"Where's Captain Bascom?" "On the second floor--in charge of the machine guns." "Is there a telecaster up here?" "Yes. Over there. Here, I'll show you." She led him back to the elevator house to a telecaster set just inside the door. Matt buzzed the second floor headquarters and told Captain Bascom to fire a second burst over the women's heads. The rattling burst of the machine guns answered. A hail of lead tore through the branches in the distance, thudding against walls in the town of West Point across the highway. "They're sending us an emissary under a white flag," came Captain Bascom's voice. "We won't parley!" said Matt flatly. "Not tonight. Tell them to stay clear and we'll talk to them in the morning." In a moment, Captain Bascom's voice was relaying Matt's decision through the electronic megaphones. Matt got back to the rail in time to see the figures disappearing beyond the circle of light. He turned away, getting a chance to survey the roof for the first time. It was not flat, but in the shape of a vast amphitheatre. Apartments were built like penthouses all around the outer edge, ringing a park-like area in the center, where a grove of trees were growing on the edge of a dry-leaf-cluttered swimming pool. There were walks, now leaf-strewn, and the ivory gleam of statuary amid the shrubbery. Broad marble stairways led up to the roofs of the penthouse where he stood. These, too, were landscaped, except for the four corners where the anti-aircraft guns pointed their snouts skyward like sentinels. A helicopter, like a monstrous deformed gadfly, was squatting on the sward atop the opposite penthouse. Matt stepped back into the elevator house and called Captain Bascom. "Post sentinels," he ordered. "Four. One at each corner. And relieve them every two hours." "Right," said Captain Bascom. "Anything else?" "No. That's all, except that you'd better get some rest." "The same goes for you," the captain suggested. "You look fagged out." Matt nodded and turned away, conscious suddenly of fatigue dragging at his limbs. Hunger gnawed at his belly. He remembered that he hadn't eaten since breakfast. He felt someone tug at his sleeve. It was Lynn beside him in the moonlight. "Come along, Iron Man," she said. "You may not know it, but you've been going on nervous energy." But Matt did know it. He allowed her to lead him down one of the stairs descending to the park. "What about the bodies?" he asked. The girl shivered. "They've been moved out of all the penthouses, and some of the apartments put in shape. I've picked us out one." "Us?" said Matt and grinned wearily. "Oh. What about the floor below?" "They haven't got to those yet, nor the other two floors." They reached the park. The grass was shaggy, the shrubs beginning to send out untrimmed shoots. Dead leaves cluttered everything. "We'll have to groom these grounds," he said. "Can't live like savages."