dead man.
More gunshots echoed from farther below. Horns honked.
Cars crashed. People screamed in voices full of incoherent fury. This
beautiful park, what the locals like to call God's country, had gone
mad.
It was the Devil's land, now.
Howard reached for his virgil. Who to call? The local cops were down
there shooting people. They needed help, and they needed it bad.
Sunday, June 12th Quantico, Virginia
Toni had come with him this time, and he was glad to have her here.
Along with Toni was Jay Gridley. It was seven p.m. on a Sunday, but
they wouldn't be going home tonight.
'All right, here is what we have so far,' Michaels said.
'It's still kind of sketchy. Late this afternoon, people inside what
appears to be a rough circle ten miles across and centered in the
Westmorland area of Portland, Oregon, went nuts. So far, there are
sixty-seven confirmed deaths--murders, self-defense, traffic and freak
accidents.
There have been hundreds of people hurt bad enough to require
hospitalization, and thousands more lesser injuries.
Whatever caused it seems to have stopped, but the city is in chaos. The
numbers of dead and injured keep climbing.'
'Lord, Lord. How is General Howard?' Jay asked.
Howard had been the one who'd called it in. He'd gotten hold of the
National Guard, then Michaels.
'He and his family are fine. They were apparently right at the outmost
edge of the phenomenon's effect. A couple hundred meters closer in,
and they'd have been in a lot more trouble. What have you got for
me?'
Jay said, 'If we assume this is coming from some very powerful
broadcast station, then it's a matter of figuring out which one, and
who is running it. I played a hunch and put in a call to HAARP, talked
to a guard there. They are supposedly on hiatus, except for some
calibration tests.'
'That's what Morrison told me,' Michaels said.
'Well, Morrison is up there right now running one of these tests. And
guess what--according to the guard's logs, he was running other
'calibrations' on the same days those two villages in China went
bonkers.'
'Jesus.'
'Yeah. Awful coincidental, ain't it?'
'Toni? What do you think?'
'I think maybe you ought pick up this Dr. Morrison for a serious
chat.'
Michaels nodded.
'I'll get a federal warrant and some marshals on the way.'
'You don't want to toss this one over the fence to the mainline feebs?'
Jay said.
'Not yet,' Michaels said.
'This looks like our mess.
