hing,
now, except one thing. This pistol-switch somebody gave you; what's the
idea of that?"

"Why, that's because I'm on the spot," Rand told him. "I'm to be killed,
and somebody else is to be killed along with me. The .25 automatic will
be used on me, and the .38 will be used on the other fellow, and we'll be
found dead about five feet apart, and I'll be holding my own gun, and the
other fellow will be holding the .25, and it will look as though we shot
it out and scored a double knockout. That way, my mouth will be shut
about what I've learned since I came here, and the man who's supposed to
have killed me will take the rap for Fleming and Rivers both. Nothing to
stop an investigation like a couple of corpses who can't tell their own
story and can take the blame for everything."

"_Zhee-zus!_" Kavaalen's eyes widened. "That must be just it!"

"Well, you got your nerve about you, I'll say that," McKenna commented.
"You sit there and talk about it like it was something that was going to
happen to Joe Doakes and Oscar Zilch." He looked at Rand intently. "You
want us to keep an eye on you?"

Rand leaned over and spat into the brass cuspidor, a gesture of
braggadocio he had picked up among the French maquis.

"Hell, no! That's the last thing I do want!" he said. "I want him to try
it. You realize, don't you, that all this is pure assumption and theory?
We don't have a single fact, as it stands, that proves anything. We could
go and pick this fellow up, and he's one of three men, so we could grab
all three of them, and even if we found the .25 Webley & Scott and my .38
in his pockets, we couldn't charge him with anything. Fact is, right now
we can't even prove that Lane Fleming's death was anything but the
accident it's on the books as being. But let him take a shot at me...."

"And then you'll have another nice, clear case of self-defense." McKenna
frowned. "Goddammit, Jeff, you've had to defend yourself too many times,
already. This'll be--well, how many will it be?"

"Counting Germans?" Rand grinned. "Hell, I don't know; I can't remember
all of them."

"One thing," Kavaalen said solemnly, "you never hear of any lawyers
springing people out of cemeteries on writs."

"Look, Jeff," McKenna said, at length. "If it's the way you think, this
guy won't dare kill you instantly, will he? Seems to me, the way the
script reads, this other guy shoots you, and you shoot back and kill him,
and then you die. Isn't that it?"