"This looks like just the ticket," Lloyd said.

Poke agreed. He reached into the back for the .357 and checked the loads. "You ready?"

"I guess so," Lloyd said, and took hold of the Schmeisser.

They walked across the baked parking lot. The police had known who they were for four days now; they had left their fingerprints all over Gorgeous George's house, and in the store where the old man with the mail-order dentures had been pokerized. The old man's pickup had been found within fifty feet of the bodies of the three people who belonged with the Continental, and it seemed reasonable to assume that the men who had killed Gorgeous George and the store owner had also killed these three. If they had been listening to the Connie's radio instead of the tape-player, they would have known that Arizona and New Mexico police were coordinating the largest manhunt in forty years, all for a couple of small-time grifters who could not quite comprehend what they might have done to start such a fuss.

The gas was self-service; the clerk had to turn on the pump. So they went up the steps and inside. Three aisles of canned goods went up the room toward the counter. At the counter a man in cowboy clothes was paying for a pack of smokes and half a dozen Slim Jims. Halfway down the middle aisle a tired-looking woman with coarse black hair was trying to decide between two brands of spaghetti sauce. The place smelled of stale licorice and sun and tobacco and age. The proprietor was a freckled man in a gray shirt. He was wearing a company cap that said SHELL SHELL in red letters against a white field. He looked up as the screen door slapped shut and his eyes widened. in red letters against a white field. He looked up as the screen door slapped shut and his eyes widened.

Lloyd put the wire stock of the Schmeisser against his shoulder and fired a burst at the ceiling. The two hanging lightbulbs shattered like bombs. The man in the cowboy clothes began to turn around.

"Just hold still and nobody'll get hurt!" Lloyd shouted, and Poke immediately made him a liar by blowing a hole through the woman looking at the sauces. She flew out of her shoes.

"Holy gee, Poke!" Lloyd hollered. "You didn't have to-"

"Pokerized her, ole buddy!" Poke yelled. "She'll never watch Jerry Falwell again! Whoop! Whoop!"

The man in the cowboy clothes kept turning. He was holding his smokes in his left hand. The harsh light falling through the show window and the screen door pricked out bright stars on the dark lenses of his sunglasses. There was a .45 revolver tucked into his belt, and now he plucked it out unhurriedly as Lloyd and Poke were staring at the dead woman. He aimed, fired, and the left side of Poke's face suddenly disappeared in a spray of blood and tissue and teeth.

"Shot!" Poke screamed, dropping the .357 and flailing backward. His flailing hands raked potato chips and taco chips and Cheez Doodles onto the splintery wooden floor. Poke screamed, dropping the .357 and flailing backward. His flailing hands raked potato chips and taco chips and Cheez Doodles onto the splintery wooden floor. "Shot me, Lloyd! Look out! Shot me! Shot me!" "Shot me, Lloyd! Look out! Shot me! Shot me!" He hit the screen door and it slammed open and Poke sat down hard on the porch outside, pulling one of the aged door hinges loose. He hit the screen door and it slammed open and Poke sat down hard on the porch outside, pulling one of the aged door hinges loose.

Lloyd, stunned, fired more in reflex than in self-defense. The Schmeisser's roar filled the room. Cans flew. Bottles crashed, spilling catsup, pickles, olives. The glass front of the Pepsi cooler jingled inward. Bottles of Dr. Pepper and Jolt and Orange Crush exploded like clay pigeons. Foam ran everywhere. The man in the cowboy clothes, cool, calm, and collected, fired his piece again. Lloyd felt rather than heard the bullet as it droned by nearly close enough to part hair. He raked the Schmeisser across the room, from left to right.

The man in the SHELL SHELL cap dropped behind the counter with such suddenness that an observer might have thought a trapdoor had been sprung on him. A gumball machine disintegrated. Red, blue, and green chews rolled everywhere. The glass bottles on the counter exploded. One of them had contained pickled eggs; another, pickled pigs' feet. Immediately the room was filled with the sharp odor of vinegar. cap dropped behind the counter with such suddenness that an observer might have thought a trapdoor had been sprung on him. A gumball machine disintegrated. Red, blue, and green chews rolled everywhere. The glass bottles on the counter exploded. One of them had contained pickled eggs; another, pickled pigs' feet. Immediately the room was filled with the sharp odor of vinegar.

