The sound of the black truck receded.
Silence settled in like a damp blanket.
Fog swirled and churned and eddied in countless currents, but the overriding tidal forces in the air pushed it relentlessly toward the dark and serried hills.
Then the breeze abruptly ratcheted up until it became a real wind again, whispering in the tall weeds, soughing through the evergreens. It produced a soft and strangely forlorn thrumming from a nearby road sign.
Though Chrissie knew where the two men had gone to ground, she could not see them. They were well hidden.
31
Fog flew past the patrol car and eastward through the night, driven by a breeze that was swiftly becoming a full wind, and ideas flew through Sam's mind with the same fluidity. His thoughts were so disturbing that he would have preferred to have sat in mindless stupefaction.
From considerable prior computer experience, he knew that part of a system's capabilities could be hidden if the program designer simply deleted some choices from the task menus that appeared on the screen. He stared at the primary menu on the car's display — A, DISPATCHER; B, CENTRAL FILES; C. BULLETIN BOARD; D. OUTSYSTEM MODEM — and he pressed E, though no E task was offered.
Words appeared on the terminal HELLO, OFFICER DORN.
There was an E. He'd entered either a secret data base requiring ritual responses for access or an interactive information system that would respond to questions he typed on the keyboard. If the former was the case, if passwords or phrases were required, and if he typed the wrong response, he was in trouble; the computer would shut him out and sound an alarm in police headquarters to warn them that an impersonator was using Dorn's number.
Proceeding with caution, he typed HELLO.
MAY I BE OF ASSISTANCE?
Sam decided to proceed as if this was just what it seemed to be — a straightforward, question-and-answer program. He tapped the keyboard MENU.
The screen blanked for a moment, then the same words reappeared MAY I BE OF ASSISTANCE?
He tried again PRIMARY MENU.
MAY I BE OF ASSISTANCE?
MAIN MENU.
MAY I BE OF ASSISTANCE?
Using a system accessed by question and response, with which one was unfamiliar, meant finding the proper commands more or less by trial and error. Sam tried again FIRST MENU.
At last he was rewarded.
CHOOSE ONE A. NEW WAVE PERSONNEL B. PROJECT MOONHAWK C. SHADDACK
He had found a secret connection between New Wave, its founder Thomas Shaddack, and the Moonlight Cove police. But he didn't know yet what the connection was or what it meant.
He suspected that choice C might link him to Shaddack's personal computer terminal, allowing him to have a dialogue with Shaddack that would be more private than a conversation conducted on police-band radio. If that was the case, then Shaddack and the local cops were indeed involved in a conspiracy so criminal that it required a very high degree of security. He did not punch C because, if he called up Shaddack's computer and got Mr. Big himself on the other end, there was no way he could successfully pretend to be Reese Dorn.
Choice A probably would provide him with a roster of New Wave's executives and department heads, and maybe with codes that would allow him to link up with their personal terminals as well. He didn't want to talk with any of them either.
Besides, he felt that he was on borrowed time. He surveyed the parking lot again and peered especially hard at the deeper pools of shadow beyond the reach of the sodium-vapor lamps. He'd been in the patrol car for fifteen minutes, and no one had come or gone from the municipal-building lot in that time. He doubted his luck would hold much longer, and he wanted to learn as much as possible in whatever minutes remained before he was interrupted.
PROJECT MOONHAWK was the most mysterious and interesting of the three choices, so he pushed B, and another menu appeared.
CHOOSE ONE: A. CONVERTED B. PENDING CONVERSION C. SCHEDULE OF CONVERSION — LOCAL D. SCHEDULE OF CONVERSION — SECOND STAGE
He punched choice A, and a column of names and addresses appeared on the screen. They were people in Moonlight Cove, and at the head of the column was the notation 1967 NOW CONVERTED.
Converted? From what? To what? Was there something religious about this conspiracy? Some strange cult? Or maybe "converted" was used in some euphemistic sense or as a code.
The word gave him the creeps.
Sam discovered that he could either scroll through the list or access it in alphabetized chunks. He looked up the names of residents whom he either knew of or had met. Loman Watkins was on the converted list. So was Reese Dorn. Burt Peckham, the owner of Knight's Bridge Tavern, was not among the converted, but the entire Perez family, surely the same that operated the restaurant, was on that roster.
He checked Harold Talbot, the disabled vet with whom he intended to make contact in the morning. Talbot was not on the converted list.
Puzzled as to the meaning of it all, Sam closed out that file, returned to the main menu, and punched B. PENDING CONVERSION. This brought another list of names and addresses to the VDT, and the column was headed by the words 1104 PENDING CONVERSION. On this roster he found Burt Peckham and Harold Talbot.
He tried C. SCHEDULE OF CONVERSION — LOCAL, and a submenu of three headings appeared:
A. MONDAY, OCTOBER 13, 6:00 P.M. THROUGH TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 6:00 A.M. B. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 6:00 A.M. THROUGH TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 6:00 P.M. C. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 6:00 P.M. THROUGH MIDNIGHT
It was now 12:39 A.M. Wednesday, about halfway between the times noted in choice A, so he punched that one another list of names headed by the notation 38 °CONVERSIONS SCHEDULED.
The fine hairs were bristling on the back of Sam's neck, and he didn't know why except that the word "conversions" unsettled him. It made him think of that old movie with Kevin McCarthy, Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
He also thought of the pack that had pursued him earlier in the night. Had they been … converted?
When he looked up Burt Peckham, he found the tavern owner on the schedule for conversion before 6:00 A.M. However, Harry Talbot was not listed.
The car shook.
Sam snapped his head up and reached for the revolver holstered under his jacket.
Wind. It was only wind. A series of hard gusts shredded holes in the fog and lightly rocked the car. After a moment the wind died to a strong breeze again, and the torn fabric of fog mended itself, but Sam's heart was still thudding painfully.
32
As Tessa put down the useless telephone, the doorknob stopped rattling. She stood by the bed for a while, listening, then ventured warily into the foyer to press her ear against the door.
She heard voices but not immediately beyond that portal. They were farther down the hallway, peculiar voices that spoke in urgent, raspy whispers. She could not make out anything they said.
She was sure they were the same ones who had stalked her, unseen, when she had gone for ice and a Diet Coke. Now they were back. And somehow they had knocked out the phones, so she couldn't call for help. It was crazy, but it was happening.
Such persistence on their part indicated to Tessa that they were not ordinary rapists or muggers, that they had focused on her because she was Janice's sister, because she was there to look into Janice's death. However, she wondered how they had become aware of her arrival in town and why they had chosen to move against her so precipitously, without even waiting to see if she was just going to settle Janice's affairs and leave. Only she and her mother knew that she intended to attempt a murder investigation of her own.