“Radio who? Terry or Frank?”
About this Reed was less sure. “Guess I’d try Terry’s cell first thing. Leave a message just to cover our asses if he doesn’t pick up. Why don’t we worry about that if it happens.”
“Which it probably won’t, the mess everything’s in.”
“Yeah. Infrastructure’s shot to hell.”
“What’s infrastructure?”
“Look it up on your Kindle, why don’t you?”
Vern did so. “?‘The basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or an enterprise.’ Huh.”
“Huh? What does huh mean?”
“That you’re right. It’s shot to hell. I went to the Shopwell this morning, before I came on. Place looks like a bomb hit it.”
Down the hill, in the gray afternoon light, they could see an approaching vehicle.
“Reed?”
“What?”
“With no women, there’s going to be no babies.”
“You’ve got a scientific mind, all right,” Reed said.
“If this doesn’t end, where will the human race be in another sixty or a hundred years?”
This was something Reed Barrows did not want to think about, especially with his wife in a cocoon and his toddler being babysat (probably inadequately) by ancient Mr. Freeman next door. Nor did he have to. The vehicle was now close enough to see it was a humungous zebra-striped camper, and slowing down as if it meant to turn onto the prison road. Not that it could, with Three parked across it.
“That RV belongs to Holden,” said Vern. “The lawyer. My brother services it over in Maylock.”
The Fleetwood came to a stop. The driver’s door opened, and Barry Holden got out. At the same time, the officers got out of Three.
Holden greeted them with a smile. “Gentlemen, I come bearing good tidings of great joy.”
Neither Reed nor Vern returned the smile.
“No one goes up to the prison, Mr. Holden,” Reed said. “Sheriff’s orders.”
“Now, I don’t think that’s strictly true,” Barry said, still smiling. “I believe a gentleman named Frank Geary gave that order, and he’s what you might call self-appointed. Isn’t that so?”
Reed wasn’t sure how to respond to this, so he kept silent.
“In any case,” Barry said, “I got a call from Clint Norcross. He’s decided that turning the woman over to local law enforcement is the right thing to do.”
“Well, thank God for that!” Vern exclaimed. “The man sees reason!”
“He wants me at the prison to facilitate the deal and make it clear for the public record as to why he went outside of protocol. Just a formality, really.”
Reed was about to say, You couldn’t find a smaller vehicle to come up here in? Car wouldn’t start, maybe?, but that was when Three’s dash radio blared. It was Terry Coombs, and he sounded upset. “Unit Three, Unit Three respond! Right now! Right now!”
8
Just as Reed and Vern were first noticing the approach of Barry Holden’s RV, Terry Coombs entered the Olympia Diner and walked to the booth where Frank and Deputy Pete Ordway were sitting. Frank was less than happy to see Coombs up and about, but concealed his displeasure as best he could. “Yo, Terry.”
Terry nodded to both men. He had shaved and changed his shirt. He looked rocky but sober. “Jack Albertson told me you guys were here.” Albertson was one of the retired deputies who had been pressed back into service two days before. “I got some pretty bad news from Bridger County fifteen minutes ago.” There was no smell of booze about Terry. Frank hoped to change that. He didn’t like encouraging a man who was probably an incipient alcoholic, but Coombs was easier to work with when he’d had a few.
“What’s going on in Bridger?” Pete asked.
“Wreck on the highway. Judge Silver went into Dorr’s Hollow Stream. He’s dead.”
“What?” Frank’s shout was loud enough to bring Gus Vereen out of the kitchen.
“It’s a damn shame,” Terry said. “He was a fine man.” He pulled up a chair. “Any idea what he was doing over there?”
“Went to speak to an ex-FBI guy he knew in Coughlin about helping to talk sense into Norcross,” Frank said. It had to have been a heart attack. The judge had looked horrible, washed out and shaky. “If he’s dead . . . I guess that’s out.” With an effort, he composed himself. He’d liked Judge Silver and had been willing to go along with him—up to a certain point. That point was erased now.
“And that woman is still at the prison.” Frank leaned forward. “Awake. Norcross was lying about her being in a cocoon. Hicks told me.”
“Hicks’s got a poor reputation,” Terry said.
Frank wasn’t hearing it. “And there’s other strange things about her. She’s the key.”
“If the bitch started it, she’ll know how to stop it,” Pete said.
Terry’s mouth twitched. “There’s no proof of that, Pete. And since Aurora started halfway around the world, it seems kind of farfetched. I think we all need to take a deep breath and just—”
Frank’s walkie came to life. It was Don Peters. “Frank! Frank, come in! I need to talk to you! You better answer this thing, because they fucking—”
Frank raised the walkie to his lips. “This is Frank. Come back. And watch the profanity, you’re going out over the ai—”
“They fucking robbed the guns!” Don yelled. “Some decrepit old piece of shit sent us on a wild-goose chase and then they robbed the fucking guns right out of the fucking sheriff’s station!”
Before Frank could reply, Terry snatched the walkie-talkie out of his hand. “Coombs here. Who did?”
“Barry Holden, in a big motherhumper of an RV! Your dispatcher said there were others with them, but she’s three-quarters out of it and don’t know who!”
“All the guns?” Terry asked, astounded. “They took all the guns?”
“No, no, not all, I guess they didn’t have time, but plenty of them! Jesus Christ, that RV was huge!”
Terry stared at the walkie in his hand, frozen. Frank told himself he ought to keep his mouth shut and let Terry work through the computation on his own—and he just couldn’t do it. It seemed he never could, once he was angry. “Do you still think we just need to take a deep breath and wait Norcross out? Because you know where they’re going with those weapons, don’t you?”
Terry looked up at him, his lips pressed so tightly together his mouth was almost gone. “I think you might have forgotten who’s in charge here, Frank.”
“Sorry, Sheriff.” Under the table, his hands were so tightly clenched they were shaking, the nails digging crescents into his palms.
Terry was still staring at him. “Tell me you put someone out there on the road to the prison.”
It would be your own damn fault if I didn’t, drunk as you were. Ah, but who had been plying him with the booze?
“I did. Rangle and Barrows.”
“Good. That’s good. Which unit are they in?”
Frank didn’t know, but Pete Ordway did. “Three.”
Don was blabbering on, but Terry cut him off and pressed SEND. “Unit Three, Unit Three respond! Right now! Right now!”
CHAPTER 8
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