The Schmeisser put three bullet holes in the cowboy's khaki shirt and most of his innards exited from the back to splatter all over Spuds Mac-Kenzie. The cowboy went down, still clutching his .45 in one hand and his deck of Luckies in the other.

Lloyd, bullshit with fear, continued to fire. The machine-pistol was growing hot in his hands. A box filled with returnable soda bottles tinkled and fell over. A calendar girl wearing hotpants took a bullet hole in one magical peach-colored thigh. A rack of paperbacks with no covers crashed over. Then the Schmeisser was empty, and the new silence was deafening. The smell of gunpowder was heavy and rank.

"Holy gee," Lloyd said. He looked cautiously at the cowboy. It didn't look like the cowboy was going to be a problem in either the near or distant future.

"Shot me!" Poke brayed, and staggered back inside. He clawed the screen door out of his way with such force that the other hinge popped and the door slapped onto the porch. Poke brayed, and staggered back inside. He clawed the screen door out of his way with such force that the other hinge popped and the door slapped onto the porch. "Shot me, Lloyd, look out!" "Shot me, Lloyd, look out!"

"I got him, Poke," Lloyd soothed, but Poke seemed not to hear. He was a mess. His right eye blazed like a baleful sapphire. The left was gone. His left cheek had been vaporized; you could watch his jaw work on that side as he talked. Most of his teeth were gone over there, too. His shirt was soaked with blood. When you got right down to it, Poke was sort of a mess.

"Stupid fuck blew me up!" Poke screamed. He bent over and got the .357 Mag. Poke screamed. He bent over and got the .357 Mag. "I'll teach you to shoot me, you dumb fuck!" "I'll teach you to shoot me, you dumb fuck!"

He advanced on the cowboy, a rural Dr. Sardonicus. He put one foot on the cowboy's butt like a hunter posing for a picture with the bear which would soon be decorating the wall of his den, and prepared to empty the .357 into his head. Lloyd stood watching, gape-mouthed, the smoking machine-pistol dangling from one hand, still trying to figure out how all of this had happened.

At that moment the man in the SHELL SHELL cap popped back up from behind the counter like Jack from his box, his face screwed up in an expression of desperate intent, a double-barreled shotgun clutched in both hands. cap popped back up from behind the counter like Jack from his box, his face screwed up in an expression of desperate intent, a double-barreled shotgun clutched in both hands.

"Huh?" Poke said, and looked up just in time to get both barrels. He went down, his face a worse mess than ever and not caring a bit.

Lloyd decided it was time to leave. Fuck the money. There was money everywhere. The time to throw off a little more pursuit had clearly come. He wheeled and exited the store in large shambling strides, his boots barely touching the boards.

He was halfway down the steps when an Arizona State Police cruiser wheeled into the yard. A trooper got out on the passenger side and pulled his pistol. "Hold it right there! What's going on in there?"

"Three people dead!" Lloyd cried. "Hell of a mess! Guy that did it went out the back! I'm gettin the fuck out!"

He ran to the Connie, had actually slipped behind the wheel, and was just remembering that the keys were in Poke's pocket when the trooper yelled: "Halt! Halt or I'll shoot!"

Lloyd halted. After examining the radical surgery on Poke's face, it didn't take a long time to decide he'd just as soon pass.

"Holy gee," he said miserably as a second trooper laid a big horse pistol upside his head. The first one cuffed him.

"In the back of the cruiser, Sunny Jim."

The man in the SHELL SHELL cap had come out onto the porch, still clutching his shotgun. "He shot Bill Markson!" he yelled in a high, queer voice. "T'other one shot Missus Storm! Hell of a note! I shot t'other one! He's deader'n a shitbug! Like to shoot this one too, iff'n you boys'll stand away!" cap had come out onto the porch, still clutching his shotgun. "He shot Bill Markson!" he yelled in a high, queer voice. "T'other one shot Missus Storm! Hell of a note! I shot t'other one! He's deader'n a shitbug! Like to shoot this one too, iff'n you boys'll stand away!"

"Calm down, Pop," one of the troopers said. "Fun's over."

"I'll shoot him where he stands!" the old guy yelled. "I'll lay him low!" Then he leaned forward like an English butler making a bow and threw up on his shoes.

"You boys get me away from that guy, would you?" Lloyd said. "I believe he's crazy."

