Dreamcatcher(148)

'Lots, boss.'

'More than the group? More than going in hot and getting the job done?' A pause. 'More than you love me?'

Not questions you wanted to answer wrong if you wanted to go on living. Fortunately, not hard ones, either. 'No, boss.'

'Telepathy gone, Freddy?'

'I had a touch of something, I don't know if it was telepathy, exactly, voices in my head - '

Kurtz was nodding. Red-gold flames the color of the Ripley fungus burst through the roof of the barn.

' - but that's gone.'

'Other men in the group?'

'Imperial Valley, you mean?' Freddy nodded toward the Winnebago.

'Who else would I mean, The Firehouse Five Plus Two?

Yes, them!'

'They're clean, boss.'

'That's good, but it's also bad. Freddy, we need a couple of infected Americans. And when I say we, I mean you and I. I want Americans who are crawling with that red shit, under?stand me?'

'I do.' What Freddy didn't understand was why, but at the moment the why didn't matter. He could see Kurtz taking hold, visibly taking hold, and that was a relief. When Freddy needed to know, Kurtz would tell him. Freddy looked uneasily at the blazing store, the blazing barn, the blazing cook-tent. This situation was FUBAR.

Or maybe not. Not if Kurtz was taking hold.

'Goddam telepathy's responsible for most of this,' Kurtz mused, 'but it wasn't telepathy that triggered it. That was pure human f**kery, praise Jesus. Who betrayed Jesus, Freddy? Who gave him that traitor's kiss?'

Freddy had read his Bible, mostly because Kurtz had given it to him. 'Judas Iscariot, boss.'

Kurtz was nodding rapidly. His eyes were moving everywhere, tabulating the destruction, calculating the response, which would be severely limited by the storm. 'That's right, buck. Judas betrayed Jesus and Owen Philip Underhill betrayed us. Judas got thirty pieces of silver. Not much of a payday, do you think?'

'No, boss.' He delivered this reply partially turned away from Kurtz because something in the commissary had exploded. A steel hand clutched his shoulder and turned him back. Kurtz's eyes were wide and burning. The white lashes made them look like ghost-eyes.

'Look at me when I talk to you,' Kurtz said. 'Listen to me when I speak to you.' Kurtz put his free hand on the nine-millimeter's grip. 'Or I'll blow your guts out on the snow. I have had a hard night here and don't you make it any worse, you hound, do you understand me? Catch the old drift-ola?'

Johnson was a man of good physical courage, but now he felt something turn over in his stomach and try to crawl away. 'Yes, boss, I'm sorry.'

'Accepted. God loves and forgives, we must do the same. I don't know how many pieces of silver Owen got, but I can tell you this: we're going to catch him, we're going to spread his cheeks, and we are going to tear that boy a splendid new ass**le. Are you with me?'

'Yes.' There was nothing Freddy wanted more than to find the person who had turned his previously ordered world upside down and f**k that person over. 'How much of this do you reckon Owen's responsible for, boss?'

'Enough for me,' Kurtz said serenely. 'I have an idea I'm finally going down, Freddy - '

'No, boss.'

' - but I won't go down alone.' Ann still around Freddy's shoulders, Kurtz began to lead his new second back toward the 'Bago. Squat, dying pillars of fire marked the burning gennies. Underhill had done that; one of Kurtz's own boys. Freddy still found it difficult to believe, but he had begun to get steamed, just the same. How many pieces of silver, Owen? How many did you get, you traitor?

Kurtz stopped at the foot of the steps.

'Which one of those fellows do you like to command a search-and-destroy mission, Freddy?'

'Gallagher, boss.'

'Kate?'

'That's right.'

'Is she a cannibal, Freddy? The person we leave in charge has to be a cannibal.'

'She eats em raw with slaw, boss.'

'Okay,' Kurtz said. 'Because this is going to be dirty. I need two Ripley Positives, hopefully Blue Boy guys. The rest of them . . . like the animals, Freddy. Imperial Valley is now a search-and-destroy mission. Gallagher and the rest are to hunt down as many as they can. Soldiers and civilians alike. From now until 1200 hours tomorrow, it's feeding time. After that, it's every man for himself Except for us, Freddy.' The firelight painted Kurtz's face with byrus, turned his eyes into weasel's eyes. 'We're going to hunt down Owen Underhill and teach him to love the Lord.'

Kurtz bounded up the Winnebago's steps, sure as a mountain ?goat on the packed and slippery snow. Freddy Johnson followed him.

13

The Sno-Cat plunged down the embankment to the Swanny Pond Road fast enough to make Henry's stomach roll over. It slued, then turned south. Owen worked the clutch and mangled the stick-shift, working the 'Cat up through the gears and into high. With the galaxies of snow flying at the windshield, Henry felt as if they were travelling at approximately mach one. He guessed it might actually be thirty-five miles an hour. That would get them away from Gosselin's, but he had an idea Jonesy was moving much faster.

Turnpike ahead? Owen asked. It is, isn't it?

Yes. About four miles.

We'll need to switch vehicles when we get there.