All of which meant that Demarch could not openly question the wisdom of hanging twelve of the town’s children by the neck until dead. He could only allude to it—delicately.

Delafleur chose to be more blunt. “What they were doing was insurrection and the actions I took were well within our brief. You know that as well as I do.”

The noon bell-sounded across the camp. Demarch listened as the ringing faded into the perimeter of snowy trees. He wondered what he ought to say. His own position was still unclear. He remembered riding back into town and seeing the small corpses dangling like wheat sacks from the street lamps. He had ordered them cut down.

He said, “I won’t debate the justice of it. Or your authority to give the order. Only whether it was wise to generate more ill feeling.” He nodded at the test gantry. “Especially now.”

“I fail to see why I ought to be concerned about the sensibilities of people who are next door to annihilation.”

“To avoid provoking counterattacks, for one.” A military patrol had already taken rifle fire from a grieving parent. The parent had gone the way of his offspring, but on a less public gallows.

“We can deal with that,” Delafleur said.

“But should we have to?”

“It’s moot.” And Delafleur looked at the test gantry as if it answered all objections.

Perhaps it did. Demarch had learned a few things about the nature of the weapon. “Difficult to believe …”

“That it can do what they say? Yes. I don’t understand it myself. To think of everything within such a vast radius leveled or burned. The engineers have cleared a firebreak all around the perimeter, or else we might lose much of the forest—we might burn the entire Peninsula.” He shook his head. “They say it operates on the same principle as the sun itself.”

“Incredible.” These trees would be kindling, Demarch thought; and the town a brick oven—an oven full of meat. The image made him wince.

“You deserve some of the credit,” Delafleur said, looking at him slyly. “It was your idea to plunder the libraries, was it not? Which, I’m given to understand, helped advance the work on the bomb. At least by a few months. They were already well along, of course. So it isn’t all your fault.” Delafleur’s smile was bottomless. “You needn’t look so startled, Lieutenant.”

He consulted with Delafleur and an adjutant about evacuation plans. The agenda came from the capital, but there were details to be arranged. It was almost surrealistic, Demarch thought, to be negotiating escape timetables with this prim, endlessly fastidious Bureau functionary. Delafleur was like so many of the hierarchs Demarch had met, ambitious, loyal, and utterly innocent of conscience. The impending deaths of thousands of people mattered to him less than the protocol of this rush to the exits.

But wasn’t that as it should be? If the deaths were sanctioned by Church and State, wasn’t it absurd to question the decision? If Bureau functionaries made their own policies and obeyed their own consciences, surely the only result would be anarchy?

Still, there was something evil about Delafleur. According to the Church every soul possessed an apospasma theion—a fragment of God. But if such a fragment existed in Delafleur, it must be buried very deeply.

When the negotiations were finished, he drove through a bitter dusk to the house where Evelyn was.

In the bedroom, she looked at him with a wounded wariness—the way she had been looking at him every day since his return. He knew she had seen the executed children, though she hadn’t spoken of it.

Her wide, bruised eyes reminded him of Christof.

Upstairs, intimidated by her silence, Demarch showed her the documents he had obtained from Guy Marris. Evelyn looked at them with no visible emotion. “This is me?”

“For certain purposes.”

The travel permits were blue, registration yellow, citizenship green, birth and baptism pink. Guy had been as thorough as ever.

“I’m not as tall as it says.”

“It won’t matter, Evelyn. No one really looks.”

She folded the papers and handed them back. “This is for when we leave town.”

“Yes.” He knew she had surmised something of what would happen. He didn’t know how much. They hadn’t talked about it; only exchanged glances.

She said, “When?”

“The decision hasn’t been made.”

“How soon, Symeon?”

This was treasonous, he thought. But so were the documents. So were his thoughts. There was no turning back now. “Before the end of the month,” he said.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Dex talked to Bob Hoskins, who sent him to one of the PTA parents, Terry Shoemaker, who introduced him in turn to a skinny ex-charter pilot named Calvin Shepperd.

They met in Tucker’s Restaurant, in the small back room that had served as a pantry in the days when there was enough food to store. Dex shook the older man’s hand and introduced himself.

“I know who you are,” Shepperd said. “My brother’s girl Cleo was in your history class couple years back.” He seemed to hesitate. “Bob Hoskins vouched for you, but frankly I was reluctant to have you involved.”

“May I ask why?”

“Oh, the obvious. For one thing, you’re seeing that woman from outside.”

“Her name is Linneth Stone.”

“Her name doesn’t matter. The point is, I don’t know what she says to you or you to her. And that raises a question. Plus, didn’t you used to go out with Evelyn Woodward at the bed-and-breakfast? Who’s been on the arm of the chief Proctor lately.”

“Small town,” Dex observed.

“Is, was, and will be. I’m not opposed to gossip, Mr. Graham, especially nowadays.”

“As gossip, it’s honest enough,” Dex said. “All those things are true. Maybe they’re liabilities, but they gave me access to some information you need.”

“Meaning?”

“Bob Hoskins tells me you’re trying to set up an escape route to ferry out some of the local families.”

“Bob Hoskins must have a fair amount of confidence in you.” Shepperd sighed and folded his arms. “Go on.”

Evelyn had come to his apartment three times with fresh information, much of it gleaned from documents Demarch had left unattended on his desk. Dex described the firebreak, the bomb—the apocalypse bearing down on Two Rivers like a runaway train.

Shepperd leaned against a shelf that harbored a single gallon can of pinto beans and listened with a fixed expression. When Dex finished, he cleared his throat. “So what are we talking about—a week, two weeks?”

“I can’t pin it down, but that sounds like the right range. We might not have much warning.”

“They’ll have to evacuate the soldiers.”

“I don’t think they’re planning to.”

“What, you mean leave ’em here? Let ’em burn?”

Dex nodded.

“Jesus,” Shepperd said. “Cold-hearted bastards.” He shook his head. “Bet any money the Proctors move out, though. So there’s some warning there … if any of what you’re telling me is true.”

Dex said nothing.

Shepperd put his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “I suppose I should thank you.” Dex shrugged.

“Incidentally, Hoskins said he was surprised when you came to him with this. He figured you were mainly talk, not much action. So what changed your mind?”

“Twelve kids hanging from the City Hall lampposts.”

“Yeah, well—that’ll do it.”

Twelve kids hanging from the lampposts, Dex thought as he walked the snowy streets.

Twelve kids, some of whom he had known personally; three of them his students.

Twelve kids: any one of whom might have been his son.

Might have been David.

If David had lived.