Still poring through the test results, stroking his mustache with one hand, Dombey said, “Listen to this . . . the growth rate of the parietal spot is directly proportional to the number of injections the boy’s been given. It appeared after his first series of shots six weeks ago. The more frequently the kid is reinfected, the faster the parietal spot grows.” “Then it must be a tumor,” Zachariah said.
“Probably. They’re going to do an exploratory in the morning.” “Surgery?”
“Yeah. Get a tissue sample for a biopsy.”
Zachariah glanced toward the observation window of the isolation chamber. “Damn, there it goes again!”
Dombey saw that the glass was beginning to cloud again. Zachariah hurried to the window.
Dombey stared thoughtfully at the spreading frost. He said, “You know something? That problem with the window . . . if I’m not mistaken, it started at the same time the parietal spot first showed up on the X rays.”
Zachariah turned to him. “So?”
“Doesn’t that strike you as coincidental?”
“That’s exactly how it strikes me. Coincidence. I fail to see any association.”
“Well . . . could the parietal spot have a direct connection with the frost somehow?” “What—you think the boy might be responsible for the changes in air temperature?” “Could he?”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you’re the one who raised the question.” “I don’t know,” Dombey said again.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Zachariah said. “No sense at all. If you keep coming up with weird suggestions like that, I’ll have to run a maintenance check on you, Carl.”
34
THE OIL-AND-GRAVEL TRAIL LED DEEP INTO THE forest. It was remarkably free of ruts and chuckholes for most of its length, although the Explorer scraped bottom a few times when the track took sudden, sharp dips.
The trees hung low, lower, lower still, until, at last, the ice-crusted evergreen boughs frequently scraped across the roof of the Explorer with a sound like fingernails being drawn down a blackboard.
They passed a few signs that told them the lane they were using was kept open for the exclusive benefit of federal and state wildlife officers and researchers. Only authorized vehicles were permitted, the signs warned.
“Could this secret installation be disguised as a wildlife research center?” Elliot wondered.
“No,” she said. “According to the map, that’s nine miles into the forest on this track. Danny’s instructions are to take a turn north, off this lane, after about five miles.”
“We’ve gone almost five miles since we left the county road,” Elliot said.
Branches scraped across the roof, and powdery snow cascaded over the windshield, onto the hood.
As the windshield wipers cast the snow aside, Tina leaned forward, squinting along the headlight beams. “Hold it! I think this is what we’re looking for.”
He was driving at only ten miles an hour, but she gave him so little warning that he passed the turnoff. He stopped, put the Explorer in reverse, and backed up twenty feet, until the headlights were shining on the trail that she had spotted.
“It hasn’t been plowed,” he said. “But look at all the tire marks.”
“A lot of traffic’s been through here recently.”
“This is it,” Tina said confidently. “This is where Danny wants us to go.” “It’s a damned good thing we have four-wheel drive.”
He steered off the plowed lane, onto the snowy trail. The Explorer, equipped with heavy chains on its big winter-tread tires, bit into the snow and chewed its way forward without hesitation.
The new track ran a hundred yards before rising and turning sharply to the right, around the blunt face of a ridge. When they came out of this curve, the trees fell back from the verge, and open sky lay above for the first time since they had departed the county blacktop.
Twilight was gone; night was in command.
Snow began to fall more heavily—yet ahead of them, not a single flake lay in their way. Bizarrely, the unplowed trail had led them to a paved road; steam rose from it, and sections of the pavement were even dry.
“Heat coils embedded in the surface,” Elliot said. “Here in the middle of nowhere.”
Stopping the Explorer, he picked up the pistol from the seat between them, and he flicked off both safeties. He had loaded the depleted magazine earlier; now he jacked a bullet into the chamber. When he put the gun on the seat again, it was ready to be used.
“We can still turn back,” Tina said.
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