Fenêtre sur la peur

Depuis quand les jolies filles tombent-elles du ciel? s'exclama-t-il. Comme quoi on est jamais à l'abri d'un miracle.

Il sonde la nuit à travers la vitre de sa portière, son regard se perd dans l'immensité du désert que peine à éclairer la lune.
- On a gagné, et elle a perdu.

Refocusing his attention on his guest, he says, “The forecast is for twelve inches. Temperature will drop to the low twenties by nightfall. No wind yet, but it’s coming. Winter lingers on these plains. Have you experienced a storm in territory such as this?” “I’m a California boy. My experience of snow is entirely from TV and movies.”

In any crisis situation, the most important thing to do was get off the X, move, because if you weren’t moving away from the threat, someone with bad intentions was for damn sure moving closer to you.

In a conspiracy this radical, this bent on transforming America—indeed the world—the supreme leader, the self-appointed intellectual who inspired the loyalty of others, did not necessarily have to be the one with the most money. A fanatical passion for change and dominance might lift a man of modest means to that position.

This familiarity is received without the slightest stiffening or surprise. Honest men from honest families are at a disadvantage in this world of lies. The poor fool is as good as dead already.

The library contains twenty-five thousand volumes that Hollister inherited from his father. The old man was a lifelong reader of novels. But his son has no use for fiction. Wainwright Warwick Hollister is a realist from his epidermis to his marrow. Orenthal also read many works of philosophy, forever searching for the meaning of life. His son has no use for philosophy because he already knows the two words that give life its meaning: money and power. Only money and power can defend against the chaos of this world and ensure a life of pleasure. Those people whom he can’t buy, Hollister can destroy. People are tools, unless they decline to be used, whereupon they become merely obstructions that must be broken and quickly swept aside—or eliminated entirely.

Hollister était à l’évidence aussi équitable que ces araignées venimeuses capables de paralyser leurs proies avant de les dévorer vivantes. Quant à la chance, il existait un gouffre entre une chance sur cent et une chance sur mille.

Cet abri était très certainement une station d’écoute capable d’analyser les bruits qui seraient venus troubler la rumeur de la nature afin d’alerter les équipes de sécurité du ranch. La hutte devait avoir des petites sœurs disséminées à travers les bois.

Sans être aveugle dans cette forêt sombre, il distinguait à peine à quelques mètres de distance. Il avait l’impression d’avancer au milieu d’une armée de géants prêts à fondre sur lui, mais il lui fallait progresser le plus possible avant d’utiliser sa torche, de peur que Wayne Hollister soit tout proche. Il vit soudain se dresser devant lui une silhouette qui ne devait rien à la nature.