Under the Dome

'Suppose, in fact, I said I was a sleeper Al Qaeda agent, and I was planning to kill him—pow, one to the head. How about that?'

'Lieutenant Barbara—Colonel Barbara, I mean—you've said enough.'

Barbie did not feel this was so. 'Could he send the FBI to come and grab me? The Secret Service? The goddam Red Army? No, sir. He could not.'

"We have plans to change that, as I have just explained.' Cox no longer sounded loose and good-humored, jest one ole grunt talkin to another.

'And if it works, feel free to have the federal agency of your choice come and arrest me. But if we stay cut off, who in here's going to listen to me? Get it through your head: this town has seceded. Not just from America but from the whole world. There's nothing we can do about it, and nothing you can do about it either.'

Quietly, Cox said: 'We're trying to help you guys.'

'You say that and I almost believe you. Will anybody else around here? When they look to see what kind of help their taxes are buying them, they see soldiers standing guard with their backs turned. That sends a hell of a message.'

'You're talking a whole lot for someone who's saying no.'

'I'm not saying no. But I'm only about nine feet from being arrested, and proclaiming myself the commandant pro tern won't help.'

'Suppose I were to call the First Selectman… what's his name… Sanders… and tell him…'

'That's what I mean about how little you know. It's like Iraq all over again, only this time you're in Washington instead of boots on the ground, and you seem as clueless as the rest of the desk soldiers. Read my lips, sir: some intelligence is worse than no intelligence at all.'

'A little learning is a dangerous thing,' Julia said dreamily.

'If not Sanders, then who?'

'James Rennie.The Second Selectman. He's the Boss Hog around here.'

There was a pause. Then Cox said, 'Maybe we can give you the Internet. Some of us are of the opinion that cutting it off's just a knee-jerk reaction, anyway.'

'Why would you think that?'Barbie asked.'Don't you guys know that if you let us stay on the Net, Aunt Sarah's cranberry bread recipe is sure to get out sooner or later?'

Julia sat up straight and mouthed, They're trying to cut the Internet? Barbie raised one finger toward her—Wait.

'Just hear me out, Barbie. Suppose we call this Rennie and tell him the Internet's got to go, so sorry, crisis situation, extreme measures, et cetera, et cetera. Then you can convince him of your usefulness by changing our minds.'

Barbie considered. It might work. For a while, anyway. Or it might not.

'Plus,' Cox said brightly, 'you'll be giving them this other information. Maybe saving some lives, but saving people the scare of their lives, for sure.'

Barbie said, 'Phones stay up as well as Internet.'

'That's hard. I might be able to keep the Net for you, but… listen, man. There are at least five Curtis LeMay types sitting on the committee presiding over this mess, and as far as they're concerned, everyone in Chester's Mill is a terrorist until proved otherwise.'

'What can these hypothetical terrorists do to harm America? Suicidebomb the Congo Church?'

'Barbie, you're preaching to the choir.'

Of course that was probably the truth.

'Will you do it?'

'I'll have to get back to you on that. Wait for my call before you do anything. I have to talk to the late Police Chief's widow first.'

Cox persisted. 'Will you keep the horse-trading part of this conversation to yourself?'

Again, Barbie was struck by how little even Cox—a freethinker, by military standards—understood about the changes the Dome had already wrought. In here, the Cox brand of secrecy no longer mattered.

Us against them, Barbie thought. Now it's us against them. Unless their crazy idea works, that is.

'Sir, I really will have to get back to you on that; this phone is suffering a bad case of low battery.' A lie he told with no remorse. 'And you need to wait to hear from me before you talk to anybody else.'

'Just remember, the big bang's scheduled for thirteen hundred tomorrow. If you want to maintain viability on this, you better stay out front.'

Maintain viability. Another meaningless phrase under the Dome. Unless it applied to keeping your gennie supplied with propane.

'We'll talk,' Barbie said. He closed the phone before Cox could say more. 119 was almost clear now, although DeLesseps was still there, leaning against his vintage muscle car with his arms folded. As Julia drove past the Nova, Barbie noted a sticker reading ASS, GAS, OR GRASS—NOBODY RIDES FOR FREE. Also a police bubblegum light on the dash. He thought the contrast summed up everything that was now wrong in Chester's Mill.

As they rode, Barbie told her everything Cox had said.

'What they're planning is really no different than what that kid just tried,' she said, sounding appalled.

'Well, a little different,' Barbie said. "The kid tried it with a rifle. They've got a Cruise missile lined up. Call it the Big Bang theory.'