Warm wind smacked at them from the ruins and half-filled craters. In the distance, across the hazy sky, a row of transports moved slowly, inexorably. The men in the trucks were restless and irritable; they whacked their guns against the metal hull around them, spat over the edge, shaded their eyes against the bright sun and peered angrily at the gray wheel of marchers.
“It won’t be long,” McHaffie commented. The crowd was obediently forming behind the gray phalanx.
“How many do you figure are there?” Pratt asked.
“Thousands. Millions. I guess the big cheese is going to ride in his car while the others walk.” McHaffie indicated a parked limousine. “One of his rich backers gave that to him.”
“He’s supposed to be out front,” a reporter said, overhearing McHaffie. “According to the crap they put out, he’ll be right up there marching at the head.”
“I think he will,” Pratt said.
“You know anything about him?” the reporter demanded, his puffy face slack and avid at once. He was a typical Berlin newspaper man, in baggy tweeds, a pipe in his mouth, cynical and aloof.
“No,” Pratt said.
“Is it true Jones is an escaped con from the Bolivian forced labor camps?”
“I heard he used to be with a freak show,” the sergeant said. “He’s a mutant, one of those war-time sports.”
Pratt said nothing. His head ached from the glare and the dust blown by the dry wind. He wished things would hurry.
“Look,” the reporter said to McHaffie. “Let me ask you something. Those guys there. What is it, some sort of racket? What’s the story on this thing?”
“Get going,” McHaffie muttered.
“Isn’t it a racket? What’s Jones in it for? He’s got a lot of rich backers—right? He’s a minister or something. This is a cult—right? Rich people kick in money and a lot of swank clothes and cars and jewelry, he has all the babes he wants—right?”
Nobody answered.
Presently the reporter addressed himself to a tall thin cop, who stood pressed against the railing, his arms full of rocket-firing equipment. “Hey,” the reporter said softly. “Is this really a Fedgov stunt? To whip up interest in colonization? They going to spring a big immigration deal? Let me in on it.”
“Christ,” the reporter muttered plaintively, “I’m just trying to understand this thing. There must be an angle… I’m trying to figure out what he’s in it for.”
A short, red-faced cop swarmed up onto the truck, carrying telephone lines. “I’m glad I’m up here,” he panted to McHaffie. “That’s going to be a mess when they hit the blocks in town.”
The reporter put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Hey, friend,” he said, “what the hell is all this? What are those loons in this for?”
Catching his breath, the red-faced cop paused, “It’s not a racket.”
“Then what are they after? Give me the word.”
“If it was a racket we wouldn’t have any trouble. We could buy them off.”
“That’s interesting.” The reporter eyed him languidly. “You ever met this Jones?”
“No,” the red-faced cop admitted. “But my wife shook hands with him, once.” He added: “She’s a member.”
The reporter was incredulous. “No kidding?”
“She’s probably down there marching,”
“Take off,” McHaffie snapped at the red-faced policeman. “Report back to your unit.”
The cop obediently pushed to the back of the truck and leaped down onto the highway.
The reporter scratched a few notes on a pad of paper and then put it away. He eyed Pratt’s rifle curiously. “What’s that you got there, Dad?” he asked.
Pratt said nothing. He was feeling worse each minute, as the sun glared above them. His mouth was dry and acid. The touch of an ancient malaria shivered through him, bringing its weakness and chills. It was always this way, before a kill.
“That’s a wicked-looking hunk of metal,” the reporter observed. “You going to blow some guy’s head off with that?”
“Get out of here, you big-mouth bastard,” the thin cop grated, “before he blows your ass off with it.”
“Jesus,” the reporter said, “You guys are sure touchy.”
He edged toward the far side of the truck. “You’re as bad as those loons down there.”
Pratt wiped sweat from his upper lip and steadied the rifle against the side of the truck. The metal shone bright and hot in the furious heat. His eyes burned, and his legs were beginning to wobble. He wondered how long it would be before the gray started unwinding and flowing forward. Not long, probably.
“Let me use your glasses,” he said to McHaffie.
