"If that man says anything else, waste him," the sergeant said.
"I think they're going to shoot me," Ray Flowers said, and the next moment the glass of his broadcast booth blew inward and he fell over his control panel. From somewhere there came a terrific feedback whine that spiraled up and up. The sergeant fired his entire clip into the control panel and the feedback cut off. The lights on the switchboard continued to blink.
"Okay," the sergeant said, turning around. "I want to get back to Carthage by one o'clock and I don't - "
Three of his men opened up on him simultaneously, one of them with a recoilless rifle that fired seventy gas-tipped slugs per second. The sergeant did a jigging, shuffling death-dance and then fell backward through the shattered remains of the broadcast booth's glass wall. One leg spasmed and his combat boot kicked shards of glass from the frame.
A PFC, pimples standing out in stark relief on his whey-colored face, burst into tears. The others only stood in stunned disbelief. The smell of cordite was heavy and sickening in the air.
"We scragged him!" the PFC cried hysterically. "Holy God, we done scragged Sergeant Peters!"
No one replied. Their faces were still dazed and uncomprehending, although later they would only wish they had done it sooner. All of this was some deadly game, but it wasn't their game.
The phone, which Ray Flowers had put in the amplifier cradle just before he died, gave out a series of squawks.
"Ray? You there, Ray?" The voice was tired, nasal. "I listen to your program all the time, me and my husband both, and we just wanted to say keep up the good work and don't let them bully you. Okay, Ray? Ray?... Ray?..."
COMMUNIQUE 234 ZONE 2 SECRET SCRAMBLE
FROM: LANDON ZONE 2 NEW YORK
TO: CREIGHTON COMMANDING
RE: OPERATION CARNIVAL
FOLLOWS: NEW YORK CORDON STILL OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF BODIES PROCEEDING CITY RELATIVELY QUIET X COVER STORY UNRAVELING FASTER THAN EXPECTED BUT SO FAR NOTHING WE CAN'T HANDLE FROM CITY POPULATION SUPERFLU IS KEEPING MOST OF THEM INSIDE XX NOW ESTIMATE THAT 50% OF TROOPS MANNING BARRICADES AT POINTS OF EGRESS/INGRESS note 1 NOW ILL W/SUPERFLU MOST TROOPS STILL CAPABLE OF ACTIVE DUTY AND PERFORMING WELL XXX THREE FIRES OUT OF CONTROL IN CITY HARLEM 7TH AVENUE SHEA STADIUM XXXX DESERTION FROM RANKS BECOMING A GREATER PROBLEM DESERTERS NOW BEING SUMMARILY SHOT XXXXX PERSONAL SUMMARY IS THAT SITUATION IS STILL VIABLE BUT DETERIORATING SLOWLY XXXXXX COMMUNICATION ENDS
LANDON ZONE 2 NEW YORK
In Boulder, Colorado, a rumor that the U.S. Meteorological Air Testing Center was really a biological warfare installation began to spread. The rumor was repeated on the air by a semidelirious Denver FM disc jockey. By 11 P.M. on the night of June 26, a vast, lemminglike exodus from Boulder had begun. A company of soldiers was sent out from Denver-Arvada to stop them, but it was like sending a man with a whisk-broom to clean out the Augean stables. Better than eleven thousand civilians - sick, scared, and with no other thought but to put as many miles between themselves and the Air Testing Center as possible - rolled over them. Thousands of other Boulderites fled to other points of the compass.
At quarter past eleven a shattering explosion lit the night at the Air Testing Center's location on Broadway. A young radical named Desmond Ramage had planted better than sixteen pounds of plastique, originally earmarked for various Midwestern courthouses and state legislatures, in the ATC lobby. The explosive was great; the timer was cruddy. Ramage was vaporized along with all sorts of harmless weather equipment and particle-for-particle pollution-measuring gadgets.
Meanwhile, the exodus from Boulder went on.
COMMUNIQUE 771 ZONE 6 SECRET SCRAMBLE
FROM: GARETH ZONE 6 LITTLE ROCK
TO: CREIGHTON COMMANDING
RE: OPERATION CARNIVAL
FOLLOWS: BRODSKY NEUTRALIZED REPEAT BRODSKY NEUTRALIZED HE WAS FOUND WORKING IN A STOREFRONT CLINIC HERE TRIED AND SUMMARILY EXECUTED FOR TREASON AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SOME OF THOSE BEING TREATED ATTEMPTED TO INTERFERE 14 CIVILIANS SHOT, 6 KILLED 3 OF MY MEN WOUNDED, NONE SERIOUSLY X ZONE 6 FORCES THIS AREA WORKING AT ONLY 40% CAPACITY ESTIMATE 25% OF THOSE STILL ON ACTIVE DUTY NOW ILL W/SUPERFLU 15% AWOL XX MOST SERIOUS INCIDENT IN REGARD TO CONTINGENCY PLAN F FOR FRANK XXX SERGEANT T.L. PETERS STATIONED CARTHAGE MO. ON EMERGENCY DUTY SPRINGFIELD MO. APPARENTLY ASSASSINATED BY OWN MEN XXXX OTHER INCIDENTS OF SIMILAR NATURE POSSIBLE BUT UNCONFIRMED SITUATION DETERIORATING RAPIDLY XXXXX COMMUNICATION ENDS