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 nobody'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 Washington, 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 hit everywhere on the island at once. I assume 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 embassy?"

State answered that one. "No word at all. Phone calls to the
Ambassador only elicit reports that he is not available. I can't reach
anybody higher than a fourth assistant 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 kno