Close Encounters of the Third Kind Read online

  Neary said, almost to himself, “I told them they could watch only five of the Commandments.”

  “Slow up, Earl,” Ronnie said into the phone. “I can’t relay all that. You better tell Roy direct.” She held out the phone to her husband. “Something’s up.”

  Neary started around the ping pong table. “My kids don’t want to see Pinocchio,” he grumbled. “What a world.”

  Roy reached for the phone. Instead of handing it to him, Ronnie held it to his ear with one hand, moving around to snuggle against his other side, kissing his other ear. Neary was used to this sudden mood switch of hers. He leaned over and picked up Sylvia, who wanted to kiss his ear, too.

  “What’s the problem, Earl?” he asked his colleague at the power company.

  “I got a call from the load dispatcher,” Earl Johnson, his voice high with worry. “Big drain on the primary voltage.”

  “On primary?” Roy said. “How the hell—?”

  “Shut up and listen,” Earl cut in. “We’ve lost half a bank of transformers at the Gilmore substation,” he said, trying to get the words out as fast as possible. “It’ll hit the residential any minute, so put on your pants while you’ve still got the light.”

  “Earl, what the—?”

  “Get over to Gilmore fast, Roy.”

  The line went dead as Earl hung up. Neary turned toward his wife. “Did you hear that—?”

  Then the room went dark. Everything stopped dead.

  5

  A Moog synthesizer is nothing if not complicated. There are still not many of them in the world, and still fewer people who know how to put one together, and even fewer who understand what to do with the thing: its capabilities, its potential, its limits.

  Therefore, when the rush order came through to modify the synthesizer they had constructed for Stevie Wonder two years before, the bearded, mustached and bespectacled young men who understand these arcane matters proceeded with bemused diligence.

  Bemused because, evidently, Mr. Wonder was lending or giving his Moog to a group not previously known for its musical interests. But what the hell? What could these guys do with a Moog synthesizer that they couldn’t already do with a nuclear-tipped long-range intercontinental ballistic missile?

  6

  Ike Harris was holding on to two telephones when Roy arrived: one connected directly to an apartment elevator in which Supervisor Grimsby was trapped, the other to the equally-agitated outside world.

  Harris was shook. “A 27-KV line at Gilmore went,” he said into the phone to Grimsby; at the same time, he was briefing Neary. “All the breakers opened and we started losing feeders. Tolono’s dark. Crystal Lake’s dark. What? Oh, that’s right, sir. You’re dark too.” Harris glanced at Neary and his eyes went up in his head for a moment, signaling the kind of vibes Grimsby was transmitting at his end.

  “Okay, right,” Ike said, when Grimsby was temporarily through screaming. “I’ve got reports of vandalism on the line—890-megawatt lines seem to be down all over. I called Municipal Lighting for a fix, but we can’t send the new juice through till this 500 KV tower is operational. What? Yes, sir!”

  Harris put his hand over the phone. “Neary, you know the normal wire tension in that area?”

  “Without wind, normal tension for the sag is about fifteen thousand pounds per wire. I was a journeyman out that way a couple of years ago.”

  Ike took his hand away from the phone. “I’m sending Neary over there now.”

  “You are?” Roy mouthed.

  Harris waved Neary out of the control room with the hand not holding the Grimsby-phone. “Get the hell going. On the double. No, not you, Mr. Grimsby.”

  As Roy started trotting out the door, he heard Ike shouting to someone, everyone, anyone: “Tell Municipal we’re going to candle power in ten minutes.”

  Now, fifteen minutes later, barrel-assing down a dark country road whose name or number he wasn’t sure about, Neary was about to admit to being lost. Roy’s car was a smaller version of his workroom at home. He had a network map spread out over the steering wheel as he searched vainly for the problem coordinates, a penlight sticking out of his mouth.

  Already a menace on the road, Neary was further distracted by the police calls that were squabbling over his broadband radio.

  “This is Sheriff’s Dispatch. Do I have a patrol car near Reva Road?”

