spew out red lights, and the tail-ends of their trains were disappearing to the east.
Hoshawk shuddered as he saw that now America was completely defenseless.
But Wadsworth spoke into his transmitter. “Radio. Give me special frequency three-hundred-eighty-one thousand, six hundred kilocycles. Clear all airlines.”
“Yes, sire.”
The President pressed the scrambler button and then spoke. The words came out of the amplifier. “Three tons of butter unloaded a fast curve day before tomorrow because the baby was yelling for its morning highball. The soapsuds are thick enough for whipping but who knows where or when.”
The President leaned back and smiled. “That’s an order to all sixteen thousand mutants over the country to be on the alert at their predetermined stations.”
Hoshawk frowned. “But everybody’s been evacuated.”
“Not the mutants. You see General, we ourselves haven’t trusted Forgacs.”
Hoshawk’s grim face lighted up. “Do you mean you have secretly made some fighting equipment?”
Wadsworth shook his head. “No. We could have. There’s a loophole in the Twenty-one Eighteen Agreement. But we have observed the spirit—ah!”
Up on the ground-glass screen, purple lights had been flashing on at intervals over the United States, until now there were nineteen, and