The Shimmer (44 page)

"Well, whatever's going on, I won't let this get any worse," Medrano said. "Most visitors have had enough and are going home on their own.

But just to make sure, as of tonight we're blocking the road. Anybody who wants to drive in that direction will need to take a long detour.

The viewing area, the portable toilets, the roadside plaque, the concrete barriers, the parking lot--everything's being removed. That place will look like just another section of a field by the time we're finished.

Meanwhile, the feds are cleaning up the mess at the observatory and the airbase. We'll probably never know what went on there. They won't let us in. And we'll never officially know what happened at White Sands last night, either."

"White Sands?" Costigan asked. "The missile range?"

"Yeah, it's all over the news, and the conspiracy theorists are having a field day. Some kind of ray hit a target at White Sands--a mockup of a town. I think we can guess where the ray came from. Apparently it destroyed the mockup town, blew apart the monitoring station, and obliterated a half-dozen other buildings five miles away, not to mention taking out the electricity for the entire base, including the batteries in their vehicles. The ray was too visible for them to deny it happened.

Reports are that twenty military technicians were killed. Civilians watching the night sky from Alamogordo claim they saw a blinding light. The Army attributes all this to a massive explosion at a munitions depot. The explosion was caused by dry lightning, they said."

"That dry lightning sure gets around." Costigan's features were suddenly creased with exhaustion.

"Are you okay?" Medrano asked.

Across the street, the church bells kept ringing.

"Maybe I'll stroll over there later," Costigan said. "It's been a while."

The police dispatcher knocked on the open door. "Mr. and Mrs. Page are here to see you."

"Show them in."

When Page and Tori stepped into the doorway, Costigan smiled.

"It's good to see you, even if you do look a little sunburned."

"So does Captain Medrano," Tori said.

"Seems we're in the land of the midnight sun," Medrano replied.

"We discussed your phone call. You're right that we're going to need you here to fill in some of the gaps. But at the moment we have plenty of other details to take care of. So if you can get back here in ten days, that'll be fine. Mrs. Page, you mentioned that you're going to have surgery Tuesday morning in San Antonio. Will ten days give you enough time to feel strong enough to travel?"

"We'll see," Tori said.

"We can always set up a video conference call, if necessary. I hope it isn't anything serious."

Page and Tori didn't reply.

Chapter 82.

The Falcon 2000 jet took off from the airbase at Fort Bliss and started its four-hour flight toward Glen Burnie Airport near Fort Meade, Maryland. It was piloted by Army Intelligence personnel, who were also affiliated with the NSA. Its passengers were a medical team and Colonel Raleigh.

The colonel stared straight ahead, his eyes blinking occasionally, but otherwise making no movement.

"How long has he been like this?" someone asked.

Because Raleigh was catatonic and couldn't turn his head, he wasn't able to identify the speaker.

"Apparently since twenty-two hundred hours last night," someone replied. That man, too, was out of Raleigh's line of sight.

"What's wrong with him?"

"The best I can say right now is trauma-induced paralysis. I don't know if it has a physical cause, a psychological one, or both. He'll need to be tested."

"Considering the mess we found in that underground facility, I'm not surprised he freaked out."

"Not a very scientific term, but yeah, basically that's what happened.

He freaked out."

"Do you think he can hear us?"

"I have no idea. His ears were bleeding. There might have been permanent hearing loss. Or else the shock of what happened might have put him in a state of psychological disassociation."

"Yeah, but the thing is, what did happen? The cameras down there stopped working. The digital recordings were all wiped. All we've got are the bodies. Except for the men who were shot, those other poor bastards bled to death before we got to them."

"Unless the colonel starts communicating, we might never know."

Incapable of movement, Raleigh kept staring straight ahead.

The hiss of the jet engines gradually changed to the drone of a propeller and a piston-driven motor. The interior of the Falcon dissolved, giving him a back-seat view of a biplane skimming above a dark field while stars glistened.

He wore goggles and a scarf, one end of which fluttered behind him. He worked the controls and drifted toward the horizon.

Ahead, colors shimmered, beckoning.

Chapter 83.

The waiting room had plastic chairs linked together. A television was bolted to an upper corner of the room, tuned to the Home and Garden channel. At the entrance, a hospital volunteer sat at a desk and wrote down the names of people who came in, letting them know that coffee, tea, and water were available on the table behind her.

Page sat next to Tori's mother. After a while, their tension kept them from making small talk. Page flipped through a two-month-old issue of Time, then looked at the television, where a woman wearing gloves and holding a trowel gave viewers a tour of her flower garden.

"How long do you suppose it'll take?" Margaret asked, looking pale.

"I guess it depends on what they find and how much needs to be removed."

"My poor baby," Tori's mother said.

A woman wearing a surgical gown and bonnet walked into the waiting room. She scanned it, saw the two of them, and came over.

Her expression was difficult to read.

It's far too soon, Page thought. Something's gone wrong.

The woman sat next to them. "There's been a mistake."

"Oh, dear God," Margaret said.

"Maybe Tori's films and records got confused with someone else's,"

the surgeon continued. "Or maybe there was something wrong with the equipment when the tests were given."

Page sat forward. "I don't understand. What are you saying?"

"Your wife doesn't have cancer."

"What?"

"There's no trace of it."

Page felt off balance.

"A mistake?"

