aiting to take another pot-shot
at the sandpile.

The passageway was longer than he had thought, and he realized that he
might have been just a little careless in coming in through the
window. With the firelight at his back, he might make a pretty good
target from farther down the hall, or from any of the dark, empty
rooms that would someday be officers'.

Then he found it. The slight light from the main hallway came through
enough to show him where to turn.

Keeping in the darkness, Karnes' eyes surveyed the broad hallway for
several seconds before he spotted the movement near a stairway. After
he knew where to look, it was easy to make out the man's crouched
figure.

Karnes thought: _I can't call to him to surrender. I can't let him get
away. I can't sneak across that hall to stick my gun in his ribs. And,
above all, I cannot let him get away with that microfilm._

_Hell, there's only one thing I can do._

Karnes lifted his gun, aimed carefully at the figure, and fired.

* * * * *

Avery must have had a fairly tight grip on his own weapon, because
when Karnes' slug hit him, it went off once before his body spread
itself untidily across the freshly set cement. Then the gun fell out
of the dead hand and slid a few feet, spinning in silly little
circles.

Karnes approached the corpse cautiously, just in case it wasn't a
corpse, but it took only a moment to see that the caution had been
unnecessary. He knelt, rolled the body over, unfastened the pants,
pulled them down to the knees and stripped off the ribbon of adhesive
tape that he knew would be on the inside of the thigh. Underneath it
were four little squares of thin plastic.

As he looked at the precious microfilm in his hand, he sensed
something odd. If he had been equipped with the properly developed
muscles to do so, he would have pricked his ears. There was a soft
footstep behind him.

He spun around on his heel, his gun ready. There was another man
standing at the top of the shadowy stairway.

Karnes stood up slowly, his weapon still levelled.

"Come down from there slowly, with your hands in the air!"

The man didn't move immediately, and, although Karnes couldn't see his
face clearly in the shimmering shadows, he had the definite impression
that there was a grin on it. When the man did move, it was to turn
quickly and run down the upper hallway, with a shot ringing behind
him.

Karnes made the top of the stai