Salvation. And not in some glorious tomorrow, not in the majestic heights of heaven. Salvation here.

I've got no notebook. No pencil. I squeeze my eyes shut, try to do the timeline work, put it together, see if this makes sense.

Sergeant Thunder got that stupid brochure last week and bartered away his worldly goods last week, but evacuation day was today-Culverson saw him today, out on his porch, waiting and waiting, miserable and forlorn. That was today.

"McConnell?"

"Yeah, buddy."

Cortez saw her waiting on her porch at let's call it 8:30 this morning, waiting for someone. Jeremy got there at nine or ten, desperate and excited, ready to make his lovesick plea, but Martha was gone. Long gone.

"McConnell, I need to make just one quick stop."

"What?"

"Or-it's okay-you can drop me off."

"Palace."

"I'll catch up with you. Leave me the address. I need to get to this pizza place."

"A pizza place?"

"It's called Rocky's. Up by Steeplegate Mall."

Officer McConnell is not slowing down.

"One quick stop, Trish." I lean forward and plead into the mesh, like a criminal, desperate, like a sinner to his confessor. "Please. One stop."

McConnell growls and goes full code, kicks on the lights and screamers and throws the Impala into a fishtailing U-turn, takes us a thousand miles an hour toward Rocky's Rock 'n' Bowl up by the mall. She veers onto the sidewalk to get around a thick mob milling about at the intersection of Loudon Road and Herndon Street. Half of them have big flashlights, most of them have handguns, and they're circled around a cluttered herd of shopping carts. One man in a leather jacket and motorcycle helmet is hanging from the top of a lamppost, shouting at them, instructions or warnings. I squint at the man as we race past-when I was a kid, he was our dentist.

As we slam to a stop outside Rocky's, I can see two distinct pyres radiating up from the different wings of the Steeplegate Mall.

"Minutes," says McConnell angrily. "This block will be on fire within five minutes."

"I know."

Kelli is waking, looking around, as I jump out of the car.

"I'm serious, McConnell," I call. "Go if you have to."

"I will," she says, shouting after me as I run toward the pizza place. "I'm going to."

The doors are closed and looped with chains. I'm wondering if it's too late, but I don't think it is. I think they're still in there, Martha and her father, Rocky. The city is on fire and they're huddled and waiting like Sergeant Thunder for salvation that is not coming. Huddled together in the center of that giant room, the vast space emptied of its valuables, everything turned over to the con: the wood-burning oven, the paintball guns and targets, the heavy appliances with their yards of copper and coolant and gas tanks.

I bang again, kick at the glass. Rocky and Martha in there, sitting, going crazy. They've been in there since this morning, since Rocky showed up to get her, today's the day, no more waiting around for your stupid runaway husband. Bad luck for Cortez that he happened to be there when Rocky arrived, time ticking away, in no mood to discuss a damn thing with anyone. He just needed his daughter, and he needed her now. Today was the big day-not a moment to waste.

I move to the left, along the wall of the building, occasionally pounding on one of the windows with the heel of my good hand. No chance of kicking open this door; it's thick Plexiglas. If Jeremy stopped by here after Martha's house, and I bet he did, he would have found another dead end, another place his true love had disappeared from. No wonder he went home and ate poison.

But they're in there. Waiting. I know they are. The world collapsing all around them and still waiting for the men who promised they would come.

"Hey?" I shout, slamming against the window. "Hey!"

I shield my eyes and try to peer through the tinted glass, but I can't see anything, and maybe they're not in here, maybe I've got it wrong. Martha's not here to be rescued and I'm risking my life and McConnell's and the kids', too, for nothing. I glance back over my shoulder and I can see Trish glaring from the driver's seat. I hope she does, I hope she goes, takes her children and my dog and abandons me for safety.

It's hot, it's so hot, even in the middle of the night, the black summer night tinted by the crazy oranges and yellows of the fires.

I yell their names again-Rocky! Martha!-but there must be one more code word, a shibboleth they memorized at the behest of the smooth-talking salesmen from the World Beyond, something they're expecting to hear when the nice men from the rescue convoy roll up in their black cars and jumpsuits. I turn around. McConnell is still sitting there. I jab one finger in the air and I whirl it around, a little piece of police sign language, and in case she can't see me or doesn't understand, I yell it: "Lights, McConnell," I holler. "Turn on the lights."

McConnell turns on the lights. They spin on the top of the car, the classic cop-show colors, blue reflecting on black. It's a cruel trick, but I need Martha out here. I need her to come out and you can't tell a trooper car from a CPD Impala, not from inside a dark restaurant. And it works. She sees what she wants to see, just like she did in her dream. The door slams open and she races out, flies toward the car.

"Martha."

But she doesn't wait; she races past me to the police car, stares into the windows. I see McConnell up front and Kelli in the backseat, jerking backward, away from the desperate phantom at the window. He's not in there and she spins around as Rocky Milano comes lumbering out to retrieve her. He's out of his apron, in a sweat suit, his bald forehead red and dripping with sweat.

