Thor shrugged. "I don't. But it's our best chance. Sherrine, let me take your seat so I can navigate."
Bob stopped the van while they exchanged seats. Sherrine unbuckled. "You have the comm, Mr. Sulu." She crawled into the back--her familiar seat--and Bob put the van back in gear.
"Is it really as bad as Thor said?" asked Alex. Sherrine twisted and looked at him. He looked concerned; Gordon, frankly frightened. Steve, sitting lotus between them, was using yoga techniques to calm himself.
She nodded. "It could be." Never pull your punches; never sugarcoat the truth. What you don't know can hurt you bad. "It could blow over, too; but it's better to play it safe and find a way station where we can hole up."
"Is that safe? The authorities are hunting Angels…"
"Look, Alex. Gordon. A blizzard can be fatal. We used to have weather satellites that gave us advance warning. Now, folks get caught by surprise. Like Thor said, you don't want to get caught outdoors in a norther. And neither do the cops!"
The snow began falling faster, piling up on the windshield, melting from the heat of the van, and freezing into an impenetrable slush faster than the wipers could handle. The countryside was a blur in the icy lens. Bob turned right and Sherrine felt the wheels go off the road. Bob put a van into first and recovered. He rolled down his window and scraped at the ice with his glove. The wind spray-painted his beard with snow.
If we can make it in time, she thought. And if they'll take us in.
Ike Redden held the telephone away from his head and stared at it. Then he put it back against his ear. "What do you mean, you can't get north of Lancaster? A blizzard? Impossible. This is September. How do you know? I see. A truck pulled into Patch Grove with snow on its roof. No, you can't argue with evidence like that." Wherever the hell Patch Grove is. He glanced at the Air Force Intelligence captain fiddling with a pen on the other side of the desk and shrugged helplessly.
"Yes, I understand," he said into the phone. "But we received a report about a maroon van with Minnesota plates somewhere in your vicinity, and we thought--No, I'm afraid I can't. Yes, we're asking all the counties, on both sides of the River. Certainly. I'm sure you will do your best. Thank you." He hung up and leaned back in his seat. "County sheriffs," he said to no one in particular.
"Do you plan to check out every van in Minnesota and Wisconsin?" Lee Arteria asked idly.
"I suppose you have a better lead, Captain?" Arteria smiled but said nothing and Redden made a steeple of his fingers. Does that mean the Air Force has a lead and they're not going to tell me? Or does it mean the Air Force wants me to think they have a lead?
"You could wait for the information from the DMV," Arteria suggested. "At least, it would narrow the list of vans."
Redden waved a disparaging hand. "Ahh. It's been three days already. Some sort of bug in the computer. They're still trying to straighten it out. Goddamn DMV can't find its own asshole if they used both hands."
Arteria considered that in silence, then nodded. "Any word on possible contacts in the Fargo area?"
"Not yet. That moron, Moorkith, is supposed to be running a cross-check through the technophile file…" Reden blinked and looked puzzled. "Techno--phile--file," he repeated slowly. "The Greens are supposed to keep it up to date for the House Un-American Activities Committee, but… It's just an alphabetical listing of names. They have to re-sort it by addresses and then merge it with another file or something. I don't know anything about computers." He waved his hand airily, as if he were bragging about an accomplishment. "A team of GS-5's could have gone through the list by hand by now." He took another report from his in-basket and studied it. Another goddamned van. This one on US 52 near Rochester. But it was blue and its occupants had checked out.
Arteria grunted humorlessly, stood and stretched. The side wall of the office was taken up by a large-scale map of the upper Midwest. Arteria studied it carefully, running a finger from Fargo to Minneapolis and beyond. "Where was that van spotted?"
"Which one? We've had two dozen reports."
"The last one; where you put a bug up that badger sheriff's ass."
"Oh. Crawford County."
Arteria traced a route. "And heading southeast?"
Redden frowned. "On 18. Is that significant?"
Arteria straightened. "Probably not."
Meaning it probably is, Redden thought. What was Arteria's lead? Damn it, didn't the Air Force believe in teamwork? Everyone was concerned about getting credit for the arrest. That Army colonel, he had something going on the side, too. Some connection with Winnipeg. This was supposed to be a Team effort; the Team would share the credit. And Redden was chairman of the Team.
Well, Ms. Arteria, we'll see just how smart you think you are. "If they went that direction," he said, "they drove straight into a blizzard. If we can believe the hicks. Probably just a light dusting. You know how the squareheads like to yank our chains."
"I don't know. Weather is something farmers don't joke about; especially nowadays. A blizzard, out in the country; that's a life or death issue."
"Well, if the van Wilson spotted was our quarry, there's no rush."
"Why not?"
"It's been three days since the blizzard hit. They'll be froze dead by now."
Deputy Andy Atwood kicked at the back end of the van with his snowshoe. The crusted, half-melted snow slid off into a pile on the ground. "Minnesota plates, all right," he said to his partner. He straightened and looked around. There were several vans and trucks clustered around the white, clapboard church. St. Olaf in the Fields. He turned up his fur collar. "Come on. Let's check this out."
The snow was two-, three-feet deep. Even with the snowshoes he found it rough going. His feet broke through the crust and he sank several inches into the cold, wet powder beneath. It must have been a hell of a storm this end of the county. It was melting now; but it would never melt all the way. Not 'till spring. If then. He glanced behind to see his partner following in his footsteps.
They were met at the door of the church by a crusty old man in a red-checkered lumberman's cap. He was racking a pair of cross-country skis against the side of the church. "Yes, deputies," he said. "Can I help you?"
"We'll see, old timer." Atwood nodded toward the church. "What's going on in there? It isn't Sunday."
"Nope. Funeral. We hold a few of those after it snows." He worked his jaws, as if he were chewing tobacco and was wondering where to spit. "We don't get much heating oil in these parts anymore," he went on. "Not like you folks in the cities, where the newspapers and teevee cameras are. So when it freezes here…" And again there was a drawn out, introspective silence and when he resumed speaking, it was in a lower, quieter voice. "When it freezes hereabouts, why we've all got to huddle right quick. Some folks don't make it in time. This time it was a feller did some chores for me. He and a couple of his friends."
"I see. Do you mind if we check it out, Mr…?"
"Wallace. Enoch Wallace." The old man held out a heavily bundled mitt and the deputy touched it briefly with his own. "It's God's house, aina? All are welcome." He held the door open for them.
The deputies stamped the snow off their snowshoes in the narthex. There was a thin layer of snow on the wooden floor, unmelted and trod hard by a great many boots. They unstrapped their snowshoes and hung them on pegs on the wall. Atwood noticed several other pairs of snowshoes, as well as a few more skis. One pair of skis he recognized as the high-tech fiber glass Alpine type. A family heirloom, no doubt, from the days when people skied for fun.