"That's the only way I can explain it. Her mammogram and CAT scan both show a sizable mass that might have spread to the chest wall."

Tori never told me it was that serious, Page thought.

"But that mass definitely isn't there now," the surgeon said. "On occasion, tumors go into remission, but they don't just vanish in a week.

Somehow the equipment must have malfunctioned, or your wife was given someone else's results. We're working to find out what happened."

"My wife's going to be all right?" Page managed to ask.

"She should be fine, and I can tell you for certain that she doesn't have breast cancer."

Tori's mother wept.

Chapter 84.

Page had his own theory.

Equipment hadn't malfunctioned. Records hadn't been mislabeled. Test results hadn't been misrouted.

Back in Rostov, while he'd been buying a fresh shirt and jeans in a clothing store, he'd heard a customer ask a clerk about the lights.

"My wife has diabetes," the customer had said. "We heard this place makes miracles happen, like at Lourdes. If she sees the lights, she'll be cured."

At the time, Page had thought, Cured? Wouldn't that be nice?

And now it had happened.

Tori had been cured.

They returned to Rostov for the further questioning and to sign their statements. By then Costigan no longer had the bandage around his skull, and his short gray hair revealed a scar along the side of his head.

"Haven't seen any sign of the lights since everything happened,"

Costigan told them. "Captain Medrano and I drove Harriett Ward out there. If anybody can be depended upon to see the lights, it's her.

She says they're gone. What's the phrase she used? 'In remission.'"

"Yes," Tori said. "In remission."

Page took her home to Santa Fe--but it didn't seem like home any longer. She said she kept thinking of Rostov, dreaming about the lights, and Page was dreaming about them now, too.

The insurance payment for the crashed Cessna helped him buy a thirty-year-old replacement. A year later, Page and Tori flew back to Rostov. They rented a car and drove to Costigan's office, where the police chief was coughing from what he said was a bad summer cold, although Page had a strong idea about the true source of this exsmoker's cough.

"We're thinking about moving here," Page said. "Any chance you have a job open?"

"A deputy's pay isn't much."

"But the cost of living here isn't much, either, and I can earn some extra cash as a mechanic at the airport."

Costigan cleared his throat. "Truth is, there might be an opening for my job."

"I'm sorry to hear it," Tori said, looking closely at him.

"Don't be," he said with a smile. "I learned a long time ago, nothing lasts forever. But I'm not ready to go yet, so for the time being, the deputy's job is yours if you want it."

"I do," Page said.

"And we've got so many artists moving here from Austin, Santa Fe, and Sedona, the real estate market's picking up," Costigan told Tori.

"I don't suppose it'll surprise you that there's something about the colors here that attracts them. I think you could earn a living."

"I'd like to try," she responded. "One thing I know--we won't be lonely here. We made some good friends."

"You did indeed."

Six months later, Page became the police chief. After Costigan's funeral, he and Tori drove out to where they guessed the viewing area had been. Medrano had meant what he'd said--once everything was removed, the place looked like just another section of a field.

They arrived at sunset, got out of the car, and watched the horizon.

As the darkness settled, they saw the headlights from cars approaching from Mexico. They saw a shooting star. They saw a hint of a shimmer beyond the Badlands.

"You think that's the start of the lights coming back?" Page asked.

"It might be," Tori answered. "Harriet says they have cycles, weak and strong. Maybe she's right. But I guess I really don't need to see them. Even back in town, I can feel them. That's enough."

"More than enough," Page agreed. "They match what people bring to them. If you need something to believe in, they'll inspire you, but if you built a wall around yourself, you won't be able to see them. If you're angry, they'll make you angrier. If you want to turn them into a weapon, they'll use that weapon against you and make you realize just how terrifying a weapon can be."

"Plus, if you hope hard enough for a miracle," Tori said, "they can make one happen."

The headlights of a car approached. It pulled up next to their car, and a man rolled down a window.

"Hey, isn't this where those weird lights used to show up?"

"Lights? Don't know anything about them," Page said. "We're just admiring the stars."

"Probably a lot of bunk anyhow."

"So we hear," Tori said.

The car drove on, its taillights fading into the darkness.

"Want to head back?" Page asked.

"I'm ready. If that shimmer out there is in fact the lights, we've probably seen enough."

In the car, Page hesitated before turning the ignition key.

"What's wrong?" Tori asked.

"Just remembering what this place used to look like, what I felt when I saw you on the bench, staring toward the horizon. I almost lost you. But because of the lights, that didn't happen. What they are to you, that's what you are to me. I love you." Page made a point of saying that every day.

Emotion filled him. "Did you ever read the plaque that was at the side of the road?"

"No. I figured it would be touristy, like it was written by somebody in the Chamber of Commerce."

"Not quite," Page told her. "As near as I can recall, it said, 'Welcome to the Rostov lights. Many people have claimed to see them, but no one has ever been able to explain them. If you're lucky enough to experience them, decide for yourself what they are.' Well, I know what they are to me."

Page kissed her.

*

AFTERWORD:

SPECTERS IN THE DARK

On November 7, 2004, I paged through the Sunday edition of my local newspaper, the Santa Fe New Mexican. Although I don't normally read the travel section, the headline for one of its articles caught my attention.

LIGHT UP YOUR LIFE

TINY MARFA, TEXAS, BOASTS WEIRD NATURAL PHENOMENA