Mick Jagger confided: “I was around when Jesus Christ had His moment of doubt and pain…”
A few grays, still standing under the lip of the ship, turned as if to run, but there was nowhere to go. Most of them were shot down immediately. The last few survivors-maybe four in all-retreated into the scant shadows. They seemed to be doing something, fiddling with something, and Owen had a horrible premonition.
“I can get them!” came crackling over the radio. That was Deforest in Blue Boy Four, almost panting with eagerness. And, anticipating Owen’s order to go for it, the Chinook dropped almost to ground-level, its rotors kicking up snow and muddy water in a filthy blizzard, battering the underbrush flat.
“No, negative, belay that, back off, resume station plus fifty!” Owen shouted, and whacked Tony’s shoulder. Tony, looking only slightly odd in the transparent mask over his mouth and nose, yanked back on the yoke and Blue Boy Leader rose in the unsteady air. Even over the music-the mad bongos, the chorus going Hoo-hoo, “Sympathy for the Devil” hadn’t played through to its conclusion even a single time, at least not yet-Owen could hear his crew grumbling. The Kiowa, he saw, was already small with distance. Whatever his mental peculiarities might be, Kurtz was no fool-And his instincts were exquisite.
“Ah, boss “Deforest, sounding not just disappointed but on fire.
“Say again, say again, return to station, Blue Group, return-”
The explosion hanmered him back in his seat and tossed the Chinook upward like a toy. Beneath the roar, he heard Tony Edwards cursing and wrestling with the yoke. There were screams from behind them, but while most of the crew was injured, they lost only Pinky Bryson, who had been leaning out the bay for a better look and fen when the shockwave hit.
“Got it, got it, got it,” Tony yammered, but Owen thought it was at least thirty seconds before Tony actually did, seconds that felt like hours. On the sound systems, the Anthem had cut off, a fact that did not bode well for Conk and the boys in Blue Boy Two.
Tony swung Blue Boy Leader around, and Owen saw the windscreen Perspex was cracked in two places. Behind them someone was still screaming-Mac Cavanaugh, it turned out, had somehow managed to lose two fingers.
“Holy shit,” Tony muttered, and then: “You saved our bacon, boss. Thanks.”
Owen barely heard him. He was looking back at the remains of the ship, which now lay in at least three pieces. It was hard to tell because the shit was flying and the air had turned a hazy reddish-orange. It was a little easier to see the remains of Deforest’s gunship. It lay canted on its side “in the muck with bubbles bursting all around it. On its port side, a long piece of busted rotor floated in the water like a “ant’s canoe-paddle. About fifty yards away, more rotors protruded, black and crooked, from a furious ball of yellow-white fire. That was Conklin and Blue Boy Two.
Graggle and bleep from the radio. Blakey in Blue Boy Three. “Boss, hey boss, I see”
“Three, this is Leader. I want you to-”
“Leader, this is Three, I see survivors, repeat, I see Blue Boy Four survivors, at least three no, four I am going down to-”
“Negative, Blue Boy Three, not at all. Resume station plus fifty-belay that, station plus one-fifty, one-five-oh, and do it now!”
“Ah, but sir boss, I mean… I can see Friedman, he’s on fucking fire”
“Joe Blakey, listen up.”
No mistaking Kurtz’s rasp, Kurtz who had gotten clear of the red crap in plenty of time. Almost, Owen thought, as if he knew what was going to happen.
“Get your ass out of there now, or I guarantee that by next week you’ll be shovelling camel-shit in a hot climate where booze is illegal. Out.”
Nothing more from Blue Boy Three. The two surviving gunships pulled back to their original rally-point plus a hundred and fifty yards. Owen sat watching the furious upward spiral of the Ripley fungus, wondering if Kurtz had known or just intuited, wondering if he and Blakey had cleared the area in time. Because they were infectious, of course; whatever the grayboys said, they were infectious. Owen didn’t know if that justified what they had just done, but he thought the survivors of Pay Deforest’s Blue Boy Four were most likely dead men walking. Or worse: live men changing. Turning into God knew what.
“Owen.” The radio.
Tony looked at him, eyebrows raised.
