The two of them went still, listening to the rhythmic pulsing sound that seemed to be coming from underneath them rather than from the peaks above. Steve could have sworn he felt vibrations in the seat of his pants.
Chuck finished the beer in two gulping swallows and crumpled the can in his fist. He glanced over his shoulder. "I ain't never heard wind like that before," he said in a low voice.
The sparse bushes that grew from the cracks in the rocks were perfectly still, the thin covering of dust on their leaves undisturbed. There wasn't a breath of wind.
The sound grew louder, rising and falling like a chant, making the hairs on the back of their necks stiffen.
"I bet it's a power plant," said Steve suddenly. "That regular beat, hear it? They must be working on the other side of the mountain and that's what we can hear. A generator or something."
But the explanation didn't satisfy either of them. The sound was mournful, almost like a dirge, and Chuck thought it sounded strangely human. He found he was holding the squashed beer can and flung it away. "Come on, let's move." He gave a short nervous bark that was meant to be a laugh. "We've been up since daybreak and haven't shot a damn thing."
Steve started up the jeep. He didn't care to admit it, but this place gave him the creeps.
He pushed the stick into first and was about to drive off when he saw something that made his hands tighten clammily on the wheel. It was a figure, hunched, dressed in black, standing motionless on a rock. It was immediately above the point where the trail sloped down from the plateau. He spotted another, on the opposite side of the trail, and then three more materialized from the smooth blank faces of rock.
There might have been more of them, he wasn't sure, because by now he was too busy pumping the accelerator and concentrating on the gap in the rocks.
Dirt spurted from under the tires as the jeep lunged forward. Chuck grabbed the metal frame of the windshield for support and hung on, and as they reached the gap in the rocks he saw the 'figures on either side pointing, arms extended, as if guiding them. The next thing he saw he couldn't believe. From their fingers came tongues of fire. It was like a scene from a biblical epic.
In that same moment Steve realized what their intention was, and he jammed the accelerator to the floor in an act of desperate panic. It was to be his last conscious action, for as the jeep shot through the gap it was engulfed in an inferno.
Taking the shortest and fastest route down the mountain, the jeep sailed through the air like a flaming comet, bits of fiery debris scattering off it. Chuck Brant and Steve Fazioli were flung out like rag torches long before it hit bottom.
An arc of oily black smoke traced its progress and hung lazily in the warm still air. From their vantage point high above, the shrouded black figures watched for a few moments, dark specks against the wrinkled ocher scrub, before turning away and vanishing.
They arrived in Washington, D.C., during what was called a "freak" electrical storm--freak implying uncommon. Yet these storms, spectacularly ferocious, now occurred two or three times a month.
The white cupola of the Capitol, bathed in a purplish glow, resembled a brain from a science-fiction movie. The great thunderheads of cloud were rent by razor-toothed lightning flashes that flickered around the stone spear of the Washington Monument, blackening its beveled tip. The air had the acrid stink of ozone molecules energized by millions of volts.
Thus far no one had come up with a satisfactory explanation for this vicious heavenly onslaught, though a number of quasi-religious groups claimed that it was the wrath of God--in each case their own particular god--and paraded up and down Constitution Avenue bearing banners differently worded but all on the theme of "The Day of Judgment Is Nigh--Repent Before It's Too Late."
This was Dan's first visit to Washington, and as he didn't want to spend it in a television studio, Cheryl took him on a tour of the Smithsonian Institution and the Air-Space Museum on Jefferson Drive while Chase went along to tape an interview for the CBS news and current affairs program "Mainline."
The storm clouds were clearing as Chase stepped out of the courtesy car and was taken by armed uniformed guard to the hospitality suite where Claudia Kane, instantly recognizable from her network news broadcasts, came lithely forward to greet him. She had the professional interviewer's ready smile and relaxed manner, only achieved after years of practice and iron discipline. It was to be a discussion rather than a straight interview, Claudia Kane informed him, leading him forward to meet his fellow guests: Professor Gene Lucas, head of atmospheric physics at Princeton, and Dr. Frank Hanamura of Jonan University, Tokyo.
