THREE DAYS AFTER HE WAS MURDERED, RICHARD PRATT BEGAN TO FEEL MUCH BETTER...
A seemingly random act of violence propels Professor Richard Pratt into The Hereafter. It is a strange, muted, netherworld of the dead-a world in which he is forced to bear...
It may not be in the middle of nowhere, as they say, but you can certainly see it from there.
Located eighty-five miles west of Salt Lake City, the Dugway Proving Grounds is one of the largest military installations of its kind in the world. It encompasses more that twelve hundred square miles of desolate desert wilderness, and has one of the most tightly controlled security infrastructures in the world.
At the eastern edge of those twelve hundred square miles is the city of Dugway. Close to two thousand people live and work in this combination small town, army base, and research laboratory, in a location that is as isolated as any in the contiguous United States.
Less than a mile before the town and the research laboratories, on State Highway 199 (the only road into the base from the east), there is a security checkpoint. There is no wall or fence, but with concrete abutments, hidden armed guards and invisible aerial backup, the army ensures that no visitors will ever enter the town or the base uninvited.
The LDS Church of Dugway (better known as "the Dugway ward house") is just a quarter of a mile outside of this security perimeter. If you stand in front of the ward house and look to your left, you can see the guard station and its concrete barriers.
Each Sunday the Mormons living in Dugway parade out past the barricades for their devotions, where they hear their bishop speak of peace and love and good will among men. After the services, they parade back through the multiple layers of security and heavily armed guards, into a facility that researches some of the most deadly and terrifying weapons ever invented by man.
For make no mistake, the business of the Dugway Proving Grounds has always been the business of death. From their early studies of chemical and biological weapons in the midst of World War II, through the cold war, and up to the present day—the lethality of the bombs, nerve agents and other weapons studied in Dugway had grown steadily more horrific, steadily more terrifying.
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Command Sergeant Major Sutton Deary loved the desert. He felt at home in the dry vastness of it. He loved the isolation, and the loved the endless open skies. He loved that it was so unforgiving. And most of all, he loved that the desert, and the Dugway Proving Grounds, were both in the same business. His business. The business of death.
The little orphan boy who had survived the horrific car accident when he was just five years old was now the head of security for the West Desert Test Center—a complex of top secret labs several miles to the west of Dugway.
On this still dark Monday morning in June, Sutton Deary—also known as George Drouillard, also known as God, and also known by some simply as the Wanderer—was not in his office in the WDTC. Instead, he was parked behind the Mormon ward house, just a stone's throw from those daunting security checkpoints. And while he should have been reveling in anticipation for what was to come, his mind was troubled.
