Monster Nation(17)

The kerosene lamp whoofed into life and threw some yellow around the bare plank walls of Bleu's root cellar. Dick could still see moonlight coming through the slats and he wondered how long it would take one of the homicidal climbers to break in. Bleu didn't seem particularly scared. Just anxious to get the job over with. 'What happened to them?' Dick asked. 'What makes people act like that?'

'I was going to ask you the same thing. It has to be some kind of government germ warfare thing gone wrong, doesn't it?' Bleu lifted the lantern and clomped down a narrow flight of stairs cut into the earth. They came into a low space with bowed walls and Bleu hung the lantern on a four-by-four that held up the ceiling like a toothpick holding open the mouth of a predatory cat in a cartoon. Stacks of cardboard boxes and bags full of potatoes and radishes filled most of the space. At the far end from the stairs sat a door wrapped in black plastic of the kind contractors use. Bleu went to the door and stopped. 'I reckoned if anybody would know about that it would be you. Hell, kid, that's what I called you down here for.'

Dick's eyes went wide. 'Me? I'm just a low-level bureaucrat. A livestock inspector! I don't know anything about biowarfare.' He thought about it a second. He was with the government, which must be all that mattered to Bleu. 'Look, I'm on your side, you know,' he said, trying to remember what hippies stood for. Flower power, sure, and they didn't like the Vietnam War. 'Um, peace and love, right? Love is all you need.'

Bleu opened the waterproof door and light spilled over its contents. Five racked hunting rifles, most of them .22 caliber rimfire weapons but also a good old-fashioned thirty-ought-six. Even more insane: one was a heavy-duty big game rifle, a centerfire, bolt-action Weatherby Mark V Safari Custom, something Dick had only ever seen in gun magazines. An elephant gun, to be blunt about it, though most likely the Skye family had planned on using it against bears when they bought it.

Below the rack of rifles hung three shotguns in various gauges and below that pistols and revolvers, high-powered enough to cut a man and half. At the bottom of the closet sat box after box of ammunition, cleaning supplies for the weapons, and sheaves of paper targets, some of them used. On the back of the door someone had taped up one target showing a human silhouette with the bullseye where the man's heart would be. Dick saw an almost perfect grouping, six narrow holes right in the center. In the white space of the target someone had written NICE SHOOTING STORMY and OCTOBER 17 2002, STORMY'S BIG DAY.

Dick couldn't help but stare. He was looking at an arsenal, a survivalist's wet dream, enough guns to hold off an invasion of ATF and FBI agents for a week. He had thought he had been sent back through a time warp toWoodstock . Instead he'd wandered into Ruby Ridge.





Monster Nation





Chapter Eleven


What the Government Doesn't Want You to Know:RATE OF CATTLE MUTILATIONS SPIKES! ['UFO Insider' magazine, February 2005]

Nilla was standing in the hospital's cafeteria, devouring sliced beets out of a tin can she'd found sitting open on a counter when she heard a violent squawking noise coming from outside. She swallowed and went to the window. It was dark outside but blue and red light kept flashing across the slats of the Venetian blinds. With her clumsy hands she pushed open two of the slats and looked out.

Oh, God, no,she thought.

FEMA MOVES HEAVY EQUIPMENT THROUGH ILLINOIS AT 3 AM: What are they preparing for? [ctrl.org, 3/20/05]

'There are SWAT teams ready to storm the building. You still have a chance to come out of this in good shape if you're willing to release some hostages.' The words blasted against the brick face of the hospital and rebounded off into space. No answer was forthcoming. The sheriff's deputy switched off his bullhorn and turned to shake hands with Clark and Vikram. He was a big man, clearly a weightlifter in his off hours. He had a blonde crew cut and dark deep-set eyes. 'You're from the Army, huh? I didn't know we rated that kind of attention.' The deputy looked dazed. He was out of his element here'his town had always been a quiet place, one of a thousand Californian hamlets betweenSan Francisco andLos Angeles where nothing ever happened. Now he was overseeing an actual hostage crisis. A complete breakdown of the social pecking order.

'We're just here as advisors,' Vikram soothed, giving his biggest smile. He asked about the boy's tattoos. The deputy seemed grateful for the diversion but was too riled up to give more than one word answers.

Clarkwasn't particularly frosty himself. He very, very much wanted this to be a wasted trip. He wanted to go back toColorado safe in the knowledge that the thing, the bug, the virus or whatever it might be was wholly contained inFlorence .