left of Forster's confidence leaked away as he heard his own
diffident voice filling the room again. It was like being awake in the
middle of a weird dream.

But when the tape recorder hissed into silence, he went on, staring
straight ahead of him in quiet desperation.

When he ended his story, there was silence for a moment. Everyone sat
motionless.

Then Morganson looked up and around.

"Well gentlemen? Mr. Bates, C.I.A. first."

This was no longer a story told by one man; it had become a problem, a
situation to be evaluated objectively.

"Well, sir ... the only part of the thing I can comment on at this point
is the stuff about O'Connor and Walters. That checks. They both
disappeared without a trace. It was treated as a maximum security
situation, and we did give out the story they had been assigned to
special duty." He glanced briefly at Forster. "Up until now, we assumed
that only the directors at Aiken and Oak Ridge knew the real
situation--outside of the Atomic Energy Commission and C.I.A., of
course. This represents a very serious leak--or...." His voice trailed
away.

"Colonel Barfield, Intelligence?"

The young colonel tried to sound flippant, unsuccessfully.

"General, acting on the assumption the story is true, it would answer
about two hundred question marks in our files. Maybe more, with further
study."

The C.I.A. man cleared his throat and raised a finger.

"For everybody's information," he said, "a preliminary field check shows
that Dr. Preston's train was stopped for ten minutes by fog last night.
The train's radar installation failed simultaneously. There wouldn't be
anything odd about that except the temperature at the time was about 65
degrees, and the humidity was only 55 per cent. Consider that,
gentlemen.

"Theoretically, fog can't form under such conditions. Similar local fog
occurred on the occasions when O'Connor and Walters were reported
missing. The Met. people couldn't explain that, either. That's all."

Morganson sat up straight, as though he had suddenly made a decision.

"I don't think there's any value in further discussion at this point.
You will all have transcripts of Dr. Forster's statement within a few
minutes. According to that statement, we are due to lose a number of key
men in the next few hours. I'll have Code One emergency precautions
instituted at all research establishments, and I think the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs should hear from me right away. Colon