Mary had to go back on duty as soon as the meeting was over. The Old Man collared me and took me for a walk. Yes, a walk, though we went only as far as the Baruch Memorial Bench. There he sat down, fiddled with his pipe, and stared into space. The day was as muggy as only Washington can get, but the park was almost deserted. People were not yet used to Schedule Bare Back.
He said, “Schedule Counter Blast starts at midnight.”
I said nothing; questioning him was useless.
Presently he added, “We swoop down on every relay station, broadcast station, newspaper office, and Western Union office in ‘Zone Red’.”
“Sounds good,” I answered. “How many men does it take?”
He did not answer; instead he said, “I don’t like it. I don’t like it a little bit.”
“Huh?”
“See here, bub—the President went on the channels and told everybody to peel off their shirts. We find that the message did not get through into infected territory. What’s the next logical development?”
I shrugged. “Schedule Counter Blast, I suppose.”
“That hasn’t happened yet. Think—it has been more than twenty-four hours: what should have happened and hasn’t?”
“Should I know?”
“You should, if you are ever going to amount to anything on your own. Here—” He handed me a combo key. “Scoot out to Kansas City and take a looksee. Stay away from comm stations, cops, and—shucks, you know their attack points better than I do. Stay away from them. Take a look at anything else. And don’t get caught.” He looked at his finger and added, “Be back here a half hour before midnight, or sooner. Get going.”
“A lot of time you allow me to case a whole city,” I complained. “It will take nearly three hours just to drive to Kansas City.”
“More than three hours,” he answered. “Don’t attract attention by picking up a ticket.”
“You know dam well I’m a careful driver.”
“Move.”
So I moved, stopping by the White House to pick up my kit. I wasted ten minutes convincing a new guard that I really had been there overnight and actually had possessions to pick up.
The combo was to the car we had come down in; I picked it up at Rock Creek Park platform. Traffic was light and I commented on it to the dispatcher as I handed in the combo. “Freight and commercial carriers are grounded,” he answered. “The emergency—you got a military clearance?”
I knew I could get one by phoning the Old Man, but bothering him about minutiae does not endear one to him. I said, “Check the number.”
He shrugged and slipped the combo in his machine. My hunch had been right; his eyebrows shot up and he handed it back. “How you rate!” he commented. “You must be the President’s fair-haired boy.”
He did not ask for my destination and I did not offer it. His machine probably broke into “Hail, Columbia!” when the Old Man’s number hit it.
Once launched, I set the controls for Kansas City at legal max and tried to think. The transponder beeped as radar beams hit it each time I slid from one control block into the next, but no faces appeared on the screen. Apparently the Old Man’s combo was good for the route, emergency or not.
I began to wonder what would happen when I slipped over into the red areas—and then realized what he had been driving at when he talked about “the next logical development”. Would the control net pass me on through into areas we knew darn well were infested by titans?
One tends to think of communications as meaning the line-of-sight channels and nothing else. But “communications” means all traffic of every sort, even dear old Aunt Mamie, headed for California with her head stuffed with gossip. The slugs had seized the channels and the President’s proclamation had not gotten through, or so we assumed—but news can’t be stopped that easily; such measures merely slow it down. Behind the Soviet Curtain Aunt Sonya does not go on long trips; it ain’t healthy. Ergo, if the slugs expected to retain control where they were, seizing the channels would be just their first step.