The Enemy Within

The restaurant owner nervously gathered up the ones and rolls of coins and started to offer it to them, but the triggerman snarled, and showed him the gun again. “Not that shit! Give us what’s under the drawer!” Millunzi sighed and lifted the cash drawer, showing three bundles of twenties in bank wrappers. He pulled them out, fighting the urge to look at the clock or check his watch. It had been at least a minute. Maybe two. Probably not three. Were Carla and Rosa out the back? His brain seemed to be spinning, overheated with fear. Where were the police?

The two robbers smiled triumphantly as the older one took the bundled cash. They both turned away toward the door, but the one holding the gun suddenly swung around, whipped the gun up to point at Millunzi, and fired.

The first round caught him in the stomach and slammed him back against the wall. He instinctively clutched at his belly and groaned aloud gasping as a wave of sharp, piercing agony struck him.

The triggerman fired twice more, this time into Millunzi’s chest. As the restaurant owner’s consciousness faded, he noticed that’ the teenager still wore the same, small, triumphant smile.

The patrons in the restaurant reacted to the noise by turning startled faces toward the cash register. They saw foe Millunzi sliding down the blood-smeared wall behind the cash register and the young black men in dark-colored Pistons jackets walking quickly outside.

Three blocks away, Officer Bob Calvin continued his patrol. He never saw the three robbers, who escaped without a trace. There would be many clean getaways that afternoon.

1:25 P.M, EST Detroit

Bob Calvin’s radio pulled his attention away from the heavy traffic building up on the neighborhood streets.

“All units, this is the watch commander. This phone out age is a big one. We’re getting radio calls from neighboring jurisdictions. Their land links are out too.

“Latest word from the phone company is that it’s going to be some time before they fix the problem, so the commissioner has decided to mobilize the force. We’re also coordinating with the hospitals and the fire department. Ambulances and fire engines will be dispersed throughout the city. Everyone look sharp, and we’ll let you know when things get back to normal.”

Calvin whistled sharply. This situation must be even more serious than he’d first thought. Mobilizing the force meant pulling all shifts in and keeping everyone on duty until the emergency was declared over. It also meant calling up the city’s police reserves. The reserves had only limited arrest powers, but they were armed.

Mobilizing the force and its reserves would put a lot more needed manpower on the streets although at the cost of overtime pay. On the other hand, Calvin realised, under the present circumstances, ordering a mobilisation was a lot simpler than carrying it out. Without phone service the department would have to send someone to knock on the door of every officer or reservist being summoned to duty.

Still, that was the smart move to make, even if it meant he had to stay on for a second shift. The city was ready to blow, and it was their job to keep the lid on.

Of course, Calvin thought to himself with a tinge of regret, his date with Linda for tonight was now in jeopardy. A citywide emergency was not an excuse, not in her eyes, and she’d be worried sick. He was scheduled to get off at four, and their date was set for eight. Surely, Midwest Telephone would have its technical glitches sorted out by then.

1:30 P.M., EST CNN Headline News

The piece was third, after an update on the continuing and fruitless FBI counterterrorist investigation and the equally fruitless Balkan negotiations.

“Midwest Telephone technicians are scrambling to deal with a major telecommunications outage affecting the company’s entire service area.”

A map flashed into view behind the anchorman’s head showing the six affected states. Together they formed an irregularly shaped red blob in the heart of the country.

“For more than half an hour, the outage has paralysed industries, businesses, stock markets, and commodities exchanges across a vast area. Phone company spokesmen reached by emergency satellite downlink are unable to explain the cause or offer a firm estimate for the resumption of service…”

1:45 P.M., EST Midwest Telephone’s primary operations center

“You’re sure the masters were clean?”

It was a stupid question, even if Johnston did have to ask it, and Maggie Kosinski shot him a hard look. “They’re only three months old, Jim. We made a new set after the last software revision.”

Johnston had come down from his upper-floor office to watch them bring the system back on-line. First the switching computers were powered down and all the operating disks and tapes were removed. When the computers were brought back up, Kosinski’s technicians reloaded master copies of the system software and rebooted.