"So you didn't kill him."

"Not yet. I'm just giving you a report."

I knew I would have to give firmer directions. "Where is he now?"

"Leaving the area. That's why I'm giving you this report."

"Raht, if you don't do this job, you're through. I'll kill you myself! You missed your opportunity!"

"There WAS no opportunity!" he snapped.

"Are you going to kill him or aren't you?"

"Of course I'm going to kill him. I think he is heading back for New York and I'll be right on his heels. The moment I get him alone, he's dead. But I need help."

"What kind?" I said suspiciously.

"When he's back in New York he'll be on your viewer again, right?"

"Right," I said.

"The first moment you pick him up, you've got to tell me. And you've got to tell me, if you can, where he is going. All I have to have is just a few minutes in a secluded place. I shoot, he's dead. And I can get away."

Delays, delays. I couldn't afford them. But there was hope. "I'll help you," I said.

He clicked off.

Then I cheered up a little. I had tried several times to get the Countess Krak and had failed. But now she was my prisoner and simply by dropping a couple gas pellets down her air chute, I could kill her.

I decided it would be the same with Heller. Even he couldn't survive with me directing the assassin every step of the way, right up to the final fatal shot from a well-planned ambush.

I could not be absolutely sure Heller had gone back to New York. Raht had said nothing about him getting on a New York plane. He might come here to Turkey instead.

Nervously, I wondered if I could do anything to prevent that catastrophe.

I went out and checked the alarm bell at the gate. Musef and Torgut were alert, armed and ready to gun down any intruder.

In my secret room, I ran a check on the floor tile which, if pressed, sounded a general alarm to the hangar and assembled the whole base in battle order. It was fine.

I checked Krak's viewer. She was eating space emergency rations and studying the Voltar Confederacy Combined Compendium section on "Royal Proclamations." I knew she was thinking about those two forged Royal documents I had foisted off on her. I wished I knew what she had done with them. But never mind, if she tried to present them they would execute her.

Still, I thought I had better make sure her door was safely closed. I went down to the hangar and up the tunnel to the detention cells. From afar I looked at the outside of her door.

Even if he got here, Heller would never suspect I had her. They hadn't even written her name in the log.

I wondered if I had left any other clues lying around.

I ran into Captain Stabb. "We're all keened up for those bank robberies now," he said. "If it's in Europe or Africa, we can use the line-jumper. But if you're going over to America, I think it's better we take the tug. So we checked out her water and air today. She's got fuel enough to make it to the fifteenth Hell and back twenty times over."

"If you take Tug One" I said, "the assassin pilots will be tagging us with their two flying cannons."

"They won't touch us unless we try to leave the plan­et. By the way, we cut out your share of the wallets. It's in here."

I followed him into their stone-walled sleeping rooms. With a shock I saw they had laid out on the table the valuables of the passengers and crew. Evidence!

There were wristwatches, rings, travellers checks, money and I.D. cards!

"Devils," I said. "We can't have this stuff lying around. It would connect us to the crash!"

"Well, we were just waiting until you came down. We'll pry the stones out of the jewelry, melt the gold...."

"And throw the watches away," I said.

He shrugged.

"And don't try to forge those travellers checks," I warned him.

He frowned.

I was about to take it up further when my eye lighted on something.

Krak's purse!

Talk about leaving evidence around! I grabbed it.

"Here, here," said Stabb. "You can't do that. There's a lot of money in it."

"If that Royal officer came in here and found this, he'd shoot us to bits!"

"Is he going to come here?"

"He might."

"I thought he was going to be killed."

I said, "That's in progress this very minute."

"Oh, well, then. Why worry?"

"He might come here first."

"Oho!" said Captain Stabb. "In that case I'll order my men to go armed even in the hangar. You don't have anything to worry about, Officer Gris. We'll shoot him on sight. Okay?"

I was somewhat mollified.

By giving up my share of the loot and the money, they agreed to destroy the evidence and let me take Krak's purse away.

Back in my room I went through it.

MY SQUEEZA CREDIT CARD!

After all the trouble that had caused, I had it back!

It cheered me up for hours.

I regarded it as a portent, an omen of good fortune. To me it looked like things were really on the mend.

Just as my nerves were about to snap like overtightened wires, Heller showed up on his viewer.

What a relief!

He was debarking from a Pan Am plane at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. It was very early morning there.

He was walking very slowly. At immigration they had to ask him twice for his passport. At customs the stone-faced official had to open his bag himself.

Heller walked out to the lobby. His name was being called and he went over to the message desk.

The chauffeur from the condo was waiting for him there.

"Did you bring the bag?" said Heller.

"Yes, sir," said the chauffeur. "And the Porsche is in the parking lot."

Heller reached into his pocket and came up with a banknote. He handed it to the chauffeur. "You better catch a cab back. I'm not returning home."

"Sir, I do not mean to intrude, but do you think that is wise? We all think you would be much better in familiar surroundings."

"That's the trouble with them," said Heller in a dead voice. "They're too familiar."

"Sir, Mr. Epstein said..."

"I know, I phoned him from the plane just after I phoned you. I know you all mean it kindly. But all

I want is to go off by myself a little while and try to get over this."

My luck was holding! This was exactly what I needed!

Hastily, I called Raht on the radio. "Where are you?"

"I'll be at JFK in about an hour. I'm on TWA from Rome via Brussels." I could hear the background roar of the plane engines.

"He's going to be off by himself. Call me the instant you land."

"Will do," said Raht. He clicked off.

My attention went back to Heller. He was following the chauffeur across a parking lot. The Porsche was sitting there.

The cat!

He was at the window.

The chauffeur unlocked the door and the cat sprang for Heller's chest. Heller petted it and put the cat on his shoulder.

"At least he'll be some company for you," said the chauffeur. "He's just been moping around the house. I put his food and things in the back like you said."

Heller got in, took the keys and started the car. The chauffeur saluted and Heller drove away.

"Well, cat," he said, "I guess we've got to get used to her being gone." There was a catch in his voice. My screen went misty.

Oh, this was ideal. Heller wouldn't be alert at all! He was even driving kind of slow and wooden. I had planned much better than I thought. I had depressed him beyond belief. He would be a sitting duck!

He was driving north up the Van Wyck Expressway. It did not tell me yet where he was going.

He passed the turns that would take him into New York and drove straight on.

He entered the Whitestone Expressway and shortly crossed the Bronx Whitestone Bridge. He continued north on the Hutchinson River Parkway. At Exit 6 he turned into the New England Thruway.