The Big Eye (11 page)

 

 

"God damn you, let me out!"

 

 

He slammed David in the face, ripped open the car door, ran out toward
the lobby of the Plaza. He had just passed the statue in the center of
the Plaza when a large sliver of glass whistled down and slanted into
him. He fell on his face, the blood gurgling from his body.

 

 

Carol!

 

 

David yelled her name above the awful roar. It vibrated on his lips as
he was shaken and tossed in the rear of the cab. She'd be inside the RCA
Building now, broadcasting in the studios at Radio City, nine blocks away.

 

 

And God knew what was happening within the buildings!

 

 

The marquee of the Savoy-Plaza broke off and hung at a crazy, limp angle
over the sidewalk.

 

 

The water mains on the avenue broke, sending geysers of water shooting
skyward. From somewhere far downtown there was a tremendous explosion,
and a great cone of smoke puffed straight up and mushroomed in a
swirling ball.

 

 

Glass was still falling out of the yawning windowpanes, slamming to
the road and disintegrating in a shower of slivers, till the road was
covered with it.

 

 

There was a single sharp tremor, and then suddenly the vibrating
stopped. The roar faded to a rumble, which rolled off in an uptown
direction.

 

 

It was still. It was over.

 

 

The driver and David stared at each other stupidly, white-faced, numb
with the shock.

 

 

Outside a single pane of glass fell from somewhere far up, splintered
in the road with a shattering report.

 

 

"They've started it," said the driver hoarsely. "It's the war -- they've
started it. Those Soviet bastards have started it."

 

 

He babbled on in the same vein, incoherently, still in shock,
half-hysterical.

 

 

A man ahead, lying in a pool of his own blood, screamed. People started
to pour from the entrances of the buildings, crazy with shock, shouting
at the top of their lungs uncontrollably, retching at the sight of those
who had been caught by flying glass, slipping and slithering over the
glass-covered sidewalks.

 

 

They were all running across the street toward the open, toward Central
Park.

 

 

The driver started his motor. He stepped on the gas; the car skidded on
the slippery pavement. He spun it around in the middle of the Plaza.

 

 

"Driver!" yelled David. "Driver, get me down to Radio City!"

 

 

"You're crazy," babbled the man. "You're creizy, mister. I'm heading for
the park, for the open. They may give it to us again any minute. It ain't
over yet. We'll get it again. I'm going for the park with everyone else!"

 

 

"But I've got to get to Radio City."

 

 

"Then walk, God damn it, walk!" the driver yelled savagely. "Get outa
my cab and walk!"

 

 

David opened the door. The driver, in his hurry to get to the park,
hardly slowed down the vehicle. David jumped, fell, cut his hand on a
piece of glass. He lay there for a moment, stunned, inert.

 

 

Then he looked at his hand. The blood was streaming from it, but luckily
it was a superficial cut. He bound it with his handkerchief, unsteadily
got to his feet.

 

 

Then he dazedly realized that he was without his briefcase. He had left
it in the taxi, and the cab was gone.

 

 

To hell with it, thought David. It doesn't matter now. It's too late
for that and everything else.

 

 

Vve got to find Carol.

 

 

He began to run down Fifth Avenue.

 

 

It was hard going, slippery going. The glass-covered pavement was
treacherous; he almost fell headlong twice. He dodged a number of
white-faced pedestrians running in the opposite direction toward the park,
heard others on the sidewalk and on the road, crying out, hurt.

 

 

But he did not stop.

 

 

He ran blindly through the spray of a spurting water main at Fifty-seventh
Street, came out drenched to the skin, moved past the once proud giants of
the most glamorous street in the world, Bonwit Teller's, Tailored Woman,
Cartier's, DePinna, all long closed, their plate windows shattered out.

 

 

At Best and Company he saw what appeared to be a group of victims,
all naked, flung crazily over the sidewalk. As he came nearer he saw
that they were display mannikins which had been stripped and left in
the window when the store had closed.

 

 

Saint Patrick's was windowless, but its doors were wide open, and people
were running inside for shelter, anywhere to get ofE the street.

 

 

David fought for air; his lungs ached as he ran doggedly on, turning
the corner into Fiftieth and Rockefeller Plaza.

 

 

A siren sounded, then another.

 

 

An Army truck came roaring up Fifth, its solid rubber wheels crunching
the thick carpet of broken glass. It was filled with goggled men in
monstrous costume: galoshes, gloves, coveralls, and masks. They were
hunched over small black boxes and listening to earphones.

 

 

This was the Radiological Squad, and these absurd gnomes were the
Geiger men.

 

 

The clang of ambulances added to the din; the special flying squads of
first-aid men began to roll up in trucks. These were the catastrophe
units of the Army, specifically designed for disaster action.

 

 

The wounded city began to swarm with mobile units carrying uniformed men;
it was obvious that the Army had taken over.

 

 

David came into the center of Rockefeller Plaza.

 

 

It was a weird sight.

 

 

The pavements were hidden by piles of jagged, broken glass. The towering
buildings surrounding the square -- the RCA Building, Time and Life,
Eastern Airlines, Associated Press -- all glowered down blindly, their
glass eyes gouged out.

 

 

The sunken rectangular plaza, which once had served as a skating rink
in winter and a cafe garden in summer, was like a box of broken glass.

 

 

The great statue of Prometheus, standing watch over the sunken plaza,
tilted crazily. David caught a glimpse of the legend:

 

 

Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire that has proved to
mortals a means to mighty ends.

 

 

David ran into the RCA Building, where the broadcasting studios were
located.

 

 

It was jammed with people milling around, herdlike, afraid to go
out, expecting another blow. They were white-faced, shouting, talking
hysterically. They had been lucky. They had been safe within the building,
and there was no apparent damage to the interior of the great corridor.