Martha runs back toward me, whipping her head one way and another, her cheeks flushed. Her pale eyes are wide with need. "Where is-where is he?"

"Martha-"

"Where is he?" cries Martha, lunging at me across the lot.

I don't know what to say, how much of the story is worth telling. A kid was obsessed with you. He tricked your husband into leaving. Your husband went on a madman's crusade. He was shot and he died in a field by a beach.

"Where is he?"

"Martha, get inside," says Rocky. "It's dangerous out here."

"That's right," I say. "Time to go."

Rocky peers at me like a stranger. Barely recognizes me. He's focused on the next step of his life, on cashing in the promise of escape he's been given-for himself and his daughter and for his son-in-law, too, until Brett's mysterious disappearance. I wonder if he asked the World Beyond people for that special: "Hey can this guy get in there, too? My daughter won't come without him." I wonder if the hucksters hemmed and hawed and finally agreed, no skin off their backs, peddling one more nonexistent spot in their nonexistent underground compound.

"Where's Brett, Henry?" says poor Martha, and I just tell her, I say, "He's dead," and she collapses to the ground on her knees, buries her face in her hands and wails, one long keening senseless syllable. That's the end of the world right there for Martha Milano.

"Sweetheart?" Rocky is all business, heaving her up by the armpits and clasping her with his big hands. "It's okay. We're going to mourn him, but we're going to move on. Come on. We're moving on."

He's dragging her back toward the building, which will be on fire any minute now. McConnell honks the horn. But I can't leave. I can't leave her here. I can't let her die.

"Martha," I call. "You were right. There was no other woman. He was-he was doing God's work."

Martha pulls away from her father. She looks at me, and then up at the sky, at the asteroid, maybe, or at God. "He was?"

"He was." I take a step toward Martha, but Rocky grabs her again.

"Enough," he says roughly. "We need to get inside and wait securely until they come."

"They're not coming," I say, to him, to her. "No one's coming."

"What? What the hell do you know?" Rocky steps toward me, veins bulging on his forehead.

But he understands-he's got to understand-some part of him must surely understand. Whatever time they told him the convoy would arrive, that time has long since passed. Even old Sergeant Thunder let himself admit it many hours ago.

I keep my voice calm and even, authoritative, as much for Martha's benefit as for Rocky's. "There is no such thing as the World Beyond. You've fallen prey to a con artist. No one is coming."

"Bullshit," says Rocky, pushing his hand into my chest, rolling me back on my heels. "Bull. Shit." He turns to Martha, grinning uneasily. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I did everything these people asked. Everything."

There's a rolling crash behind us, and everybody turns: it's the roof of the Steeplegate Mall, just across the parking lot, caving in with a series of splintering cracks. McConnell leans on the horn and I wheel around and shout, "I'm coming, here I come," and then I reach for Martha again, hold open my hand to her.

"Martha."

"No," says Rocky. "They're coming. They're fucking coming. We have a contract."

A contract. This is what he's got and he's going to stand on it. No shaking him loose. No making him see sense, because now, at this pass, this is sense. This is what's left of sense. And the helicopter did come for Nico, that is true, that did happen, and maybe Jesus Man really went to Jesus, and maybe this convoy is different from the one that didn't come for Sergeant Thunder: Maybe it's just up the road, maybe it's a con and maybe it's not. Nothing-nothing-nothing can be counted on, nothing is certain.

"Stay," I say to Rocky. "But let Martha go."

He shakes his head, starts to speak, but Martha interrupts him, suddenly composed, calm, clear as daylight. "Go?" she says. "Go where?"

That I cannot answer. The woman is waiting in a burning parking lot for an imaginary line of cars, and I have no better option for her. McConnell's country cop shop is not mine to offer. My own house was stripped from boards to beams. The world is running out of safe places.

"Thank you, Henry," says Martha Milano, and leans forward and kisses me gently, leaving the barest trace of lip gloss on my cheek. I raise one hand to touch the spot with two fingers. She's gone already, clutching her father's solid arm as he leads her back inside to wait for doomsday.

"I'm so sorry, McConnell," I say, as I dive back into the Impala. "Let's go."

We all hear it at the same time. It's the middle of the night and the house comes to life, cops rolling out of bed or leaping off mattresses, jamming guns into the waistbands of sweatpants; cops sticking their heads into the bedrooms crowded with kids, whispering "stay where you are, guys" and "everything's fine"; cops streaming outside to back up Officers Melwyn and Kelly, who are on porch duty tonight and are therefore the commanding officers on the scene, per our agreed-upon rules of engagement.

"Three sharp crashes," barks Officer Melwyn, holding his Beretta up against his chest, addressing the group. "On the property or just over the line."