  “Hello, County. This is highway patrol six ten. We’re on Reva. Can we help you boys out?”

  “If you would, thank you. See the woman two eleven Reva Road. Something about the outdoor lighting. She’s in a state. Barking dogs. Go figure it out.”

  The radio stopped talking, and Neary stopped driving, pulling over to the side of the road. Reva Road was in Tolono, he was sure of it. But Ike had reported Tolono dark. Roy picked up the mobile phone.

  “TR eighty-eight eighteen to Trouble Foreman,” he called.

  “Here’s Trouble,” Ike Harris came back, no less hysterical than fifteen minutes ago. “Whaddya want?”

  “Have you guys restored power to Tolono? Over.”

  “Are you kidding? Tolono was the first to go.”

  “I just heard the police reporting lights in Tolono.”

  “Jesus!” Harris shouted. “What, are you monitoring police calls on a night like this? Everything’s down, Neary. The whole network’s fallen.”

  Harris went off abruptly.

  Neary pulled back onto the road. Several minutes later, he saw a revolving amber light in the distance, which made him feel a little better. But not much. At least he wasn’t lost. Roy pulled over behind a utility trouble wagon and got out. Two crews were there, standing by, waiting for someone in authority to give the word. A yellow DWP cherry picker idled, ready to lift men to the top of the tower that loomed indistinctly high in the darkness.

  Neary felt inadequate. He’d never bossed line crews before. These guys were good—old-timers, most of them. Roy had put in his time on line crews himself, but these guys were fifteen years older than he was and ten times as experienced. Just because he’d moved up through the system didn’t mean a damn thing to these fellows, didn’t automatically mean they’d follow his orders, if he could think of any orders to give.

  Then Roy picked out a friendly face, a black one, Earl Johnson, who’d called him earlier.

  “Hi, Earl,” Neary said. “What’s up?”

  “Down,” said Earl, white teeth grinning in the revolving amber light. “Why do you think somebody would steal two miles of transmission wire?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  By way of answer, Earl lifted his six-volt flashlight and aimed its beam to the top of the tower. Then he traced a line where two thick copper wires should have sagged along to the next tower. But there were no wires.

  “The line’s not down,” he said. “It’s gone. There’s nothing from M-ten to M-twelve.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Neary said. “Maybe it’s the high price of copper,” he mused.

  Earl and Roy started back to Neary’s car to make their report.

  “Right,” Earl said. “Right. Stuff’s worth a fortune. I told them we ought to lay power cable underground.”

  “But where could the birds land?” Neary said.

  Before Roy could report to Ike Harris, the radio flashed a police call: “To any unit in the vicinity of Tolono foothills … a housewife reports … uh … her Tiffany lamp flashing in the kitchen window … upside-down lamp …”

  “Where’d he say?” Johnson asked. “Tolono?”

  “That’s the second report from Tolono,” Neary told him.

  “Can’t make it out clearly,” the police dispatcher came through again. “Very distraught … four one five five Osborne Road.”

  “But Tolono’s dark,” Earl said.

  “Maybe,” Roy said, picking up the car phone. “TR eighty-eight eighteen. Let me talk to Ike.” He handed Earl the map. “Find Osborne, will you?” he asked. “I never could read these damn things.”

&nb
sp; Harris came on. “Neary! What’s happening?”

  “Well,” said Roy conversationally, “I’m here at Mary ten. And … all the lines have been swiped. All the way to Mary twelve, Earl here says. It looks like vandals made a very sloppy cut at the terminals, then backed a truck in and pulled out all the grounds, but here’s something else—”

  “Here’s something for you,” Ike cut in. “We’ve got to pick up the system in one hour.”

  “One hour!” Neary exclaimed. “It’s a mile of empty poles out here. That’s impossible.”

  “Anything’s possible when you’ve got a general supervisor stuck in an elevator who wants out.”

  Roy gave Ike a small laugh, then asked, “Say, Ike? You haven’t restored power to Tolono, have you?”

