At 9:35 one of Bob Thorp’s “deputies” came down the porch steps and joined the three men at the second car. They talked, possibly argued, for a few seconds. The deputy remained at the LTD while Salsbury and his associates mounted the steps to the general store.
Turning away from the bookshelves in Sam Edison’s study, Dawson said, “All right then. Now we understand how they might have pieced it together. Ogden, do they know the code phrases?”
Shocked by the question, Salsbury said, “Of course not! How in the hell could they know?”
“The little girl might have heard you use them with Thorp or with her brother. ”
“No,” he said. “Impossible. She didn’t step into that doorway until long after I gave up trying to get control of her brother — and long, long after I’d already assumed control of Thorp. ”
“Did you try to use the phrase on her?”
Did I? Salsbury wondered. I remember seeing her there, taking a step toward her, being unable to catch her. But did I use the code phrase?
He rejected the notion because if he accepted it he would have to accept defeat, complete destruction. “No,” he told Dawson. “I didn’t have time to use the phrase. I saw her. She turned and ran. I ran after her, but she was too fast.”
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“Absolutely. ”
Regarding Salsbury with unvarnished disgust, the general said, “You should have foreseen this development with Edison. You should have known about this library, this hobby of his.”
“How in the hell could I foresee any of it?” Salsbury asked. His face was flushed. His myopic eyes seemed to bulge even more than usual behind his thick glasses.
“If you had done your duty—”
“Duty,” Salsbury said scornfully. Half of his anger was generated by his fear; but it was important that neither Dawson nor Klinger see that. “This isn’t the stinking military, Ernst. This isn’t the army. I’m not one of your oh-so-humble enlisted men!”
Klinger turned away from him, went to the window, and said, “Maybe we’d all be better off if you were.”
Willing the general to look at him, aware that he was at a disadvantage so long as Klinger felt safe enough to turn his back, Salsbury said, “Christ! No matter how careful I’d been—”
“That’s enough,” Dawson said. He spoke softly but with such command that Salsbury stopped talking and the general looked away from the window. “We haven’t time for arguments and accusations. We’ve got to find those four people. ”
“They can’t have gotten out of town through the east end of the valley,” Salsbury said. “I know I’ve got that sealed tight.”
“You thought you had this house sealed up tight too,” Klinger said. “But they slipped past you.”
“Let’s not judge too harshly, Ernst,” Dawson said. He smiled in a fatherly, Christian fashion and nodded at Salsbury. But there was only hatred and loathing in his black eyes. “I agree with Ogden. His precautions at the east end are certainly adequate. Although we might consider tripling the number of men along the river and in the woods now that night has fallen. And I believe Ogden’s also covered the logging roads well enough.”
“Then there are two possibilities,” Klinger said, deciding to play the military strategist. “One — they might still be in town, hiding somewhere, waiting for a chance to get past the roadblock or the men guarding the river. Or two — maybe they’re going to walk out through the mountains. We know from Thorp that the Annendales are experienced campers and hikers.”
Bob Thorp was standing by the door, as if he were an honor guard. He said, “That’s true.”
“I don’t see it,” Salsbury said. “I mean, they have an eleven-year-old girl with them. She’ll slow them down. They’ll need days to reach help that way.”
“That little girl has spent a big part of the last seven summers in these forests,” the general said. “She might not be as much of a drag on them as you think. Besides, if we don’t locate them, they’ll do the same damage whether they reach help tonight or not until the middle of next week.”
Dawson thought about that. Then: “If they’re trying to walk out through the mountains, sixty miles round-about to Bexford, how far do you think they’ve gotten by now?”
“Three, maybe three and a half miles,” Klinger said.
“No farther than that?”
“I doubt it,” Klinger said. “They’d have to be damned careful leaving town if they didn’t want to be seen. They’d move slowly, a few yards at a time for the first mile. In the forest they’d need a while to really hit their stride. And even if the little girl is at home in the woods, she’d slow them down a bit. ”
“Three and a half miles,” Dawson said thoughtfully. “Wouldn’t that put them somewhere between the Big Union mill and the planned forests?”
“That’s about right. ”
Dawson closed his eyes and seemed to mutter a few words of silent prayer; his lips moved slightly. Then his eyes snapped open, as if sprung by a holy revelation, and he said, “The first thing we’ll do is organize a search in the mountains. ”
“That’s absurd,” Salsbury said, although he was aware that Dawson probably thought of his plan as a divine inspiration, the very handiwork of God. “It would be like — well, like hunting for a needle in a haystack.”
His voice as cold as the dead boy in the next room, Dawson said, “We have nearly two hundred men at the logging camp, all of them familiar with these mountains. We’ll mobilize them. Arm them with axes and rifles and shotguns. Give them flashlights and Coleman lanterns. We’ll put them in trucks and jeeps and send them a mile or so beyond the logging camp. They can form a search line and walk back. Forty feet between the men. That way, the line will be a mile and a half from one end to the other — yet each man will have only a small area of ground to cover. The Edisons and the Annendales won’t be able to get by them. ”
“It’ll work,” Klinger said admiringly.
“But what if they aren’t up there in the mountains?” Salsbury said. “What if they’re right here in town?”
“Then we’ve nothing to worry about,” Dawson said. “They can’t get to you because you’re surrounded by Bob Thorp and his deputies. They can’t get out of town because every exit is blocked. All they can do is wait.” He smiled wolfishly. “If we don’t find them in the mountains by three or four o’clock in the morning, we’ll begin a house-to-house search here in town. One way or another, I want this whole affair wrapped up by noon tomorrow. ”
“That’s asking a lot,” the general said.
“I don’t care,” Dawson said. “It isn’t asking too much. I want the four of them dead by noon. I want to restructure the memories of everyone in this town to cover our trail completely. By noon. ”
“Dead?” Salsbury said, confused. He pushed his glasses up on his nose. “But I need to study the Edisons. You can kill the Annendales if you want. But I’ve got to know why the Edisons weren’t affected. I’ve got—”
“Forget that,” Dawson said brusquely. “If we attempted to capture them and take them back to the laboratory at Greenwich, there’s a good chance they’d escape along the way. We can’t risk that. They know too much. Much too much. ”
“But we’ll have so damned many corpses!” Salsbury said. “For God’s sake, there’s already the boy. And Buddy Pellineri. Four more… And if they fight back, we may have as many as a dozen to bury. How are we going to account for so many?”
Obviously pleased with himself, Dawson said, “We’ll put the lot of them in the Union Theater. Then we’ll stage a tragic fire. We’ve got Dr. Troutman to issue death certificates. And we can use the key-lock program to keep the relatives from requesting autopsies.”