“See you when I get there.” Gaul hung up.
The gas was already swirling into the house through the empty window frames. Smoky clumps of it, twisting and snaking. Holly had her mask on; in the last of the clear air, Dryden picked up his own and secured it to his face.
He nodded out through the screen door. “Gas mortar shells.” His voice sounded filtered and mechanical in his own ears. “The launchers can be remote operated. Firing range can be several miles.”
They went out through the screen door and stood atop the porch steps. Against the backdrop of lights at the edge of town, the gas cloud hovered like a fog over the field.
Dryden relayed Gaul’s last instruction. Holly stared off into the cloud a moment longer, considering it.
“I’ll stay with her,” Dryden said. “I’ll make sure she’s okay. Go.”
Holly nodded at the gas. “Could that much of it kill someone? Especially a kid?”
“I don’t think so.” He said it confidently, though he wasn’t sure at all. He’d been wondering the same thing since almost the first detonation.
“Go,” he said again. “I’ll call you when it’s safe to come back.”
She hesitated a few seconds longer, then nodded. She went past him, back into the house. Thirty seconds later he heard one of the vehicles start. The garage door opened, and the Malibu rolled out into the haze. At the end of the driveway it turned right; Dryden watched its taillights disappear to the west. He descended the steps and started into the field.
*
Gaul made another phone call, even as he strapped into the chopper. He connected the phone to his headset, and over the rotors he heard the call begin to ring.
A man answered. “This is Hager.”
“Everything’s set,” Gaul said. “Rachel’s neutralized on-site, and Dryden’s with her. I sent Holly away, but I can call her back when the time comes. She and Dryden are fully in the dark.”
Gaul pictured Hager on his end of the line. The little compound in the Canadian Rockies. It was tough to keep his envy in check, thinking of the place—like imagining your enemy’s trophy on its pedestal. It made this uneasy cooperation all the harder.
You had to do what you had to do, though. Whatever it took to bloom.
“Understood,” Hager said. “Control asset will be airborne in five; expect it on-station above the target area in thirty minutes. We’ll go live as soon as we’re in range.”
Gaul had seen an example of the control asset before, bolted to its cell tower at the test site in Cold Spring, Utah. The one coming into play tonight wasn’t attached to a tower; it was strapped down in the cargo hold of a C-5 Galaxy.
We can’t guarantee we’ll tie off every loose end you’re worried about, Hager had told him, days before. Marsh, Harris, Dryden’s other friends. It’s not on me if they still go public against you.
Would they, though? After what happened at the farmhouse in the next hour, would people like Dennis Marsh really have the nerve to stand up and make waves?
We’ll see about that, Gaul thought.
*
Just over a thousand miles away, in his office in Washington, D.C., Dennis Marsh stared at his computer, his mouth going dry.
On-screen, the phone-intercept program read TRANS-LINK INIT.—CALL STATUS LIVE—0 MIN, 24 SEC.
At twenty-five seconds he heard Gaul say, “Copy that. We’ll talk after.”
The call went dead with a click.
It occurred to Marsh to wonder what his own expression looked like right now. Not quite one of surprise, he guessed. Maybe just that of a man bitten by a snake he’d been handling.
He reached for his own phone; he already knew the numbers for the phones Sam Dryden and Holly Ferrel had with them. He brought up the on-screen number pad and then stopped.
Gaul had given them those phones. There was no question Gaul’s people could monitor voice traffic on them.
Shit.
How to warn Dryden and Holly without tipping off anyone else?
Marsh leaned forward in his chair and shut his eyes hard.
Think. Think.
*
Down in the field, the gas was thicker than it had been on the porch, but it would be gone in a matter of minutes; the wind was moderate but moving steadily, shoving the whole cloud mass slowly east.
Dryden was a hundred feet out from the house now. Watching his step. The gas was visibly thinning already.
Over the ringing that still throbbed in his ears, he heard the chopper coming in. Far south yet, not even visible.
He picked up his speed.
One hundred fifty feet from the house. The cloud was slipping away by the second.
He saw Audrey and Rachel. Straight ahead, a few dozen yards. Lying facedown in the grass. He broke into a run, his feet kicking up swirls of chalky gas residue.
It came to him even before he reached them that something was wrong. Something was missing. He realized what it was in the last five yards: no chill at his temples.
Their minds should’ve generated that sensation even if they were asleep.
What did it mean? That they were more than asleep?
Comatose?