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"Let's get started."
    "Like this? Just as we are?"
    He nodded. "Let's go."
    She arose, an odd reluctance in her now. "I suppose you think I'm contemptible for not talking to you before. Believe me, I had no idea anyone would be killed. What I did was for Calvin's good, and I'm convinced that whatever he's done, it must be right and honorable. Calvin is not a traitor. He would never give away any vital national secrets."
    "Not even to Weederman?"
    She flushed. "I told you, Calvin's loyalty is beyond any suspicion. Truly."
    "Those men have ways of getting information. It doesn't matter how strong you are, Deirdre. Everybody has a breaking point. Are you sure you want to keep me to this bargain, for just the two of us?"
    "If I'm not there, Cal won't show up," she said. "If you send men out there to trap him, he'll know about it, somehow. He's being very wary. Please don't go back on your word. I trusted you."
    He smiled. "We're on our way. Just the two of us."
    Then the doorbell rang.
    Durell heard the girl suck in her breath as the shrill alarm jangled away. Her face paled. She jerked her arm from his grip and retreated from the door. Her eyes blazed with anger and contempt. "You lied to me! You told your men to come here."
    "No," Durell said. "Wait."
    The bell rang again, enormously loud in the small apartment. The girl backed into the kitchen. There was a rear door that led to a service stairway in the back of the apartment building. Across the street was an arm of Rock Creek Park. Durell started for the door, then spun quickly to restrain the girl. She twisted away, yanked the rear door open, and darted through. Durell plunged after her.
    Too late, he saw he had been trapped.
    Two men back here on the dark service landing, one holding the girl, a hand clapped over her mouth as she struggled in his grip. Her eyes were wide with terror. And another man, enormous, ugly, in a yellow sport shirt and gray slacks, hair cropped short to the shape of a bullet head hunched on meaty shoulders.
    Something swung in the air before Durell could turn or recover his balance. An instant's glittering arc, then a blast of white pain exploded in him and he was on his hands and knees, shaking his head, trying for the gun in his pocket. A heavy shoe slogged into his ribs. He sprawled on his face. He still tried for the gun. The shoe came grinding down on his hand.
    "Take the girl away."
    "What about
him?"
    "I'll take care of this one. Beat it!"
    Durell got half erect in time to see the knee lifting for his jaw, and above it the grinning face of the bullet-headed giant.
    Then there was nothing at all for him except a long, deep dive into blackness that screamed momentarily of agonizing pain and became emptiness…

Chapter Eight
    He swam sluggishly upward through a sea of red torment, toward the glare of light that opened above him like the mouth of a cone. The doctor working on him was quick, deft, impersonal, smelling of disinfectant. Tape on his ribs, professional fingers on his face, and a bobbing nod.
    "Nothing serious or permanent. Hurts like hell, eh?"
    Swayney's moon face loomed above him.
    "Sam, what happened to the girl? How come you let her get away, hey?" Blue eyes glittered icily. "I gave you firm orders to bring her in and you…"
    "Go to hell," Durell said.
    A red wave moved over Swayney's face. "Hey? What's the matter with you? Lew is dead, the girl is gone, you were ranting about a dead man named Weederman…"
    "He's not dead," Durell said.
    "I say he is. I've got all the facts. I'm not usually wrong."
    "This time you're wrong."
    "Well, what about the girl? Where is she?"
    "Gone. Weederman's apparatus got her."
    "Oh, Jesus."
    "My mistake."
    "Your scalp, you mean." Swayney drew a deep breath. "All right. Drop it. You're off it. You go to the hospital, then we'll have this out. Just answer one thing. What made you take off with the girl alone like that?"
    "A hunch. A gamble. I lost."
    "Did she tell you anything?"
    "Some."
    "She's a