I paced in the yard of the villa in Afyon, Turkey, for hours, trying to take stock of my situation.

Actually, it was pretty desperate. In a week or two Grabbe-Manhattan Bank was going to wake up to the fact that its Chief of International Mortgage Division, Forrest Closure, alias Black Jowl, was not being heard from.

As I had been fired as a Rockecenter family spy I could expect no help from that quarter. They even wanted to charge me with taking bribes!

The mortgage papers he had had on him were not the originals. Those were still on file at the bank. They could still tell the Turkish government to charge me with mortgaging land I didn't own.

Rockecenter had seen a chance to acquire enormous tracts of prime opium land that the base usually leased out to Turkish tenants. He had no inkling that in this usual bank tactic he had also gotten his hands on the Voltar base.

If Faht Bey found this out, he could have me seized and shipped home for execution as the author of the Code break of all time.

Lombar would never forgive me for messing up Rockecenter, for it would cut off the I. G. Barben Pharmaceutical drug supplies that were vital to undermining Voltar.

Oh, Gods, how was I going to get out of this?

My professors at the Apparatus school always used to say, "Take care of the details and the big problems will take care of themselves." It was good advice.

I would take care of details.

It was, I suddenly realized, dusk. A chill wind had begun to blow.

Musef approached. "Master, that man you put in the guest room has been asking if it's safe for him to walk around. I think he's getting suspicious that you mean to rub him out."

Ah, that was one detail I could take care of.

I went to my room and located a small bottle. I called on an intercom to the kitchen and had them bring me a large pitcher of sira on a tray with two glasses. Into one glass I put a heavy dose from the bottle. It was liquid chloral hydrate, the time-honored knockout drops bartenders use. I filled the glasses.

I went to Madison's door and unlocked it and, bearing the tray, went in.

He was standing at the barred window which looked out on the room's private garden. "Oh, hello, Smith," he said. "What's the chances of getting out of here and walking around? I feel pretty depressed and some exercise will do me good."

"Well, well," I said heartily. "I was thinking the same thing. All that riding isn't good for one. Tell you what. I've ordered us some dinner and afterwards I'll take you out of here and you'll see some country that will knock your eyes out. So just sit down while they get it ready and have an appetizer."

I gave him the glass of sira. He sat down in a comfortable chair and took a sip of it. "What is this stuff? It tastes kind of bitter."

"Fermented grape juice," I said. "The ancestor of real wine. Not even intoxicating. So drink up. Down the hatch." I set him an example and drained my glass.

He swallowed half of his. "You know, Smith or Gris or whatever your name is, I've been thinking. I maybe didn't do all I could have done. I really hate to let Mr. Bury down. He's a fine man, Mr. Bury, and I owe him an awful lot. I've got strong employer loyalty, you know. I never give up on a job until I'm actually fired. And you know, he didn't fire me. He didn't tell you I was fired, did he?"

"I had to get you out to save your life," I reminded him severely.

"Well, yes," said Madison, drinking the rest of the sira. "But I'm not at all sure I did all I could have done for that client, Wister. For instance, I had one grand idea I never got around to carrying out. I was going to get him to rob the U. S. Treasury in Washington and pull the whole FBI in pursuit. A blow-by-blow escape. But I didn't have the time. Then there was the idea where he stole Alaska and sold it back to the Russ – "

His head slumped. His glass fell from nerveless fingers.

I moved like a cat. I packed all his clothes and things into his grip.

I threw him over my shoulder and grabbed the suitcase with my free hand.

I sped to my secret room and down the tunnel. I called the guard captain.

"Another one for transshipment," I said.

"You been busy," said the guard captain.

I ignored the compliment. "Hold him in a detention cell. Ship him and that girl to Voltar on the Blixo" I dropped Madison. I raced back to my room.

I got out some despatch paper. I wrote:

Lombar Hisst

Chief Executive of the Apparatus

I am sending you an extremely valuable man as a personal present. His name is J. Walter Madison. You will be utterly amazed what he can do.

Soltan Gris

Section Chief 451

I marked it URGENT and IMPORTANT and put it with outgoing despatches.

Little did I know that when I sealed that envelope, I also sealed my own doom.

Foolishly, I thought, that is the last I'll see of J. Walter Madison.

Details. I was taking care of details all right. But by the following afternoon I had made no real progress on the real problem I faced.

The night before I had conned Musef and Torgut into believing the three people that had entered were now buried somewhere in the countryside. Late at night I had had them back up the old Ford Station Wagon to the patio door and I had carried out, with many a grunt and groan of effort, three big sacks I had blown full of air. I had put them in the back and driven off. Then an hour later I had returned with the sacks deflated and told them, "I've dumped those corpses where nobody will ever find them. So you just forget you ever saw those people."

They grinned delightedly. "We hear and obey, Mas­ter. You sure are a smart chief."

But sitting here the following afternoon, I did not feel very smart. How in the name of all the Gods was I ever going to get out of this mess?

I glanced at my watch. It would be early morning in New York. Possibly Heller and the Countess Krak were up to something I could exploit by wrecking it.

I got out the viewers Teenie had brought back and was rather surprised that old splotches of dried sira and such had been cleaned off of them.

Their batteries were fine.

I looked at Crobe's. He was simply sitting in a detention cell right here, waiting shipment out on the Blixo.

Heller's was blank. He was still asleep.

Only the Countess Krak's was live and interesting. She was pouring together Bavarian Mocha powder and hot water. Then she got some chilled tomato juice and put some Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco in it.

She put it all on a tray and went to a bedroom. She set it down and opened the shutters. A flood of dawn light struck through horizontally, almost flaring my viewer out.

She turned and approached the huge pillared Etruscan bed. "Wake up, lazybones," she said. "You told me to be dressed for hiking today and be up before dawn and here you are still snoring."

"Ouch," said Heller, putting an arm across his eyes. "Can't you even let me recover from a hangover?"

"Your graduation party is over. The guests all went home. You're a working man, remember?"

He took the tomato juice and sipped it.

"I told you you shouldn't let Bang-Bang talk you into trying Scotch."

"The cat drinks it," said Heller.

"Well, Mister Calico is a very industrious cat. And speaking of industry, when are we going to get busy and get off this planet and go home?"

"I've got a right to take it easy. After all, that whole year in college about wore me out!"

"Oh, nonsense. You never even went to class. And now that you have this precious degree of Bachelor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, what are you going to do with it? They'd laugh at it at home. I never saw so many errors as their science has. Can't exceed the speed of light indeed! They ought to ride in a real spaceship."