Part 4 (2/2)
The man silently held out a badge, and Randolph moved aside, gesturing him in.
”I didn't look at your badge close enough,” Randolph said as he closed the door behind his visitor. ”Who are you?”
”Narcotics squad,” the man said briefly. ”I was on the raid last night.”
”Oh? The one Bill Howard was talking about in his newscast?”
”Yes. That one. I don't figure there's any connection, and my boss just laughed when I suggested there was a connection.”
”Connection?”
”You see, I took a break from questioning those boys we pulled in.
Trying to get a lead to the higher-ups. They were doped to the ears, and sometimes you can get info from them right quick. I took a break for a cup of coffee across the street, and there was a TV in the place, and I watched your Bill Howard.
”I left just when your witches came on, shouting that thing about make it clean NOW. I went right back and started in on the questioning again, but the guy they brought in for me to question next was--not dopey. He was ... well, there's a difference between boys with the monkey on their back, and when there's no monkey. There was no monkey, but the kid began giving me everything he knew would take us to the higher-ups. It was being taped, of course, and I asked him when he'd had his last shot. Not twenty minutes before the raid, he said, calm as you please.
”I had the guys brought back that I'd talked to before and they were--different. Only way I can describe it is, no monkey. The monkey had been there before. I don't know. They each gave us all they had in leads--they'd been stubborn before, but they sang like canaries.
”I checked and n.o.body'd done anything to 'em to bring 'em off their jazz. If there's anything can be done to pull a guy out of a jazz, anyhow, I've never heard of it, and I've been in the narcotics squad since the year One. I couldn't figure it. I'd been hearing stories about Witch Products and that miracle at the Battery, sort of as a joke, and I thought, just maybe, just possibly, you know....
”Anyhow, I took the tapes to my boss, and spoke my bit, but he just laughed.
”Maybe you'll just laugh, too, but I thought I'd ask.”
At the same time in Was.h.i.+ngton, the cabinet was in full session.
Reports coming in from Formosa were worse than even the most pessimistic had dreamed. The bacteria hit at the nerves and the brain, and the victims--excruciating was a word being used.
”It's. .h.i.t everywhere on the island at once. I a.s.sume it is contagious as well as having been broadcast from whatever bombs or broadcast methods were used,” the CIA chief reported.
”Any word from their emba.s.sy?”
State answered that one. ”No word at all. Phone calls to the Amba.s.sador only elicit reports that he is not available. I can't reach anybody higher than a fourth a.s.sistant undersecretary.”
”At least it's not been on the air or in the press.”
”I don't know how long we can hold them in leash. Most of your leading papers know there's a twenty-four hour alert on--that was bound to leak--but I've kept them quiet. We'll have to give them something soon, though. They won't take a muzzle too long without at least knowing why.”
”Could you give them the story and trust them, when it's this important, and the consequences of leakage this apparent?”
”I'd thought of that. You can convince some newsmen--but there's always a Joe somewhere who figures the American people have a right to know their destiny before it's decided, no matter what the effect--and no matter if their most highly elected officials feel it would not be good for them.”
”Keep it top security as long as possible. Let me know before it breaks.”
”If I can. I'm not a witch. I might not know when it was breaking.”
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