nd in it was the third one, sitting in the front
seat, as empty of face as the other two. He hadn't bothered to turn
off the vehicle's cushion jets and allow it to settle to the street.
He had known how very quickly his colleagues would reappear with their
prisoner.

Josip Pekic sat in the back between the two, wondering just where he
was being taken, and, above all, why. For the life of him he couldn't
think of what the charge might be. True enough, he read the usual
number of proscribed books, but no more than was common among other
intellectuals, among the students and the country's avant garde, if
such you could call it. He had attended the usual parties and informal
debates in the coffee shops where the more courageous attacked this
facet or that of the People's Dictatorship. But he belonged to no
active organizations which opposed the State, nor did his tendencies
attract him in that direction. Politics were not his interest.

At this time of the night, there was little traffic on the streets of
Zagurest, and few parked vehicles. Most of those which had been rented
for the day had been returned to the car-pool garages. It was the one
advantage Josip could think of that Zagurest had over the cities of
the West which he had seen. The streets were not cluttered with
vehicles. Few people owned a car outright. If you required one, you
had the local car pool deliver it, and you kept it so long as you
needed transportation.

He had expected to head for the Kalemegdan Prison where political
prisoners were traditionally taken, but instead, they slid off to the
right at Partisan Square, and up the Boulevard of the November
Revolution. Josip Pekic, in surprise, opened his mouth to say
something to the security policeman next to him, but then closed it
again and his lips paled. He knew where they were going, now. Whatever
the charge against him, it was not minor.

A short kilometer from the park, the government buildings began. The
Skupstina, the old Parliament left over from the days when
Transbalkania was a backward, feudo-capitalistic power of third class.
The National Bank, the new buildings of the Borba and the Politica.
And finally, set back a hundred feet from the boulevard, the sullen,
squat Ministry of Internal Affairs.

It had been built in the old days, when the Russians had still
dominated the country, and in slavish imitation of the architectural
horror known as Stalin Gothic. Meant to be above all efficien