  “I told you, Tolono was the first to go. It’s as dark as the inside of Grimsby’s elevator.”

  “Now look, Ike,” Neary began in a careful tone. “Hear me out. The police are reporting lights in Tolono. If the lines out there are energized and it’s not showing up on your data bank, one of your people working high around those terminals—ga-zzap! It happened in Gilroy once. Remember?”

  “Me and two backup computers say Tolono’s as dark as the inside of your head, Neary,” Harris shouted.

  Earl Johnson affected not to have heard this slur.

  “See the complainants at Tolono South Reservoir,” the police dispatcher suddenly called. “Christmas lights have started a minor brush fire.”

  “Did you hear that? They’re saying Christmas lights now.”

  “This is May, not December,” Harris said, suddenly his old cheerful self. “There is no Christmas during a blackout. Only Halloween.” And he hung up before Roy could respond.

  Neary turned to Earl Johnson. “What’s wrong with that guy? This is how Jordie Christopher bought it, replacing shot-out insulators in Gilroy.”

  “You heard the man, Roy,” Earl said. “He told you to fix the line.”

  “Right.”

  Neary stood there, humming softly for a moment. Then he turned back to Earl Johnson and said conspiratorially to him, “Say, Earl, how’d you like to sign on this operation for about an hour?”

  He was climbing in the car, closing the door and starting the engine before Johnson began to respond.

  “Me? Run this show? Who’s gonna listen to me? I’m not even seniority. I’m not even white. Don’t turn your back on a good thing, Roy. They made you boss cow.”

  “Earl, if he’s wrong, some of our Tolono people could get killed.”

  “If he’s right, they’ll suspend your ass so high even the job-placement corps won’t find it.”

  Neary started easing the car forward. “Tolono is what?” he asked out the window. “Sixty-six alternate to seventy?”

  Roy drove away.

  Johnson held his head in agony over Neary and his sense of direction. “You gonna wind up in Cincinnati,” he yelled after him. “It’s seventy to sixty-six.”

  Neary waved back at Johnson. Seventy to sixty-six.

  A moment later, the night swallowed up the shape and sound of his vehicle.

  Earl Johnson watched the taillight grow dim and then disappear. He heaved a heavy sigh and walked slowly back to the gang of linemen, watching him with a mixture of suspicion and amused malice.

  Earl stood before the veteran repairmen, wondering what on earth to tell them to do. He took a deep breath and pointed toward the tower overhead. “Fix it.”

  7

  Aireast Flight 31 touched down on the tarmac at 11:40 P.M. The Indianapolis tower issued routine taxiing instructions to the A.E. Concourse, a short three-minute dogleg from the east-west runway.

  A brace of airport security police waited curbside, their walkie-talkies gargling squelch while a futzed voice told the public that the white zones were for the immediate unloading of passengers only.

  A black Ford LTD carved a trail through the mild late night congestion, smoking its tires inches away from the fleet of the airport security patrol. One tire actually lurched up over the white curbside with enough noise and danger to make any cop grab for his citation pad.

  Instead, one of the security officers reached for the rear door and held it open. Three men got out. Were they pro football players diguised as Sperry-Rand accounting executives? Their Brooks Brothers pinstripes looked as if they had been ironed right onto their six-foot sinewy frames. Two of the men wore sunglasses, and the other had a gray mustache that didn’t quite match his short blond hair.

  A fourth CPA type, nearly resembling Fran Tarkenton, came running, out of breath, through the electric terminal doors.

  “It’s down!”

  “When?”

  “Just about a minute ago. Where have you been? She’s on the taxi to gate 55A.”

  The front four ran into the terminal annex, shouldering open the electric doors when they wouldn’t move fast enough.

  They charged the Up escalator, taking it two steps at a time. At the top, the first of them bounced off a woman who did not see them coming, and the other three almost piled into them. Instead, they dodged around their colleague and the woman, who was somewhat pregnant and was sprawled on the floor, and took off.

