The Second Mack Reynolds Megapack. Mack Reynolds

senior hatchetman. An agent could hardly expect to survive so long. It was against averages.

      It was then that the screen of his telephone lit up.

      Senator Phil McGivern’s face glowered at him.

      Warren Casey started, stared.

      McGivern said, coldly, deliberately, “The building is surrounded, Casey. Surrender yourself. There are more than fifty security police barring any chance of escape.”

      The Pacifist’s mind snapped to attention. Was there anything he had to do? Was there anything in the apartment that might possibly betray the organization or any individual member of it? He wanted a few moments to think.

      He attempted to keep his voice even. “What do you want, McGivern?”

      “My son!” The politician was glaring his triumph.

      “I’m afraid Fredric is out of my hands,” Casey said. Was the senator lying about the number of police? Was there any possibility of escape?

      “Then whose hands is he in? You have him, Warren Casey, but we have you.”

      “He’s not here,” Casey said. There might still be a service he could perform. Some way of warning the organization of McGivern’s method of tracking him down. “How did you find me? How do you know my name?” McGivern snorted. “You’re a fool as well as a criminal. You sat in my office and spoke in the accent of your native city. I pinpointed that, immediately. You told me you’d been a bomber pilot and obviously had seen action, which meant you’d been in the last war. Then as a pseudonym you used the name Jakes. Did you know that persons taking pseudonyms almost always base them on some actuality? We checked in your home city, and, sure enough, there was actually a newspaperman named Jakes. We questioned him. Did he know a former bomber pilot, a veteran of the last war. Yes, he did. A certain Warren Casey. From there on the job was an easy one— criminal. Now, where is my son?”

      For a moment, Warren Casey felt weary compassion for the other. The senator had worked hard to find his boy, hard and brilliantly. “I’m sorry, McGivern, I really don’t know.” Casey threw his glass, destroying the telephone screen.

      He was on his feet, heading for the kitchen. He’d explored this escape route long ago when first acquiring the apartment.

      The dumbwaiter was sufficiently large to accommodate him. He wedged himself into it, slipped the rope through his fingers, quickly but without fumbling. He shot downward.

      In the basement, his key opened a locker. He reached in and seized the submachine pistol and two clips of cartridges. He stuffed one into a side pocket, slapped the other into the gun, threw off the safety. Already he was hurrying down the corridor toward the heating plant. He was counting on the fact that the security police had not had sufficient time to discover that this building shared its central heating and air-conditioning plant with the apartment house adjoining.

      Evidently, they hadn’t.

      A freight elevator shot him to the roof of the next building. From here, given luck, he could cross to a still further building and make his getaway.

      He emerged on the roof, shot a quick glance around.

      Fifty feet away, their backs to him, stood three security police agents. Two of them armed with automatic rifles, the other with a handgun, they were peering over the parapet, probably at the windows of his apartment.

      His weapon flashed to position, but then the long weariness overtook him. No more killing. Please. No more killing. He lowered the gun, turned and headed quietly in the opposite direction.

      A voice behind him yelled, “Hey! Stop! You—”

      He ran.

      The burst of fire caught Warren Casey as he attempted to vault to the next building. It ripped through him and the darkness fell immediately.

      Fifteen minutes later Senator Phil McGivern scowled down at the meaningless crumpled figure. “You couldn’t have captured him?” he said sourly.

      “No, sir,” the security sergeant defended himself. “It was a matter of shoot him or let him escape.”

      McGivern snorted his disgust.

      The sergeant said wonderingly, “Funny thing was, he could’ve finished off the three of us. We were the only ones on the roof here. He could’ve shot us and then got away.”

      One of the others said, “Probably didn’t have the guts.”

      “No,” McGivern growled. “He had plenty of guts.”