But there was none, only a click as the connection was automatically broken. The line was dead; he hung up and sighed. It was all very unsatisfying.

Manchek expected to be called back within a few minutes by Washington; he expected to receive many calls in the next few hours, and so remained at the phone. Yet he received no calls, for he did not know that the process he had initiated was automatic. Once mobilized, the Wildfire Alert would proceed ahead, and not be recalled for at least twelve hours.

Within ten minutes of Manchek's call, the following message clattered across the scrambled maximum-security cable Five minutes later, there was a second cable which named units of the nation: the men on the Wildfire team:

●●●●●●●●UNIT●●●●●●●●

TOP SECRET

CODE FOLLOWS

AS

CBW 9/9/234/435/6778/90

PULG COORDINATES DELTA 8997

MESSAGE FOLLOWS

AS

WILDFIRE ALERT HAS BEEN CALLED.

REPEAT WILDFIRE ALERT HAS BEEN

CALLED. COORDINATES TO READ

NASA/AMC/NSC COMB DEC.

TIME OF COMMAND TO READ

LL-59-07 ON DATE.

FURTHER NOTATIONS

AS

PRESS BLACKFACE

POTENTIAL DIRECTIVE 7-L2

ALERT STATUS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

END MESSAGE

●●●●●●●●

DISENGAGE

This was an automatic cable. Everything about it, including the announcement of a press blackout and a possible directive 7-12, was automatic, and followed from Manchek's call.

Five minutes later, there was a second cable which named the men on the Wildfire team:

●●●●●●●●UNIT●●●●●●●●

TOP SECRET

CODE FOLLOWS

AS

CBW 9/9/234/435/6778/900

MESSAGE FOLLOWS

AS

THE FOLLOWING MALE AMERICAN

CITIZENS ARE BEING PLACED

ON ZED KAPPA STATUS. PREVIOUS

TOP SECRET CLEARANCE HAS BEEN

CONFIRMED. THE NAMES ARE+

STONE, JEREMY ..81

LEAVITT, PETER ..04

BURTON, CHARLES .L51

CHRISTIANSENKRIKECANCEL THIS LINE CANCEL

TO READ AS

KIRKE, CHRISTIAN .142

HALL, MARK .L77

ACCORD THESE MEN ZED KAPPA

STATUS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

END MESSAGE END MESSAGE

In theory, this cable was also quite routine; its purpose was to name the five members who were being given Zed Kappa status, the code for "OK" status. Unfortunately, however, the machine misprinted one of the names, and failed to reread the entire message. (Normally, when one of the printout units of a secret trunk line miswrote part of a message, the entire message was rewritten, or else it was reread by the computer to certify its corrected form.)

The message was thus open to doubt. In Washington and elsewhere, a computer expert was called in to confirm the accuracy of the message, by what is called "reverse tracing." The Washington expert expressed grave concern about the validity of the message since the machine was printing out other minor mistakes, such as "L" when it meant "1."

The upshot of all this was that the first two names on the list were accorded status, while the rest were not, pending confirmation.

Allison Stone was tired. At her home in the hills overlooking the Stanford campus, she and her husband, the chairman of the Stanford bacteriology department, had held a party for fifteen couples, and everyone had stayed late. Mrs. Stone was annoyed: she had been raised in official Washington, where one's second cup of coffee, offered pointedly without cognac, was accepted as a signal to go home. Unfortunately, she thought, academics did not follow the rules. She had served the second cup of coffee hours ago, and everybody was still there.