Dreamcatcher(70)

'I'll pass. Cholesterol's not so good these days.'

'Groin okay?' Six years before, Kurtz had suffered a serious groin-pull while playing racquetball, This had indirectly led to their only disagreement. Not a serious one, Owen Underhill judged, but with Kurtz, it was hard to tell. Behind the man's patented game-face, thoughts came and went at near light-speed, agendas were constantly being rewritten, and emotions were turning on a dime, There were people  -  quite a few of them, actually  -  who thought Kurtz was crazy. Owen Underhill didn't know if he was or not, but he knew you wanted to be careful around this one. Very.

'As the Irish might put it,' Kurtz said, 'me groin's foine.' He reached between his legs, gave his balls a burlesque yank, and favored Owen with that teeth-baring grin.

'Good.'

'And you? Been okay?'

'Me groin's foine,' Owen said, and Kurtz laughed.

Now coming up the road, rolling slowly and carefully but having an easier time than the bus, was a brand-new Lincoln Navigator with three orange-clad hunters inside, hefty boys all three, gawking at the helicopters and the double-timing soldiers in their green coveralls. Gawking at the guns, mostly. Vietnam comes to northern Maine, praise God. Soon they would join the others in the Holding Area.

Half a dozen men approached as the Navigator pulled up behind the bus, with its stickers reading BLUE DEVIL PRIDE and THIS VEHICLE STOPS AT ALL RR CROSSINGS. Three lawyers or bankers with their own cholesterol problems and fat stock portfolios, lawyers or bankers pretending to be good old boys, under the impression (of which they would soon be disabused) that they were still in an America at peace. Soon they would be in the barn (or the corral, if they craved fresh air), where their Visa cards would not be honored. They would be allowed to keep their cell phones. They wouldn't work this far up in the willywags, but hitting REDIAL might keep them amused.

'You plugged in tight?' Kurtz asked.

'I think so, yes.'

'Still a quick study?'

Owen shrugged.

'How many people in the Blue Zone altogether, Owen?'

'We estimate eight hundred. No more than a hundred in Zones Prime A and Prime B.'

That was good, assuming no one slipped through. In terms of possible contamination, a few slips wouldn't matter  -  the news, at least so far, was good on that score. In terms of information management, however, it would not be good at all. It was hard to ride a phooka horse these days. Too many people with videocams. Too many TV station helicopters. Too many watching eyes.

Kurtz said, 'Come inside the store. They're setting me up a 'Bago, but it's not here yet.'

'Un momento,' Underhill said, and dashed up the steps of the bus. When he came back down, he had a grease-spotted Burger King sack in his hand and a tape recorder over his shoulder on a strap.

Kurtz nodded toward the bag. 'That stuff'll kill you.'

'We're starring in The War of the Worlds and you're worried about high cholesterol?'

Behind them, one of the newly arrived mighty hunters was saying he wanted to call his lawyer, which probably meant he was a banker. Kurtz led Underhill into the store. Above them, the flashlights were back, running their glow over the bottoms of the clouds, jumping and dancing like animated characters in a Disney cartoon.

3

Old Man Gosselin's office smelled of salami, cigars, beer, Musterole, and sulfur  -  either farts or boiled eggs, Kurtz reckoned. Maybe both. There was also a smell, faint but discernible, of ethyl alcohol. The smell of them. It was everywhere up here now. Another man might have been tempted to ascribe that smell to a combination of nerves and too much imagination, but Kurtz had never been overburdened with either. In any case, he did not believe the hundred or so square miles of forestland surrounding Gosselin's Country Market had much future as a viable ecosystem. Sometimes you just had to sand a piece of furniture down to the bare wood and start again.

Kurtz sat behind the desk and opened one of the drawers. A cardboard box with CHEM/U.S./IO UNITS stamped on it lay within. Good for Perlmutter. Kurtz took it out and opened it. Inside were a number of small plastic masks, the transparent sort that fitted over the mouth and nose. He tossed one to Underhill and then put one on himself, quickly adjusting the elastic straps.

'Are these necessary?' Owen asked.

'We don't know. And don't feel privileged; in another hour, everyone is going to be wearing them. Except for the John Q's in the Holding Area, that is.'

Underhill donned his mask and adjusted the straps without further comment. Kurtz sat behind the desk with his head leaning back against the latest piece of OSHA paperwork (post it or die) taped to the wall behind him.

'Do they work?' Underhill's voice was hardly muffled at all. The clear plastic did not fog with his breathing. It seemed to have no pores or filters, but he found he could breathe easily enough.

'They work on Ebola, they work on anthrax, they work on the new super-cholera. Do they work on Ripley? Probably. If not, we're tucked, soldier. In fact, we may be tucked already. But the clock is running and the game is on. Should I hear the tape you've doubtless got in that thing over your shoulder?'

'There's no need for you to hear all of it, but you ought to taste, I think.'

Kurtz nodded, made a spinning motion in the air with his forefinger Oike an ump signalling a home run, Owen thought), and leaned back further in Gosselin's chair.