his own defense would get him shot for sure.

'This is how they get any politician they don't like,' Manuel said. 'They want a serial killer and a rapist—one who rapes the dead—in charge instead of a Christian? That's a new low

Manuel drew his gun, lifted it, pointed it through the bars. To Barbie the hole at the end looked as big as a tunnel entrance.

'If the Dome comes down before you been stood up against theinearest wall and ventilated,' Manuel continued,'I'll take a minute to do the job myself. I'm head of the line, and right now in The Mill, the line waiting to do you is a long one.'

Barbie kept silent and waited to die or keep on drawing breath. Rose Twitchell's BLTs were trying to crowd back up his throat and choke him.

'We're trying to survive and all they can do is dirty up the man who's keeping this town out of chaos.' He abruptly shoved the oversized pistol back into its holster. 'Fuck you. You're not worth it.'

He turned and strode back toward the stairs, head down and shoulders hunched.

Barbie leaned back against the wall and let out a breath. There was sweat on his forehead. The hand he lifted to wipe it off was shaking.

3

When Romeo Burpee's van turned into the McClatchey driveway, Claire rushed out of the house. She was weeping.

'Mom!' Joe shouted, and was out even before Rommie could come to a complete stop. The others piled out after. 'Mom, what's wrong?'

'Nothing,' Claire sobbed, grabbing him and hugging him.'There's going to be a Visitors Day! On Friday! Joey, I think we might get to see your dad!'

Joe let out a cheer and danced her around. Benny hugged Norrie… and took the opportunity to steal a quick kiss, Rusty observed. Cheeky little devil.

'Take me to the hospital, Rommie,' Rusty said. He waved to Claire and the kids as they backed down the driveway. He was glad to get away from Mrs McClatchey without having to talk to her; Mom Vision might work on PAs, as well. 'And could you do me a favor and talk English instead of that comic-book on park shit while you do it?'

'Some people have no cultural heritage to fall back on,' Rommie said, 'and are thus jealous of those who do.'

'Yeah, and your mother wears galoshes,' Rusty said.

'Dat's true, but only when it rains, her.'

Rusty's cell phone chimed once: a text message. He flipped it open and read: MEETING AT 2130 CONGO PARSONAGE B THERE OR B SQUARE JW

'Rommie,' he said, closing his phone. 'Assuming I survive the Rennies, would you consider attending a meeting with me tonight?'

4

At the hospital, Ginny met him in the lobby. 'It's Rennie Day at Cathy Russell,' she announced, looking as if this did not exactly displease her. 'Thurse Marshall has been in to see them both. Rusty, that man is a gift from God. He clearly doesn't like Junior—he and Frankie were the ones who roughed him up out at the Pond—but he was totally professional. The guy's wasted in some college English department—he should be doing this.' She lowered her voice. 'He's better than me. And way better than Twitch.' 'Where is he now?'

'Went back to where he's living to see that young girlfriend of his and the two children they took on. He seems to genuinely care about the kids, too.'