"We need a team for the south lawn," says Officer Kelly, everybody nodding, weapons drawn. I'm carrying a SIG Sauer now, the same handgun I used to carry on patrol. We're breaking into clusters, getting ready to move, when we all hear the noise again: a loud crashing, like metal on metal, and everybody freezes.

"It's a bear," says Officer McConnell.

"What?" whispers Melwyn.

"Look. Bear."

We all look, the group of us, a crowd of cops on a porch in the western woods of Massachusetts at two, maybe three o'clock in the morning, flooded with adrenaline and staring at the massive lumbering figure of a brown bear pawing at the door of the shed. It's one of our several outbuildings, and it houses blocks of ice, barrels of raw sugar and salt and dried oats, boxes full of iodine tablets and bleach, stores of ammunition and a few pounds of explosives. For a second we are all paralyzed, awed by the burly majesty of the bear. It gives up on the padlocked shed and lopes across the lawn, making its shaggy way back toward the surrounding brush.

"Beautiful," whispers McConnell.

"Yeah," I say.

"We should shoot it," says Capshaw.

No one objects. Officer Capshaw steps down off the porch, a big man with a moon of a head and a buzzed scalp. He aims a rifle in the moonlight and brings down the bear with two quick shots, pop, pop.

Volunteers are asked for to skin and dress the bear, and the rest of us go back to bed.

What the children decided, after much debate and discussion, was that the big converted-barn country house in Furman, almost at the New York state line, should just be called Police House. Some of the younger kids spent a whole afternoon in secret, in the area of the barn designed for arts and crafts, painting an elaborate sign for Police House, with golden badges, arcing rainbows, peace signs, and sparkling silver stars. Among the adults there was intense debate, much to the children's consternation, about the wisdom of hanging such a colorful display above the eaves of what is, after all, a hideout. I was among the most skeptical. Trish, however, took the kids' side: "It's not like we're inconspicuous anyway, right?"

We are nineteen adults and thirteen kids altogether: all policemen and policewomen and police spouses and the children of police, plus three members of the support staff, including Rod Duncan, the saturnine but beloved ex-con who served as the CPD janitor for twenty-nine years. The children range in age from four to fifteen. Houdini is not the only pet: there are two cats, one rabbit, and a goldfish bowl that was transported effortfully by Officer Rogers' nine-year-old twins, balanced on laps for two hundred forty miles at ninety miles an hour. There is also a massive sheepdog named Alexander, the property of a patrolwoman named Rhonda Carstairs. Alexander is a shambling old creature with watery eyes and a befuddled expression who, despite being ten times Houdini's size, follows my dog around like an aide-de-camp.

Despite the size of the house and its attendant outbuildings, sleeping space is limited, and at some point Officer McConnell and I made the mutual decision, with very little discussion, to share a bedroom. I asked her if she felt it was important to have a conversation with Kelli and Robbie about this, maybe offer some delicate explanation of the change, but Officer McConnell said no.

"They like you," she says. "They're happy."

"Are you happy?" I say.

"Well, shit." She leans against my torso. "As happy as it's gonna get. How's the arm?"

"I can feel it. When I poke it, it hurts."

"So stop poking it."

This was a Saturday morning, last Saturday-we were standing on the porch watching Kelli and two of the other kids on an improvised parade, with Houdini yipping along beside them like he was Secret Service protection, Alexander shambling behind.

Officer Capshaw and I are the guards on duty, and he is in the woods just past the property line, urinating against a tree, when a slow-moving vehicle appears in the distance, a dim bobbling light a hundred yards or so down the one narrow lane that approaches the house.

I stand up. Houdini stands up, too, tail at a sharp angle, snout pointed out toward the road, toward the strange noise we're hearing now: the unmistakable clip-clop of hooves along the roadway.

Houdini barks. "I know," I say. "I know."

It's a horse and carriage, appearing out of the darkness as if from the pages of a fairy tale, rattling along the graveled county road toward the house. Perched on the seat is Cortez, grinning, in a top hat, holding the reins of a speckled mare with comical gentility.

"Oh, hello," he says, reins in the horse and tips his hat. He's wearing his hair in a loose ponytail, like Thomas Jefferson.

I keep the gun raised. "How did you find me here?"

"You don't want to know how I got the carriage and the horse?"

"I want to know how you found me."

"Fine." Cortez climbs out of his gig and tosses the top hat onto the porch, as if he's been living here all along and is very happy to be home. "But the horse story is better."

"Keep your hands where I can see them, please."

He sighs and obeys, and I ask him again for the story. Turns out there's a young officer named Martin Porter who was part of the original Furman-house plan but dropped out when he met a girl in Concord who wanted to go to Atlantic City because she'd heard about a countdown party getting going down there. Cortez knew Porter because Porter had a bunch of crystal meth he'd gotten from the evidence room before it was sealed, and Cortez had been selling it for him, fifty-fifty split, to some beach junkies on the Seacoast.