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Thusto eyewitnesses, the ricultural worker in her thirties There’d never been any problems with her; by all accounts she was asextent matched the profiles of other suicide bo family except for a sister; her husband and son had died six years ago, in an outbreak of saluised in a col’s uniforinal wearer’s body had been found stuffed into a dumpster, her throat slashed, one arh where she’d procured the explosives was unknown None had been reportedfrom the armory or the construction depot, but a full inventory had yet to be coe children, had been detained for questioning

"Nobody see," Wilkes said with a toss of his hand He’d taken a seat on the far side of the desk while Guilder read "Apart from the sister, it’s like they barely knew her We can take it up a notch, but I don’t think it’s going to produce ence These people would have caved already"

Guilder placed the file aside, a the many others The burps, which continued unabated, had painted the walls of his mouth with a foul taste of ani Mrs Wilkes A fact that, if the barely concealed look of olfactory distaste on his chief of staff’s save any indication, had not failed to escape the man’s attention

"No need," Guilder said

Wilkes frowned doubtfully "You want us to release them? I don’t think that’s wise At least let’s make them cool their heels a couple more days Rattle a few chains, see where it takes us"

"You said yourself that if they knew anything, they would have already talked"

Guilder paused, aware that he was about to cross a line The thirteen flatlanders sitting in the detention center were, after all, people, hu More to the point, they were tangible physical assets in an econo intractability of the Sergio situation, and the debacle in Texas, and the tins, which were at long last corip of his own rapidly burgeoning physical need, a titanic biological iarded Wilkes from across the burnished prairie of his oversized desk, was blosso inside him like a flower in a ti He caave it one quick look, and stepped over

"It seems to me," said Director Horace Guilder, "the ti"

Guilder waited a few e his departure As he had rereat deal of his authority boiled down to a sense of dignity in his public movements, and it was better for people not to witness hi of keys froer had come on so quickly Usually it crept up on him over a period of days, not ht of stairs descended to the ground floor, its doard passage flanked by oil portraits of various dukes and generals and barons and princes of the real, heavy-jawed faces in period costu his picture painted-though, come to think of it, why not?) He peered over the rail Fifty feet beloere the tiny figures of the uniformed security detail; members of the leadership, in their dark suits and ties, scuttling briskly to and fro with their officious briefcases and clipboards; even a couple of attendants, flowing diaphanously across the polished stone floor in their nunnish costu for, and there he was: by the s of assorted prairie kitsch (a fist gripping wheat, a plowthe bountiful Iowa topsoil), his loyal chief of staff had paused to confer with two of the leadership, Ministers Hoppel and Chee Guilder supposed that Wilkes was already setting the day’s orders inthem up to speed, but this assumption was belied when Hoppel reared back his head, clapped his hands together, and barked a laugh that ricocheted through the marbled space like a bullet in a submarine Guilder wondered what the fk was so funny

He turned from the rail and hly unobservable stairway that was his alone to use By now his insides were roaring It was all he could do not to take the stairs three at a time, which in his present condition would have probably resulted in so pratfall that would heal within hours but still hurt like hell Bearing hiht at any moment spill its contents to the floor, Guilder descended one cautious step at a time The salivation had started, a veritable waterfall he had to suck back between his teeth Vaht wryly; now, that would be a moneymaker

The basement at last, with its heavy, vaultlike door Guilder withdrew the keys fro with anticipation, he keyed the door, turned the heavy wheel, and shouldered it aside

By the time he was halfway down the hall he’d stripped to the waist and was kicking off his shoes He was riding this thing full-bore now, a surfer ski doave Door after door sailed past Guilder could hear thefro since ceased to arouse even a grain of pity within hins-ETHER PRESENT, NO OPEN FLAME-hit the freezer room at a dead sprint, turned the final corner, and narrowly avoided collision with a lab-coated technician "Director Guilder!" he gasped "We didn’t know !" But these words were cut short as Guilder, withweight of his left forear into the wall

It was blood he wanted, and not just any blood There was blood and there was blood

He ca hands he undid his trousers and tossed them away, then keyed the door and opened it

"Hello, Lawrence"

Chapter 38

In the one

Sara awoke to find the woe, cursing herself for sleeping so deeply The old woman who bunked in the second row? Had anyone seen her? But no one had, or so they said Atroll, Sara detected only the smallest hitch of silence in the space where Jackie’s nu down Just like that, the waters had closed over her friend It was as if she’d never existed at all

Sheon the razor-thin edge between desperate hope and outright despair Probably there was nothing to be done People disappeared; that was the way of things And yet Sara could not talk herself out of the idea that if the woman was still in the hospital, if she hadn’t been taken to the feedlot yet, there ht from under Sara’s nose like that? Wouldn’t she have heard so? Wouldn’t the woman have protested? It simply didn’t add up