Under the Dome

'You want to watch that,' Chef said. 'If the safety hadn't been on, you would have blown my tickle-stick into yonder pine tree. Hit on this shit.' He handed Andy the bong. Andy couldn't even remember giving it back to him, but he must have done. And what time was it? It looked like midafternoon, but how could that be? He hadn't gotten hungry for lunch and he always got hungry for lunch, it was his best meal.

'Now listen, Sanders, because this is the important part.'

Chef was able to quote from memory because he had made quite a study of the book of Revelations since moving out here to the radio station; he read and reread it obsessively, sometimes until dawn streaked the horizon.'"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven! Burning as if it were a lamp!'"

'We just saw that!'

Chef nodded. His eyes were fixed on the black smutch where Air Ireland 179 had met her end.'"And the name of the star is called Wormwood, and many men died because they were made bitter." Are you bitter, Sanders?'

'No!' Andy assured him.

'No. We're mellow. But now that Star Wormwood has blazed in the sky, bitter men will come. God has told me this, Sanders, and it's no bullshit. Check me out and you find I'm all about zero bullshit. They're gonna try to take all this away from us. Rennie and his bullshit cronies.'

'No way!'Andy cried. A sudden and horribly intense paranoia swept over him. They could be here already! Bullshit cronies creeping through those trees! Bullshit cronies driving down Little Bitch Road in a line of trucks! Now that Chef had brought it up, he even saw why Rennie would want to do it. He'd call it: 'getting rid of the evidence.'

'Chef!' He gripped his new friend's shoulder.

'Let up a little, Sanders. That hurts.'

He let up a little. 'Big Jim's already talked about coming up and getting the propane tanks—that's the first stepV

Chef nodded. 'They've already been here once. Took two tanks. I let em.' He paused, then patted the grenades. 'I won't let em again. Are you down with that?'

Andy thought of the pounds of dope inside the building they were leaning against, and gave the answer Chef had expected. 'My brother,' he said, and embraced Chef.

Chef was hot and stinky, but Andy hugged with enthusiasm. Tears were rolling down his face, which he had neglected to shave on a weekday for the first time in over twenty years. This was great. This was… was…

Bonding!

'My brother,' he sobbed into Chef's ear.

Chef thrust him back and looked at him solemnly.'We are agents of the Lord,' he said.

And Andy Sanders—now all alone in the world except for the scrawny prophet beside him—said amen.

23

Jackie found Ernie Calvert behind his house, weeding his garden. She was a little worried about approaching him in spite of what she'd told Piper, but she needn't have been. He gripped her shoulders with hands that were surprisingly strong for such a portly little man. His eyes shone.

'Thank God someone sees what that windbag's up to!' He dropped his hands. 'Sorry. I smudged your blouse.'

'That's all right.'

'He's dangerous, Officer Wettington.You know that, don't you?'

'Yes.'

'And clever. He set up that damned food riot the way a terrorist would plant a bomb.'

'I have no doubt of it.'

'But he's also stupid. Clever and stupid is a terrible combin-• ation. You can persuade people to go with you, you see. All the way to hell. Look at that fellow Jim Jones, remember him?'

'The one who got all his followers to drink poison. So you'll come to the meeting?'

'You bet. And mum's the word. Unless you want me to talk to Lissa Jamieson, that is. Glad to do it.'

Before Jackie could answer, her cell phone rang. It was her personal; she had turned in the one issued to her by the PD along with her badge and gun.

'Hello, this is Jackie.'

'Mihi portatoe vulneratos, Sergeant Wettington,' an unfamiliar voice said.

The motto of her old unit in Wiirzburg—bring me your wounded— and Jackie responded without even thinking:'On stretchers, crutches, or in bags, we put em together with spit and rags. Who the hell is this?'

'Colonel James Cox, Sergeant.'

Jackie moved the phone away from her mouth. 'Give me a minute, Ernie?'

He nodded and went back to his garden. Jackie strolled toward the shakepole fence at the foot of the yard. 'What can I do for you, Colonel? And is this line secure?'

'Sergeant, if your man Rennie can tap cell phone calls made from beyond the Dome, we're in a world of hurt.'

'He's not my man.'

'Good to know.'

'And I'm no longer in the Army. The Sixty-seventh isn't even in my rearview mirror these days, sir.'

'Well, that's not exactly true, Sarge. By order of the President of the United States, you've been stop-lossed. Welcome back.'

'Sir, I don't know whether to say thank you or fuck you very much.'

Cox laughed without much humor. 'Jack Readier says hello.'

'Is that where you got this number?',