The cop sighed and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. Cop body language for "Now we get down to business." Holliday burst out laughing. It wasn't the reaction Lockwood had expected.
"What's so funny?"
"I was right."
"About what?"
Holliday nodded his head at the ribbon-and-death's head tattoo on the man's forearm. "Rangers lead the way," he said.
"I was First Battalion," said Lockwood.
"Lurp," said Holliday. Which meant LRRP, or Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol.
"Where?"
"Chu Lai, Ah Shau Valley. Those nice beaches at Nha Trang."
"Same here. You must have known Nyguen Coung, then."
"Kit Carson Scout-one of the best. Sure, I knew him."
Peggy was lost.
"You're the real thing, then," said the police chief.
"I am," said Holliday. "Sua Sponte and all that. Eighteen and full of beans."
"So, then, what's this about you and your friend here being tagged as all sorts of terrorists and killers? Bodies everywhere. Shoot on sight; federal warrants."
"Long story," said Holliday.
"I don't have time for long stories. The Feds are going to come barging in here any minute now and I'll have to hand you over. No choice. Just give me a condensed version and I'll see what we can do."
"You ever hear about a guy named Billy Tritt?"
Malcolm Teeter had seen the cop bolting out of the Denny's and he didn't wait around to see who he was going to take down. As quietly as he could he climbed down out of the cab and booked out of the neighborhood. There was no doubt he was deserting his post and that he'd catch hell from that guy Barfield, but he knew perfectly well that this was just a dry run, anyway, so what did it matter? The first ass you saved was your own.
When nothing happened after ten minutes, he started to rethink his position, huddled as he was in somebody's backyard behind a fence, freezing half to death and smoking his last three cigarettes. He knew there was a pack of Luckies in the glove compartment and in the end that's what took him back to the truck, not fear of Barfield's wrath.
He got real lucky then. He'd just eased himself back into the seat when the cell phone rang. If he'd waited another minute he would have missed the call. He let out a long, relieved breath, picked the phone up off the dash and flipped it open.
Twenty-two and a half inches from the back of Malcolm Teeter's head, the cell phone-activated initiating explosion ignited the twenty-seven tons of ANFO, turning the tanker truck into an enormous grenade that vaporized Teeter before he had a chance to say hello.
The shock wave expanded exponentially, flattening the supermarket and the rest of the shopping center within less than a second. Shrapnel from the blasted stainless-steel truck leveled trees and cut through the surrounding houses like mutilating scalpel blades, killing anything alive within a thousand feet of the detonation.
A monstrous fireball blossomed like some brilliantly colored tumor, suddenly erupting from the snow-covered ground as the secondary blast wave expanded. The sound was like a crack in the world, a freight train rushing into a tornado, Joshua's trumpet at Jericho shattering windows for a mile in every direction. The earth literally shook. The two-way mirror in the interrogation room at the Winter Falls Police Station cracked from side to side and then crashed to the floor as the entire building shook.
"Christ!" yelled Lockwood, who'd almost been thrown from his chair. "What the hell was that?"
The overhead light dimmed, flickered and died. Everything went dark.
"The beginning," said Holliday, out of the blackness. "Now get us out of these cuffs before it's too late."
36
The positioning of the first of the tanker trucks beside the shopping center had not been accidental. A hundred feet away, tucked in behind the P amp;C supermarket, was the main substation off the 132-kilovolt grid that powered the entire town of Winter Falls. The eight-foot-high chain-link fence topped with razor wire was no protection at all from the ANFO bomb and was obliterated during the first seconds after the explosion.
Unfortunately for the residents of the town, the main switching station for Granite State Telephone stood fifty feet from the electrical substation and transformer, and the two nearby cell phone towers on Pine Hill Road were also rendered inoperable. Within an instant almost all methods of communication in Winter Falls were destroyed.
The sound of the explosion even penetrated the hockey arena at the Abbey School, the arched rafters shaking as the pressure wave rolled over the town. Within seconds the Secret Service had begun their standard extraction procedures for the president, but they were startled and more than surprised to find themselves pinned down by what sounded like small-arms fire coming from the woods. The president and his party were taken to the Abbey dressing room, a below-grade concrete bunker where they would be safe.
"Where's the president right now?" Holliday asked as they struggled to find their way through the squad room. Half the ceiling had collapsed and the air was full of plaster dust. They could hear voices and the sound of coughing, but they couldn't see anything. Holliday and Peggy kept close on Chief Lockwood's heels as he followed the wall around toward the entrance to the squad room.
"Hang on," wheezed Lockwood, trying to spit out the cloying, ancient plaster from his mouth. "I'll get a handheld." The policeman reached out blindly, his hand finally finding the rack of charging radios the officers used when they weren't in their cruisers. He hit the ON switch but there was nothing but static. "What the hell?" He hammered the radio set with his palm but there was still nothing. They could hear the sounds of people trapped in the rubble from the fallen ceiling. "Flashlights," said Lockwood numbly. "We need flashlights so we can get these people out of here."
"There's no time!" Holliday insisted. "That was just the start! You think it's a coincidence with the president here?" He clutched at Lockwood in the darkness. "Where would he be?"
"The rink. The Abbey School."
"Where would the Secret Service take him in an emergency? A blackout?"
"Back here." Lockwood said. "His chopper's on a temporary pad in the park."
"We've got to stop him before it's too late," Holliday said firmly. He tugged hard on Lockwood's arm. "Get us out of here. Now."
"There are people injured here. My people. I can't just leave them."
"You can't help them, either. This son of a bitch murdered the Pope and blew up the vice president. He just took out all your lights, power and communications, and I guarantee you, he's not finished yet."
Lockwood stumbled out into the hallway with Holliday and Peggy close behind. Plaster dust hung like a cloud and in the haze shadowy figures made their way to the shattered glass-front door. Finally they stood outside the building in the blowing snow. The entire town was dark except for the headlights of slow-moving vehicles across the park. There was no sign of the presidential motorcade.
"We're going to freeze to death like this," said Holliday, shivering.
"Come on," said Lockwood. He led them down the street that ran in front of the building to a row of shops on the square. Lockwood stopped at the largest one and Holliday read the old-fashioned sign on the front: UNCLE JIMMY'S SPORT PARADISE. Lockwood didn't hesitate. He put his boot through the metal-and-glass-front door, reached in and twisted the lock, then stepped inside. Holliday and Peggy followed. The place was dark and silent, a wide, long, low-ceilinged room divided into aisles. Lockwood found a big twelve-volt lantern and swung the beam around the room. Racks of antlers, a moose head, a stuffed lynx head and a lacquered blue marlin hung from the walls.
Lockwood shone the light down the middle aisle. At its end there was a rack of orange and camo quilted hunting jackets. They followed the policeman down the aisle and each of them pulled on one of the jackets.