THE PLAGUE
TEDDY KELLER
Sergeant Major Andrew McCloud ignored the jangling telephones and the excited jabber of a room full of brass, and lit a cigarette. Somebody had to keep his head in this mess. Everybody was about to flip.
Like the telephone. Two days ago Corporal Bettijean Baker had been answering the rare call on the single line—in that friendly, husky voice that gave even generals pause—by saying, “Good morning. Office of the Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection Co-ordinator.” Now there was a switchboard out in the hall with a web of lines running to a dozen girls at a half dozen desks wedged into the outer office. And now the harried girls answered with a hasty, “Germ War Protection.”
All the brass hats in Washington had suddenly discovered this office deep in the recesses
