The Glory Hand by Paul, Sharon Boorstin

his

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    c.h.-c eyes, and yet he didn't black out. He could see he was hurtling towards the power station on Point Fear, racing towards a pylon, its girders upthrust like the stark fingers of a hand against the sky. Before he hit the black power cables that snaked to the tips of the steel fingers, a thought raced through him with its own electricity: had his father's vengeful wrath been wise and sane after all? Had he been right, all these years, that dark forces were gathering to dominate the earth?
    And he feared for Cassie Broyles.
    Then, all of a sudden, the warning that had been So terribly urgent for him to tell her seemed of no importance at all. The hang-glider rammed the high-tension lines, its aluminium spars glowing from the heat, igniting the fabric of the wings. Ten thousand volts of electricity jolted through Todd's body, jerking him like a marionette on a string, endowing his body with movements so lifelike that even the ospreys that wheeled nearby did not swoop in to tear at him with their hooked beaks. The hungry birds of prey would wait until the wind swept the smoldering corpse into the sea, before they devoured it.
    Chapter 7
    'Judging from the clientele,' Clay said as he scanned the group that had gathered at Gate 12 of the Boston Municipal Bus Terminal, 'Casmaran will probably have Gloria Van-derbilt sheets.'
    Runt unloaded Cassie's new aluminium footlocker from the trunk of the limousine on the curb and heaved it beside a dozen others that were scuffed and dented, plastered with blue Casmaran decals, as if they had made the same trip for countless summers. Girls in blue shorts and white Casmaran T-shirts were helping each other throw their luggage into the hold of the bus, while others leaned out of the windows, shouting out to late arrivals. They all know each other, Cassie thought. Old friends don't need to make new ones. She zipped up her hooded sweatshirt to hide the fact that she was wearing a Joffrey Ballet T-shirt instead of the one they wore. She had been admitted to Casmaran too late to order a camp T-shirt of her own.
    Clay read the anxiety on her face and put his arm around her. 'You'll meet some kids you like. I'm not worried about that. But the parents . . .' He frowned. 'That's another story.' He nodded towards the adults who stood in an uneasy line-up against a tile wall sprayed with graffiti. 'The president of Mobil . . .'He nodded towards a tall redhead with an expensive Nikon draped over her shoulder. 'And that used car salesman she's talking to is the Secretary of Defence . . .'
    'Dad. . .'
    'The blonde with the horn-rims . . . She's some kind of honcho in that think tank at MIT . . .'
    'I get the general idea.' Cassie hadn't recognized all the faces of the campers' parents, but their uniform was familiar enough: the mothers in silk blouses and Cartier tank watches, the fathers in bright Lacoste shirts, Brooks Brothers slacks, and hand-sewn loafers. At least her father, in his faded Levi's and sweatshirt, hadn't knuckled under to their 'casual chic,' she thought, even after ten years of wielding as much power as they had. 'Guess you'd better go over and shake a few hands,' she said.
    He considered it for a moment, then turned his back on them. 'To hell with it.'
    They walked across the main concourse where clusters of children in camp T-shirts ('Oiwassa,' 'Tegawitha,' 'Teela-Wooket') were piling onto buses in a noisy exodus, as if it were a crime to be under sixteen and caught in Boston for the summer.
    The humidity was stifling. Clay mopped his brow and led Cassie over to a bench where a sailor was asleep, a copy of Hustler over his face to shut out the glare of the fluorescent lights. 'Reminds me of the days when I used to take the ferry over from the island, then catch the bus up from the Cape. The 'Combat Zone' . . . that's what they used to call it in Boston . . . where the action was.' He glanced back at the Casmaran parents, who were chatting among themselves as if they were at