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commercial premises built along a service road paralleling the interstate, now
discernible beyond.
Workers were shining lamps among collapsed timbers and shoveling away rubble.
One building, lit by the headlamps of a couple of trucks in front, had been
adapted as an aid station, with casualties being helped and carried in out of
the surrounding darkness. A group of hooded and hatted figures approached,
presumably having seen the flashlamps coming down the road off the hill. The
one leading had a bandage showing below his hat and was wearing a sheriff's
deputy's badge with a storm coat.
"Looks like we've got some fit people here. You boys wanna enlist? We need all
the help here we can get."
Mitch answered. "We need help ourselves. Bunch of people in a plane crashed
back over in the next valley, some of them hurt."
"Are you serious? They're only just starting pulling bodies out of what's left
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of Phoenix. Right here we've got wrecks backed up into California that
nobody's gotten to yet and probably won't for days. There's about a couple of
hundred thousand people in line ahead of you already." The voice was weary,
not prepared to debate the obvious. Mitch sighed and nodded. It was obvious
that they didn't have a case.
"Military mission. We have to try and see it through."
The deputy shrugged. "Well . . . good luck."
"Which way's the reception center?" Mitch nodded in the direction of the
crater ahead. "That way, past where the big one hit?"
"Right about two miles farther on." The deputy's face showed for a moment in
the light of a turning car: young, crusted with dust, streaked on one side
with congealed blood that had trickled down from the bandage. He wiped his
mouth with the back of a gloved hand. "Say . . . would you guys have any spare
water? We've been waiting two hours for our truck to get back. Can't take any
from these people. The ones that thought to bring some are gonna need it."
Mitch passed his water bottle over. Several of the other troopers did
likewise. The deputy took a modest swig, washed it around, swallowed, and
nodded gratefully. "Oh boy. You've no idea . . ."
"Is that where the chopper we heard would have come from?" Mitch asked.
"Right."
"Who's operating them?"
"I couldn't tell you. The Army's in charge now, trying to get some
organization together. Where are you guys heading?"
"Texas."
"Texas? Jeez! I'm not sure there is a Texas anymore. It might be part of the
Gulf. Everybody else is coming the other way."
"Like I said, it's an official mission."
"Well, I'm glad something's still functioning. Just follow along where they're
leveling a road around the crater there's no way you can miss it; you've got a
mountain blocking the road. You can see the lights they've got set up from
here. Then pick up the interstate again on the other side."
It was like a scene out of a war. There were hundreds of wrecked and damaged
vehicles there in the darkness, stretching in a gigantic tailback from the
crater, they realized as they came out onto the highway. Thousands. Standing
amid a litter of glass and debris, roofs and hoods buckled by falling rocks,
some apparently unscathed, others flung or pushed off the roadway completely.
A
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drivers had weaved as far as they could before being brought to a halt. Many
were helping each other check among the vehicles with flashlights and in
headlamp beams, pulling out the injured and doing what they could for the ones
trapped. Others just sat along the verge, in shock and bewildered, waiting for
direction.
Farther along, a tractor trailer had somehow balanced itself on end. A woman
was wandering among the cars, frantically calling someone's name. A headless
body hung from the window of a Chevrolet, dripping blood onto the asphalt. A
dog whimpered at the door of a stove-in Nissan van full of tangled forms, none
of them moving.
Keene walked by it all at the center of the silent column, unable to suppress
a feeling of callousness, yet mindful that nothing they could have done would
alter anything materially.
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