The owner had at first refused payment, then taken only the wholesale cost. At the last minute he had given each of them a long hunting knife. "You were in Argentina, eh? You can use these. Give 'em what-for, boys." They had offered to take him with them. "I stick," he'd said. "This is my store."
They looked up and down the street. There were more people now, and the worst faction was evident—the looters, the sly lurkers who stole from the dead and exhausted and mad, the bestial men on the prowl for women, the ones who had gone lunatic and were bent on senseless destruction. A policeman, his uniform bloody, came toward them as they handed the guns into the station wagon; suddenly he whipped out his pistol and fired. A teen-aged boy came flopping and shrieking out of a store window, where he had been filling his pockets with candy and jacknives and junk. The cop came abreast of them, his eyes lit with insane anger. Brave reached out and hit him on the jaw and he fell. "There was no call to shoot that kid," said Brave. He picked up the pistol and threw it into a drain. From up and down Broadway came scattered yells and sounds of gunfire.
They got into the wagon and Brave drove down to 57th Street. There was a mob of maddened men who fought each other and ran howling toward the car when they saw it. "Turn right," said Jim urgently. "There's a little independent radio station about two blocks away. With luck we can get in—and out to the rest of the country. Unless that damned bomb smashed the place." They drew quickly away from the mob, which went back to fighting among themselves.
They found the station apparently safe; many of the smaller buildings here had been protected by the larger from the force of the blast. With Don left to guard the wagon and guns, they ran into the place. The elevators had stopped. The men, with Win, trotted up four flights, to find a door marked with radio call letters. "This is it."
At the opening of the door three men turned swiftly from their work, grenade pistols and flamers—flame-throwing handguns—in their fists. "Hold it," said the lanky Jim urgently.
"Bless us all," said one of the men, lowering his weapon, "it's McEldownie! What the hell are you doing in a radio station, Mac?"
"I'll eat crow for it, but right now I want to get out on the air," he said. "Can I?"
"God knows. We've sweat blood over the thing. Our own generators are okay, but the city's power is off, and the antennae got mashed up some. Couple of boys up on the roof now, worrying at it. Do you suppose we're loony for staying here?" he asked. Obviously he valued McEldownie's opinion. Alan realized for the first time what a reputation the scarecrow-like announcer had.
"No. There seems to be no danger of radioactivity; either the bomb burst in air, or it's a new kind. We've got to get communication established as soon as possible. You're almost the only sane people we've seen."