 

 

The babel rose and fell:

 

 

"Earthquake -- felt like an earthquake."

 

 

"Earthquake, hell! There's never been an earthquake in New York, not
even a tremor. There can't be. This town's built on solid rock!"

 

 

"It was the Reds! This is just the beginning!"

 

 

"Everybody said New York would get it first. Well, we have!"

 

 

"Must have been a bomb planted deep in the subway. Or maybe in the river."

 

 

"Tried to phone home. The phones are all dead."

 

 

"They may hit us again -- any minute now."

 

 

"God, what if this whole place is radioactive right now? Maybe it is.
Maybe we don't know it. If it is, we're done!"

 

 

"I could have got out. I could have got out a week ago. Bui like a damned
fool, I stayed."

 

 

"Charlie, we're done for. We're standing here and dying. It's the
radiation. It gets into the marrow of your bones, eats up the blood, gives
you tumors like cancer. God, we're standing here and taking it and dying!"

 

 

The place was alive with white helmeted military police trying to keep
the crowd in order.

 

 

David tried to get to the studio elevators. Only one was in operation,
and that was guarded by an MP. He flung David back.

 

 

"Better check with the sergeant at the information booth, buddy."

 

 

David told the sergeant that he was looking for a Carol Kenny, an actress
who, as far as he knew, had been broadcasting in some studio on the
upper floors.

 

 

The sergeant wasn't inclined to be of much help; he let David know that
he didn't have any time at the moment hunting up girl friends for a lot
of guys.

 

 

"Remember?" said the sergeant. "We just had a little trouble around here."

 

 

David suddenly recalled his priority. It had been countersigned
by General Hawthorne. He showed it to the sergeant, who immediately
became co-operative. He opened a tally book, ran a thick finger down
the last page.

 

 

"Carol Kenny. Yeah. She had a short rehearsal and then went out."

 

 

"She went out?"

 

 

"That's right. Just before this thing went off. With an announcer named
Ray Graves, it says here. Probably went out for cofiee or something.
They were due back for broadcast ten minutes ago, but I guess that's
out. They won't be broadcasting around here for a little while."

 

 

So Carol had gone out. Carol had gone out into the street. And that
deadly rain of glass . . .

 

 

David felt a little ill. He thought. Maybe nothing happened, maybe she
found shelter, maybe she's all right. Maybe . . .

 

 

He decided to wait.

 

 

An hour passed, and Carol did not show up.

 

 

He looked at his watch. It was almost noon. There was no way of finding
out what had happened to her, not the way things were now. And he had
to get back to Palomar. Something big was going on out there. The Old
Man was waiting for him.

 

 

He could only hope that Carol was all right, that she hadn't been caught
in the street, that she was alive.

 

 

David waited another fifteen minutes, then contacted the sergeant at the
information desk, told him that he had to get out to Idlewild Airport
and that it was an urgent matter of military importance.

 

 

The sergeant was very helpful now; the name of Matt Hawthorne was magic.
He escorted David through the Forty-ninth Street entrance, hailed an
Army car, gave the corporal driving it an order.

 

 

"Take this man to the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, Corporal." He turned
to David. "There's a staging point there for Army vehicles moving to
the island, sir. If you'll show your priority to the officer in charge
at the bridge, I'm sure you'll be able to get a hitch."

 

 

An hour later David walked into the terminal at Idlewild. He had just
reached the reservations counter when he heard:

 

 

"David!"

 

 

He whirled and saw Carol running toward him. Stunned, unable to believe
that it was she, he stood there, gaping foolishly. And then she was in
his arms.

 

 

"Carol, what happened? How did you get here?"

 

 

"Darling, darling, I thought I'd go out of my mind. I didn't know what
happened to you." She was crying on his shoulder. "All I knew was that
you were coming out here to the airport. But the) didn't have any record
of your leaving -- and I waited and waited, and finally I thought, back
in town, maybe you'd been hurt, maybe you were dead. Oh, David!"

 

 

It was a little while before she was coherent enough to tell him the rest.

 

 

"I'd just gone out for breakfast, David. With our announcer, Ray
Graves. We usually do that between rehearsal and broadcast on a morning
show. Anyway, we went over to Sixth Avenue, and we'd just gone into
the restaurant when it happened. Everything. After that I knew there
wouldn't be any broadcast or anything else. And I kept thinking of you.
You'd be out here at the airport, or on the way out. I had to meet you
then, to go out with you to California, and Ray -- Ray was wonderful.
First we went to his place to see if his wife was all right, and she
was. Then he drove me out here, went way up to the Triborough Bridge and
up the parkway, that way, because the Army wouldn't let any civilian cars
cross the Fifty-ninth. Oh, David, I was so afraid something had happened
to you. I've been here, waiting and waiting for -- well, it seems years!"

 

 

There was still the problem of getting a seat on a plane for Carol.
David had his reservation and priority, but the reservations clerk swore
that he couldn't assign another seat on the next plane going to the Coast.

 

 

At the last moment, however, there was a cancellation. One of the
passengers hadn't been able to make it, had been delayed in town for a
reason unknown. But it could be guessed at, and the guess was pretty grim.

 

 

At Chicago they had been delayed for three hours. Now it was just getting
dark as the stratocruiser glided across the Arizona border and began to
eat up the last lap to San Diego.

 

 

The radio was on in the lounge cabin, and an announcer was broadcasting
from a Chicago origin. Suddenly he was cut off, and an announcer from
New York came in, told his listeners that the transmitters were working
again from that city. The passengers in the cabin sat up and listened
as he gave them the first news fragments from the metropolis: