Beyond them, waiting for Marshall by the staircase, stood the black figure of Kroll, the automatic jutting from his hand.

"Thanks for covering me," he said thickly. He pointed to the office near the stairway. "I was in there. Thought they'd try to make a dash for it when they heard you go around the side."

The drab air of the bunker was stained with sharp sweet fumes that stung Marshall 's eyes. He bent down over the bodies, checked them carefully. A damp strip of handkerchief was clenched in the girl's hand like a dead flower. For a long moment he stared at it, then gradually became aware of Kroll's boots two or three feet away from him.

He started to get up, then saw the automatic in Kroll's hand, leveled at his face. The heavy barrel followed him unwaveringly. Kroll's head was low between his shoulders, his eyes hidden behind the visor of his helmet.

Marshall felt his courage ebbing. "What's happening, Kroll?" he managed to say in a steady voice. He moved toward Kroll, who stepped back and let him pass, training the.45 on Marshall 's head.

"Sorry, Marshall," he said flatly. "R.H."

"What? Hardoon?" Marshall hesitated, estimating the distance to the stairway. Kroll was a few paces behind him. So Hardoon had decided to dispense with him, now that Marshall had served his purpose! He should have realized this when Kroll had been sent to collect them. "Don't be crazy," he said. "You must have your wires crossed."

When he was six feet from the stairway he suddenly dived forward, swerving from side to side, and managed to put his left hand on the stair rail.

Aiming carefully, Kroll shot him twice, first in the back, the impact of the bullet lifting Marshall onto the bottom step and knocking him off his feet, the second shot into his stomach as he toppled around, his great body uncontrollable, his arms swinging like windmills. He stumbled past Kroll, spun heavily against the wall and crashed downward into a corner.

He was about ten feet from Kroll, who waited quietly until the narrow stream of blood meandering across the concrete floor finally reached his feet, then made his way quickly up the staircase.

"Simon!"

The girl was crouched behind the door, fingers over her face. As she saw Kroll she screamed and backed away from him, almost tripping over the recumbent figure of Andrew Symington, half conscious on the floor by the sofa.

Kroll jerked the.45 back into his jacket, then stepped over to Deborah, cornering her behind the desk.

"Where is he?" she shouted at him. "Simon? What have you-"

Kroll knocked her against the wall with the back of his hand, forced her to the floor.

"Shut up!" he snarled. "Crazy yapping!"

He listened carefully to the sounds shifting around the bunker, kicking the girl sharply with his boot when her blubbering interrupted him, then picked up the phone.

As he waited he looked down at Deborah, and his right hand edged back toward the.45. His fingers flexed around the heavy butt, drawing it out.

He searched for the back of Deborah's neck, then noticed the auburn curls tipping forward over her head. They were soft and wispy, more delicate than anything Kroll had ever seen. Like a huge bull entranced by a butterfly, he watched them, fascinated, feeling his blood thicken, ignoring the voice on the phone.

His hand relaxed and withdrew from his jacket.

"All set," he said slowly into the phone. "Just one of them." He glanced down at Deborah. "I'll be about ten minutes."

Lurching painfully, Marshall dragged himself into the darkened communications room, heaved up onto his feet and then slumped into a chair in front of the radio transmitter. For a few minutes he coughed uncontrollably, fighting for air, his body drowning in the enormous lake of ice which filled his chest. As he rolled helplessly from side to side his eyes stared at the blood eddying across the floor below the chair. The trail led back into the corridor, past the two bodies to the stairway. How many hours had elapsed since he had first set out for the transmitter he could no longer remember, but the sight of the bodies revived him momentarily, making him realize that his great strength was ebbing rapidly, and he leaned forward on his elbows and began to switch on the set.

Around him the bunker was silent. The ventilator system had been turned off and the air was stale and motionless, still stained by the acrid fumes of the cordite. Along the wall behind him the teletypes were at last quiet, the sole sounds provided by the iow hum of the TV sets. Only two of the screens showed a picture,their reflections swinging left and right across the dark ceiling.

Fumbling helplessly, Marshall paused to steady himself, trying to conserve what little air he could force into his lungs. The wound through his chest wall felt as wide as a lance blade, each breath turning it between his shattered ribs.

Half an hour later, when he had almost gone, the set came alive between his fingers. Seizing the microphone with both hands, he rammed it to his lips, began to speak into it carefully, doggedly repeating his message over and over again, heedless of the replies interrupting him from the other end, until its meaning had gone and it became an insane gabble.

When he had finally finished, his voice a whisper, he let the microphone fall through his fingers to the floor, then jerked his chair slightly and faced the TV screens. Only one picture was being transmitted now, a white blur of flickering dust that crossed the screen from left to right, unvarying in its speed and direction.

The focus of his eyes fading, Marshall lay back, watching it blindly. His gray handsome face was almost in repose, the skin hollowing around his eyes and temples, draining his lips. Unaware of his own breathing, he felt himself sink down toward the bottom of the ice lake. Around him the stale air grew steadily colder. A few sounds shifted somewhere above in the empty bunker, echoing down the silent ventilator shafts and through the deserted corridors of his end.

7 The Gateways of the Whirlwind

"How is he?"

"Not too bad. Mild concussion, hairline fracture above the right ear. Second-degree burns to the palms and soles."

"He'll pull through, though?"

"Oh, yes. If we do, he will."

The voices drifted away. Donald Maitland stirred pleasantly, half asleep, almost enjoying the sensation of drowsy warmth coupled with a slight nausea. Now and then the voices would return. Sometimes he could only hear the rise and fall of their tones as they moved among the patients; at other times, when they discussed his own case, standing over him, he could hear them plainly.

He was on the mend, atleast. Turning lazily, he tried to make himself comfortable, tried to feel the stiff caress of crisp sheets against his face.

Yet he could never find them. Whenever he searched, the bed and pillow were hard and unyielding as he realized his hands were in plaster casts.

He wished he could wake. Then sleep would come again, numbing the pain in his head and across his shoulders, dulling the nausea that made him want to vomit.

"Looks a lot better. Don't you agree?"

"No doubt about it. But those burns are a little worrying. How the hell did he get them?"

"Forget exactly. I think he was trapped in the boiler room at a generating station. They may be carbide burns…"

Their voices moved away as consciousness returned, paused and then faded. Maitland stretched and flexed his legs, pressed his feet against the foot of the bed.

_Burns?_

How? He remembered being trapped in the Underground station at Knightsbridge. Had he been transferred to another hospital center, perhaps had his identity confused?