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I recalled Roosevelt’s words, relayed froojerrie, outside the Stanwyk house: Death lives here I was getting identical but ar If Death lived at the Stanwyk place, that was only his pied-à-terre Here was his priht," I said hopefully

"They’re in that place," Roosevelt insisted

"But ere here last night," Bobby protested "They weren’t in the daht"

Roosevelt scooped up the cat, stroked the furry head, chucked the o man under the chin, murmured to him, and said, "They were here then, the cat says, and they’re here now"

Bobby scowled "This reeks"

"Like a Calcutta sewer," I agreed

"No, trust ie said "A Calcutta sewer is in a class all by itself"

I decided not to pursue the obvious question

Instead, I said, "If these kids were snatched just to be studied and tested, snatched because their blood samples indicate they’re somehow immune to the retrovirus, then they enetics lab Wherever that ojerrie, the lab he came from is far to the east, in what appears to be open land, where they once had an artillery range It’s very deep underground, hidden out there But Jimmy, at least, is here And Orson"

After a hesitation, I said, "Alive?"

Roosevelt said, "Mungojerrie doesn’t know"

"Cats know things," Sasha re," Roosevelt said

As we stared at the hangar, I’ Delacroix’s audiotape testimony about the Mystery Train Red sky Black trees A fluttering within…

Doogie removed the backpack froate, and said, "Let’s go"

During the brief tiht was on, I saw the weapon he was carrying It was a wicked-looking piece

Aware of azine"

"Is that legal?"

"It would be if it wasn’t converted to full autoar With the breeze stirring his blonda conquered village, heading toward a longboat with a bag of plundered valuables on his back All he needed to coe was a horned helie in a tuxedo and such a helo in a dance coination

The ar doors, was closed I couldn’t reht before Probably not We hadn’t been in a clean-up-after-yourself, turn-out-the-lights-and-close-the-door ie extracted two flashlights froave them to Sasha and Roosevelt, so that Bobby and I would have both hands free for the shotguns

Doogie tried the door It opened inward

Sasha’s crossing-the-threshold technique was even smoother than her on-air patter at KBAY She ht and swept the beae to be entirely within the reach of any flashlight But she didn’t shoot at anyone, and no one shot at her, so it seemed likely that our presence was not yet known

Bobby followed her, shotgun at the ready With the cat in his arie brought up the rear, quietly closing the door behind us, as we had found it

I looked expectantly at Roosevelt

He stroked the cat and whispered, "We’ve got to go down"

Because I knew the way, I led the group Second star to the right, and straight on tillWatch out for the pirates and the crocodile with the ticking clock inside

We crossed the vast room under the tracks that once supported a mobile crane, past thecautiously around the deep wells in the floor, where hydraulic ressed, swords of shadow and sabers of light leaped off the elevated steel crane rails and silently fenced with one another across the walls and the curved ceiling Most of the high clerestory ere broken out, but reflections flared in the re blades

Suddenly I was halted by a sense of wrongness I can’t adequately describe: a change in the air too subtle to define; aof the hairs into a sound beyond

Sasha and Roosevelt must have felt it, too, because they turned in circles, searching with their flashlights

Doogie held the Uzi pistol in both hands

Bobby was near one of the cylindrical steel posts that supported the crane tracks He reached out, touched it, and whispered, "Bro"

As Iso faint that I could not hold fast to the sound, which repeatedly caainst the post, I detected vibrations passing through the steel

Abruptly, the air tear had been unpleasantly cool, almost cold; but frorees war had still contained a heating plant, which it did not

Sasha, Doogie, and Roosevelt joined Bobby and ainst a threat froer

I looked toward the east end of the hangar The door by which we had entered was about twenty yards away The flashlights were able to reach that far, though they couldn’t chase away all the shadows In that direction, I could see to the end of the shorter length of the overhead crane tracks, and all see

The flashlights were not able to probe to the west end of the structure, however; it lay at least eighty and perhaps as much as a hundred yards away As far as I could see, there was nothing out of the ordinary

What botheredblackness in the last twenty or thirty yards Not searays, aobject concealed in that ray, so well caloom that the eye couldn’t quite seize upon the outline of it

Bobby whispered, "Sasha, your light Here"

She directed it where he pointed, at the floor