Alas, Babylon Part 7

She watched the transformation in their faces. They had been grim, determined, irritated. Suddenly, they were only frightened. The woman whose husband was in London murmured, "Nothing north of Jacksonville? Why, that's awful. Do you think . . ."

"I've just told you all I know," Florence said. "I'm sorry. I can't take any messages. And nothing has come in, nothing for anybody." She pitied them. "Come back in a few hours. Maybe things will be better."

At a quarter to nine Edgar Quisenberry, the president of the bank, stepped into the Western Union office. His face was pink and shaven, he was dressed in a new blue suit, white handkerchief peeping from the breast pocket, and he wore, a correct dark blue tie. His manner was brisk, confident, and businesslike, which was the way a banker should behave in time of crisis. In his hand he carried a telegram, already typed up at the bank. "Good morning, Miss Wechek," he said, and smiled.

Florence was surprised. The bank was her best customer, and yet she rarely saw Edgar Quisenberry, in person, and she never before had seen him smile. "Good morning, Mr. Quisenberry," she said.

"Really can't say there's anything good about it," Edgar said. "Reminds me of Pearl Harbor Day. That bunch in Was.h.i.+ngton have been caught napping again. I'd like you to send this message for me-" he slid it across the counter-"the telephone seems to be out of order, temporarily, or I would have called."

She picked up the telegram. It was addressed to the Atlanta branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, and it read: "URGENTLY NEED DIRECTIVE ON HOW TO HANDLE CURRENT SITUATION." Florence said, "I've just received orders not to accept anything but official defense emergency messages, Mr. Quisenberry." Edgar's smile disappeared. "There isn't anything more official than the Federal Reserve Bank, Miss Wechek."

"Well, now I don't know about that, Mr. Quisenberry." "You'd better know, Miss Wechek. Not only is this message official, but in a defense emergency there isn't anything more important than maintaining the financial integrity of the community. You will get this message off right away, Miss Wechek." He looked up at the clock. "It is now thirteen to nine. I'm going to ask for a report on exactly how quickly this is delivered." Florence was fl.u.s.tered. She knew Edgar Quisenberry could make a great deal of trouble for her. However, Atlanta was far north of Jacksonville. She said, "We don't have any communication with any points north of Jacksonville, Mr. Quisenberry." "That's ridiculous!"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Quisenberry."

"Very well." Edgar s.n.a.t.c.hed the telegraph blank from the counter and revised the address. "There. Send it to the Jacksonville sub-branch."

Hesitating, Florence took the message and said, "I'll see if they'll accept it, Mr. Quisenberry."

"They'd better. I'll wait."

She sat down at the teleprinter, called in JX, and typed: "I HAVE MESSAGE FOR JX SUB-BRANCH OF FEDERAL RESERVE. SENDER IS EDGAR QUISENBERRY, PRESIDENT OF FIRST NATIONAL BANK. WILL YOU TAKE IT?"

JX replied: "IS IT AN OFFICIAL DEF . . ."

Florence blinked. For an instant it seemed that someone had flashed mirrored sunlight into her eyes. At the same instant, the message from JX stopped. "That's funny," she said. "Did you see anything, Mr. Quisenberry?"

"Nothing but a little flash of light. Where did it come from?" The teleprinter chattered again. "PK To CIRCUIT. BIG EXPLO-SION IN DIRECTION JX. WE CAN SEE MUSHROOM CLOUD." PK meant Palatka, a small town on the St. Johns south of Jacksonville.

Florence rose and walked to the counter with Edgar's message. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Quisenberry," she said, "but I can't send this. Jacksonville doesn't seem to be there any more."

Fort Repose's financial structure crumbled in a day.

