Connie pressed on. “They don’t need a shaft that size to send down a probe or a camera. And my source says there is a rail descending.”

Still no response. Then, when she was sure he’d decided to hang up: “What you are suggesting is impossible.”

“It’s not impossible, and you know it. You’re one of the people who warned that breaching the dome might be dangerous. You’re one of the reasons people are so scared of this thing.” Connie held her breath. Had she pushed too far?

“I was discussing various theoretical possibilities,” Stanevich huffed. “I am not responsible for the nonsense from the media.”

“Professor. I want you to discuss the theoretical possibilities of this. Of a nuclear weapon… Please. If it will release the children, then that’s one thing. But—”

“Of course it will not release the children.” He snorted a laugh into her ear. “It will do one of two things. Neither of them involves peacefully releasing the children inside.”

“The two things. What are they?” A highway patrol car pulled in and she gripped the phone hard. The car slid into a parking place. The patrolman looked at her. Recognizing her from TV?

“It depends,” Stanevich equivocated. “There are two theories of the so-called J waves. I won’t bore you with the details—you wouldn’t understand anyway.”

The patrolman got out. Stretched. Locked his car and went into the minimart.

“A nuclear device would release a great deal of energy. Which might overload the dome, might blow it up. Think of it as a hair dryer, let us say, yes, a hair dryer that runs on one-hundred-and-ten-volt electricity. And suddenly it is plugged into ten thousand volts.”

He sounded as detached as if he was lecturing a room full of undergraduates. Pleased with his hair dryer analogy.

“It would be blown apart. Combust.”

“Yes,” Connie said tersely. “Wouldn’t that also blow up everything nearby?”

“Oh, certainly,” Stanevich said. “Not the device itself, you understand, not if it is buried deep. But a twenty-mile-wide sphere that suddenly overloads? It would likely obliterate everything inside. And perhaps, depending on various factors, destroy an area around the dome.”

Connie’s stomach was in her throat. “You said two possibilities.”

“Ah,” Stanevich said. “The other is more interesting. It may be that the barrier is not overloaded. It may be that it can convert the energy. It may take the sudden release of energy and essentially store it. Soak it up like an incredibly efficient battery. Or, let us say, a sponge.” He made a dissatisfied sound. “It’s not a perfect analogy. No, far from it. Ah, here it is: the barrier’s energy signature is changing, yes? Weakening. So imagine a starving man who at last gets a good, healthy meal.”

“If this happens, the absorbing thing. What does that do to the barrier? Maybe it makes it easier to get through.”

“Or it strengthens it,” Stanevich said. “Alters it in ways we cannot yet predict. It will be fascinating, though. More than one PhD dissertation will result.”

Connie hung up the phone. She walked quickly to her car.

Her head was buzzing. Stanevich was as much an ass as when he’d been on CNN with her. But now his willingness to speculate was welcome, even if the details were horrifying.

There was time to stop this. She would make a public stink. She just had to figure out how to do it. Talk to the media, surely, but how to best bring pressure on the army and the government to stop this reckless madness?

She drove up the 101 and practically ran into a column of army vehicles coming toward her. Trucks. Flatbeds loaded with trailers.

Two miles from Perdido Beach she saw the flashing lights of police cars. A roadblock. They were diverting traffic off the highway, onto a side road, and sending it back south.

Connie pulled onto the shoulder and stopped, breathing hard. Of course they saw her. She couldn’t outrun them; the CHP would pull her over and wonder why she had run, and then there would be explanations demanded.

She pulled up to the roadblock. Highway patrol and army MPs were running the roadblock together. She knew the MPs.

She leaned out of the window. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Mrs. Temple,” the corporal said, “there’s been a bad chemical spill up the road. A truck carrying nerve agent.”

Connie stared into the young face of the corporal. “That’s your story?”

“Ma’am?”

“This road’s been closed for almost a year. And your story is that some trucker carrying deadly chemicals did what? Took a wrong turn and crashed?”

The MP’s lieutenant stepped up. “Mrs. Temple, it’s for your own safety. We’re pulling everything back until we figure out how to contain the spill.”

Connie laughed. This was their cover story? Was she supposed to believe them? It would be a strain to even pretend to believe them.

“Just take the side road here,” the lieutenant said, and pointed with a sort of karate-chop hand. Then, in a voice that was at once compassionate and hard, he added, “It’s not optional, ma’am. You know the Oceano County Airport? That’s the rendezvous. I’m sure the soldiers there will fill you in on all the details.”

TWENTY-NINE

10 HOURS, 27 MINUTES

SAM LEAPED FROM the top deck straight down onto the dock and raced toward the onrushing refugees.