J.M. Dillard - War of Worlds: The Resurrection (20 page)

That was what bothered him so much about the attack on Jericho Valley. If the terrorists had any brains—and obviously, these folks' combined IQ was a match for a head of iceberg lettuce—they'd have stayed put in the Jericho Valley spot and made their demands from there. Transporting that much highly radioactive material was an unnecessary risk; if they wanted to grandstand, they could easily have done so from Jericho, especially if that nut Blackwood had been right about their having sophisticated transmission equipment.

The tape was being analyzed now, and Ironhorse was impatient for the results, though regardless of whether a message had been sent or not, the whole

scenario still didn't make any sense. And if there was one thing Ironhorse hated, it was an unsolved riddle.

A weird bird, Blackwood. After the man's hysterical departure, Ironhorse decided to dismiss the whole business about a transmission. But then, once inventory was taken on the barrels, it turned out Blackwood was right. Three hundred twenty of them
were
missing; the terrorists obviously had packed them into the rig. And something about the sight of the empty barrel had terrified Blackwood enough to send him running.
Just a nut case,
Ironhorse told himself again.

But instinct told him there was something wrong about this whole incident, something he definitely didn't like. He shook his head silently; next to him, Reynolds kept his focus straight ahead on the flat stretch of road illuminated by the jeep's headlights.

The headlights swept to the right as Reynolds maneuvered off the highway onto the graded curve of the exit ramp. The troop carrier's lights reflected off the rearview as it followed suit. The tiny gas station— four gasoline pumps, one diesel—lay just off the exit, in such easy view the owner hadn't invested in a neon sign. Next to the gas island, under the fluorescents, the sheriff and his deputy were interrogating a seedy-looking witness who gesticulated wildly to punctuate his story.

Reynolds pulled the jeep up just behind the sheriffs cruiser.

"Get me a reading with the Geiger counter," Ironhorse ordered, and climbed out of the jeep without waiting to hear Reynolds' faint, "Yessir, Colonel." Reynolds was tough, disciplined, command material;

if Ironhorse trusted anyone in the world other than himself to get things done, it was Gordon Reynolds.

Both the sheriff and the deputy regarded Ironhorse and his soldiers with a mixture of mistrust and awe. The man they were interrogating—a greasy-looking little alkie who reeked of stale booze and well-aged sweat—folded his arms triumphantly. "See? See what I tole ya? They've sent the army in."

"Evening, Sheriff," Ironhorse said without offering his hand. "Lieutenant Colonel Paul Ironhorse." He didn't address the deputy, a slight, weak-chinned individual; this was business between two superiors.

"Colonel." The sheriff nodded, tilting the brim of his Stetson slightly downward. He was a husky man with a broad face and shrewd, narrow eyes. "Sheriff Bobby Deak. This here's my deputy, Ernest Jenkins."

Ernest touched the brim of his hat; Ironhorse ignored him. Where he came from, a grown man would have called himself Robert or Bob, not Bobby, but this sheriff did not seem a stupid man. Perhaps the name and the casual good-ol'-boy demeanor were tactics to make others underestimate him.

"What brings the army out this way?" Deak asked with a trace of surprise.

"Your report that a stolen truck was sighted here," Ironhorse answered plainly. He would have said little more, except to start questioning the old drunk, but Reynolds came forward to scan the area. The Geiger counter in his hands buzzed loudly as he moved closer to the fuel pumps.

"They've been through here for sure, Colonel," Reynolds announced.

Ironhorse grunted. "Go ahead and scout the area."

"Yessir." Reynolds moved back to the parked troop carrier and started barking orders at those inside. The soldiers jumped out and began scattering.

"That doesn't really answer my question, Colonel," Deak said pleasantly, watching a dozen different flashlights swinging as the troops fanned out into the darkness surrounding the station. He was smiling, but there was an edge to his words. "If I can be of any help to you, I'd like to know."

Ironhorse relented. The guy seemed sharp enough; maybe it'd be best to work with him rather than around him. "We've had an incident involving suspected terrorists," he said finally. "There's a good chance they've been through this area."