During the winter season the First National was open on Sat.u.r.day mornings from nine until noon, and Edgar saw no reason why a war should interfere with banking hours. Like almost everyone else, he was awakened by the rumble of the first distant explosions, and he felt a thrill of fear when the siren on the firehouse let loose. He urged his wife, Henrietta, to make breakfast at once while he tried to put through a long distance call to Atlanta. When his phone made strange noises, and the operator would not respond, he listened to the scanty, thirty-second local news broadcasts. Hearing nothing that sounded immediately alarming for Fort Repose, he reminded Henrietta that nothing drastic had occurred afrer Pearl Harbor. On the Monday after Pearl Harbor there had been no runs, and no panic. Nevertheless, he could not force himself to finish his bacon and eggs. He left for the bank fifteen minutes earlier than usual.

But at the bank nothing was right. The phones weren't working there, either, and at eight-thirty, when his staff should have reported for work half his people hadn't shown up. At about the same time he noticed a line of depositors forming at the front entrance, and it was this that made him decide to send a wire to Federal Reserve. He had never received any instructions on what to do in an emergency of this kind, and, as a matter of fact, had never even considered it.

Western Union's failure to send his telegram worried Edgar somewhat, but he told himself that it was impossible that the enemy could have bombed all these big cities at once. It was probably some sort of mechanical trouble that would be cleared up before long, just as repairmen would soon have the Fort Repose phone system back in working order.

When the bank's doors opened at nine the people seemed orderly enough. It was true that everyone was withdrawing cash, and n.o.body making deposits. Edgar wasn't overly worried. There was almost a quarter million cash on hand, a far higher ratio of cash than regulations required, but consistent with his conservative principles.

In ten minutes Edgar's optimism dwindled. Mrs. Estes, his senior teller, turned over her cage to the bookkeeper and entered his office. "Mr. Quisenberry," she said, "these aren't ordinary withdrawals. These people are taking out everything-savings accounts and all."

"No reason for that," Edgar snapped. "They ought to know the bank is sound."

"May I suggest that we limit withdrawals? Let them take out enough so that each family can buy what's necessary in the emergency. In that way we can stay open until noon, and there won't be any panic. It'll protect the merchants, too."

Edgar was incensed by her effrontery, practically amounting to insubordination. "When you are president of this bank," he said, "then it will be up to you to make such decisions. But let me tell you something, Mrs. Estes. The only way to stop a run on a bank is to shovel out the cash. As soon as you do that, people regain confidence and the run stops."

"It's entirely different today, Mr. Quisenberry. Don't you see that? You have to a.s.sume some sort of leaders.h.i.+p or there's going to be a panic."

"Mrs. Estes, will you please return to your cage. I'll run the bank."

This was Edgar's first, and perhaps his vital error.

Corrigan, the mailman, came in and dropped a packet of letters on the secretarial desk. Edgar was heartened to see Corrigan. The good old U.S. government still functioned. "Neither rain nor snow nor dark of night," Edgar said, smiling.

"This is my last delivery," Corrigan said. "Planes and trains aren't running, and the truck didn't come in from Orlando this morning. This batch is from last night. We can accept outgoing mail but we don't guarantee when it will go out, if ever."

Corrigan left and wedged himself into a queue before one of the teller windows.

Paralysis of the United States mail was more of a shock to Edgar Quisenberry than anything that had occurred thus far. At last, he confessed to himself the impossible reality of the day. Realization did not come all at once. It could not, for his mind refused to a.s.similate it. He attempted to accept the probability that the Treasury in Was.h.i.+ngton, Wall Street, and Federal Reserve banks everywhere, all were now radioactive ash. No longer any clearinghouses or correspondent banks. He was sickened by the realization that a great part of his own a.s.sets-that is, the a.s.sets of his bank-were no longer a.s.sets at all. Of what use were Treasury bonds and notes when there was no Treasury? What good were the munic.i.p.al bonds of Tampa, Jacksonville, and Miami when there were no munic.i.p.alities? Who would straighten all this out, and how, and when? Who would tell him? Who would know? With all communications out, he could not even confer with fellow bankers in San Marco. He began to sweat. He took out his fountain pen and began jotting down figures on a scratch pad. If he could just get everything down in figures, they ought to balance. They always had.

