Awesome,' the kid said. Then: 'I think I may hurl.'

Rusty handed him an emesis basin, in these circumstances known as a puke pan. 'Hurl in this. Faint and you're on your own.'

Benny didn't faint. He didn't hurl, either. Rusty was placing a sterile gauze sponge on the wound when there was a perfunctory knock at the door, followed by Ginny Tomlinson's head. 'Can I speak to you for a minute?'

Don't worry about me,' Benny said. 'I'm, like, freely radical.' Cheeky little bugger.

'In the hall, Rusty?' Ginny said. She didn't give the kid a glance.

Til be right back, Benny. Sit there and take it easy.'

'Chillaxin.'

Rusty followed Ginny out into the hall. 'Ambulance time?' he asked. Beyond Ginny, in the sunny waiting room, Benny's mother was looking grimly down at a paperback with a sweet-savage cover.

Ginny nodded. '119, at the Tarker's town line. There's another accident on the other town line—Motton—but I'm hearing everyone involved in that one is DATS.' Dead at the scene. 'Truck-plane collision. The plane was trying to land.'

'Are you shitting me?'

Alva Drake looked around, frowning, then went back to her paperback. Or at least to looking at it while she tried to decide if her husband would support her in grounding Benny until he was eighteen.

'This is an authentic no-shit situation,' Ginny said. 'I'm getting reports of other crashes, too—'

'Weird.'

'-but the guy out on the Tarker's town line is still alive. Rolled a delivery truck, I believe. Buzz, cuz. Twitch is waiting.'

'You'll finish the kid?'

'Yes. Go on, go.'

'Dr Rayburn?'

'Had patients in Stephens Memorial.' This was the Norway-South Paris hospital. 'He's on his way, Rusty. Go.'

He paused on his way out to tell Mrs Drake that Benny was fine. Alva did not seem overjoyed at the news, but thanked him. Dougie Twitchell—Twitch—was sitting on the bumper of the out-of-date ambulance Jim Rennie and his fellow selectmen kept not replacing, smoking a cigarette and taking some sun. He was holding a portable CB, and it was lively with talk: voices popping like corn and jumping all over each other.

'Put out that cancer-stick and let's get rolling,' Rusty said. 'You know where we're going, right?'

Twitch flipped the butt away. Despite his nickname, he was the calmest nurse Rusty had ever encountered, and that was saying a lot. 'I know what Gin-Gin told you—Tarker's-Chester's town line, right?'

'Yes. Overturned truck.'

'Yeah, well, plans have changed. We gotta go the other way.' He pointed to the southern horizon, where a thick black pillar of smoke was rising. 'Ever had a desire to see a crashed plane?'

'I have,' Rusty said. 'In the service. Two guys. You could have spread what was left on bread. That was plenty for me, pilgrim. Ginny says they're all dead out there, so why—'

xxxx70yyyy

'Maybe so, maybe no,' Twitch said, 'but now Perkins is down, and he might not be.'

'Chief Perkins?'

'The very same. I'm thinking the prognosis ain't good if the pacemaker blew right out of his chest—which is what Peter Randolph is claiming—but he's the Chief of Police. Fearless Leader.'

'Twitch. Buddy. A pacemaker can't blow like that. It's perfectly impossible.'

'Then maybe he is still alive, and we can do some good,' Twitch said. Halfway around the hood of the ambo, he took out his cigarettes.

'You're not smoking in the ambulance,' Rusty said.

Twitch looked at him sadly.

'Unless you share, that is.'

Twitch sighed and handed him the pack.

'Ah, Marlboros,' Rusty said. 'My very favorite OPs.'

"You slay me,' Twitch said.

They blew through the stoplight where Route 117 T'd into 119 at the center of town, siren blaring, both of them smoking like fiends (with the windows open, which was SOP), listening to the chatter from the radio. Rusty understood little of it, but he was clear on one thing: he was going to be working long past four o'clock.

'Man, I don't know what happened,'Twitch said, 'but there's this: we're gonna see a genuine aircraft crash site. Post-crash, true, biit beggars cannot be choosers.'

'Twitch, you're one sick canine.'

There was a lot of traffic, mostly headed south. A few of these folks might have legitimate errands, but Rusty thought most were human flies being drawn to the smell of blood. Twitch passed a line of four with no problem; the northbound lane of 119 was oddly empty.

'Look!' Twitch said, pointing. 'News chopper! We're gonna be on the six o'clock news, Big Rusty! Heroic paramedics fight to—'

But that was where Dougie Twitchell's flight of fancy ended. Ahead of them—at the accident site, Rusty presumed—the helicopter did a buttonhook. For a moment he could read the number 13 on its side and see the CBS eye. Then it exploded, raining down fire from the cloudless early afternoon sky.

Twitch cried out: 'Jesus, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!' And then, childishly, hurting Rusty's heart even in his shock: I take it back!

'I gotta go back,' Gendron said. He took off his Sea Dogs cap and wiped his bloody, grimy, pallid face with it. His nose had swollen until it looked like a giant's thumb. His eyes peered out of da—k circles. 'I'm sorry, but my schnozz is hurting like hell, and… well, I ain't as young as I used to be. Also…' He raised his arms and dropped them. They were facing each other, and Barbie would have taken the guy in his arms and given him a pat on the back, if it were possible.

'Shock to the system, isn't it?' he asked Gendron.

Gendron gave a bark of laughter. 'That copter was the final touch.' And they both looked toward the fresh column of smoke.

Barbie and Gendron had gone on from the accident site on 117 after making sure that the witnesses were getting help for Elsa Andrews, the sole survivor. At least she didn't seem badly hurt, although she was clearly heartbroken over the loss of her friend.

'Go on back, then. Slow. Take your time. Rest when you need to.'

'Pushing on?'

'Yes.'

'Still think you're gonna find the end of it?'

Barbie was silent for a moment. At first he'd been sure, but now—