The girl hesitated, but Marshall smiled at her. "Believe me, Deborah, I give you my word they'll come with us. See you in a moment."

As she stepped through the doorway, apparently satisfied by his assurance, Marshall turned back to Kroll.

"You stay here. I'll bring them up."

Kroll held his hand on the doorknob, looking over his shoulder at Marshall. The two big men seemed to fill the tiny office.

Kroll raised one shoulder slightly, listening to the sounds of Deborah's feet disappear up the stairway. "Why bother?" he asked laconically. "Fix them down there. Don't want to leave a lot of mess around your office. Somebody might stumble in and find them."

Marshall reached past Kroll, pressed his elbow firmly against Kroil's arm and edged his hand off the knob.

"I'm taking them with me," he said quietly. "We're not fixing them up here or anywhere else." He opened the door, to find it lodged almost immediately against Kroll's black leather boot. Marshall looked down at the steel toecap, placed squarely in his path, then straightened his shoulders and peered hard at Kroll, dull anger pounding in his temples.

"Get away from that door!" he snapped. "What the hell do you think you're playing at?"

He started to lean his shoulder against Kroll's, but Kroll suddenly swung around with his back to the door and slammed it shut with a sharp kick of the other heel.

He eyed Marshall carefully. "Hold it, Marshall. You got your orders from the Tower two minutes ago. R.H. isn't fooling around."

Marshall shook his head. "Listen, Kroll, just shut up and take your orders from me. I'll deal with R.H. when I reach the Tower. Meanwhile I don't want you telling me what to do. I'm taking these three people back with us."

"What for? You'll never get them in. R.H. just sealed out two hundred workers in Construction who've been on the Tower right from the beginning."

Marshall ignored him, was about to seize Kroll's shoulder and wrench him away from the door when there was a tap on the far side of the frosted glass. Kroll dived back, his right hand sliding swiftly into the center vent of his jacket and emerging a fraction of a second later with a heavy.45 automatic, a toy in his enormous fist.

Marshall waved him into the corner behind the door, then opened it to find Symington standing there, blinking in the bright light, dust streaks on his bald domed head.

"Hello, Andrew. What's the problem?" Marshall backed sideways into the office, drawing Symington after him. Kroll was behind the door.

"Sorry to bother you, chief," Symington began to explain. "Crighton heard someone come down the emergency exit and went up to the transport bay. Apparently there's one of those big American-" He broke off, noticing the huge figure of Kroll poised behind him. "What's going-" he began to say, then tried helplessly to back into the corridor as Kroll grabbed him by the shoulder with his left hand and wrenched him back off his feet, his right hand swinging the heavy barrel of the automatic at his head.

The blow had the full lethal power of Kroll's powerful physique behind it. Marshall dived for the gun hand, at the same time seizing Symington by the back of the neck and forcing him to the floor. He and Kroll locked arms and grappled with each other, as Symington struggled at their feet between them. Suddenly they sprang apart. Symington darted quickly through the doorway before the two big men could collect themselves, and slammed it in front of them.

Before Marshall could stop him, Kroll had fired through the frosted glass at the blurring image moving down the corridor. The sound of the shot roared out like an exploding bomb in the confined office. Shattered glass spat against the walls of the corridor. Through the aperture Marshall saw Symington kicked headlong by the force of the bullet, then slammed crookedly onto his face as if flung from a speeding car.

Kroll pulled back the door and dived out into the corridor. With' Marshall following him, he raced across to where Symington was lying, glanced cursorily at the figure at his feet, then started move down the corridor, the automatic raised steadily in front of him.

Marshall knelt down beside Symington. In the dim light he felt the warm wet patch spreading from the wound just below his left shoulder blade. He turned Symington over, saw that he was breathing in short exhausted pants. Fortunately the bullet had struck him obliquely, channeling out a three-inch-long furrow without penetrating the rib cage. Marshall sat Symington up, dragged him back into the office and propped him against the sofa.

Behind him the emergency door opened and Deborah peered around, her eyes wide with alarm.

"Simon, what's happening?" She gaped down at Symington uncomprehendingly. "You promised-"

Marshall pulled her down to the sofa.

"Stay with him, see what you can do. I think he's all right. Kroll's going crazy. I've got to stop him before he kills the other two."

As he re-entered the corridor Kroll was stepping cautiously down the stairway. Marshall pulled the short-barreled.38 from his shoulder holster. Thumbing off the safety catch, he moved forward after Kroll.

Kroll's helmeted head had just disappeared down the short stairway when a second shot roared out from the floor below. Crighton and the Wren typist were both armed, like Marshall, with COE.38's issued to protect them from hunger-maddened intruders.

He heard Kroll's.45 fire once, followed by two sharper reports from the communications room at the far end. He slid carefully down the steps, searching for Kroll's form among the shadows and angles of the corridor, then heard the soft pad of his rubber soles moving toward the service corridor which ringed the offices and provided a rear entrance to the emergency elevator.

Through the open doorway of the communications room Marshall caught a glimpse of Crighton's brown uniform crouched behind the line of teletypes. He ducked back as the.38 flashed out.

The service corridor led off immediately at his left, turning at right angles around the offices. Marshall edged the revolver forward, barrel pointed at the ceiling. He fired twice in quick succession, then dived across the exposed interval into the shelter of the service corridor.

As he caught his breath he heard Crighton fire again at the staircase and then shout something at the girl, his words lost in the roaring echoes.

Following Kroll, Marshall moved quickly down the darkened service corridor, peering briefly into the first of the offices, a clutter of desks under the dim glow of the single storm bulb over the doorway.

A second empty office and the elevator shaft separated him from the communications room at the far end. He edged carefully around the blind corners of the shaft. Fortunately the emergency doorway into the service corridor was blocked by the TV transmitters. As soon as they saw Kroll open it Crighton and the girl would empty their guns through the thin plywood.

Marshall turned the finM angle around the shaft and to his surprise found it empty. The emergency door was slightly open; a narrow strip of light crossed the corridor.

Stepping over to it, Marshall peered through.

The room was empty. Dull reflections of the TV screens swung slowly to and fro across the ceiling, but Crighton and the girl had gone.

Suddenly, from the main corridor, two shots roared out heavily, followed by a sharp cry of terror, and then, an agonizing second later, by a third shot. The sounds stunned the air. Flashes of light reflected off the glass panels of the open doorway.

Wrenching open the emergency door, Marshall kicked back a table carrying two of the TV sets, ran quickly across the room.

Crighton and the girl lay together in the corridor, Crighton face downward with his head tilted against the wall, hands raised in front of him. The girl was crumpled untidily behind him, unkempt hair over her face, her skirt around her waist.