Edgar's cas.h.i.+er came into the office and said, "We're not cas.h.i.+ng out-of-town checks, are we, Mr. Quisenberry?" "Certainly not! How can we cash out-of-town checks when we don't know whether a town's still there?" Edgar flinched, remembering that only yesterday he had cashed a big check for Randolph Bragg on an Omaha bank. Certainly Omaha, right in the center of the country, ought to be safe. Edgar had never given much thought to all the talk about rockets and missiles and such. He always prided himself on keeping his feet firmly on the ground, and examining the facts in a hardheaded, practical manner. And the facts, as he had publicly stated, were that Russia intended to defeat the United States by scaring us into an inflationary, socialistic depression, and not by tossing missiles at us. The country was basically sound and the Russians would never attack a basically sound country. And yet they had attacked, and if they could hit Florida they could hit Omaha-or anywhere.

His cas.h.i.+er, Mr. Pennyngton, a thin man with a veined nose and nervous stomach, a man given to fretting over detail, clasped his hands tightly together as if to prevent his fingers from flying off into s.p.a.ce. He asked another question, haltingly: "Mr. Quisenberry, what about travelers checks? Do we cash those?"

"No sir! Travelers checks are usually redeemed in New York, and between me and you, I don't think there'll be much left of New York."

"And what about government savings bonds, sir? There are some people in line who want to cash in their bonds."

Edgar hesitated. To refuse to cash government savings bonds was fiduciary sacrilege so awful that the possibility never before had entered his head. Yet here he was, faced with it. "No," he decided, "we don't cash any bonds. Tell those individuals that we won't cash any bonds until we find out where the government stands, or if."

The news that First National was refusing to honor travelers checks and government bonds spread through Fort Repose's tiny business section in a few minutes. The merchants, grocers, druggists, the proprietors of specialty shops and filling stations, deduced that if travelers checks and government bonds were worthless, then all checks would soon be worthless. Since opening their doors that morning, all sales records had been smashed. Everybody was buying everything, which to the shopkeepers was exhilarating as well as frightening. Most of them, from the first, had been cautious, refusing to accept out-of-town checks, except, of course, payroll and annuity and government pension checks, which everyone a.s.sumed were always as good as cash. When the bank acted, their first reaction was to regard all paper except currency as probably worthless.

Their next reaction was to race to the bank and attempt to convert their suddenly suspect paper a.s.sets into currency. Looking out through the office door, Edgar watched the queues in the lobby, hoping they would shorten. Instead, they lengthened. He called Mr. Pennyngton and together they checked the cash position. Incredibly, in a single hour it had been reduced to $145,000. If continued at this rate, the bank would be stripped of currency by eleven-thirty, and Edgar guessed that the rate of withdrawals would only increase. Edgar Quisenberry made his decision. He went into the four tellers' cages and, one by one, removed the cash drawers and carried them into the vault. He then closed and locked the vault. He walked back to the lobby, stepped up on a chair, and raised his hands. "Quiet please," he said.

At that moment, there were perhaps sixty people in the queues. They had been murmuring. They were silent.

"For the benefit of all depositors, I have been forced to order that the bank be temporarily closed," Edgar said.

They were all looking up at him. He was relieved to see Cappy Foracre, the Chief of Police, and another officer, turning people away from the door. Apparently, they had sensed there might be trouble. Yet Edgar saw no menace in the faces below. They looked confused and uncomprehending, dumb and ineffectual as cattle barred from the barn at nightfall. He said, "This temporary closing has been ordered by the government as an emergency measure." It was only a white lie. He was quite sure that had he been able to get in touch with Federal Reserve, this is the course that would have been advised.

His depositors continued to stare at him, as if expecting something more. He said, "I can a.s.sure you that your savings are safe. Remember, all deposits up to ten thousand dollars are insured by the government. The bank is sound and will be reopened as soon as the emergency is over. Thank you."

