an inconvenience, not a catastrophe, not worth coming after us.”
Ben shook his head. “If they got a track-to-source fix on Woody’s computer, they know who lives here, and they know that one of their hits was your husband. They don’t know for sure what all you might have learned about them. What they’ll be most concerned about is that you might have their client list.”
“We don’t. Woody found them by hacking into Purcell’s email and working out the connection between Purcell and Tragedy through the Gordius identity. He doesn’t have a complete client list, only proof against Purcell.”
“They have to be sure of that. They’re going to come here to find out.”
“Not with the place protected by six deputies.”
“Probably not. But what if Shacket is found and killed or arrested again? Then the sheriff’s gonna withdraw the protection.”
Megan was tired. She drew one hand down her face, as if she might be able to wipe off her weariness. “So we stay with the plan.”
“At least we have a plan,” he said. “And there’s no way in hell they can anticipate what’s going to happen to them.”
96
While Rosa Leon was sleeping and Carson Conroy was driving away from Harry Borsello’s house in the Fleetwood and Ben and Megan were conferring downstairs . . .
Kipp and Woody were in the boy’s room. Sprawled on the floor and in the lap of history.
Historians often presented turning points of civilization as loud and bright, full of boom and flash.
In fact, decisions to make war or seek peace were often made in quiet rooms.
Cures for diseases were developed slowly, in laboratories that lacked both TV and piped-in music.
Kipp and Woody were on the Wire.
In the wake of all the recent Bellagrams, they were now at a turning point of history.
They were a turning point of history.
Kipp knew it, and Woody knew it, and everyone on the Wire knew it, and there was no boom or flash.
Although Kipp explained the situation and made the appeal, per the plan that had been devised, Woody was the star.
Many Mysterians, though not all, lived with people who shared their secret.
They had invented clever ways to communicate, similar to what Dorothy had arranged with the alphabet wall.
This was the first time, however, that they were able to speak directly to a human being.
Their excitement level was high, but they didn’t all speak at once.
They were disciplined and considerate. They were dogs.
Each Mysterian’s voice, being imagined and telepathic, was either like that of one of its human companions or was based on the voice of an actor on television.
Woody on the Wire sounded like Woody face-to-face, the Woody released from a lifetime of silence.
Kipp sounded like a certain game-show host on TV.
Historic moments were no less likely to include an absurdity or two than were moments about which historians cared nothing.
When the appeal had been made and responses received, when Kipp and Woody disconnected from the Wire, the dog bit the boy.
It was a play bite, no skin broken.
Woody growled and bared his teeth.
Kipp growled and bared his bigger teeth.
They wrestled with much flailing of paws.
Woody sprang up. He dashed into the adjacent bathroom.
Kipp scrambled into the bathroom after the boy.
Woody pivoted out of the bathroom and pulled the door shut.
Kipp’s black nose appeared at the one-inch gap between door and floor, sniffing frantically.
Woody lay prostrate, teasing the nose with a finger.
When Kipp issued a woof of frustration, Woody opened the door.
The boy leaped onto the bed, pulled the covers over his head.
Kipp sprang onto the bed and thrust his snout into every fold of blanket that he found, seeking a route to his giggling, cocooned companion.
Such were the ways of dogs and boys, even after they had been the lever that turned history on its fulcrum, even as a night of violence was about to end in the dawn of a day that promised worse.
97
As the sheriff and his three deputies waited for two more men, those bearing shotguns, the heating and cooling plant behind the county hospital acquired an ever more ominous air, becoming for Hayden Eckman the repository of all evils, the vault of his fate. Beyond the dark windows seemed to be something more disturbing than lightless rooms, a bottomless void from which no escape could be achieved once you had entered. The bright windows were no more reassuring than the dark panes, the quality of light otherworldly, witchy.
The incessant wind not only stung his eyes and parched his skin and chapped his lips,