"You got this comin outta the store, Sunny Jim," the trooper who had thrown down on him in the first place said. The barrel of his pistol looped up and up, catching the sun, and then it crashed down on Lloyd Henreid's head and he never woke up until that evening in the Apache County Jail's infirmary.

CHAPTER 17.

Starkey was standing in front of monitor 2, keeping a close eye on Tech 2nd Class Frank D. Bruce. When we last saw Bruce, he was facedown in a bowl of Chunky Sirloin Soup. No change except for the positive ID. Situation normal, all fucked up.

Thoughtfully, hands locked behind his back like a general reviewing troops, like General Black Jack Pershing, his boyhood idol, Starkey moved down to monitor 4, where the situation had changed for the better. Dr. Emmanual Ezwick still lay dead on the floor, but the centrifuge had stopped. At 1940 hours last night, the centrifuge had begun to emit fine tendrils of smoke. At 1995 hours the sound pickups in Ezwick's lab had transmitted a whunga-whunga-whunga whunga-whunga-whunga sort of sound that deepened into a fuller, richer, and more satisfying sort of sound that deepened into a fuller, richer, and more satisfying ronk! ronk! ronk! ronk! ronk! ronk! At 2107 hours the centrifuge had ronked its last ronk and had slowly come to rest. Was it Newton who had said that somewhere, beyond the farthest star, there may be a body perfectly at rest? Newton had been right about everything but the distance, Starkey thought. You didn't have to go far at all. Project Blue was perfectly at rest. Starkey was very glad. The centrifuge had been the last illusion of life, and the problem he'd had Steffens run through the main computer bank (Steffens had looked at him as though he were crazy, and yes, Starkey thought he might be) was: How long could that centrifuge be expected to run? The answer, which had come back in 6.6 seconds, was: At 2107 hours the centrifuge had ronked its last ronk and had slowly come to rest. Was it Newton who had said that somewhere, beyond the farthest star, there may be a body perfectly at rest? Newton had been right about everything but the distance, Starkey thought. You didn't have to go far at all. Project Blue was perfectly at rest. Starkey was very glad. The centrifuge had been the last illusion of life, and the problem he'd had Steffens run through the main computer bank (Steffens had looked at him as though he were crazy, and yes, Starkey thought he might be) was: How long could that centrifuge be expected to run? The answer, which had come back in 6.6 seconds, was: 3 YEARS PROBABLE MALFUNCTION NEXT TWO WEEKS .009% AREAS OF PROBABLE MALFUNCTION BEARINGS 38% MAIN MOTOR 16% ALL OTHER 54%. 3 YEARS PROBABLE MALFUNCTION NEXT TWO WEEKS .009% AREAS OF PROBABLE MALFUNCTION BEARINGS 38% MAIN MOTOR 16% ALL OTHER 54%. That was a smart computer. Starkey had gotten Steffens to query it again after the actual burnout of Ezwick's centrifuge. The computer communed with the Engineering Systems data bank and confirmed that the centrifuge had indeed burned out its bearings. That was a smart computer. Starkey had gotten Steffens to query it again after the actual burnout of Ezwick's centrifuge. The computer communed with the Engineering Systems data bank and confirmed that the centrifuge had indeed burned out its bearings.

Remember that, Starkey thought as his caller began to beep urgently behind him. The sound of burning bearings in the final stages of collapse is ronk-ronk-ronk. ronk-ronk-ronk.

He went to the caller and pushed the button that snapped off the beeper. "Yes, Len."

"Billy, I've got an urgent from one of our teams in a town called Sipe Springs, Texas. Almost four hundred miles from Arnette. They say they have to talk to you; it's a command decision."

"What is it, Len?" he asked calmly. He had taken over sixteen "downers" in the last ten hours, and was, generally speaking, feeling fine. Not a sign of a ronk.

"Press."

"Oh Jesus," Starkey said mildly. "Patch them through."

There was a muffled roar of static with a voice talking unintelligibly behind it.

"Wait a minute," Len said.

The static slowly cleared.

"-Lion, Team Lion, do you read, Blue Base? Can you read? One ... two ... three ... four ... this is Team Lion-"

"I've got you, Team Lion," Starkey said. "This is Blue Base One."

"Problem is coded Flowerpot in the Contingency Book," the tinny voice said. "Repeat, Flowerpot."

"I know what the fuck Flowerpot is," Starkey said. "What's the situation?"