He stepped down and returned to his office, careful to maintain a businesslike and dignified att.i.tude. The people trickled out. He kept his staff busy until past noon balancing books and accounts. When all was in order, he advanced each employee a week's salary, in cash, and informed them that he would get in touch with them when they were needed. When all had left, and he was entirely alone, he felt relieved. He had saved the bank. His position was still liquid. Dollars were good, and the bank still had dollars. Since he was the bank, and the bank was his, this meant that he possessed the ready cash to survive personally any foreseeable period of economic chaos.

Edgar's calculations were not correct. He had forgotten the implacable law of scarcity.

Like most small towns, Fort Repose's food and drug supply was dependent upon daily or thrice weekly deliveries from warehouses in the larger cities. Each day tank trucks replenished its filling stations. For all other merchandise, it was dependent upon s.h.i.+pments by mail, express, and highway freight, from jobbers and manufacturers elsewhere. With the Red Alert, all these services halted entirely and at once. Like thousands of other towns and villages not directly seared by war, Fort Repose became an island. From that moment, its inhabitants would have to subsist on whatever was already within its boundaries, plus what they might scrounge from the countryside.

Provisions and supplies melted from the shelves. Gasoline drained steadily from the pumps. Closing of the First National failed to inhibit the buying rush. Before closing, the bank had injected an extra $100,000 in cash into the economy, unevenly distributed. And strangers appeared, eager to trade what was in their wallets for necessities of the moment and the future.

The people of Fort Repose had no way of knowing it, but establishments on the arterial highways leading down both coasts, and crisscrossing between the large cities, had swiftly been stripped of everything. From the time of the Red Alert, the highways had been jammed with carloads of refugees, seeking asylum they knew not where. The mushroom cloud over Miami emptied Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale. The tourists instinctively headed north on Route 1 and AlA, as frightened birds seek the nest. By nightfall, they would be stopped outside the radioactive shambles of Jacksonville. Some fled westward toward Tampa, to discover that Tampa had exploded in their face. The evacuation of Jacksonville, partially accomplished before missiles sought out the Navy Air complex, sent some of its people toward Savannah and Atlanta. Neither city existed. Others sped south, toward Orlando, to meet the evacuees from Orlando rus.h.i.+ng toward the holocaust in Jacksonville. When the authorities in Tallaha.s.see suspected that the fallout from Jacksonville, carried by the east wind, would blanket the state capital, they ordered evacuation. Some from Tallaha.s.see drove south on Route 27, toward Tampa, unaware that Tampa was no longer there.

This chaos did not result from a breakdown in Civil Defense. It was simply that Civil Defense, as a realistic buffer against thermonuclear war, did not exist. Evacuation zones for entire cities had never been publicly announced, out of fear of "spreading alarm." Only the families of military personnel knew what to do, and where to go and a.s.semble. Military secrecy forbade radio identification of those cities already destroyed, since this might be information for the enemy.

In Florida alone several hundred thousand families were on the move, few with provisions for more than one day and some with nothing at all except a car and money. So of necessity they were voracious and all-consuming as army ants. The roadside shops, restaurants, filling stations, bars, and juice stands along the four-lane highways were denuded of stocks, or put out a sign claiming so. Only the souvenir shacks, with their useless pink flamingos and tinted sh.e.l.ls, were not picked clean. This is why strangers, swinging off these barren highways, invaded Fort Repose and other little towns off the main traffic streams.

Those people in Fort Repose who remembered rationing from the second World War also remembered what goods had been in short supply, back in 'forty-two and 'forty-three, and bought accordingly. There were runs on tires, coffee, sugar, cigarettes, b.u.t.ter, the choicer cuts of beef, and nylon stockings. Some proprietors, realizing that these items were vanis.h.i.+ng, inst.i.tuted their own rationing systems.

The more thoughtful wives bought portable radios and extra batteries, candles, kerosene lanterns, matches, lighter fluid and flints, first-aid kits, and quant.i.ties of soap and toilet paper.

When news spread that armed convicts, escaped from road gangs, had been seen near the town; Beck's Hardware sold out of rifles, shotguns, pistols, and very nearly out of ammunition.

