Vann visualized the flare of explosion and winced at the panicky hammer-and-sickled surmise that came back to him.
“How would I know?” he said aloud. “We have a man out—”
He recalled the inherent limitation of phonetics then and fell back upon imagery, picturing Ellis’ launch heading toward an island luridly lighted by the blast. For effect he added, on the key’s minuscule beach, a totally imaginary shack of driftwood, complete with bearded hermit.
He knew immediately when authority arrived at the other end of the net. There was a mental backwash of conversation that told him his orders even before the Washington operator set himself for their relay.
“They want an eyewitness account from Ellis,” he told Weyman. “As if—”
Ellis broke into the net at that moment, radiating a hazy image—he was still partially blinded from the glare of the blast—of a lowering key overhung by a dwindling pall of pinkish smoke. In the foreground of lagoon and mangroves stood a stilted shack not unlike the one Vann had pictured, but without the hermit.
Instead, the rickety elevation of thatched porch was a blot of sable darkness relieved only by a pair of slanted yellow eyes gleaming close to the floor.
Climactically, Xaxtol entered the net then with an impact of total information that was more than the human psyche, conditioned to serialized thinking by years of phonetic communication, could bear.
The Washington operator screamed and tore off his helmet, requiring restraint until he could compose himself enough to relay his message.