Dean Koontz - Night Chills

them. They probably have guns in there. Well, they can’t fool me. They’re not going to start a shooting match and leave me with a dozen bodies to account for. I’ll wait them out. I’ll get them, Potter. And you know what I’ll do when I get my hands on them? The Edisons will have to be studied, of course. I’ll have to End out why they didn’t respond to the drug and the subliminals. But I know why the Annendales didn’t respond. They weren’t here for the program. So when I get them, I can dispose of them right away. Right away. I’ll have Bob Thorp blow their fucking heads off. The sonsofbitches. That’s exactly what I’ll do.”

7

9:00 P.M.

AT DUSK, when the thunderstorm temporarily abated for the fourth time that day, a streamlined executive helicopter, painted bright yellow and black like a hornet, already gleaming with green and red running lights, fluttered into the east end of the Black River valley. It was flying low, no higher than sixty feet above the ground. It followed Main Street toward the town square, chopping up the humid air. A flat echo of the stuttering blades rebounded from the wet pavement below.

In the bell tower of the all-denominational church, also sixty feet above the ground-but safely hidden in the deep shadows that were cast by the overhanging belfry roof — Rya, Jenny, Paul, and Sam watched the aircraft as it approached. In the penumbral, purple-gray twilight the helicopter seemed dangerously close to them; but no one in it was looking their way. However, the waning daylight was still bright enough to allow them to see into the flight deck and into the cozy passenger cabin behind it.

"Two men besides the pilot,” Sam said.

At the square the helicopter hovered for a moment, then swept across the municipal building and settled into the parking lot ten yards from the spare police car.

As the evening quietude returned in the aircraft’s wake, jenny said, “Do you think those men are connected with Salsbury?”

“No doubt about it,” Sam said.

“Government?”

Paul said, “No.”

“I agree,” Sam said almost happily. “Even the President’s chopper is military-style on the outside — although probably not on the inside. The government doesn’t use sleek little executive machines like that yellow and black job.”

“Which doesn’t rule out the government’s having a part in this,” Paul said.

“Oh, certainly not. It doesn’t rule out anything,” Sam said. “But it’s a good sign.”

“What now?” Rya asked.

“Now we watch and wait,” Paul said, his eyes fixed on the white-brick municipal building. “Just watch and wait.”

The damp air still held an unpleasant tang of the helicopter's exhaust fumes.

Up in the mountains, thunder rumbled menacingly. Lightning arced between two of the higher peaks as if they were terminals in Frankenstein’s laboratory.

To Paul time seemed almost at a standstill. Each minute ticked on and on and on. Each second was like a tiny bubble of air rising slowly through the bottle of glucose on the intravenous-feeding rack that he had watched for hour after leaden hour at Annie’s hospital bedside.

Finally, at 9:20 two cars came down Main Street from the municipal building: the second police cruiser and a one-year-old Ford LTD. The four headlamps sliced open the crescent darkness. Half a block beyond the church, they parked at the curb in front of the general store.

Bob Thorp and two men with handguns climbed out of the squad car. For a moment they stood in the splash of amber white light from the LTD; then they went up the porch steps and disappeared beneath the veranda roof.

Three men got out of the second car. They left the engine

running and the doors open. They didn’t follow Thorp; they remained at the LTD. Because they were standing behind the headlights, they were for the most part in darkness. Paul couldn’t tell if they were armed or not. But he knew for certain who they were: Salsbury and the two passengers from the helicopter.

“Do you want to go down there and take them now?” Paul asked Sam. “While they have their backs to us?”

“Too risky. We don’t know if they’ve got guns. They might hear us coming. And even if we did catch them by surprise, one of them would get away, sure as hell. Let’s wait a bit.”

At 9:35 one of Bob Thorp’s “deputies” came down the porch steps and joined the three men at the second car. They talked, possibly argued, for a few seconds. The deputy remained at the LTD while Salsbury and his associates mounted the steps to the general store.

9:50 P.M.

Turning away from the bookshelves in Sam Edison’s study, Dawson said, “All right then. Now we understand how they might have pieced it together. Ogden, do they know the code phrases?”

Shocked by the question, Salsbury said, “Of course not! How in the hell could they know?”

“The little girl might have heard you use them with Thorp or with her brother.”

“No,” he said. “Impossible. She didn’t Step into that doorway until long after I gave up trying to get control of her brother — and long, long after I’d already assumed control of Thorp.”

“Did you try to use the phrase on her?”

Did I? Salsbury wondered. I remember seeing her there, taking a step toward her, being unable to catch her. But did I use the code phrase?

He rejected that notion because if he accepted it he would

have to accept defeat, complete destruction. “No,” he told Dawson. “I didn’t have time to use the phrase. I saw her. She turned and ran. I ran after her, but she was too fast.”

“You’re absolutely certain?”

“Absolutely.”

Regarding Salsbury with unvarnished disgust, the general said, “You should have foreseen this development with Edison. You should have known about this library, this hobby of his.”

“How in the hell could I foresee any of it?” Salsbury asked. His face was flushed. His myopic eyes seemed to bulge even more than usual behind his thick glasses.

“If you had done your duty—”

“Duty,” Salsbury said scornfully. Half of his anger was generated by his fear; but it was important that neither Dawson nor Klinger see that. “This isn’t the stinking military, Ernst. This isn’t the army. I’m not one of your oh-so-humble enlisted men.”

Klinger turned away from him, went to the window, and said, “Maybe we’d all be better off if you were.”

Willing the general to look at him, aware that he was at a disadvantage so long as Klinger felt safe enough to turn his back, Salsbury said, “Christ! No matter how careful I’d been—”

“That’s enough,” Dawson said. He spoke softly but with such command that Salsbury stopped talking and the general looked away from the window. “We haven’t time for arguments and accusations. We’ve got to find those four people.”

“They can’t have gotten out of town through the east end of the valley,” Salsbury said. “I know I’ve got that sealed tight.”

“You thought you had this house sealed up tight too,” Klinger said. “But they slipped past you.”

“Let’s not judge too harshly, Ernst,” Dawson said. He smiled in a fatherly, Christian fashion and nodded at Salsbury. But there was only hatred and loathing in his black eyes. “I agree with Ogden. His precautions at the east end are certainly adequate. Although we might consider tripling the number of men along the river and in the woods now that night has fallen. And I believe Ogden’s also covered the logging roads well enough.”

“Then there are two possibilities,” Klinger said, deciding to play the military strategist. “One — they might still be in town, hiding somewhere, waiting for a chance to get past the roadblock or the men guarding the river. Or two — maybe they’re going to walk out through the mountains. We know from Thorp that the Annendales are experienced campers and hikers.”