By afternoon the cash registers of Fort Repose were choked with currency, but many shelves and counters were bare and others nearly so. By afternoon the law of scarcity had condemned the dollar to degradation and contempt. Within a few more days the dollar, in Fort Repose, would be banished entirely as a medium of exchange, at least for the duration.

Sitting alone in his office, Edgar Quisenberry was aware of none of these facts, nor could his imagination antic.i.p.ate the dollar's fall, any more than he could have imagined the dissolution of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve System in the s.p.a.ce of a single hour. Methodically, he read through the last batch of mail. There was nothing of any great importance, except heartening items in the Kiplinger Letter, predicting another increase in FHA mortgage rates, and better retail business in the South during the Christmas season. Also, from Detroit there was notice of a ten percent stock dividend in automobile shares in his personal portfolio. He'd certainly got in on the ground floor of that one, he thought. He hoped nothing happened to Detroit, but he had a disquieting feeling that something would, or had.

At two o'clock, as always on Sat.u.r.days, he left the bank, first setting the time lock on the vault for eight-thirty Monday morning. His car was a black Cadillac, three years old. He recalled that during the last big war automobile production had halted. He decided that on Monday, or perhaps this very afternoon, he would drive to San Marco and see what sort of a trade he could make on a new Caddy. Henrietta would be pleased, and it would be a hedge against long disruption of the economy.

When he started the engine he saw that his gas was low, and on the way home stopped at Jerry Kling's service station. He was surprised that there was no line of cars waiting, as there had been early that morning. Then he saw the big cardboard sign with its emphatic red lettering: SORRY. NO MORE GAS.

Edgar honked and Jerry came out of the station, looking worn and limp. "Yes, Mr. Quisenberry?" Jerry said.

"That's just to keep away tourists and floaters and such, isn't it?" Edgar said.

"No, sir, I'm not only out of gas, I'm out of tires, spark plugs, batteries, thirty-weight oil, vulcanizing kits, drinks and candy, and low on everything else."

"I've got to have gas. I'm just about out."

"I should've put up that sign an hour after I opened. You know what, Mr. Quisenberry? I sold plumb out of tires before I got to thinking I needed new tires myself. I just let myself be charmed by that bell on the cash register. What a d.a.m.n fool! I've got nothing but money."

"I don't know that I can get home," Edgar said.

"I think we'll all be walking pretty soon, Mr. Quisenberry." Jerry sighed. "I'll tell you what I'll do. You're an old customer. I've got a drum stashed away in the stockroom. I'll let you have three gallons. Back that thing up by the ramp, so n.o.body'll see." When he had his three gallons, Edgar brought out his wallet and said, "How much?"

Jerry laughed and raised his hands in a gesture of repugnance. "Keep it! I don't want money. What the h.e.l.l's money good for? You can't drive it and you can't eat it and it won't even fix a flat."

Edgar drove on slowly, hunched over the wheel. He knew, vaguely, that in the Second World War the Greek drachma and Hungarian pengo had become utterly worthless. And in the War of the Revolution the s.h.i.+lling of the Continental Congress hadn't been worth, in the British phrase, a Continental d.a.m.n. But nothing like this had ever happened to the dollar. If the dollar was worthless, everything was worthless. There was a phrase he had heard a number of times, "the end of civilization as we know it." Now he knew what the phrase meant. It meant the end of money.

When Edgar reached home Henrietta's car was gone. He found a note in the salver on the hall table. It read: 1:30.

Edgar--tried to get you all morning but the phone is still out of order. The radio doesn't say much but I am frightened. Nevertheless, I am off to do the grocery shopping. I hope the stores aren't crowded. I do think that henceforth I will shop on Tuesdays or Wednesdays instead of Sat.u.r.days. Hadn't we better have both cars filled with gas? There may be a shortage. You remember how it was last time, with those silly A and B ration cards.

You didn't leave any money when you rushed off this morning, but I can always cash checks. It may be hard for a while, but life goes on.

HENRIETTA.

