“What is this floor made of?” the soldier asked, stamping his foot on the roof. Sam looked down at it.
“This is a new building so it must be one of the asbestos slurryes.”
“They are fireproof?” Finn asked, opening a valve on his tank.
“Yes, of course.”
“Very good.” He raised the flamethrower, waiting for the birds in the air to settle. They were disturbed by the strangers and by the sick birds lying below. The soldier watched steadily, nozzle pointed and his finger on the trigger, until all of the birds were down at the same time. He squeezed the trigger.
A roaring tongue of flame licked over the dovecote changing it from inert wood to a burning framework in an instant. One of the birds was caught in the air, a burning puff of fire that crashed to the roof.
“You’re murderers!” the young woman screeched as she came through the door behind them. She tried to clutch at Finn but Sam took her arms and held her immobile until she burst into tears and sagged against him. He let her slide down to the doorstep and touched her wrist lightly with his telltale. No, she didn’t have Rand’s disease, she was just one of the unfortunate bystanders so far. Perhaps the man in the ambulance was her husband.
There was a bubbling hiss as Finn sprayed the roof and the burning framework with his chemical fire extinguisher. While he kicked the smoking debris aside to make sure the flames were out he talked into his helmet radio, then rejoined Sam.
“I’ve reported in and they will send a decontamination team up here. We can go.” He was young, Sam realized, and was trying very hard not to look at the girl sobbing on the step.
When they came out of the building Killer had the ambulance waiting in front of the entrance with the car door open and the turbine throbbing.
“They got a riot,” he called out, “up by the Queens Midtown Tunnel entrance; it’s outta our district but they need all the help they can get. Dispatcher said to get up there.”
As usual Killer did his best to make the ponderous ambulance perform like a racing car, thundering it north on Park Avenue, then swinging into Twentieth Street. They drove with the windows closed, as ordered, and the odor of burned fuel was strong in the cab. When they passed Gramercy Park a decontamination team in sealed plastic suits was raking up the corpses of dead birds: a shotgun thudded under the trees and a tumbled ball of black feathers dropped to the ground.
“Poison grain, that’s what they been spreading,” Killer said, swinging into Third Avenue and pressing hard on the accelerator. “That gets most of them, and what the poison don’t get the shotguns do. It’s a real mess— Hey, look up ahead!”
A jam of unmoving cars filled the street, most of them empty now: two of them had crashed together and burned. A motorcycle policeman waved them over to the curb and leaned in the rolled-down window.
“They got some casualties down the plaza by the entrance at Thirty-sixth. You know where it is?” Killer flared his nostrils in silent contempt at this doubting question. “It’s quieter now, but keep your eyes open.” He pointed to the soldier’s flame-thrower. “You got a weapon besides that thing?” he asked.
“I am fully armed, Officer.” Finn swiveled in the seat and his recoilless.50 appeared in his hand.
“Yeah, well don’t point it at me, just keep it handy. There’s been trouble down here and there could be more. Take this tank up on the sidewalk, there’s room enough to get through.”
This was the kind of driving Killer enjoyed. He bumped up the curb and rolled down the sidewalk toward the plaza. There was the sound of shouting ahead, and racing motors, followed by a tremendous crash of breaking glass. A man ran around the corner toward them, his arms clutching a load of liquor bottles. When he saw the approaching ambulance he ran out in the street to go around it.
“A looter!” Killer said, curling his lip in disgust.
“He’s not our responsibility—” Sam said, then broke off as the man came closer. “Wait, stop him!”
Killer did this efficiently by throwing his door open just as the man was trying to pass. There was a thud and the crash of breaking bottles, then the ambulance braked to stop. They were so close to the wall that Sam had to vault the hood, jumping down by the fallen man who was on all fours, shaking his head in a welter of broken glass and spilled whiskey. Sam bent to look at his face then stepped back, pulling on isolation gloves.
“Stay in the cab,” he shouted. “He has it, an advanced case.”
Sam was looking into his bag, taking out a riot shot, and when he glanced up the broken bottle was coming down toward his face and Killer was howling a warning from the cab. It was a trained reflex that raised his arm to stop the blow, his forearm striking at the other’s wrist. The man was weak — how could he walk at all riddled with the cysts as he must be? — and could only swing again feebly. Sam kept a tight grip on the man’s wrist while he slapped him in the back of the neck with a riot shot. The stricken man began to sag at once and Sam had to drag him clear of the broken glass before he could let him fall to the ground. As swiftly as possible he administered the interferon shot and the prescribed antiseptic treatment. Killer had the upper bunk swung down and locked and Finn helped him swing the inert body up into it. When they moved forward again the UN soldier walked in front of the ambulance.
They could not reach Second Avenue because the crush of cars had pressed up onto the sidewalk and against the buildings there. Sam unshipped two of the lightweight magnesium stretchers and the emergency kit and, fully loaded, twisted his way behind the alert soldier toward the plaza by the tunnel entrance.
The riot was over and had left behind a score of wounded and dead. An airborne UN medical team had arrived with the soldiers in a big combat copter; it had landed in the roadway just before the tunnel entrance, and they were already tending the wounded. A blood-soaked policeman lay on the ground next to his patrol car and the drip in his arm led to the plasma bottle hung from the car’s rearview mirror. The soldiers had moved in quick-ly and aided the police in rounding up those of the battered rioters who had not escaped. Separated from the jam of the other cars was a still smoking and flame-seared panel truck. A police lieutenant near it saw Sam’s white jacket and waved him over.
“Anything to be done with this one, Doctor?” He pointed to the man crumpled on the front seat of the truck whose hand, spotted with dried blood, hung out of the window. Sam put down his burdens and pressed the telltale against the projecting wrist. Temperature seventy-eight, no pulse.
“He’s dead.” Sam put the instrument back into its case. “What happened here?”
“Just a crowd at first. We’re trying to control all traffic to the Island because most of the cases of plague are still coming from there. Make sure people live there or got business, and stop them from taking any birds out. That’s what set it off. There was a lot of horn-blowing and shouting, but nothing else until someone saw the sign PET SHOP on this truck and hauled the doors open. This poor slob had it full of birds from his shop, God knows what he thought he was doing with them. Someone shot him, they set the truck on fire, then they spotted a couple of guys with plague and after that I lost track until the Army arrived…”
“Doctor — over here!” Finn was waving and Sam saw that he was pointing to two men lying on a cleared patch of ground. They both had Rand’s disease. He began the prophylaxis and treatment at once.
Maximum capacity of the ambulance was eight and they had only four cases of Rand’s diseasae, but all of the conscious burn and wound cases refused to travel in the same machine. There was no point in arguing, so they carried in the unconscious policeman with the plasma drip and left the last three places empty. Killer backed skillfully up the street and; with siren wailing, they rushed back to Bellevue. On the way they received a radioed warning that the emergency wards were full and the operating rooms jammed: they went around to the main entrance, where volunteer stretcher-bearers from the clerical departments were waiting to carry the patients up to the just-evacuated maternity wards. The hospital was rapidly being filled to capacity.