“Owen.”
Sighing, Owen flicked the toggle over to Kurtz’s closed channel with his chin. “I’m here, boss.”
9
Kurtz sat in the Kiowa with the newspaper hat still in his lap. He and Freddy were wearing their masks; so were the rest of boys in the attack group. Likely even the poor fellows now on the ground were still wearing them. The masks were probably unnecessary, but Kurtz, who had no intention of contracting Ripley if he could avoid it, was the big cheese. Among other things, he was supposed to set an example. Besides, he played the odds. As for Freddy Johnson… well, he had plans for Freddy.
“I’m here, boss,” Underhill said in his phones.
“That was good shooting, better flying, and superlative thinking. You saved some lives. You and I are back where we were. Right back to Square One. Got that?”
“I do, boss. Got it and appreciate it.”
And if you believe it, Kurtz thought, you’re even stupider than you look.
10
Behind Owen, Cavanaugh was still making noises, but the volume was decreasing now. Nothing from Joe Blakey, who was maybe coming to understand the implications of that gauzy red-gold whirlwind, which they might or might not have managed to avoid.
“Everything okay, buck?” Kurtz asked.
“We have some injuries,” Owen replied, “but basically five-by. Work for the sweepers, though; it’s a mess back there,” Kurtz’s crowlike laughter came back, loud in Owen’s headphones.
11
“Freddy-”
“Yes, boss.”
“We need to keep an eye on Owen Underhill.”
“Okay.”
“If we need to leave suddenly-Imperial Valley-Underhill stays here.”
Freddy Johnson said nothing, just nodded and flew the helicopter. Good lad. Knew which side of the line he belonged on, unlike some.Kurtz again turned to him. “Freddy, get us back to that godforsaken little store and don’t spare the horses. I want to be
there at least fifteen minutes before Owen and Joe Blakey. Twenty, if possible.”
“Yes, boss.”
“And I want a secure satellite uplink to Cheyenne Mountain.”
“You got it. Take about five.”
“Make it three, buck. Make it three.”
Kurtz settled back and watched the pine forest flow under them. So much forest, so much wildlife, and not a few human beings-most of them at this time of year wearing orange. And a week from now maybe in seventy-two hours-it would all be as dead as the mountains of the moon. A shame, but if there was one thing of which there was no shortage in Maine, it was woods.
Kurtz spun the cocked hat on the end of his finger. If possible, he intended to see Owen Underhill wearing it after he had ceased breathing.
“He just wanted to hear if any of it had changed,” Kurtz said softly.
Freddy Johnson, who knew which side his bread was buttered on, said nothing.
12
Halfway back to Gosselin’s and Kurtz’s speedy little Kiowa already a speck that might or might not still be there, Owen’s eyes fixed on Tony Edward’s right hand, which was gripping one branch of the Chinook’s Y-shaped steering yoke. At the base of the right thumbnail, fine as a spill of sand, was a curving line of reddish-gold. Owen looked down at his own hands, inspecting them as closely as Mrs. Jankowski had during Personal Hygiene, back in those long-ago days when the Rapeloews had been their neighbors. He could see nothing yet, not on his, but Tony had his mark, and Owen guessed his own would come in time.
Baptists the Underhills had been, and Owen was familiar with the story of Cain and Abel. The voice of thy brother’s blood cried unto me from the ground, God had said, and he had sent Cain out to live in the land of Nod, to the east of Eden. With the low men, according to his mother. But before Cain was set loose to wander, God had put a mark upon him, so even the low men of Nod would know him for what he was. And now, seeing that red-gold thread on the nail of Eddie’s thumb and looking for it on his own hands and wrists, Owen guessed he knew what color Cain’s mark had been.
Chapter Eleven
THE EGGMAN’s JOURNEY
1
Suicide, Henry had discovered, had a voice. It wanted to explain itself The problem was that it didn’t speak much English; mostly it lapsed into its own fractured pidgin. But it didn’t matter; just the talking seemed to be enough. Once Henry allowed suicide its voice, his life had improved enormously. He even had nights when he slept again (not a lot of them, but enough), and he had never had a really bad day.