Edgar went up to the master bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. What a fool she was. Life goes on, she said. How could life go on with no Federal Reserve, no Treasury, no Wall Street, no bonds, no banks?

Henrietta didn't understand it at all. How could life go on if dollars were worthless? How could anybody live without dollars, or credit, or both? She didn't understand that the Bank had become only a heap of stone filled with worthless paper, so his credit would be no better than anybody's credit. If dollars were worthless then there was nothing they could buy. You couldn't even buy a ticket, say, to South America, and even if you could how would you get to an airport? Grocery shopping, indeed! How would they shop a week, or a month from now?

Henrietta was a fool. This was the end. Civilization was ended. Of one thing, Edgar was certain. He would not be crushed with the mob. He had been a banker all his life and that was the way he was going to die, a banker. He would not allow himself to be humiliated. He would not be reduced to begging gasoline or food, and be dragged down to the level of a probationary teller. He thought of all the notes outstanding that now would never be paid, and how his debtors must be chuckling. He scorned the improvident, and now the improvident would be just as good as the careful, the sound, the thrifty. Well, let them try to go on without dollars. He would not accept such a world.

He found the old, nickel-plated revolver, purchased by his father many years before, in the top drawer of his bureau. Edgar had never fired it. The bullets were green with mold and the ham mer rusted. He put it to his temple, wondering whether it would work. It did.

Chapter 6.

Always before, important events and dates had been marked in memory with definite labels, not only such days as Thanksgiving, New Year's, and Lincoln's Birthday, but Pearl Harbor Day, D-Day, VE-Day, VJ-Day, Income Tax Day. This December Sat.u.r.day, ever after, was known simply as The Day. That was sufficient. Everybody remembered exactly what they did and saw and said on The Day. People unconsciously were inclined to split time into two new periods, before The Day, and after The Day. Thus a man might say, "Before The Day I was an automobile dealer. Now I operate a trotline for catfish." Or a mother might boast, "Oh, yes, Oscar pa.s.sed his college boards. Of course that was before The Day." Or a younger mother say, "Hope was born after The Day, I wonder about her teeth."

This semantic device was not entirely original. Several generations of Southerners had referred to before and after "The War" without being required to explain what war. It seemed incongruous to call The Day a war-Russo-American, East-West, or World War III-because the war really was all over in a single day. Furthermore, n.o.body in the Western Hemisphere ever saw the face of a human enemy. Very few actually saw an enemy aircraft or submarine, and missiles appeared only on the most sensitive radar screens. Most of those who died in North America saw nothing at all, since they died in bed, in a millisecond slipping from sleep into deeper darkness. So the struggle was not against a human enemy, or for victory. The struggle, for those who survived The Day, was to survive the next.

This truth was not quickly or easily a.s.similated by Randy Bragg, although he was better prepared for it than most. It was totally outside his experience and without precedent in history.

On The Day itself, whatever else he might be doing, he was never beyond sound of a radio, awaiting the news that ought to accompany war-news of victories or defeats, mobilization, proclamations, declarations, a message from the President, words of leaders.h.i.+p, steadfastness and unity. Altogether, there were seven radios in the house. All of them were kept turned on except the clock-radio in Peyton's room where the child, her eyes lubricated and bandaged, slept with the help of Dan Gunn's sedatives.

Even when he ran up or down stairs, or discovered imperative duties outside, Randy carried his tiny transistor portable. Twice he left the grounds, once on a buying mission to town, again briefly to visit the McGoverns. The picture window on the river side of the McGovern home had been cracked by concussion, and this, rather than the more terrifying and deadly implications of The Day, had had a traumatic effect on Lavinia. She had been fed sleeping pills and put to bed. Lib and her father were functioning well, even bravely. Randy was relieved. He could not escape his primary duty, which was to his own family, his brother's wife and children. He could not devote his mind and energy to the protection of two houses at once.

Until midafternoon, Randy heard only the quavery and uninformative thirty-second broadcasts from WSMF.