The tinny voice coming from Sipe Springs talked uninterrupted for almost five minutes. The situation itself was unimportant, Starkey thought, because the computer had informed him two days ago that just this sort of situation (in some shape or form) was apt to occur before the end of June. 88% probability. The specifics didn't matter. If it had two legs and belt-loops, it was a pair of pants. Never mind the color.

A doctor in Sipe Springs had made some good guesses, and a pair of reporters for a Houston daily had linked what was happening in Sipe Springs with what had already happened in Arnette, Verona, Commerce City, and a town called Polliston, Kansas. Those were the towns where the problem had gotten so bad so fast that the army had been sent in to quarantine. The computer had a list of twenty-five other towns in ten states where traces of Blue were beginning to show up.

The Sipe Springs situation wasn't important because it wasn't unique. They'd had their chance at unique in Arnette-well, maybe-and flubbed it. What was important was that the "situation" was finally going to see print on something besides yellow military flimsy; was, anyway, unless Starkey took steps. He hadn't decided whether to do that or not. But when the tinny voice stopped talking, Starkey realized that he had made the decision after all. He had perhaps made it as long as twenty years ago.

It came down to what was important. And what was important wasn't the fact of the disease; it wasn't the fact that Atlanta's integrity had somehow been breached and they were going to have to switch the whole preventative operation to much less satisfactory facilities in Stovington, Vermont; it wasn't the fact that Blue spread in such sneaky common-cold disguise.

"What is important-"

"Say again, Blue Base One," the voice said anxiously. "We did not copy."

What was important was that a regrettable incident had occurred. Starkey flashed back in time twenty-two years to 1968. He had been in the officers' club in San Diego when the news came about Calley and what had happened at Mei Lai Four. Starkey had been playing poker with four other men, two of whom now sat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The poker game had been forgotten, utterly forgotten, in a discussion of exactly what this was going to do to the military-not any one branch but the entire military-in the witch-hunt atmosphere of Washington's fourth estate. And one of their number, a man who could now dial directly to the miserable worm who had been masquerading as a Chief Executive since January 20, 1989, had laid his cards carefully down on the green felt table and he had said: Gentlemen, a regrettable incident has occurred. And when a regrettable incident occurs which involves any branch of the United States Military, we don't question the roots of that incident but rather how the branches may best be pruned. The service is mother and father to us. And if you find your mother raped or your father beaten and robbed, before you call the police or begin an investigation, you cover their nakedness. Because you love them. Gentlemen, a regrettable incident has occurred. And when a regrettable incident occurs which involves any branch of the United States Military, we don't question the roots of that incident but rather how the branches may best be pruned. The service is mother and father to us. And if you find your mother raped or your father beaten and robbed, before you call the police or begin an investigation, you cover their nakedness. Because you love them.

Starkey had never heard anyone talk so well before or since.

Now he unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and fumbled out a thin blue folder bound with red tape. The legend written on the cover read: IF TAPE IS BROKEN NOTIFY ALL SECURITY DIVISIONS AT ONCE. IF TAPE IS BROKEN NOTIFY ALL SECURITY DIVISIONS AT ONCE. Starkey broke the tape. Starkey broke the tape.

"Are you there, Blue Base One?" the voice was asking. "We do not copy you. Repeat, do not copy."

"I'm here, Lion," Starkey said. He had flipped to the last page of the book and now ran his finger down a column labeled EXTREME COVERT COUNTERMEASURES. EXTREME COVERT COUNTERMEASURES.

"Lion, do you read?"

"We read five-by, Blue Base One."

"Troy," Starkey said deliberately. "I repeat, Lion: Troy. Troy. Repeat back, please. Over to you." Repeat back, please. Over to you."

Silence. A faraway mumble of static. Starkey was fleetingly reminded of the walkie-talkies they made as kids, two tin Del Monte cans and twenty yards of waxed string.

"I say again-"

"Oh Jesus!" a very young voice in Sipe Springs gulped.

"Repeat back, son," Starkey said.

"T-Troy," the voice said. Then, more strongly: "Troy."

"Very good," Starkey said calmly. "God bless you, son. Over and out."

"And you, sir. Over and out."

A click, followed by heavy static, followed by another click, silence, and Len Creighton's voice. "Billy?"

"Yes, Len."

"I copied the whole thing."

