He was a small man wearing rimless glasses, with a faint suggestion of a pot belly beneath his well-tailored suit. It was rumored that McCone wore elevator shoes, but if so, they were unobtrusive. There was a small silver flag-pin in his lapel. All in all, he did not look like a monster at all, the inheritor of such fearsome alphabet-soup bureaus as the FBI and the CIA. Not like a man who had mastered the technique of the black car in the night, the rubber club, the sly question about relatives back home. Not like a man who had mastered the entire spectrum of fear.

“Ben Richards?” He used no bullhorn, and without it his voice was soft and cultured without being effeminate in the slightest.

“Yes.”

“I have a sworn bill from the Games Federation, an accredited arm of the Network Communications Commission, for your apprehension and execution. Will you honor it?”

“Does a hen need a flag?”

“Ah.” McCone sounded pleased. “The formalities are taken care of. I believe in formalities, don’t you? No, of course you don’t. You’ve been a very informal contestant. That’s why you’re still alive. Did you know you surpassed the standing Running Man record of eight days and five hours some two hours ago? Of course you don’t. But you have. Yes. And your escape from the YMCA in Boston. Sterling. I understand the Nielsen rating on the program jumped twelve points.”

“Wonderful.”

“Of course, we almost had you during that Portland interlude. Bad luck. Parrakis swore with his dying breath that you had jumped ship in Auburn. We believed him; he was so obviously a frightened little man.”

“Obviously,” Richards echoed softly.

“But this last play has been simply brilliant. I salute you. In a way, I’m almost sorry the game has to end. I suspect I shall never run up against a more inventive opponent.”

“Too bad,” Richards said.

“It’s over, you know,” McCone said. “The woman broke. We used Sodium Pentothal on her. Old, but reliable.” He pulled a small automatic. “Step out, Mr. Richards. I will pay you the ultimate compliment. I’m going to do it right here, where no one can film it. Your death will be one of relative privacy.”

“Get ready, then,” Richards grinned.

He opened the door and stepped out. The two men faced each other across the blank service area cement.

It was McCone who broke the deadlock first. He threw back his head and laughed. It was a very cultured laugh, soft and velvet. “Oh, you are so good, Mr. Richards. Par excellence. Raise, call, and raise again. I salute you with honesty: The woman has not broken. She maintains stubbornly that the bulge I see in your pocket there is Black Irish. We can’t S.A. P. her because it leaves a definable trace. A single EEG on the woman and our secret would be out. We are in the process of lifting in three ampoules of Canogyn from New York. Leaves no trace. We expect it in forty minutes. Not in time to stop you, alas.

“She is lying. It’s obvious. If you will pardon a touch of what your fellows like to call elitism, I will offer my observation that the middle class lies well only about sex. May I offer another observation? Of course I may. I am.” McCone smiled. “I suspect it’s her handbag. We noticed she had none, although she had been shopping. We’re quite observant. What happened to her purse if it isn’t in your pocket, Richards?”

He would not pick up the gambit. “Shoot me if you’re so sure.”

McCone spread his hands sorrowfully. “How well I’d love to! But one does not take chances with human life, not even when the odds are fifty to one in your favor. Too much like Russian roulette. Human life has a certain sacred quality. The government-our government-realizes this. We are humane.”

“Yes, yes,” Richards said, and smiled ferally. McCone blinked.

“So you see-”

Richards started. The man was hypnotizing him. The minutes were flying, a helicopter was coming up from Boston loaded with three ampoules of jack-me-up-and-turn-me-over (and if McCone said forty minutes he meant twenty), and here he stood, listening to this man’s tinkling little anthem. God, he was a monster.

“Listen to me,” Richards said harshly, interrupting. “The speech is short, little man. When you inject her, she’s going to sing the same tune. For the record, it’s all here. Dig?”

He locked his gaze with McCone’s and began to walk forward.

“I’ll see you, shiteater.”

McCone stepped aside. Richards didn’t even bother to look at him as he passed. Their coat sleeves brushed.

“For the record, I was told the pull on half-cock was about three pounds. I’ve got about two and a half on now. Give or take.”

He had the satisfaction of hearing the man’s breath whistle a little faster.

“Richards?”

He looked back from the stairs and McCone was looking up at him, the gold edges of his glasses gleaming and flashing. “When you get in the air, we’re going to shoot you down with a ground-to-air missile. The story for the public will be that Richards got a little itchy on the trigger. RIP.”

“You won’t, though.”

“No?”

Richards began to smile and gave half a reason. “We’re going to be very low and over heavily populated areas. Add twelve fuel pods to twelve pounds of Irish and you got a very big bang potential. Too big. You’d do it if you could get away with it, but you can’t.” He paused. “You’re so bright. Did you anticipate me on the parachute?”

“Oh, yes,” McCone said calmly. “It’s in the forward passenger compartment. Such old hat, Mr. Richards. Or do you have another trick in your bag?”

“You haven’t been stupid enough to tamper with the chute, either, I’ll bet.”

“Oh no. Too obvious. And you would pull that nonexistent imploder ring just before you struck, I imagine. Quite an effective airburst.”

“Goodbye, little man.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Richards. And bon voyage.” He chuckled. “Yes, you do rate honesty. So I will show you one more card. Just one. We are going to wait for the Canogyn before taking action. You are absolutely right about the missile. For now, just a bluff. Call and raise again, eh? But I can afford to wait. You see, I am never wrong. Never. And I know you are bluffing. So we can afford to wait. But I’m keeping you. 'Voir, Mr. Richards.” He waved.

“Soon,” Richards said, but not loud enough for McCone to hear. And he grinned.

The first-class compartment was long and three aisles wide, paneled with real aged sequoia. A wine-colored rug which felt yards deep covered the floor. A 3-D movie screen was cranked up and out of the way on the far wall between the first class and the galley. In seat 100, the bulky parachute pack sat. Richards patted it briefly and went through the galley. Someone had even put coffee on.

He stepped through another door and stood in a short threat which led to the pilots’ compartment. To the right the radio operator, a man of perhaps thirty with a care-lined face, looked at Richards bitterly and then back at his instruments. A few steps up and to the left, the navigator sat at his boards and grids and plastic-encased charts.

“The fellow who’s going to get us all killed is coming up fellas,” he said into his throat mike. He gazed coolly at Richards.

Richards said nothing. The man, after all, was almost certainly right. He limped into the nose of the plane.

The pilot was fifty or better, an old war-horse with the red nose of a steady drinker, and the clear, perceptive eyes of a man who was not even close to the alcoholic edge. His co-pilot was ten years younger, with a luxuriant growth of red hair spilling out from under his cap.

“Hello, Mr. Richards,” the pilot said. He glanced at the bulge in Richards’s pocket before he looked at his face. “Pardon me if I don’t shake hands. I’m Flight Captain Don Holloway. This is my co-pilot Wayne Duninger.”