"Terrorists!" the alkie exclaimed, taking a step closer to Ironhorse. The colonel caught a whiff of his breath—sour, putrid, reeking of booze. Ironhorse hated the smell of liquor; he was particularly sensitive to it, since he never touched the stuff himself, but had been exposed to it as a kid too damn many times on the reservation. He wanted to turn his head away but restrained himself in Deak's presence.

"Hot damn, I knew it!" The alkie's eyes glittered feverishly. "There's something strange going on here, Colonel, and I'm glad to see they've called the army out."

Deak rolled his eyes skyward. "Orel Ralston here says he was a witness, Colonel, but . . . I'm afraid even
he
admits he wasn't too sober at the time."

Orel pointed a scolding finger at Deak and shook it

with gusto. "I may have been drunk at the time, Sheriff, but you're leaving out something very important—what I saw sobered me right up!" He hung his head, his sharp features contorted suddenly with grief. "I saw Doc Waller, my only real friend in the whole world, killed." He covered his face with yellowed bony hands. The fingernails had black dirt under them.

"You can't believe anything Orel tells you," the deputy interjected, his tone one of contempt. "He's just an old drunk—"

"Go to hell, Ernie Jenkins," Orel said, peering up between spread fingers. "I know you. You went to high school with my daughter, Sally. She used to tutor you in English, remember? You woulda flunked right out of eleventh grade if it hadn't been for her."

Ernie's face colored, and his thin lips pursed so tightly they almost disappeared. He fell silent.

Ironhorse folded his arms; quietly he stated, "I'd just like to hear what Mr. Ralston has to say . . . without any interruptions. From the beginning, please, Mr. Ralston."

Orel looked up gratefully, his dirty face streaked with tears. "Thanks, Colonel. 1 was sleepin' over in that Ford over there"—he pointed to a large white car parked over in a corner of the station—"and I woke up suddenlike. See, Doc—he's the station owner here—he lets me sleep . . . usedta let me sleep in one of the cars on the evenings I was too . . . inconvenienced, you might say."

"Drunk as a skunk, you mean," Deak interjected.

Orel ignored him and went on. "Anyway, I woke up suddenlike because I heard this big truck pull up to the station. Don't ask me why, but I looked up to see what was goin' on . . . and I seen this big truck at the pump, fillin' 'er up with diesel."

"Describe the truck and any passengers," Ironhorse said.

"Well. . ." Orel gazed up and to the right, remembering. "It was a big tractor-trailer. White, I think—at least the trailer was. I couldn't see the plates."

"What was the name on the truck?" Ironhorse asked. A trick question; so far the guy had the description down pat.

Orel thought. "Weren't no name. Just a plain white trailer."

Bingo. A perfect match for the police description, except for the California plates. Orel Ralston may have been drunk at the time, but he'd remembered all the important details. Ironhorse persisted, pleased with his luck so far. "What about the people?"

"This is the terrible part. There were two men— one of 'em wearing a white overall thing, one of 'em all in black. And a blond-haired woman, dressed in white. They were walking toward Doc like they were fixin' to kill him. It was awful. . ."

Orel grimaced and made a noise like a sob, then ran a shaking hand over his red, rheumy eyes. "They looked . . . awful. Awful sick. Pale. Like they was dyin'. I thought maybe they worked at one of them newkewler dump places and there'd been an accident or somethin'. And . . . well, I don't like to mention

this, but. . ." He gave the colonel an embarrassed glance, ducked his head, and lowered his voice. "The folks in white, I could see—looked like they puked or shit all over themselves. Woulda puked myself at the sight of 'em if I hadn't been scared to death for poor Doc."

Good God, a description. And of people suffering from radiation sickness to boot—it had to be the terrorists who overran Jericho Valley. This was better than Ironhorse had expected. He leaned forward with interest. "Three people. Can you describe them in more detail?"

"Uh . . . yeah. The woman had blond hair. Reckon I said that already. Young, maybe thirty. Actually woulda been pretty if she hadn't been so sick. The two men—one had kinda brown hair, and one was kinda dark—like you. Only not an Injun. Not Mexican either, I don't think. Somethin' foreign, maybe Italian." Orel shook his head.

