The sky had turned pink.

You could see the color of it on the river.

He smoked and watched the moving water and felt, for the first time in ages, like a human being.

23

At 8:00 p.m., Ethan was back behind his desk in the station.

His phone rang.

When he lifted the receiver, Pilcher said, “Doctor Miter is more than a little angry with you, Ethan.”

The image of Pilcher climbing up on that autopsy table and stabbing his daughter surfaced in the back of Ethan’s mind.

You monster.

“Do you hear that?” Ethan asked.

“Hear what?”

For five seconds, Ethan was silent on the line. “That’s the sound of me not giving a fuck.”

“You’re still unchipped, and I don’t like that.”

“Look, I didn’t feel like going under the knife again so soon. I’ll come up to the mountain tomorrow first thing and get it over with.”

“You haven’t run into Pam, have you?”

“No, why?”

“She was supposed to be in the mountain thirty minutes ago for a meeting. Her signal still shows her down in the valley.”

After returning to town, Ethan had walked to Main Street and slipped Pam’s bloody microchip into the purse of a woman he passed on the sidewalk. Sooner or later, Pilcher was going to start studying camera feeds. When Pam’s chip pinged a camera but Pam herself was mysteriously absent, Pilcher would know something had happened.

“If I see her,” Ethan said, “I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.”

“I’m not too worried. She tends to go on walkabouts from time to time. At the moment, I’m sitting in my office with a bottle of very nice scotch, watching my wall of screens, ready for the show to begin. Do you have any questions?”

“No.”

“You’ve looked over the manual? You understand the sequence of calls? The instructions you’re about to give?”

“Yes.”

“If Kate and Harold are killed in the forest, if they’re killed anywhere other than Main Street, center of town, I’m going to hold you personally responsible. Keep in mind they have underground support, so give the first wave of officers a little extra time.”

“I understand.”

“Pam delivered the phone codes to your office earlier in the day.”

“I’ve got them here on my desk beside the manual, but you can see that, can’t you?”

Pilcher just laughed.

“I know your history with Kate Ballinger,” he said, “and I’m sorry if that’s going to put a shadow over tonight for you—”

“A shadow?”

“—but fкtes don’t come along all that often. Sometimes a year or two passes between them. So in spite of everything, I hope you’ll try to enjoy yourself. Much as I hate them, there’s something truly magic in these nights.”

In his previous life, Ethan had developed the bad habit of flipping off the phone when he didn’t like the person or the message on the other end of the line. He somehow, and wisely, found the strength to restrain himself.

“Well, I’ll let you go, Ethan. You’ve got lots to do. If you don’t have too bad of a hangover in the morning, I’ll send Marcus down to pick you up. We’ll have breakfast, talk about the future.”

“Looking forward to it,” Ethan said.

Belinda had gone home.

The station was silent.

It was 8:05 p.m.

It was time.

Hecter Gaither’s piano came through the tube radio beside the desk. He was playing the Rimsky-Korsakov edition of A Night on Bare Mountain. The frantic and terrifying section had concluded, and he was entering the slow, calming-down movement that conjured up the feeling of daybreak after a night in hell.

Ethan’s thoughts were with Kate and Harold.

Were they sharing a quiet dinner at this very moment, with Gaither’s piano in the background?

Utterly blind to what was about to happen?

Ethan picked up his phone and opened the folder Pam had left with Belinda.

He looked at the first code and dialed.

A female voice answered, “Hello?”

There was a ping.

The ringing continued.

Each time someone answered, there was another ping.

Finally, a voice that sounded computer-generated said, “All eleven parties are now on the line.”

Ethan stared down at the page.

The script had been typed out for him beneath the code.

He could still just hang up.

Not do this.

There were so many ways for it all to go so badly.

None of the ten residents of Wayward Pines on the other end of the line breathed a single word.

Ethan began to read: “This message is for the ten officers of the fкte. A fкte has been scheduled to begin in forty minutes. The guests of honor are Kate and Harold Ballinger. Their address is Three-Forty-Five Eighth Avenue. Make your preparations immediately. Of critical importance is delivering Kate and Harold to the circle at the corner of Eighth and Main alive and unharmed. Do you understand what I’ve just said to you?”

A series of yeses tripped over one another coming through the line.

Ethan hung up the phone and started the timer on his watch.

The officers lived for the fкte.

They were the only residents allowed to keep actual weapons in their homes—machetes issued by Pilcher. Everyone else resorted to makeshift instruments of death—kitchen knives, rocks, baseball bats, axes, hatchets, iron pokers from a fireplace set, anything with heft, a point, or an edge.

He had wondered all afternoon what this block of time would feel like—the forty minutes between setting everything in motion and making that final phone call.

And now that he was in it, it screamed past with unimaginable velocity.

He wondered if the last meal of a death row inmate felt something like this.

Time moving at the speed of light.

Pulse rate accelerating.

An eerie, emotional review of all that had led to this moment.

And then he was watching the last ten seconds wind down on his watch, wondering where the time had gone.

He silenced the alarm.

Lifted the phone.

Punched in the second code.

That same computer-generated voice advised, “Please record your message after the tone.”

He waited.

The tone came.

He read off the second script: “This is Sheriff Ethan Burke. A fкte begins now. The guests of honor are Kate and Harold Ballinger. They are to be caught, brought unharmed to Main and Eighth…” He struggled with the final words. “And executed in the circle.”

After a long pause, that CG voice said, “If you are satisfied with your message, press one. To review your message prior to sending, press two. To rerecord your message, press three. For all other options, press four.”

Ethan pressed one and shelved the phone.

He got up.

On his desk, the nickel plating of the Desert Eagle gleamed under the lamp.

He reloaded and holstered it and walked over to the closet where he took down the headdress and the bearskin cloak.

Three steps from the door, the ringing started.

The first one bled through the radio.

The piano playing stopped.

He heard the bench squeak—Gaither standing.

The man’s footsteps trailing away.

The sound of him lifting the phone.

Saying, “Hello?”

Then Ethan’s voice—the message he had just recorded—came quietly through the speakers.

Gaither whispered, “Oh God,” and then the radio transmission cut to static.

Ethan moved down the hallway, thinking only of Kate.

Did your phone ring?

Did you answer it and listen to my voice ordering your death?

Do you think that I’ve betrayed you?

He passed Belinda’s desk, made his way through the dark lobby.

Outside, there was no moon, just a sky chock-full of stars.