Crazy

The telephone made that sound again. Kind of a dry rattle followed briefly by an expectant buzz.
"Still there, Mrs. Hill?"
"Yes. Yes, I'm here."
"We aren't showing that name anywhere on file, ma'am. I'm sorry."
"Can you check again, please? I don't know why it wouldn't be there."
"It's not a large facility, ma'am. Our records show no evidence of a radar operator stationed in Solemn Pines at all."
"At all? That's impossible. What about Elmo Banks and Jake Morales? John's been working with those two for months now."
"No ma'am, no radar personnel. System shows that's an ammo dump anyhow. Staff roster for a minimal guard detail: lance corporal and an E3 Anderson. Apparently Anderson's been using up sick leave recently..."
"Ridiculous! I've lived here for a full year this month, and everyone knows the facility at the edge of town in a listenning post. Why would the government store munitions out here, anyway? Have you looked at a map? Could it be possible, maybe, that the system's screwed up?"
"I doubt it, ma'am, it's rarely wrong. I could connect you directly if it'd help you, though."
"I tried calling already. The line's down."
"If you have clearance, then, you could drive out in person. Otherwise, I'm not really sure what more I can tell you."

Niether did Thea, so she hung up the phone and tried hard not to blow a fuse. The sheer frustration of the thing was ungodly. She knew she was married to a real person and that that significantly real person, one Pfc. Johnson Elias Hill worked as a radar operator at the U.S. Air Force deep monitorring facility in Solemn Pines, Alaska; had done so for almost a year. She knew that neither she nor anyone she'd talked to so far had seen him for the last 36 hours and, apparently, that in that time everything about him'd been erased. She also knew that it was Tuesday, that the whether was characteristically shitty, and that she'd be late for work if she drove out to the station, but she knew she'd do that anyway, of course, and suspected she'd be tailed, as she had been since Johnny disappeared, by the grey Lincoln towncar down the street, the brooding end of a cigarette burning from the passenger seat the only wan sign of life from the inside.