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"Yeah"

"The newspaper?"

"Lady, the paper’s closed It’s after one in the "

"Closed? I didn’t know a newspaper ever closed"

"This isn’t the New York Ti to’s not done here These are the business and editorial offices Did you want the printer or what?"

"Well… I have a story"

"If it’s an obituary or a church bake sale or so, after nine o’clock, and you-"

"No, no This is a big story"

"Oh, a garage sale, huh?"

"What?"

"Never "

"Wait, listen, I work for the phone co story"

"No, see, it’s because I work for the phone co Are you the editor?"

"No I’ ad pace"

"Well…here on a Sunday night-no, a Monday ure out how the devil to druh business to keep this paper afloat I am tired I am irritable"

"Hoful"

"-and I a"

"But so terrible has happened in Snowfield I don’t know exactly what, but I know people are dead There er of dying"

"Christ, Iinterested in spite of myself Tell me"

"We’ve rerouted Snowfield’s phone service, pulled it off the auto calls You can only reach two nu answered by the sheriff’s men The reason they’ve set it up that way is to seal the place off before the reporters find out so?"

"I don’t drink"

"Then what’ve you been setting calls from the Santa Mira sheriff’s office all the tiovernor’s office, and from some military base out in Utah, and they-"

San Francisco

Monday-1:40 AM

"This is Sid Sandowicz Can I help you?"

"I keep tellin’ them I want to talk to a San Francisco Chronicle reporter,up on uys?"

"Watch your language"

"Shit"

"Listen, do you have any idea howour tis and hot tip hoaxes?"

"Huh? How’d you even knoas a kid?"

"’Cause you sound twelve"

"I’ratulations"

"Shit!"

"Listen, son, I’ve got a boy your age, which is why I’uys wouldn’t So if you’ve really got so of interest, spill it"

"Well, ist and an epideist You knohat thatlike that"

"Yeah And he’s let hirant from the fuckin’ ical warfare outfit It’s supposed to be a peaceful application of his research, but you know that’s a lot of horseshit He sold his soul, and now they’re finally claimin’ it The shit’s hit the fan"

"The fact that your father sold out-if he did sell outnews in your family, son, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t be of much interest to our readers"

"Hey, ot a real story Tonight they came for him There’s a crisis of some kind I’m supposed to think he had to fly back East on business I snuck upstairs and listened at their bedroom door while he was layin’ it all out for the old lady There’s been soency Everyone’s tryin’ to keep it secret"

"Snowfield, California?"

"Yeah, yeah What I figure, erot out of hand Or maybe it was an accidental spill So’ down, for sure"

"What’s your name, son?"

"Ricky Bettenby My old man’s naonna follow up on this,to it But before I start calling people at Stanford, I need to ask you a lot more questions"

"Fire away I’ll tell you whatever I can I want to blast this wide open, hout the night, the leaks sprung one by one At Dugway, Utah, an army officer, who should have known better, used a pay phone off the base to call New York and spill the story to a er brother as a cub reporter for the Tiovernor told his lover, a woman reporter Those and other holes in the darow fro, the switchboard at the Santa Mira County Sheriff’s Office was overloaded By dawn, the newspaper, television, and radio reporters were swarht, the street in front of the sheriff’s offices was croith press cars, caos of TV stations in Sacramento and San Francisco, reporters, and curiosity seekers of all ages

The deputies gave up trying to keep people fro in the middle of the street, for there were too many of them to be herded onto the sidewalks They sealed off the block with sawhorses and turned it into a big open-air press co kids fro, cookies, and-with the aid of the longest series of extension cords anyone could re-hot coffee Their refreshathered to share theories and hearsay while they waited for the latest official inforh Santa Mira, seeking people who had friends or relatives living up in Snowfield, or ere in some way related to the deputies now stationed there Out at the junction of the state route and Snowfield Road, still other reporters were ca at the police roadblock

In spite of all this hurly-burly, fully half of the press had not yet arrived

Many representatives of the Eastern n press were still in transit For the authorities ere trying hard to deal with the mess, the worst was yet to come By Monday afternoon, it would be a circus

Chapter 22 – Morning in Snowfield

Not long after dawn, the shortwave radio and the two gasoline powered electric generators arrived at the roadblock that marked the perimeter of the quarantine zone The two shway Patrolh the blockade, to a pointthe four-mile Snowfield Road, where they were parked and abandoned

When the CHIP officers returned to the roadblock, county deputies radioed a situation report to headquarters in Santa Mira In turn, headquarters put through a go-ahead call to Bryce Hammond at the Hilltop Inn