Under the Dome

'Barbara's boss—his control—is a man you have all seen on the news. He claims to be a colonel in the U.S. Army, but in fact he is high in the councils of the scientists and government officials responsible for this Satanic experiment. I have Barbara's confession to this much right here.' He tapped his sportcoat, whose inner pocket contained his wallet and a digest-sized New Testament with the words of Christ printed in red.

Meanwhile, more cries of'Hang him!' had arisen. Big Jim lifted one hand, head lowered, face grave, and the cries eventually stilled.

'We will vote on Barbara's punishment as a town—one unified body dedicated to the cause of freedom. It's in your hands, ladies and gentlemen. If you vote to execute, he will be executed. But there will be no hanging while I am your leader. He will be executed by police firing squad—'

Wild applause interrupted him, and most of the assembly rose to its feet. Big Jim leaned into the microphone.

'-but only after we get every bit of information which is still hidden in his MISERABLE TRAITOR'S HEARTY

Now almost all of them were up. Not Andi, though; she sat in the third row next to the center aisle, looking up at him with eyes that should have been soft and hazy and confused but were not. Look at me all you want, he thought, fust as long as you sit there like a good little girl.

Meanwhile, he basked in the applause.

20

'Now?' Rommie asked. 'What you t'ink, Jackie?'

'Wait a little longer,' she said.

It was instinct, nothing else, and usually her instincts were dependable.

Later she would wonder how many lives might have been saved if she had told Rommie okay, let's roll.

21

Looking through his crack in the sidewall of the Peace Bridge, Junior saw that even the people on the benches outside had risen to their feet, and the same instinct that told Jackie to stay a little longer told him it was time to move. He limped from beneath the bridge on the Town Common side and cut across to the sidewalk. When the creature who had sired him resumed speaking, he started toward the Police Department. The dark spot on the left side of his field of vision had expanded again, but his mind was clear.

I'm coming, Baaarbie. I'm coming for you right now.

22

'These people are masters of disinformation,'Big Jim continued,'and when you go out to the Dome to visit with your loved ones, the campaign against me will kick into high gear. Cox and his surrogates will stop at nothing to blacken me. They'll call me a liar and a thief, they may even say I ran their drug operation myself—'

'You did,' a clear, carrying voice said.

It was Andrea Grinnell. Every eye fixed upon her as she rose, a human exclamation point in her bright red dress. She looked at Big Jim for a moment with an expression of cool contempt, then turned to face the people who had elected her Third Selectwoman when old Billy Cale, Jack Gale's father, had died of a stroke four years ago.

'You people need to put your fears aside for a moment,' she said. 'When you do, you'll see that the story he's telling is ludicrous. Jim P^ennie thinks you can be stampeded like cattle in a thunderstorm. I've lived with you all my life, and I think he's wrong.'

Big Jim waited for cries of protest. There were none. Not that the townspeople necessarily believed her; they were just stunned by this sudden turn of events. Alice and Aidan Appleton had turned all the way around and were kneeling on their benches, goggling at the lady in red. Caro was equally stunned.

'A secret experiment? What bullshit! Ovir government has gotten up to some pretty lousy stuff over the last fifty years or so, and I'd be the first to admit it, but holding a whole town prisoner with some sort of force field? Just to see what we'll do? It's idiotic. Only terrified people would believe it. Rennie knows that, so he's been orchestrating the terror.'

Big Jim had been momentarily knocked off his stride, but now he found his voice again. And, of course, he had the microphone. 'Ladies and gentlemen, Andrea Grinnell is a fine woman, but she's not herself tonight. She's as shocked as the rest of us, of course, but in addition, I'm sorry to say that she herself has a serious drug-dependency problem, as a result of a fall and her consequent use of an extremely addictive drug called—'

'I haven't had anything stronger than aspirin for days now,'Andrea said in a clear, carrying voice. 'And I have come into possession of papers which show—'

'Melvin Searles?' Big Jim boomed. 'Will you and several of your fellow officers gently but firmly remove Selectwoman Grinnell from the room and escort her home? Or perhaps to the hospital for observation. She's not herself.'

There were some approving murmurs, but not the clamor of approbation he'd expected. And Mel Searles had taken only a single step forward when Henry Morrison swept a hand into Mel's chest and sent him back against the wall with an audible thump.

'Let's let her finish,' Henry said. 'She s a town official too, so let her finish.'