So he decided on a Rover-comfortable, fast enough, cheap enough to be fairly common, expensive enough to match his cover identity as a youngish man of good family and respectable private means. What else was there left to do but go down and buy the car?

Quite a bit, unfortunately. The money for the car had to creep out of the secret account into a more open one at Barclay's Bank and from there to Blade's pocket. His cover identity had to stand up under the usual host of credit checks without arousing anyone's suspicion, or even their curiosity. Then and only then could Blade go out and behave like a more or less normal man who wanted a new car.

At least his cover identity was in his own name. Beyond a certain point false names caused more trouble and confusion than they saved. That was good. There were times when, if Blade hadn't been able to sign his own name, he'd have wondered exactly who he was.

As he approached the taxi stand, a taxi came swinging by. He raised a hand to hail it, then stepped off the curb and ran toward it as it slowed. The driver threw open the door and Blade scrambled in.

«Westminster Embankment.»

«Yes, sir.» The driver let in the clutch and the taxi whirled off down the street as Blade settled back in the seat.

The massive bronze doors in front of Blade slid smoothly open with a faint hiss. He was now two hundred feet below the Tower of London, in the secret complex that housed so much of Project Dimension X.

A familiar corridor stretched out in front of Blade, empty, echoing, and sterile. It was all concrete and polished tile and dull shades of paint. The only sign of life in it was the man walking toward Blade, the man called J. Blade stepped forward to meet him. They shook hands. J's grip was as firm as ever. Like so much else about the man, it did not change.

There were supposed to be photographs in existence that showed J as a young man. Blade had never seen them, nor had anyone else who was willing to admit it. For all the years he'd known. J, the man had looked like a thoroughly respectable senior civil servant, urbane, quiet, flawlessly tailored, a gray man who moved through life without making waves or attracting much attention. Over those years J's face gained a few more wrinkles and his hair showed more white and less gray. That was all.

Appearances were more than usually deceiving in this case. Behind J's modest exterior lay the brains, talent, and experience of one of the greatest of all spymasters. Every sensible man who had been in the same line of work over the last forty years either respected or feared him, and sometimes both. J was also a comfortable and agreeable man to work for, a quality lacking in many other brilliant people in the great game of espionage. His friendship helped make Blade's lonely and complicated life more endurable.

«Ah, Richard,» said J, when they'd finished shaking hands. «I must say, your beard suits you. I'm glad that beards are coming back into respectability. It simplifies at least one of our problems.»

Blade sighed. «I'm glad you like it. I can't say I share your enthusiasm. It used to be that when I came back from Dimension X with a beard, shaving it off made me feel back home again. Now I'm going to have to carry this blasted chin spinach around everywhere.»

«I know,» said J. «But you know the situation.»

Blade nodded. «I do. Unless it's improved over the past couple of weeks?» he added hopefully.

J shook his head. «We're still exactly where we were the last time I talked to you about it.»

«In other words, stalemate?»

«That's about it,» said J. He turned and they began the long walk down the corridor to the computer rooms at the far end.

The «situation» bothering both J and Blade would have been ludicrous under other circumstances. It all began on a stormy night just before Blade's last trip into Dimension X, when Blade was taking a train into London. The train was wrecked, with fifteen people killed and more than fifty injured.

Blade was unhurt. He promptly went to work, using all his strength and skill to help the others in the wreck. His swift rescue work and first-aid measures saved at least a dozen lives.

Blade realized that being a hero would put him squarely in the middle of a blaze of publicity, making him conspicuous and possibly endangering the security of Project Dimension X. So he slipped quietly off into the stormy night just before the police and rescue teams arrived on the scene.

Enter the Chief Constable of the county, to hear about the mystery hero who had saved so many lives and then vanished. He immediately took it into his head that the man had disappeared because he was a wanted criminal! The Chief Constable had a composite drawing of the mystery hero prepared and took all the other steps necessary to launch a full-scale search. As Blade sailed off into Dimension X, Scotland Yard was being alerted to comb Britain for him!

At this point good luck and J both entered the picture, just in time to keep things from getting completely out of hand. Even a dozen witnesses together could not produce a recognizable picture of Richard Blade, seen briefly on a cold, dark night. What Scotland Yard and the newspapers and BBC put into circulation was a picture of Blade that his own mother wouldn't have recognized.

J also went to work. MI6 had well-established routines for quietly blocking or sidetracking Scotland Yard in emergencies. In J's opinion this was an emergency. The public uproar might eventually threaten Project Dimension X. Even if things didn't go that far, it would certainly become difficult or impossible for Richard Blade to live a normal life in Britain. That thought made J see red.

Even Blade never learned the details of all that J did. Whatever was done, it was enough. Blade did not have to dispose of his apartment and all his possessions, assume a complete new identity, and live under cover in his own country. On J's recommendation, he kept the beard he'd grown on his last trip to Dimension X. He also took extra precautions to keep people from trailing him. Apart from that, he could live at least as normal a life as he had before the whole business of the mystery hero exploded in his face.

«Eventually I suspect that interest will fade out entirely,» said J. «Then you can take off the beard and go back to normal. I could speed up the process, of course. But it would be a gamble.»

«Politics?» said Blade.

«Quite. We'd need direct intervention by the Prime Minister. That would be bound to attract attention in certain places that have a nasty habit of leaking things to the press. There could easily be a public scandal about the sinister plottings of security people. The Prime Minister's in no mood to risk something like that now.»

«I can hardly blame him,» said Blade. «Besides, it would mean the hunt would be on again. As things stand now, it's dying down. We'll just have to wait it out.»

«True,» said J. «Although I must say that for once I'm rather glad that your job keeps you beyond the reach of Scotland Yard most of the time. It makes this sort of thing a dashed sight simpler to handle.»

They were now approaching the door to the computer rooms. They stopped briefly while electronic monitors scanned, identified, and approved them. Then the doors opened and they passed on.

The ever-increasing mass of equipment in the first few rooms was a familiar sight to both men. They passed swiftly onward from room to room with hardly a glance to either side. They only stopped when they came to the massive door of the main computer room. Beyond that door was Lord Leighton's private sanctum, with the huge computer, the product of his genius and the heart of Project Dimension X.

Blade had seen the main computer as often as he had the supporting equipment in the outer rooms. Unlike the supporting equipment, the main computer remained interesting, even awe-inspiring. It was monstrous-ranks of towering consoles with gray, crackled finishes, rising almost to the rock ceiling of the room.