"But I haven't told you the awful part yet. They
were
comin' toward Doc,
and
he put his hands up,
trying
to get away from 'em . . . but there was somethin' awful that came up behind him and got him, picked him right up by the throat and throttled him like he was an old rag doll." Orel grimaced again
at
the memory.

"Something?"
Ironhorse prompted. "What exactly do you mean?"

"This
," Deak said cynically, folding his arms, "is where it gets good."

"It's true," Orel burst out, a fresh tear streaking

down his face. "I seen it. It was ... an awful-lookin' thing. An animal, I guess. About the size of. . . hell, I don't know, about the size of a gorilla, maybe. Except it didn't have no hair or real arms or legs. It was like a big ugly leather sack, wet-lookin', and it walked on these skinny ropes for legs. It musta come outa the truck, because the people helped it; they backed Doc right up to it. And that thing put one of its rope-legs around Doc's neck and—" Orel buried his face in his hands.

"Fuckin' drunk," the deputy muttered, and shook his head.

Which was Ironhorse's impression as well, but there was something about the old man's story . . .

As a child, he'd been told tales about the strangers who came from the stars to visit judgment upon the white man, to steal the land from the whites the way they had stolen it from Ironhorse's people. The man had described the creatures in remarkably the same way as Paul's grandfather, except that his grandfather had called them "bears-with-three-arms," or "star-bears." The bears-with-three-arms had spared the reservations, attacking only the whites' cities; and then they had all died, killed not by the white people, but by their own greed. Unfortunately, the whites had not learned from the star-bears' example during the past thirty-five years . . .

And, of course, there was the very brief reference in history class at West Point. The invasion of'53, they'd called it, and tried to blame the whole thing on the unpreparedness of the American military. That was when young Ironhorse learned he could not dismiss his grandfather's story as legend, that the star-bears really had come and laid the white man to waste . . .

Coincidence,
Ironhorse told himself. Just coincidence. The old guy's brain was pickled. A lucky thing he'd been able to identify the truck, though.

"And then they took Doc's body with them?" Deak prompted Orel gently, but with no small amount of skepticism.

The old man nodded without looking up, his wrinkled face contorted with horror at the memory of what he described. "It was awful what that thing done to him ... it went all liquidylike, and covered Doc's face and chest. . . and then, suddenly, it just seemed to seep right into him. And Doc, poor dead Doc . . ." Orel sobbed loudly and trembled. "He opened his eyes again and got up, and it was just like he wasn't dead no more. Only I knew better."

While the old man spoke, Deak narrowed his eyes to glance sideways at Ironhorse and shook his head. Ironhorse did not respond.

"Well," Orel continued, "then I hid back down in the car. I was afraid they were gonna come for me next. I think I musta stayed in the backseat, scared to death, for an hour before I got the nerve up to come out. When I did, Doc's body was gone."

That
strained Ironhorse's ability to believe a bit too far. The old guy must have been pickled for sure. So much for the theory of the star-bears.

"Interesting thing." Deak addressed the colonel while Orel wept into his cupped hands. "Nothing ever happens in Brewster, except for an occasional shooting at the local bar. But there was another incident

tonight—might be related to this. A doctor kidnapped right out of his house. He kept his medical office there . . . worked out of his home. There were signs of a struggle: someone broke the door down, came in, and got him. We found a handgun that had been fired on the floor. We're pretty sure he fired it at the intruders." Deak paused. "Frankly, Colonel, I'd like to know why these people would stop through here and take these two hostages—that is, assuming both men are still alive."

"You and me both," Ironhorse replied grimly. "Believe me, Sheriff, if I knew more about what they were doing, I'd let you know." Kidnapping the doctor made some sense, at least, in light of what Orel had said about radiation sickness—but the gas station owner was a mystery. The nuclear waste they were hauling provided enough of a bargaining chip for them; why take more precious time to pick up unnecessary hostages?