Magozzi had no clue what that meant. Neither did anyone else in the room. They were all leaning forward, like people bucking a strong wind, eyes wild and unblinking. Had the detonation code gone through? Was the clock wrong? Were a thousand people dead? Magozzi looked frantically from Grace to Annie to Harley, who all looked perilously close to meltdown, and figured it couldn't mean anything good. He almost turned away when Roadrunner started swiveling his chair, afraid to see the look in his face, but he made himself stand there. It was the least he could do.
And then Roadrunner finished his turn, and the eyes he met first just happened to be Magozzi's. "We did it," he said. And then he smiled. "We shut it down."
Suddenly, a tremendous noise shattered the silence. Roadrunner looked up with a baffled expression at the dozens of people he hadn't even realized were there. Harley, Annie, and Grace turned around in amazement. The place was filled with people. All of them were cheering, banging one another on the back, and moving together toward the Monkeewrench crew like out-of-control groupies at a rock concert.
Harley, Annie, Grace, and Roadrunner watched as the crowd surged toward them.
The cheering went on for a long time.
IT WAS A BLINDINGLY sunny morning in the field outside the building that had housed death and hate and destruction. Magozzi drew in a deep breath that smelled of smoke from the Four Corners fire, but even that smelled good.
His hand was glued to Grace's arm as surely as Charlie was glued to her leg, and he felt pretty good about that. He had hands and the dog didn't. Advantage Magozzi. He squinted in the sunlight and looked around at the mess of cars and trucks and choppers and people, and thought what a goddamned beautiful place the world was.
He looked at Grace's face, trying to read her expression, and realized what a fool's errand that was. He looked at Roadrunner's face instead, which always gave away emotions for free. But even that reliable countenance was impossible to read. He looked like somebody had pulled the plug on his head and there was absolutely nothing left inside.
Harley was frowning at all the confusion around him, looking like a man who had just woken up naked in a crowded room. Then he shrugged and walked over to Knudsen and handed him a piece of paper. "Here are the coordinates for the two trucks. I don't know where the hell they are; it's just a bunch of numbers to me."
Knudsen accepted the paper without taking his eyes off Harley's. He looked like he was about to burst into tears, but then suddenly, he smiled.
He had an astounding number of teeth, Harley thought. He looked a little like a mule getting ready to bray.
The field got even busier after that. A few more choppers came in, and a lot of cars and vans. A large team of what might have been men or women dressed in bulky white self-containment suits finally got permission to swarm all over the building, and disappeared back inside to take a look at the plastique and the trucks. Another HAZMAT team swarmed with equal purpose over everyone who had been in the building, sweeping them with wands from a dozen different instruments, then taking them into the back of the van for other tests.
Halloran and Magozzi watched helplessly as Sharon, Grace, and Annie got the once-over about a hundred times.
"It's just a precaution," Knudsen tried to reassure them. "Knee-jerk. They're at the highest risk. Not only were they in that building with the trucks, they were in Four Corners where the first one crashed; they've got to be cleared."
"We don't even know if there's anything in those other trucks," Magozzi complained.
"The team inside is checking on that. Until we get confirmation from them that there's no danger, we act as if there is."
"Well, that's just plain dumb," Halloran grumbled. "We were all in that building."
"Yeah, I know. We'll be next."
Gino made a face. "Shit. Are there needles involved?"
Knudsen just smiled at him.
When Gino and Magozzi were finally released from the testing van, Gino rolled down both sleeves and stomped away in search of his manhood. "Well, that was about the most humiliating experience of my life, and that includes the time when my pants split in the middle of the medal ceremony for the Monkeewrench murders. I feel like aliens just harvested my eggs or something."
Magozzi smiled, but Knudsen looked almost as distressed as Gino. His face fell when he saw a Missaqua County cruiser coming up the farm road. "That's Sheriff Pitala," he said miserably. "His sister ran the cafe in Four Corners."
"Did she get out?"
"Who knows? We're pulling a lot of bodies out of that place. No females yet, as far as they can tell."
Magozzi nodded. "So there's some hope."
"I don't know. We need to talk to the women. They're the only ones who were in there."
"So what the hell did you do with them?" Gino demanded. "I haven't seen them since you dragged me into that mobile test tube and slammed the door."
Knudsen looked a little nonplussed. "Actually, they're in your RV. The big one with the bedroom eyes?"
Magozzi smiled in spite of himself. Every single man in the world reacted the same way the first time they saw Annie. And every time after that, in fact. "Annie Belinsky."
"Yeah, her. She said she'd whip the next man that tried to talk to her before she had a shower, and I swear to God she could do it. Especially with that big undercover tattooed guy from Kingsford County backing her up. Are those two married or something?"
"Not even close."
"Whatever. Anyway, when they're finished in there, we're going to have to start debriefing. At this point, they know more than any of us.
We've got three live ones in lockup we caught running from the fire in Four Corners. Camo, Ml6s, just like that woman said on the phone ..."
Magozzi stiffened a little. "The woman's name is Grace MacBride, Agent Knudsen."
Knudsen looked at him for a second, recording the connection, finding his boundaries. "Sorry, Detective. Anyhow, we need to hear what all the women have to say before we start interrogation." He turned his head when a cruiser pulled up close beside them and Sheriff Pitala climbed out.
The man's uniform was covered with soot, his face was drawn, and he walked with a stoop that Magozzi hadn't noticed before, as if a grief he wasn't sure he should be carrying was weighing him down. He nodded to the group, then turned to Knudsen. "I can't find anybody that can tell me about Hazel," he said. "I thought maybe you could help me out with that."
"Who's Hazel?"
The voice came from the steps of the RV. Everyone turned and saw Grace MacBride, black hair dripping on her shoulders, Charlie pressed against her side, smiling inappropriately. Stupid dog had no clue what was going on here, Magozzi thought; and then he realized that he felt almost the same way. As long as Grace was in it, the world was just as it should be.
Sheriff Pitala looked up at her and swept his hat from his head in manners so ingrained they transcended everything else. "Sheriff Ed Pitala. Pleased to meet you, ma'am, and Hazel's my sister. Ran the cafe in Four Corners."
Grace looked at him for a moment, then nodded ever so slightly. "Why don't you come on in for a minute, Sheriff."
HALLORAN and Bonar were wandering through the jumble of cars closest to the building, the ones that had already been there when they'd arrived. It was a motley collection of old and new, cars and trucks and vans.
"Who do you suppose these belong to?" Bonar asked.
"Sharon figured they were the cars in Four Corners when whatever went down went down. There wasn't a single drivable vehicle in the town by the time she and Grace and Annie got there."
Bonar shuddered. "You know, it's the little details that really get to you. Like walking into a town with no people, no cars, no sounds. That had to be weird."
Halloran barely heard him. He was staring at a big faded blue sedan parked almost out of sight behind a pickup truck peppered with holes. He and Bonar walked over and looked at the side. There was a hand-painted logo on the driver's door, letters just slightly off, white paint bleeding into the faded blue.