There were three technicians in the station and no passengers. All three panicked when the psycho gas enveloped them. They ran howling for the jungle.
Through the window of his mask, Read saw their pursuers land in the clearing. Machine-gun bullets raked the building. They got Umluana in the booth and hit the floor. Read took aim and opened fire on the largest car.
"Now, I can shoot back," he said. "Now we'll see what they do."
"Are you ready, Rashid?" yelled the driver.
"Man, get us out of here!"
The booth door shut. When it opened, they were at the Game Preserve.
The station jutted from the side of a hill. A glass-walled waiting room surrounded the bank of transmitter booths. Read looked out the door and saw his first battlefield.
Directly in front of him, his head shattered by a bullet, a dead inspector lay behind an overturned couch.
Read had seen dozens of training films taken during actual battles or after atomic attacks. He had laughed when other recruits complained. "That's the way this world is. You people with the weak stomachs better get used to it."
Now he slid against the rear wall of the transmitter booth.