Now he was downstairs, in the dining room with Helen. She had been making an inventory of necessities in the house, discovering a surprising number of items she considered essential, war or no war, which Randy had entirely forgotten. He was eating steak and vegetables-Helen, disapproving of his cannibal sandwiches, had insisted on cooking for him-and was.h.i.+ng it down with orange juice. Leaning back in the scarred, ma.s.sive captain's chair he relaxed for the first time since dawn. A weari- ness flowed upward from his throbbing legs. He had slept only two or three hours in the past thirty-six, and he knew that when he finished eating the fatigue would seep through his whole body, and it would be necessary to sleep again. Across the circular, waxed teak table, looking fresh and competent, Helen sipped a Scotch and checked what she called her "must" list. "One of us," she was saying, "has got to make another trip to town. I have to have detergent for the dishwasher and was.h.i.+ng machine, soap powder, paper napkins, toilet paper. We ought to have more candles and I wish I could get my hands on some more old-fas.h.i.+oned kerosene lamps. And, Randy, what about ammunition? I don't like to sound scary, but "

The radio, in an interval of silence between the local Conelrad broadcasts, suddenly squealed with an alien and powerful carrier wave. Then they heard a new voice. "This is your national Civil Defense Headquarters. . . ."

The front legs of Randy's chair hit the floor. He was wide awake again. The voice was familiar, the voice of a network newscaster, not one of the best known New York or Was.h.i.+ngton correspondents, but still recognizable, a strong and welcome voice connecting them with the world beyond the borders of Timucuan County. It continued: "All local Conelrad stations will please leave the air now, and whenever they hear this signal. This is an emergency clear channel network. If the signal strength is erratic, do not change stations. It is because the signal is rotated between a number of transmitters in order to prevent bombing by enemy aircraft. The next voice you hear will be that of the Acting Chief Executive of the United States, Mrs. Josephine Vanbruuker-Brown-"

Randy couldn't believe it. Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown was Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the President's Cabinet, or had been until this day.

Then they heard her Radcliffe-Boston voice. It was Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown, all right. She said: "Fellow countrymen. As all of you know by now, at dawn this morning this country, and our allies in the free world, were attacked without warning with thermonuclear and atomic weapons. Many of our great cities have been destroyed. Others have been contaminated, and their evacuation ordered. The toll of innocent lives taken on this new and darker day of infamy cannot as yet even be estimated."

These first sentences had been clearly and bravely spoken. Now her voice faltered, as if she found it difficult to say what it was now necessary to say. "The very fact that I speak to you as the Chief Executive of the nation must tell you much."

They heard her sob. "No President," Helen whispered.

"No Was.h.i.+ngton," Randy said. "I guess she was out of Was.h.i.+ngton, at home, or speaking somewhere, and wherever she lives-"

Randy hushed. Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown was talking again: "Our reprisal was swift, and, from the reports that have reached this command post, effective. The enemy has received terrible punishment. Several hundred of his missile and air bases, from the Chukchi Peninsula to the Baltic, and from Vladivostok to the Black Sea, have certainly been destroyed. The Navy has sunk or damaged at least a hundred submarines in North American waters.

"The United States has been badly hurt, but is by no means defeated.

"The battle goes on. Our reprisals continue.

"However, further enemy attacks must be expected. There is reason to believe that enemy air forces have not as yet been fully committed. We must be prepared to withstand heavy blows.

"As Chief Executive of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, I hereby declare a state of unlimited national emergency until such time as new elections are held, and Congress reconvenes.

"In the devastated areas, and in those other areas where normal functions of government cannot be carried out, I hereby declare martial law, to be administered by the Army. I appointed Lieutenant General George Hunneker Army Chief of Staff, and Director of Martial Law in the Zone of the Interior, which means within the forty-nine states.

"There have been grave dislocations of communications, of industrial, economic, and financial functions. I declare, effective at this moment, a moratorium on the payment of all debts, rents, taxes, interest, mortgages, insurance claims, and premiums, and all and any other financial obligations for the duration of the emergency.