Banodyne labs.
They were still searching, having just returned from a full day in the hills and
canyons, but they were no longer conducting the operation in uniform. To deceive
reporters and local authorities, they had driven in cars and pickups and Jeep
wagons to various points along the current search perimeter. They had gone into
the wilds in groups of three or four, dressed as ordinary hikers:
jeans or khaki pants in the rugged Banana Republic style; T-shirts or cotton
safari shirts; Dodger or Budweiser or John Deere caps, or cowboy hats. They went
armed with powerful handguns that could be quickly concealed in nylon backpacks
or under their loose T-shirts if they encountered real hikers or state
authorities. And in Styrofoam coolers, they carried compact Uzi submachine guns
that could be brought into service in seconds if they found the adversary.
Every man in the room had signed a secrecy oath, which put him in jeopardy of a
long prison term if he ever divulged the nature of this operation to anyone.
They knew what they were hunting, though Lem was aware that some of them had
trouble believing the creature really existed. Some were afraid. But others,
especially those who had previously served in Lebanon or Central America, were
familiar enough with death and horror to be unshaken by the nature of their
current quarry. A few oldtimers went as far back as the final year of the
Vietnam War, and they professed to believe that the mission was a piece of cake.
In any event, they were all good men, and they had a wary respect for the
strange enemy they were stalking, and if The Outsider could be found, they would
find it.
Now, when Lem asked for their attention, they immediately fell silent.
“General Hotchkiss tells me that you’ve had another fruitless day out there,”
Lem said, “and I know you’re as unhappy about that as I am. You’ve been working
long hours in rugged terrain for six days now, and you’re tired, and you’re
wondering how long this is going to drag on. Well, we’re going to keep looking
until we find what we’re after, until we corner The Outsider and kill it. There
is no way we can stop if it’s still loose. No way.”
None of the hundred even grumbled in disagreement.
“And always remember—we’re also looking for the dog.”
Every man in the room probably hoped that he would be the one to find the dog
and that someone else would encounter The Outsider.
Lem said, “On Wednesday, we’re bringing in another four Marine Intelligence
squads from more distant bases, and they’ll spell you on a rotating basis,
giving you a couple of days off. But you’ll all be out there tomorrow morning,
and the search area has been redefined.”
A county map was mounted on the wall behind the lectern, and Lem Johnson pointed
to it with a yardstick. “We’ll be shifting north-northwest, into the hills and
canyons around Irvine Park.”
He told them about the slaughter at the petting zoo. He gave a graphic
description of the condition of the carcasses, for he did not want any of these
men to get careless.
“What happened to those zoo animals,” Lem said, “could happen to any of you if
you let your guard down at the wrong place and time.”
A hundred men regarded him with utmost seriousness, and in their eyes he saw a
hundred versions of his own tightly controlled fear.
8
Tuesday night, May 25, Tracy Leigh Keeshan could not sleep. She was so excited
she felt as if she might burst. She pictured herself as a dandelion gone to
seed, a puffball of fragile white fuzz, and then a gust of wind would come along
and all the bits of fluff would be sent spinning in every direction— poof—to the
far corners of the world, and Tracy Keeshan would exist no more, destroyed by
her own excitement.
She was an unusually imaginative thirteen-year-old.
Lying in bed in her dark room, she did not even have to close her eyes to see
herself on horseback—on her own chestnut stallion, Goodheart, to be
precise—thundering along the racetrack, the rails flashing past, the other