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organization. So you're wasting your time and ours with your little game. If you'll just-"
    "How about playing the game with the cards face up," Bolan suggested.
    "What are your cards, Sergeant?" Seymour asked, eyes twinkling at Plasky.
    "I'm job hunting. Five of your people stopped living yesterday. I figure you have a vacancy."
    Turrin shifted uneasily. "What does a soldier need with a job?" Plasky asked faintly.
    "I've been twelve years in this uniform," Bolan replied. "I've learned a trade, but it hasn't made me any money. I don't have a dime, and I'll never have a dime, not from what this uniform will bring me."
    Seymour was beginning to warm up. "What sort of a trade?" he inquired. "Guns are my business."
    "Guns?" Seymour laughed softly. "You think guns are our business?"
    Bolan ignored the parry. "I can build them, I can modify them, I can repair them, I can make the ammo for them, and I can shoot them."
    Seymour was still clucking. "Even supposing that we
are
what you
think
we are, you have your eras confused. This isn't Chicago of the twenties and thirties. This is Pittsfield of the sixties." He shook his head. "You've got us all wrong, Sergeant"
    Bolan nodded his head toward a background man who was positioned in the shadow of a poolside cabana.
"He's
wearing a gun," he said, then stabbed his finger toward the diving platform, and added, "so's that one. I counted five gun-bearers the instant I stepped onto this property. You've got a civilian army here. And you've got vacancies. And I need a job."
    "You planning on deserting from the Army?" Turrin put in.
    The soldier soberly shook his head. "You know what an ROTC billet is, Turrin? It's a cream-pie duty."
    "Tell us about it," Seymour said interestedly.
    That's my humanitarian reassignment. To the ROTC unit out here at Franklin High. The Army supplies instructors for these programs. It's cream-pie duty for any soldier. We get a housing allowance, we work regular hours, just like any teacher, and we live like any civilian."
    These regular hours-how do you figure to work two jobs at once?"
    Bolan grinned. "I'm not the regular instructor. I'm just padded on to give me an official duty station. There's already a guy out there. I'll just be an odd hand. Maybe I'll give a few lectures on gun handling, maybe I'll help out a little on the rifle range. But I was given to understand that I'd be more or less free to come and go as I please."
    "Don't sound like the Army to me," Turrin said, smiling.
    "Me either," Bolan agreed. "But I'll be up for re-enlistment at the end of the year. And there's this responsibility for the kid brother, see. They're giving me until the end of the year to make some provisions for him. I guess they figure by then I'll either have to return to full duty or just get the hell out of the Army."
    "I should think you'd be quite happy with the arrangement," Seymour observed.
    "Well, I've got the kid now," Bolan pointed out. "And like I said, not a dime in any bank. I figure I'll take the discharge in December. And I can't see any sense in wasting any time getting phased into civilian life." He smiled broadly. "And then, you've got this vacancy."
    "I think the sarge is a conniving opportunist," Seymour said, to nobody in particular.
    "We need opportunists-that's what we need, isn't it?" Turrin said.
    Seymour sighed. "Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what we need. Well-get those girls over here, Leo. And roll that bar over here. It seems we have a new employee to welcome." He smiled sourly at Bolan. "This is your day of golden opportunity, Sarge. Don't let it turn to brass."
    Bolan grinned and picked up his drink It had become tepid and flat. Who cared? Hell, who cared? He gulped it down. He was in. And from the looks of things he was about to get into something else. Her name, somebody told him, was Mara; her function was entirely obvious. She settled into his lap without an invitation, handing him a fresh drink, and wriggled the bikini-clad-or