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At that moment Phelps stuck his head in the door. 'Nordmann's here.'

'All right,' Graves said.

Wright looked appreciative. 'Good move,' he said. 'Nordmann's an excellent man. In fact, it was one of his articles - detailed, scholarly, and complete - that suggested to me the possibility of stealing some gas in the first place.'

Again there was that glow in Wright's eyes. Graves found himself getting angry. He stood up abruptly. 'Don't let him go anywhere,' he said to the marshal.

'I wouldn't think of it, until I've finished my cigar,' Wright said. Graves left the lobby.

Nordmann was outside, standing on the sidewalk with Phelps. They were both looking up, talking. Graves said, 'The gas is up there. Is there any antidote?'

'To ZV? Nothing very good.'

'But there is an antidote?'

'There's a sort of theoretical antidote. If a person has a mild exposure, it may be possible to inject chemicals to block the effects of the gas.'

'Can you get those chemicals?'

'Yes, but not in sufficient quantities to protect very many -'

'Get as much as you can,' Graves said. 'Do it immediately.' He turned to Phelps. 'Notify the San Diego police. Evacuate this block and cordon it off. Cordon off the blocks on both sides as well. And I mean a cordon - nobody in and nobody out.' He paused. 'What happened with the President?'

'He's leaving within the hour.'

'For sure?'

'I assume so.'

'Better check again.'

Phelps nodded towards the lobby. 'Is he talking?'

'He's saying what he wants to say,' Graves said.

'My God, he's a cool customer.'

'What did you expect?' Graves said, and went back inside.

When he returned, he found the marshal smoking one of Wright's slim cigars. Graves shot him a look; the marshal quickly stubbed it out.

'Waste of a good cigar,' Wright said. 'Why can't we all be friends?'

Graves sat down. 'What did you paint in the hangar?'

'Paint?'

'Yes. We found a spray gun and several cans of paint.'

'Oh, that.'

'What did you paint?'

'I don't believe I'll answer that.'

'What did you paint?'

'You show a certain redundancy of mind,' Wright said. 'It's tiresome, and disappointing. I expected you to be more clever.' He was silent a moment.

'I will tell you one thing,' he said.

'What's that?' Graves resented the eagerness that he heard in his own voice.

'I have devised a multiple staging system. Actually, several interlocking systems. If one fails or is thwarted, another takes over. It's quite beyond you, I can assure you of that. However, I will tell you I am dependent on one external system, which is fortunately quite reliable.'

'What's that?'

'You,' Wright said. 'Everything has been designed especially for you, so to speak.' Wright's calmness was infuriating. Graves bit his lip, trying to control his anger.

'What time is it?' Wright asked.

'Three forty,' the marshal said.

'Thank you. Do you have any other questions, John?'

'One or two,' Graves said. His anger was so intense that it clouded his judgement. He fought the feeling.

'I can see you're upset,' Wright said. 'And you haven't asked me some rather obvious questions. One is, when will the gas go off?'

Graves stared at him, almost shaking with fury.

'The answer,' Wright said, 'is five PM exactly. The gas will go off then. It will begin to drift in a predictable way and will have blanketed the city with good saturation by about five thirty, the peak of the rush hour: maximum number of people on the streets, and so on. Now, it seems to me there was something else I wanted to tell you...'

Graves wanted to beat the man to a pulp. He wanted to smash his face, to shatter his nose, his teeth... He had a brief image of himself standing over Wright, pounding him.

'Damn,' Wright said, 'it was just on the tip of my tongue. Well, no matter. It couldn't have been that important.' He sighed. 'I think,' he said, 'this concludes the questions for today. I have nothing else to say.'

Graves stared at him for a moment. 'You don't leave us much choice.'