Blowout by Byron L. Dorgan

Author:Byron L. Dorgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

34

GETTING OFF THE interstate and heading south on U.S. 85 at the small town of Belfield, Ashley had no idea what reception she was going to get when she showed up uninvited again at the Initiative, but if Nate Osborne was there no power on earth was going to stop her from storming the gates.

The turnoff was about ten miles farther south, and the night was pitch-black, no stars in an overcast sky, absolutely no traffic on the highway, but as soon as she bumped onto the gravel road—which had been kept primitive to discourage snoopers and hold down speculation about what might be back here—she could see the lights along the fence line, and a hint of the red flasher atop the Donna Marie smokestack several miles farther to the southwest.

She’d done a lot of traveling as a child with her father, as a college student on road trips during semesters, spring, and summer breaks—usually alone—and then as an investigative reporter running down story leads, also usually alone. And she did a lot of her best thinking on the road, always had. Without an audience she wasn’t afraid to examine her true inner feelings. One of her father’s favorite expressions was something like you can lie to just about anyone and get away with it, if you’re really good, but you can’t lie to yourself unless you’re pathological. And if truth be told now, and if she wasn’t lying to herself, she thought that she might be falling in love with the sheriff. In fact she might have been falling in love with him ever since the murders in the park. She’d thought that he was attractive and decisive, qualities she’d always liked in a man.

The light snow had let up, but the storm was expected to start hitting them sometime tomorrow. No big deal, this was December in North Dakota. But she was glad she’d decided to come back. She didn’t want to take a chance of getting stuck in Bismarck for Christmas.

She drove directly past the main gate and followed the gravel road the rest of the way west and then north, to the Donna Marie entrance. Almost immediately an Apache helicopter rose up from inside the Initiative and came at her, pacing her speed off her left side and just ten or fifteen feet off the deck.

“You are trespassing on government property,” a voice boomed from the chopper. “Turn around at once, or you will be subject to arrest.”

Ashley powered down her window and held her press pass out.

A spotlight switched on, flooding the entire truck with a light so intense that she was blinded and had to slow down to a crawl lest she was run off the road.

Her hand was freezing so she pulled it back inside.

A minute later the spotlight was switched off.

“Your visitor’s pass has been temporarily suspended,” the amplified voice boomed. “You will be required to show your identification at the gate, at which time you will be directed to return the way you came or you will be subject to arrest.

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