Padillo grinned at them. “Playtime’s over,” he said. “When the sun goes down you’re going over the wall with us. You’ll have a gun pointed at you all the way. If something happens, if you do the wrong thing, that gun goes off. Once you’re back in the West, I plan to turn you in. You may as well know that now. I don’t know what they’ll do with you; I don’t really care. But if you don’t do exactly as I say, and do it when I say, then you’ll be dead.”
He turned abruptly and walked back to the table. Symmes and Burchwood seemed to huddle together on the cot, as if they were cold. After a moment they began whispering to each other.
“You think that’ll work?” I asked.
“If it doesn’t, then I shoot them.”
“That simple, huh?” Cooky said. “Everything’s as simple as that.”
“To me it is,” Padillo said.
“Suppose you let us in on how we’re going to get over the wall and when and where. Or is that simple, too?”
“How drunk are you, Cook?” Padillo said.
“I’ll carry my end.”
“Not if you stagger, you won’t. I didn’t ask for your help. I may appreciate it, but I didn’t ask for it. And if you’re lushed, you’ll get left.”
“I asked him,” I said.
Padillo turned to me. “Think back. Did you?”
I thought back. “I asked him,” I repeated.
“Then you keep him sober. If he’s not, he gets left.”
“I want to know where we go over the wall and when,” Cooky said sullenly. “I have a right to know.”
“No, you don’t,” Padillo said. “You don’t have any rights at all. But I’ll give an idea of what we’re going to do. No places, though. No exact times. Just an idea. There’ll be an eight-foot-high wall. We run to that wall at dusk, after we receive a signal. We go up a ladder and down another on the other side. Then we run to an apartment building directly in front of the wall.”
“What are the Vopos and Grepos doing all this time?” Cooky asked. “They’ll be diverted.”
“How?”
Padillo looked at him coldly. “It doesn’t matter how. Let’s just say that they will.”
“I think we should know,” Cooky insisted. His voice was petulant.
“No.”
“Our plan worked before—some time ago,” Max interrupted smoothly. “The trouble lies in the number who have to go over. Usually there have been only one or two.”
“We heard all that,” Symmes called. “We’re not going; you can’t make us. What if you have to drag us? What if we scream? You can’t shoot us; you’d give yourself away.”
Padillo didn’t look at them. “You won’t scream,” he said in a patient voice, “because I can kill you a dozen ways with my hands before you open your mouth. Or I can slit your throat with a knife. If you go limp on us, that’s what I’ll do.” He turned and looked at them then. “Maybe I haven’t made it clear. If you don’t bust a gut to get over that wall, you’ll die. If you’ve made up your minds to try to screw up, just let me know. I’ll kill you right now.” He could have been making an offer to run them down to the corner drugstore so that they wouldn’t get wet in the rain.
Symmes stared at Padillo. He swallowed once, and then he and Burchwood resumed their whispering.
Cooky shoved his chair back from the table and stood up. “I don’t think any of us are going over the wall,” he said.
“Why not?” Padillo asked.
“Because we’re going to turn ourselves in.”
Padillo rose from his chair. He got up slowly, carefully. “I don’t think I understand, Cook. Maybe I should— maybe it’s obvious—but I don’t understand.”
“You’ve been riding me enough. I think you understand.”
“Spell it out,” Padillo said.
“I’ve just said it. We’re going to turn ourselves in.”
“I understand that part,” Padillo said. “That’s very clear. But why should we turn ourselves in? Do you want it that simple? Just march down to the nearest corner and call a cop?”
I sat still, my hands resting on the table. Max did the same.
“Something like that,” Cooky said.
“Your idea, Cook?”
“My idea.”
“Why didn’t we do it this morning? Why didn’t we turn ourselves in then?”
Cooky tried the half-joke smile, but his face crumpled in the effort. “I didn’t know you had such a crazy plan then; you can’t get over that wall. You can’t even get through the death strip. It’s a crazy plan. I don’t want to get killed.”
Padillo kept his eyes on Cooky. “Did you tell Cook that you were going to meet Weatherby at the Hilton last