"That's fine, Len," Starkey said tiredly. "You make your report as you see fit. Of course."

"You don't understand, Billy," Len said. "You did the right thing. Don't you think I know that?"

Starkey let his eyes slip closed. For a moment all the sweet downers deserted him. "God bless you, too, Len," he said, and his voice was close to breaking. He switched off and went back to stand in front of monitor 2. He put his hands behind his back like a Black Jack Pershing reviewing troops. He regarded Frank D. Bruce and his final resting place. In a little while he felt calm again.

Going southeast out of Sipe Springs, if you get on US 36, you are headed in the general direction of Houston, a day's drive away. The car burning up the road was a three-year-old Pontiac Bonneville, doing eighty, and when it came over the rise and saw the nondescript Ford blocking the road, there was nearly an accident.

The driver, a thirty-six-year-old stringer for a large Houston daily, tromped on the power brake and the tires began to screech, the Pontiac's nose first dipping down toward the road and then beginning to break to the left.

"Holy Gawd!" the photographer in the shotgun seat cried. He dropped his camera to the floor and began to scramble his seat belt across his middle.

The driver let up on the brake, skirted the Ford on the shoulder, and then felt his left wheels start to drag in the soft dirt. He matted the gas pedal and the Bonneville responded with more traction, dragging back onto the blacktop. Blue smoke squirted from beneath the tires. The radio blared on and on:

"Baby, can you dig your man, He's a righteous man, Baby, can you dig your man?"

He tromped the brake again, and the Bonneville slued to a stop in the middle of the hot and deserted afternoon. He drew in a ragged, terrified breath and then coughed it out in a series of bursts. He began to be angry. He threw the Pontiac into reverse and backed toward the Ford and the two men standing behind it.

"Listen," the photographer said nervously. He was fat and hadn't been in a fight since the ninth grade. "Listen, maybe we just better-"

He was thrown forward with a grunt as the stringer brought the Pontiac to another screeching halt, threw the transmission lever into park with one hard thrust of his hand, and got out.

He began to walk toward the two young men behind the Ford, his hands doubled into fists.

"All right, motherfuckers!" he shouted. "You almost got us fucking killed and I want-"

He had been in the service, four years in the army. Volunteer. He had just time to identify the rifles as the new M-3A's when they brought them up from below the rear deck of the Ford. He stood shocked in the hot Texas sunshine and made water in his pants.

He began to scream and in his mind he was turning to run back to the Bonneville but his feet never moved. They opened up on him, and slugs blew out his chest and groin. As he dropped to his knees, holding both hands out mutely for mercy, a slug struck him an inch over his left eye and tore off the top of his head.

The photographer, who had been twisted over the back seat, found it impossible to comprehend exactly what had happened until the two young men stepped over the stringer's body and began to walk toward him, rifles raised.

He slid across the Pontiac's seat, warm bubbles of saliva collecting at the corners of his mouth. The keys were still in the ignition. He turned the car on and screamed out just as they began shooting. He felt the car lurch to the right as if a giant had kicked the left rear, and the wheel began to shimmy wildly in his hands. The photographer bounced up and down as the Bonneville pogoed up the road on the flat tire. A second later the giant kicked the other side of the car. The shimmy got worse. Sparks flew off the blacktop. The photographer was whining. The Pontiac's rear tires shimmied and flapped like black rags. The two young men ran back to their Ford, whose serial number was listed among the multitude in the Army Vehicles division at the Pentagon, and one of them drove it around in a tight, swaying circle. The nose bounced wildly as it came off the shoulder and drove over the body of the stringer. The sergeant in the passenger seat sprayed a startled sneeze onto the windshield.

Ahead of them, the Pontiac washing-machined along on its two flat rear tires, the nose bouncing up and down. Behind the wheel the fat photographer had begun to weep at the sight of the dark Ford growing in the rear-view mirror. He had the accelerator pressed to the floor but the Pontiac would do no more than forty and it was all over the road. On the radio Larry Underwood had been replaced by Madonna. Madonna was asserting that she was a material girl.

The Ford swung around the Bonneville and for one second of crystal hope the photographer thought it was going to keep right on going, to just disappear over the desolate horizon and let him alone.

Then it pulled back in, and the Pontiac's wildly jittering nose caught its mudguard. There was a scream of pulling metal. The photographer's head flew forward into the wheel and blood sprayed from his nose.