a hundred-pound power-cartridge case. It was in a
traveling-bag under his bed. And you know how it was to be fired? With
a regular 40-mm flare-pistol, welded into the end of the bomb. The
flare-powder had been taken out of the cartridge, and it had been
reloaded with a big charge of rifle-powder. I suppose it would blow
one subcritical mass into another. But the only way he could have
fired the bomb would have been by pulling the trigger."

And blowing himself up along with it. He must have wanted Merlin
destroyed pretty badly.

"Have you questioned him yet?"

"Not yet. I wanted to tell you about it first."

He looked at his watch. Only four hours had passed since the newscast;
why, that seemed like months, ago, now.

"All right, Tom; we'll go talk to him. Where's the Colonel?"

Zareff was surrounded by a dozen screens, keeping in touch with the
_Lester Dawes_ and the gunboats and combat cars, and the gun positions
with which he had ringed Force Command. It was only a little army,
maybe, but he was a busy commander-in-chief.

"You take care of it. Tell me what you get from him. I can't leave
now. There's a report of a number of aircraft approaching from the
west now...."

They found Judge Ledue, and Kurt Fawzi and Dolf Kellton, who were just
sitting around wishing there was something to do to help. They gave
Franz Veltrin and Sylvie Jacquemont the job of keeping the
representatives of the press amused. Then they went down to the room
in which General Mike Shanlee was held under guard.

Shanlee, wearing a bathrobe and nothing else, was lying on a cot,
sleeping peacefully; three of Zareff's men were sitting on chairs,
watching him narrowly.

"All right; you can go," Conn told them. "We'll take care of him."

Shanlee woke instantly; he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of
the cot.

"You have my name and rank," he said, and his voice no longer
quavered. "My serial number is--" He recited a string of figures. "And
that's all you're getting out of me."

"We'll get anything we want out of you," Conn told him. "You know what
a mind-probe is? You should; your accomplices used one on my father's
secretary. She's a hopeless imbecile now. You'll be, too, when we're
through with you. But before then, you'll have given us everything you
know."

Kellton began to protest. "Conn, you can't do a thing like that!"

"A mind-probe is utterly illegal; why, it's a capital offense!" Ledue
exclaimed. "Conn I forbid yo