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it happened."
    They checked that first. Nothing had been touched. The sofa and floor were still caked with dried blood. The two bedrooms were next. Then down the switchback stairs to the narrow, whitewashed workshop. The thin, strong beam of the flashlight licked around the room, illuminating neat stacks of labeled, open-lidded cartons. Candy checked one. "The stuff's gone," she whispered.
    "Naturally," said Nick dryly. "The FBI wanted it. They run tests, you know."
    "But it was here yesterday. Wait a minute!" she snapped her fingers. "I hid a sample in a drawer in the kitchen. I'll bet they missed it." She led the way upstairs.
    It wasn't a microdot, just a folded sheet of paper, transparent and stinking of gasoline. Nick unfolded it. It was a rough sketch of the Apollo's life support system. The ink lines were slightly blurred, and there were some terse technical instructions under it, code-signed
Sol,
"Sol," she whispered. "Latin for the sun. Dr. Sun..."
    The silence in the bungalow was suddenly thick with tension. Nick started to fold the paper and put it away. An angry voice spoke from the doorway: "Hold it like that."

Chapter 4
    The man stood in the kitchen doorway, enormous, a looming silhouette against the moonlight behind him. He had a gun in his hand — a little Smith & Wesson Terrier with a two-inch barrel. He was outside the screen door, pointing the gun through it.
    Killmaster's eyes narrowed, watching him. For a moment a shark swirled in their gray depths, then it vanished and he smiled. This man was no threat He was making too many mistakes to be a professional. Nick raised his hands above his head and ambled slowly toward the door. "What's up, Doc?" he asked amiably.
    As he did, his foot suddenly flashed out, slamming into the rear edge of the screen door just below the handle. He hit it with all the weight he had and the man stumbled backwards with a howl of pain, dropping the gun.
    Nick surged after him, scooping it up. He jerked the man into the house by his shirt collar before he could sound an alarm and kicked the door shut behind him. "Who are you?" he rasped. The pencil flashlight flicked on» stabbing into the man's face.
    He was big — at least six-four — and beefy, with gray hair cropped short to the shape of his bullet head and with a sunburned face dusted over with pale freckles.
    "Next door neighbor," said Candy. "Name's Dexter. I checked on him when I was here last night."
    "Yeah, and I spotted you prowlin' around here last night, too," growled Dexter, nursing his wrist. "That's why I was on the lookout tonight."
    "What's your first name?" asked Nick.
    "Hank."
    "Well listen, Hank. You've stumbled into a little official business." Nick flashed the official-looking badge that was part of every AXEman's disguise kit. "We're government investigators, so let's stay calm, keep our voices down and discuss the Hammer case."
    Dexter narrowed his eyes. "If you're government, how come you're pussy-footing around here in the dark?"
    "We're with a top-secret branch of the National Security Agency. That's all I can tell you. Not even the FBI knows about us."
    Dexter was visibly impressed. "Yeah? No kiddin'? I work for NASA myself. I'm with Connelly Aviation."
    "You knew Hammer?"
    "As a neighbor, sure. But not on the job. I work in the Electronic Guidance Division over at the Cape. I'll tell you something, though. Hammer never killed his family or himself. It was murder — to shut him up."
    "How do you know this?"
    "I saw the guys who did it." He glanced over his shoulder nervously, then said, "No kidding. I mean it. I was watching the TV report on the fire that night. They'd just flashed Pat's picture on it. A few minutes later I heard this scream, kind of muffled-like. I went over to the window. There was this car, no marks on it but with a whip aerial, parked out in front of their bungalow. A minute later these three guys in cops' uniforms came runnin' out. They looked kind of like state troopers, only