This is Billie.'
'Billie Elspeth: was taken by surprise. 'Where are you?'
'I'm in Huntsville, trying to contact Luke.'
'What's he doing there?'
'Looking for a file he left here on Monday.'
Elspeth's jaw dropped. 'He went to Huntsville on Monday? I didn't know that'
'Nobody knew, except Marigold. Elspeth, do you understand what's going on?'
She laughed humourlessly. 'I thought I did ... but not any more.'
'I believe Luke's life is in danger.'
'What makes you say so?'
'Anthony shot at him in Washington last night'
Elspeth went cold. 'Oh, my God.'
'It's too complicated to explain right now. If Luke calls you, will you tell him that Anthony is in Huntsville?'
Elspeth was trying to recover from the shock. 'Uh ... sure, of course I will.'
'It could save his life.'
'I understand. Billie ... one more thing.'
'Yeah.'
'Look after Luke, won't you?'
There was a pause. 'What do you mean?' Billie asked. You sound like you're going to die.'
Elspeth did not answer. After a moment, she broke the connection.
A sob came to her throat She fought fiercely to control herself. Tears would not help anyone, she told herself severely. She made herself calm.
Then she dialed her home in Huntsville.
.
4 P. M.
Explorer's elliptical Orbit will take it as far as 1,800 miles into space and swing it back within 187 miles of the Earth's surface. Orbiting speed of the satellite is 18,000 miles per hour.
Anthony heard a car. He looked out of the front window of Luke's house and saw a Huntsville taxicab pull up at the curb. He thumbed the safety catch on his gun. His mouth went dry.
The phone rang.
It was on one of the triangular side tables at the ends of the curved couch. Anthony stared at it in horror. It rang a second time. He was paralyzed by indecision. He looked out of the window and saw Luke getting out of the cab. The call could be trivial, nothing, a wrong number. Or it could be vital information.
Terror bubbled up inside him. He could not answer the phone arid shoot someone at the same time.
The phone rang a third time. Panicking, he snatched it up. Yes?'
This is Elspeth.'
'What? What?'
Her voice was low and strained. 'He's looking for a file he stashed in Huntsville on Monday.'
Anthony understood in a flash. Luke had made not one but two copies of the blueprints he had found on Sunday. One set he had brought to Washington, intending to take them to the Pentagon - but Anthony had intercepted him, and Anthony now had those copies. Unfortunately, he had not imagined there might be a second set, hidden somewhere as a precaution. He had forgotten that Luke was a Resistance veteran, security-conscious to the point of paranoia. 'Who else knows about this?'
'His secretary, Marigold. And Billie Josephson - she told me. There may be others.'
Luke was paying the driver. Anthony was running out of time. 'I have to have that file,' he said to Elspeth.
'That's what I thought'
'It's not here - I just searched the house from top to bottom.'
'Then it must be at the base.'
I'll have to follow him while he looks for it.'
Luke was approaching the front door.
'I'm out of time,' Anthony said, and he slammed down the phone.
He heard Luke's key scrape in the lock as he ran through the hall and into the kitchen. He went out | the back door and dosed it softly. The key was still in the outside of the lock. He turned it silently, bent down, and slipped it under the flowerpot He dropped to the ground and crawled along the verandah, keeping close to the house and below window level. In that position he turned the corner and reached the front of the house. From here to the street there was no cover. He just had to take a chance.
It seemed best to make a break for it while Luke was putting down his bag and hanging up his coat He was less likely to look out of the window now.
Gritting his teeth, Anthony stepped forward.
He walked quickly to the gate, resisting the temptation to look behind him, expecting at every second to hear Luke shout: 'Hey! Stop! Stop, or I shoot!'
Nothing happened.
He reached the street and walked away.
.
4.30 P. M.
The satellite contains two tiny radio transmitters powered by mercury batteries no bigger than flashlight batteries. Each transmitter carries four simultaneous channels of telemetry.
On top of the console TV in the living room, next to a bamboo lamp, was a matching bamboo picture frame containing a colour photograph. It showed a strikingly beautiful redhead in an ivory silk wedding dress. Beside her, wearing a grey cutaway and a yellow vest, was Luke.
He studied Elspeth in the picture. She could have been a movie star. She was tall and elegant, with a ' voluptuous figure. Lucky man, he thought, to be marrying her.
He did not like the house so much. When he had first seen the outside, and the wisteria climbing the pillars of the shady verandah, it had gladdened his heart. But the inside was all hard edges and shiny surfaces and bright paint Everything was too neat He knew, suddenly, that he liked to live in a house where the books spilled off the shelves, and the dog was asleep right across the hallway, and there were coffee rings on the piano, and a tricycle stood upside down in the driveway and had to be moved before you could put your car in the garage.
No kids lived in this house. There were no pets, either. Nothing ever got messed up. It was like an advertisement in a women's magazine, or the set of a television comedy. It made him feel that the people who appeared in these rooms were actors.
He began to search. A buff-coloured army file folder should be easy enough to find - unless he had removed the contents and thrown away the folder. He sat at the desk in the study - his study - and looked through the drawers. He found nothing of significance.
He went upstairs.
He spent a few seconds looking at the big double bed with the yellow-and-blue covers. It was hard to believe that he shared that bed every night with the ravishing creature in the wedding photo.
He opened the closet and saw, with a shock of pleasure, the rack of navy blue and grey suits and tweed sport coats, the shirts in bengal stripes and tattersall checks, the stacked sweaters and the polished shoes 'on their rack. He had been wearing this stolen suit for more than twenty-four hours, and he was tempted to take five minutes to shower and change into some of his own clothes. But he resisted. There was no time to spare.
He searched the house thoroughly. Everywhere he looked, he learned something about himself and his wife. They liked Glen Miller and Frank Sinatra, they read Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald, they drank Dewar's scotch and ate All-Bran and brushed their teeth with Colgate. Elspeth spent a lot on expensive underwear, he discovered as he went through her closet. Luke himself must be fond of ice cream, because the freezer was full of it, and Elspeth's waist was so small she could not possibly eat much of anything at all.
At last he gave up.
In a kitchen drawer he found keys to the Chrysler in the garage. He would drive to the base and search
