Faht Bey came up. "What are you up to? These are Apparatus materials and men you are using. It had better not be for some private project."

"Company business," I said righteously.

"Very suspicious business," he said. "I've never seen these people work at your orders this hard before. Or at all, for that matter."

"Lombar Hisst's orders," I said. "This project is vital."

"I hope so," he said doubtfully. "You know anything about these heroin thefts from our warehouse?"

"Are they still continuing?" I said and when he nodded, with a peculiar look at me, I continued, "You'd better get to the bottom of it before I have to report it to the Inspector-General Overlord."

"That," he said, "is the last thing I'm worried about." He walked off.

It peeved me. It was obvious that he thought I was stealing the very heroin that we were to ship to Lombar Hisst.

His attitude was insufferable. Oh, but there were going to be some changes now. Just wait until I had all that money!

I knew I had a long and dangerous run ahead of me. I thought I had better get some rest while I could. I lay down on my bunk. But I was so keyed up that I couldn't sleep. Dollar marks kept spinning around in my head.

Midafternoon arrived. On my dozenth visit to the hangar, I found everything still. No annealing torches were flashing.

The work was lying there, absorbo-coat paint dry. I inspected it. It was beautiful.

To the eye, it was a flat, thick platform of heavy steel, a thing of massive girders and great ringbolts. But it had two differences from what it seemed to be. It was built of aluminum girders. The top plates folded back: it was hollow!

To show you how important I considered the project, I actually paid the construction superintendent the other two hundred dollars! No sacrifice would be spared to make this a success!

I entered the Blixo and got hold of the mate. He assembled what crew were still in the ship. I unlocked the storeroom. And in no time at all, the cases of gold were being carried to the platform.

The top was open. One by one, the cases of gold bars were put into the hollow place. They were securely lashed down. Three hundred boxes containing six hundred fifty-pound bars occupied quite a bit of space. But gold is deceptive. One would think 12 1/2 tons of it would be a mountain. It isn't. But even so, we were a bit hard pressed to get the last case snugly in.

The top plates of the platform were then fixed in place. And now, to all appearances, it was just a solid, thick platform of girders.

I had to do the next step myself. It was very tiring. I got a handcart and, with several trips, I moved the fake gold out of my secret room and down the tunnel and piled it on the platform top. I had destroyed all Voltarian labels.

The Blixo mate accommodatingly lashed down the visible nine cases with their eighteen fifty-pound bars of gold-painted lead.

I verified that all was now secure. And to again show how important I considered this project, I gave him the additional hundred dollars. He was pleased. He and his crew would also be dead drunk very shortly, for the first place he went was to the phone. This meant he wouldn't be talking to the Antimancos when they came.

I looked up through the electronic illusion of the mountaintop. The day was fading out. The sun is early gone in a Turkish January. We were above 38° north latitude.

I went up the tunnel and got into my house. I bolted down a fast supper. I put on my ankle holster and shoved the Undercover Colt into it. I filled my pockets with the other concealed weapons. I strapped on the Ruger gunbelt and checked the cylinder of the Blackhawk and thrust it in place. I put the thong over the hammer and tied the holster to my leg. I draped the two shotgun bandoliers left and right across my chest and fastened their lower edges to the cartridge belt of the handgun.

I picked up the phone and called Prahd. Yes, the Antimancos were ready to be sent-had been for hours. I phoned the taxi driver and had him pick them up.

Nervous now from the very prospect of having to be convincingly calm with the Antimancos, I threw my bearskin coat over my shoulders, picked up the FIE shot­gun and went down into the hangar.

The Antimancos came down the barracks tunnel, restive and annoyed. I wished I had thought to tell Prahd to blow some calming gas on them. Or on me, for that matter.

I met them at the platform edge.

"Of all the condemned nonsense!" said Captain Stabb. "I'm a blasted pincushion. That (bleepard) stuck us full of holes!"

"Did he give you the epidemic certificates?" I said tensely.

"He gave us some (bleeped) piece of paper," snarled Stabb. He had it out.

I took it, scanned it and put it in my pocket. "It would not do," I said, "for you to be caught robbing a bank and be put in jail for not having the right health certificate."

It had the desired effect. Captain Stabb's beady eyes gleamed with greed.

They crowded close. I knew they would. This was going well.

"Tonight," I said in a very low voice, "we are going to make the preliminary run. I have a wonderful plan. In order to seize the gold reserves of Switzerland..."

"The gold reserves of Switzerland?" they breathed in awe and greed.

"Just that," I said. I spoke to Captain Stabb but let the others hear. "In order to steal something, it is necessary to know where it is."

They nodded.

"So at great risk to myself, I am going to do just that."

"How?" whispered Stabb.

"Look at that platform," I said.

They did. What they really saw was what they supposed was a steel platform with nine bullion cases lashed to the top.

"The gold in those boxes," I said, "isn't gold at all. It is just lead bars painted with gold paint. Check them and see for yourself."

They undid a lashing. With a careful dagger, they verified it. I took a small hammer and repaired the damage.

"But how does this rob Switzerland?" said Stabb.

"Very simple," I said. "You are going to land me and this at Kloten Airport in Zurich. They will take it to their vaults and I will follow them. I will pinpoint exactly where the vaults are and when we have planned the raid all out we'll go back and lift the whole thing away with the line-jumper!"

"Oh," said Stabb, his eyes glowing as I knew they would. "There's only one trouble with the plan. The line-jumper will only lift about two hundred tons."

"Better a little than none," I said.

"Two hundred tons of gold," said an Antimanco engineer. "Devils! That would buy half a country at the price of gold here!"

"It's a big risk for you," said Stabb.

"That's why I am carrying this gun," I said, patting "The Brute."

"And then we pick you up?" said Stabb.

"No," I said. "All you have to do is put this platform near their customs shed. I will climb out of the ship and down onto it. And then you cut for home. I'll fight my own way out."

"Devils," said a pilot in awe. "That's nerve."

"So, quick, get yourselves ready," I said. "We'll take off within the hour."

They scrambled!

The personnel area of the line-jumper consisted of forward seats for the two pilots and rear seats for a tank crew of six. It was a peaked compartment way up at the top of the bell and it was almost without ports-it had small slits that could be opened or closed so as to not leave any reflective surface for detection beams.

The engine room was elementary and required only one engineer but two of the Antimanco crew got into it. It lay just below the personnel compartment and one went through it to climb down and out.

The rest of the ship was just like a flared bell mouth. In fact, if you looked at the ship from the side, it had the appearance of an enormous church bell.