Under the Dome

“Once Rennie really gets going on his speech,” Linda said, “I’ll give you a triple break on the radio. That’s your signal to roll.”

“How many police will there be at the station?” Lissa asked.

“I might be able to find out from Stacey Moggin,” Jackie said.

“There won’t be many, though. Why would there be? So far as Big Jim knows, there are no real Friends of Barbie—just the straw men he’s set up.”

“He’ll also want to make sure his tender ass is well protected,” Julia said.

There was some laughter at this, but Joe’s mother looked deeply troubled. “There’ll be some at the police station no matter what. What are you going to do if they resist you?”

“They won’t,” Jackie said. “We’ll have them locked in their own cells before they know what’s happening.”

“But if they do?”

“Then we’ll try not to kill them.” Linda’s voice was calm, but her eyes were those of a creature who has screwed its courage up in some final desperate effort to save itself. “There’s probably going to be killing anyway if the Dome stays up much longer. The execution of Barbie and my husband in War Memorial Plaza will only be the start of it.”

“Let’s say you get them out,” Julia said. “Where will you take them? Here?”

“No way,” Piper said, and touched her still-swollen mouth. “I’m already on Rennie’s shit list. Not to mention that guy who’s now his personal bodyguard. Thibodeau. My dog bit him.”

“Anywhere near the center of town’s not a great idea,” Rose said. “They could do a house-to-house. God knows they’ve got enough cops.”

“Plus all the people wearing the blue armbands,” Rommie added.

“What about one of the summer cabins out at Chester Pond?” Julia asked.

“Possible,” Ernie said, “but they could think of that, too.”

“It still might be the best bet,” Lissa said.

“Mr. Burpee?” Joe asked. “Have you got any more of that lead roll?”

“Sure, tons. And make it Rommie.”

“If Mr. Calvert can steal a van tomorrow, could you sneak it behind your store and put a bunch of precut pieces of lead roll in the back? Ones big enough to cover the windows?”

“I guess so….”

Joe looked at Jackie. “And could you get hold of this Colonel Cox, if you had to?”

“Yes.” Jackie and Julia answered together, then looked at each other in surprise.

Light was dawning on Rommie’s face. “You’re thinking about the old McCoy place, aren’t you? Up on Black Ridge. Where the box is.”

“Yeah. It might be a bad idea, but if we all had to run… if we were all up there… we could defend the box. I know that sounds crazy, since it’s the thing causing all the problems, but we can’t let Rennie get it.”

“I hope it don’t come to refighting the Alamo in an apple orchard,” Rommie said, “but I see your point.”

“There’s something else we could do, too,” Joe said. “It’s a little risky, and it might not work, but…”

“Spill it,” Julia said. She was looking at Joe McClatchey with a kind of bemused awe.

“Well… is the Geiger counter still in your van, Rommie?”

“I t’ink so, yeah.”

“Maybe someone could put it back in the fallout shelter where it came from.” Joe turned to Jackie and Linda. “Could either of you get in there? I mean, I know you got fired.”

“Al Timmons would let us in, I think,” Linda said. “And he’d let Stacey Moggin in for sure. She’s with us. The only reason she’s not here right now is because she’s got the duty. Why risk it, Joe?”

“Because…” He was speaking with uncharacteristic slowness, feeling his way. “Well… there’s radiation out there, see? Bad radiation. It’s just a belt—I bet you could drive right through it without any protection at all and not get hurt, if you drove fast and didn’t try it too often—but they don’t know that. The problem is, they don’t know there’s radiation out there at all. And they won’t, if they don’t have the Geiger counter.”

Jackie was frowning. “It’s a cool idea, kiddo, but I don’t like the idea of pointing Rennie right at where we’re going. That doesn’t fit with my idea of a safe house.”

“It wouldn’t have to be like that,” Joe said. He was still speaking slowly, testing for weak spots. “Not exactly, anyway. One of you could get in touch with Cox, see? Tell him to call Rennie and say they’re picking up spot radiation. Cox can say something like, ‘We can’t exactly pinpoint it because it comes and goes, but it’s pretty high, maybe even lethal, so watch out. You don’t happen to have a Geiger counter, do you?’”

There was a long silence as they considered this. Then Rommie said, “We take Barbara and Rusty out to the McCoy farm. We go there ourselves if we have to… which we probably will. And if they try to go out there—”

“They get a radiation spike on the Geiger counter that sends them running back to town with their hands over their worthless gonads,” Ernie rasped. “Claire McClatchey, you got a genius there.”

Claire hugged Joe tight, this time with both arms. “Now if I could only get him to pick up his room,” she said.

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