“Don’t drop them.” McHaffie passed the binoculars over; his hands were shaking. “Christ, this thing is getting me. If anything goes wrong, I’ll be in a labor camp along with them.”
Pratt gazed through the binoculars at the wheel of gray, with its dense and obedient mob packed in behind it. Jones had arrived. He was standing in front, conversing with the organization workers. Now the marchers were being formed in columns of ten; a long snake with its gray head on the edge of the highway and its body out among the ruins. The waiting marchers milled and pushed. Pratt could hear them, a thin constant din. They were shouting and yelling as loud as they could.
“Hear them?” he said to McHaffie.
“Give me back my glasses; I think they’re starting.”
“They’re not starting.” Pratt adjusted the focus-screw. There was his prey: the small, gaunt, familiar man, with his steel-rimmed glasses, unimpressive, unimportant-looking. That was Jones.
“Come on!” McHaffie shrieked. “Let’s have them!”
Pratt returned the binoculars. McHaffie quickly swept them up and refocussed them. “By God,” he whispered, “here they come. They’ve started.”
The columns of gray had moved onto the highway. The yelling, shouting crowd was creeping along behind them. Dogs barked furiously. Children ran back and forth in frenzied excitement. On the trucks, the weapons-police shuffled uneasily and raised their guns.
Jones, at the head of the columns, marched with jerky, uneven strides, directly down the center of the highway. A quick, mechanical pace, like a wound-up doll. Without the binoculars, Pratt could not make out his face; Jones was still a long way off. He grabbed up his rifle and threw off the safety catch. Raising it, he stood tense and expectant. Around him, those with guns were doing the same.
“Remember,” McHaffie muttered, “don’t fire. Let them past; let them beyond the barricade. Then get ready to close in.”
On one of the trucks a policeman teetered, then fell sprawling onto the highway. He rolled, quickly picked himself up, and scampered in panic for safety beyond the white rope.
“Bring up the first trucks,” McHaffie ordered into his phone.
The columns of marchers were moving past the barricade. Some of them glanced fearfully at the parked trucks, the crouching police.
“Get them up;” McHaffie screamed. “Start the motors, you jack asses!”
The first of the marchers had passed the barricade. Coming from Frankfurt was the first line of police tanks; the other jaw of the trap was closing. The marchers would never reach town. With shrieking roars, truck motors came to life. Driving around behind the marchers, the trucks flowed out onto the highway, cutting them off. Abruptly, the marchers halted. Roars of dismay rose above the thunder of motors. The columns broke and wavered; the long gray snake suddenly dissected itself. Those behind hesitated. Those ahead began to mill in confusion.
“They’re in,” McHaffie was tonelessly saying. “They’re between.”
The marchers were not moving forward. Jones had halted; he stood peering warily around. Like a little rat, Pratt thought. A dirty little yellow-toothed rat. He raised his rifle and aimed.
Now the whole crowd was in motion. The mass that had been heading up the highway split into aimless pieces, people hurrying in various directions, off the highway, through the rope; it made no difference. Fast-moving police cars were racing along the rim of the ruins, herding them back. It was chaos. Pratt paid no attention; he saw only the small, thin figure of Jones.
“You’re under arrest!” loudspeakers boomed. “Stop moving and stand still. You’re under Security arrest!”
Some of the people halted. Stricken faces turned upward; air-borne police units were landing. A group of organization toughs broke into life and raced toward a police team. Clubs swinging, the toughs crashed head-on into the waiting unit; a tangled mass of gray and brown struggled on the pavement. More marchers fled from the highway toward the ruins beyond. On foot, running police batted them down; clouds of thick dust rose, obscuring the scene. The air was filled with screams and crashing roars. A truck groaned, then slid gradually on its side. A wall of crazed fanatics had pushed it over. Aiming carefully, Pratt fired.
His bullet missed Jones entirely. Stunned, he threw the bolt and again raised the rifle. As he had fired, Jones miraculously, inexplicably, had stepped aside. A split second—it was incredible. Obviously, Jones had expected it.