To be fair to Orson, who had been briefly baffled but never entirely
misled, I was the one suckered into the warehouse by odd noises and a
muffled voice.
The garment seemed so small, almost like doll’s clothing.
“I don’t know if this helps, ” I said. “Cats aren’t bloodhounds, after
all.”
“We’ll see, ” Roosevelt said.
Mungojerrie sniffed the pajama top delicately but with interest.
Then he took a tour of the immediate area, smelling the pavement, an
empty oil can, which made him sneeze, and the tiny yellow flowers on a
weed, which made him sneeze again and more vigorously. He returned for a
brief inhalation of the garment, and then he tracked a scent along the
pavement once more, moving in a widening spiral, from time to time
lifting his head to savor the air, all the while appearing suitably
quizzical. He padded to the warehouse, where he raised one leg and
relieved himself against the concrete foundation, sniffed the deposit he
had made, returned for another whiff of the pajama top, spent half a
minute investigating an old rusted socket wrench Lying on the pavement,
paused to scratch behind his right ear with one paw, returned to the
weed with the yellow flowers, sneezed, and had just risen to the top of
my List of People or Animals I Most Want to Choke Senseless, when he
suddenly went rigid, turned his green eyes toward our animal
communicator, and hissed.
“He’s got it, ” Roosevelt said.
Mungojerrie hurried along the serviceway, and we set out after him.
Bobby joined us on foot, armed with his shotgun, while Doogie and Sasha
followed in the Hummer.
Taking a different route from the one I’d chosen the previous night, we
proceeded along a blacktop road, across an athletic field gone to weeds,
across a dusty parade ground, between ranks of badly weathered barracks,
through a residential neighborhood of Dead Town that I had never
explored, where the cottages and bungalows were identical to those on
other streets, and overland again, to another service area.
After more than half an hour at a brisk pace, we arrived at the last
place I wanted to go, the huge, seven-story, Quonset-roofed hangar, as
large as a football field, that stands like an alien temple above the
egg room.
As it became clear where we were headed, I decided it wouldn’t be wise
to drive up to the entrance, because the Hummer’s engine was noticeably
less quiet than the mechanism of a Swiss watch. I waved Doogie toward a
passageway between two of the many smaller service buildings that
surrounded the giant structure, about a hundred yards from our ultimate
destination.
When Doogie killed the engine and the parking lights, the Hummer all but
vanished in this nook.
As we gathered behind the vehicle to study the enormous hangar from a
distance, the dead night began to breathe. A few miles to the west, the
Pacific had exhaled a cool breeze, which now caused a loose sheet-metal
panel to vibrate in a nearby roof.
I recalled Roosevelt’s words, relayed from Mungojerrie, outside the
Stanwyk house, Death lives here. I was getting identical but much
stronger vibes from the hangar. If Death lived at the Stanwyk place,
that was only his pied-a-terre. Here was his primary residence.
“This can’t be right, ” I said hopefully.
“They’re in that place, ” Roosevelt insisted.
“But we were here last night, ” Bobby protested. “They weren’t in the
damn place last night.” Roosevelt scooped up the cat, stroked the furry
head, chucked the mungo man under the chin, murmured to him, and said,
“They were here then, the cat says, and they’re here now.” Bobby
scowled. “This reeks.”
“Like a Calcutta sewer, ” I agreed.
“No, trust me, ” Doogie said. “A Calcutta sewer is in a class all by
itself.” I decided not to pursue the obvious question.
Instead, I said, “If these kids were snatched just to be studied and
tested, snatched because their blood samples indicate they’re somehow
immune to the retrovirus, then they must have been taken to the genetics
lab. Wherever that may be, it isn’t here.” Roosevelt said, “According to
Mungojerrie, the lab he came from is far to the east, in what appears to