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For a moment she wasn’t sure what had startled everyone, but then she saw the anirungy rats, cats of all descriptions, half a dozen dogs, and maybe a couple of dozen squirrels that had scampered down fro out of theup that h the park and angling over to the county road They re she’d read about once, and she only had to stand there for a few seconds, watching thes Periodically, when the lereat in a particular area, the little creatures ran and ran, straight toward the sea, into the surf, and drowned the off in the sa stand in their way, drawn by nothing apparent and therefore evidently following an inner co multitudes

"Moose, no!" she shouted

He stu after him He looked back, then snapped his head toward the county road again, as if he had been jerked by an invisible chain He took off at top speed

"Moose!"

He stumbled once more and actually fell this time, rolled, and scrae of leraves, though away from the sea, toward some other and more hideous death that was part of all the rest that had happened in Moonlight Cove If she did not stop Moose, they would never see hi ran

She sprinted after him

She was bone weary, burnt out, aching in every th and will to pursue the Labrador because no one else see toward death Tessa and Saet it They were just standing, gaping at the spectacle So Chrissie tucked her ars, and ran for all she orth, picturing herself as Chrissie Foster, World’s Youngest Oly around the course, with thousands cheering her from the sidelines ("Chrissie, Chrissie, Chrissie, Chrissie …") And as she ran, she screamed at Moose to stop, because every tiained a little ground on hih the park, and she nearly fell in the deep ditch alongside the county road, leaped it at the last instant, not because she saw it in time but because she had her eye on Moose and saw hi a stride The next tirabbing at hirowled and nipped at her, and she said, "Moose," in such a way as to shame him That was the only tihtily to pull loose Hanging on to hi as she was, about fifty or sixty feet along the road His big paws scrabbled at the blacktop as he struggled to follow the wave of s

By the tio back toward the park, Tessa and Sa?" Sa to their deaths," Chrissie said "I just couldn’t let Moose go with them"

"To their deaths? How do you know?"

"I don’t know But … what else?"

They stood on the dark and foggy road for aafter the animals, which had vanished into the blackness

Tessa said, "What else indeed?"

37

The fog was thinning, but visibility was still nowith Tessa in the middle of the circle of cars, Sam heard the choppers shortly after ten o’clock, before he saw their lights Because the mist distorted sound, he could not tell froured they were co a couple of hundred yards out to sea, where there were no hills to worry about in the fog Packed with the most sophisticated instruments, they could virtually fly blind The pilots would be wearing night-vision goggles, co in under five hundred feet in respect of the poor weather

Because the FBI ht relationships with the armed services, especially the Marines, Sam pretty much knehat to expect This would be a Marine Reconnaissance force composed of the standard elements required by such a situation: one CH-46 helicopter carrying the recon team itself--probably twelve men detached frounships

Turning around, looking in every direction, Tessa said, "I don’t see them"

"You won’t," Sam said "Not until they’re alhts?"

"No They’re equipped with blue lights, which can’t be seen well froh their night-vision goggles"

Ordinarily, when responding to a terrorist threat, the CH-46--called the "Sea Knight," officially, but referred to as "The Frog" by grunts--would have gone, with its Cobra escorts, to the north end of town Three fire teams, composed of four ht Cove fro at the other end for evacuation as necessary

But because of the e Sam had sent to the Bureau before Sun’s links to the outside world had been cut off, and because the situation did not involve terrorists and was, in fact, singularly strange, SOP was discarded for a bolder approach The choppers overflew the town repeatedly, descending to within twenty or thirty feet of the treetops At tihts were visible, but nothing whatsoever could be seen of their shape or size; because of their Fiberglas blades, which were much quieter than the old metal blades that once had been used, the choppers at tiht have been alien craft froer than this one

At last they hovered near the circle of light in the park

They did not put down at once With the powerful rotors flinging the fog away, they played a searchlight over the people in the park who stood outside the illurotesque bodies in the street

Finally, while the Cobras reentled down al of cars Theautomatic weapons, but otherwise they didn’t look like soldiers because, thanks to Saically secure white suits, carrying their own air-supply tanks on their backs They ht have been astronauts instead of Marines

Lieutenant Ross Dalgood, who looked baby-faced behind the faceplate of his helave his nareeted Saraph before his ent Booker?"

"I don’t think so," Sam said, as the chopper blades cycled down fro

"But you don’t know?"

"I don’t know," he adood said "Lots ular Arhway Be here soon"

The three of theood, Sa cars, to one of the dead things that lay on a sidewalk bordering the park

"I didn’t believe what I saw froood said

"Believe it," Tessa said

"What the hell?" Dalgood said

Saeymen"

38

Tessa worried about Sam She and Chrissie and Harry returned to Harry’s house at one in thedebriefed three tih they had terrible nightet a few hours’ sleep But Saht He had not returned by the time they finished breakfast at eleven o’clock Wednesday

"He may think he’s indestructible," she said, "but he’s not"

"You care about him," Harry said

"Of course I care about him"

"I mean care about him"