A voice in the banquet hall. "It's not a bomb! It's a fake!"

There were now men at both office doors! Shoulders and boots were thudding at them!

The steel was armor alloy and very resistant. Heller stepped up the beam strength of the gun. He had made only a little hole!

A shotgun blasted at the hall door lock!

Heller banged a shot at it with Faustino's gun!

He glanced at his watch. The glow told him he was almost out of time.

He wasn't making progress fast enough getting through the canopy. He shined his light through the slot he had cut.

EMPTINESS!

No Faustino! No cat! No floor!

He could make out the outlines of a spiral chute going down!

A shotgun blasted again at the door.

Heller grabbed his satchels.

He threw himself on the spacetrooper sled.

The shotgun roared again!

Heller hit the controls.

The sound of the door bursting in.

The sled started out the window.

Another shotgun blast!

Something tugged at his heel!

He shot out into the dark night!

THE FIRST EXPLOSION WENT!

It sounded just like lightning had struck dose to hand, a blasting, cracking roar that filled the night!

The sled bucked and twisted.

It plummeted earthward from thirty-five stories high.

THE SECOND EXPLOSION WENT!

Convulsively, Heller gripped the sled controls. The ground was coming up, unseen, but it must be very near!

He got the sled into a climb.

THE THIRD EXPLOSION WENT!

The sled slewed.

Heller got it straightened out.

A tree straight ahead! , Heller zoomed over it.

At least he knew where the ground was now. He settled the sled vertically and played his light down.

He landed.

THE FOURTH EXPLOSION WENT!

He was behind Babe's lines, half a block from the building.

Quickly he collapsed the sled and lashed it to his satchel.

He started to run forward, toward the building.

"Stand where you are!"

A flashlight hit him in the face.

"It's the kid!" said somebody else. "Don't shoot him." Corleone men, part of the ring around the building.

Heller was worried about the cat. "Let me through! I've got to get back there!"

"Naw, naw, kid. You stay here! They're pouring out of there like rats from a sinking ship."

THE FIFTH EXPLOSION WENT!

It was like a nearby crack of lightning but no flash or flame. The explosions were coming from the building top, progressing down where he had planted each of them.

A rush of running feet from the building. A crash and a yell.

Three more Narcotici men had slammed into the fishnets strung across the streets.

Corleones gathered them up, disarmed them and shunted them over to a group where they were quickly tied.

THE SIXTH EXPLOSION WENT!

"Jesus, what are those things?" said a Corleone to Jet. "There ain't any flame or debris. Sounds like a whole God (bleep) floor goes up each time."

Heller could have told him that they were matter-vibration-intensifying bombs used by Voltar combat engineers to create diversions at point B when they were really quietly blowing up point A. They did not transmit their sound directly into the air but only through matter molecules. They didn't destroy anything except perhaps an eardrum if you were inside the place. But Heller said, in Italian, "Who knows? The wrath of Gods, perhaps."

THE SEVENTH EXPLOSION WENT! |,

When its crack ceased echoing, Babe's voice came over some-body's walkie-talkie. "Signore! What's the count now?"

"Five hundred and thirty-six, mia capa," crackled back.

"Couple hundred to go," came Babe's voice. "Stay on your toes!? Has anybody seen Jerome?"

THE EIGHTH EXPLOSION WENT!

Heller grabbed his two-way response radio. "I'm on the ground, Mrs. Corleone. I'm okay. I'm at Station Six. Please tell the men to let me through. I've got to get back to the building."

THE NINTH EXPLOSION WENT!

A dozen Narcotic! men, running in panic from the building in the dark, hit the net near Heller. They were jumped on promptly, disarmed and carted aside.

Babe's voice. "Station Six. Don't let Jerome through until after you've launched the general assault."

"Yes, yes, mia capa."

THE TENTH EXPLOSION WENT!

A hissing series of orders sizzled near Jerome. The same sound, more distant, was coming from other stations all around the encircled building.

A sudden shout from half a thousand throats, "CORLEONE!" A rush and thunder of feet moving forward in the blackness. The general assault had begun.

A blaze of gunfire flamed.

"You can go now, kid," said a voice near Heller.

Heller rushed forward. It was not quite as dark. Gun flashes coming from lower windows and those replying gave the night a fitful, jerking light. Most of the assault force was inside now but those in view were seen like sudden still pictures as a rifle went.

Somebody yelled, "Army tanks rolling south, half a mile! Mop this up fast!"

Heller sized up the building. There had been no spiral chute on the plans. The basement under this section of the structure, below Faustino's office, was all furnaces.

He went up to the outer wall, pressing in against it. He edged along. He must be now directly below Faustino's office. The side of the building was made of huge, black blocks of stone here, flanking the street.

Gunfire was rolling inside where diehards were holding out. He heard the thud of a grenade.

He was looking for a manhole cover, some telltale.

AN ARCED SCAR ON THE PAVEMENT!

It began at the bottom edge of one of the black stones and curved in a perfect arc across the sidewalk. At some time this stone had swung open and a bit of debris had been under it, making the mark.

There was a vertical line where the stone joined another in the outer wall. Heller took his disintegrator gun and widened the crack. He took a bar and forced it in and pried.

It was a door!

Once more he applied the disintegrator gun to the crack. The inside bolt latch vanished.

He shoved the bar in further.

The door reluctantly opened!

He shined in the light.

There was the cat!

He was sitting on the tied Faustino's chest! 

Faustino tried to turn toward Heller's light.

"Save me!" he screamed.

The cat hit him.

"I got it, Mister Calico," said Heller. "You've done great tonight!"

Heller grabbed Faustino and got him to his feet. "Corleone!" he yelled over his shoulder.

"To me!"

The firing around the building had died. Two men sprinted over to Jet. He thrust Faustino into their hands. "Rush this guy to Babe direct!"

They shoved Faustino out and pushed him along the sidewalk. Heller reached back in to pick up the cat.

When he emerged he was hit in the face with a spotlight!

A TANK!

Heller let the cat jump away and held his arms high and wide. He walked directly to the tank.

The tank's machine guns were trained on his chest.

An officer was standing in the turret, covering him with a .45. By the light from inside the turret, Heller saw the silver eagle of a colonel.

"What the hell's all this?" roared the colonel. "May I identify myself, sir?" called Heller.

"Advance easy or I'll shoot!"

Heller, arms held wide, sprang up on the tread.

"Reach in my side pocket, sir." He made a brief indication which one.

The colonel looked at the tuxedo and then, holding the .45 wide, pulled the papers out.

"Lieutenant Wister of Army Intelligence, sir," said Heller. "Rounding up Maysabongo saboteurs. The men you see are my unit in mufti."

The colonel scanned the I.D. and then the orders. "Why wasn't I informed?" he said.

"All hush-hush," said Heller. "But we got them before they could blow up the whole city."

"The vicious (bleepards)!" exclaimed the colonel. "A (bleeped) good thing you did! Loudest explosions I ever heard in my life! Are you sure you got them all?" he added, looking around.