  The first man picked up the pregnant lady, with many apologies, ascertained that she was all right, startled but otherwise okay, and took off after his friends. She remembered a small plastic card with his face on it, dangling from a thin metal chain around his neck.

  The first man caught up with his colleagues as they trotted through the security metal detectors. They all waved their badges on their little chains at the security personnel and were waved through. Now they started sprinting down the long corridor leading to the arrival-departure gates, as if to make up for lost time.

  But instead of running down to any of the gates, they suddenly skidded to a stop in front of a door marked only by a small number “6,” someone remembered later, and, without knocking, charged in.

  Seconds later, the front four reemerged, bringing with them three very bewildered FAA officials, wearing plastic photo IDs but having no resemblance to pro-ball players. They were angry, and getting angrier as the hastily assembled group crowded around the airport tower entrance, fumbling in pockets for a passkey.

  Aireast 31, a 727, had stopped for thirty seconds, waiting out some surface traffic. Now she was moving again, heading right for the docking area 55A. Suddenly 31 hit its brakes and lurched once before stopping. The nose wheel began to shift hard to starboard.

  Guiding the aircraft to the concourse was a ground attendant, his flashsticks frozen above his head. The jet continued to starboard. Anxiously, the ground attendant waved his flashsticks. “This way, over here!”

  A.E. 31, totally ignoring the signal, pivoted full around and headed for a private section of runway, with blue flashing dead-end lights.

  Helpless, the attendant let his sticks sag, then shrugged over toward the baggage boys, who were peering up at the control tower for signs of life.

  Meanwhile, in another part of the airport—unaware of the unseemly hullabaloo taking place—Lacombe, the proximate cause of it all, landed. His military jet taxied off a main runway to a little-used parking area and stopped next to a black Cadillac limousine. The twin jet engines screamed to a stop, the door opened, and the slight Frenchman stepped, quickly but not hurriedly, down the metal steps, across the concrete, and into the back seat of the Cadillac.

  In the front seat of the limousine were a government driver in military dress and a man dressed in a business suit. Lacombe, in his austere, controlled manner, waved aside all preliminaries about his trip, etc., and asked, “They are prepared?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the man in the business suit.

  The driver moved the limousine farther away from the passenger terminal to an area where freight was stored for trans-shipment. Four other cars were already parked there, motors running, headlights off. As the Cadillac pulled up in front of the others, a car door opened and a young man emerge
d and trotted over.

  He leaned in the front window next to the driver, and said, “Monsieur Lacombe?” It was Laughlin.

  Inside Aireast 31, the wilted passengers—too tired to complain any more and too relieved at having landed in Indianapolis at long last—watched bleary-eyed as the forward door was opened by a stewardess and six large men crowded up the movable stairs that had been pushed up to the side of the plane, through the hatch and into the compartment. Two of the men, in business suits, disappeared into the flight crew’s cabin while the other four—dressed in unmatching slacks, ties and jackets, their plastic badges dangling over their ties—stood by the open door and in the aisle, as though to block any exit.

  By this time, all forty-four passengers had become more curious than tired, when the next thing they saw was their pilot, copilot, radio man, and flight engineer leaving the cockpit under the escort of the two men in business suits. Those passengers able to look out the starboard windows watched as their flight crew got into two waiting automobiles and were driven away. The men in suits came back up the stairs and into the plane again.

  Two of the unmatching men now started moving down the aisle, handing out little pencils and small IBM cards. As they did this, one of the men in suits asked a stewardess for the cabin microphone. She gave it to him. He pushed the speaker button and said, in the false, friendly tones of a public relations man, “Folks, I’m Jack DeForest, speaking to you on behalf of Air Force Research and Development Command, apologizing for the delay in your flight and personal schedules. We really want to get you all on your way just as soon as possible.

  “Okay,” he went on like a shipboard social director. “This is nobody’s fault, but during your flight, unknown to your pilot or Aireast Airlines, your aircraft accidentally passed through a restricted corridor where classified government testing was being conducted.”

  That got a reaction from the passengers: a series of grunts and muttered “I thought so’s.”