Hayes' face set into a hard mask. "There'll be a meeting of the brass, of course. But I can tell you what the result will be. I'll be assigned to kill him." * * * * * A buzz of excited conversation filled the Pentagon conference room. Flinn sat in one of the several dozen chairs between Wilmer and Hayes and looked at a glass ashtray that lay on the part of the long table just in front of him. One day perhaps he, too, might be able to influence the molecular structure of such an object. Or, more likely, one of his descendants, because he would never be able to discover the short-cuts now. Planned murder. All the resources and brains of the government, the champion of the rights and dignity of the individual, gathered together to plot the deliberate destruction of one man. It filled Flinn with sadness. It was inevitable. It had to be done. No one had the right to put himself above the rules of social conduct and the welfare of several billion innocent souls. And yet-- He found himself wondering what the Founding Fathers would think of such a move. "... all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ... Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Executions of criminals were the result of lengthy legal processes, during which all the rights of the individual were scrupulously observed. But this--was he also one of the judges? Let the punishment fit the crime. What about the judging? "Isn't there some other way?" Wilmer broke into his thoughts. "That's what you're thinking, correct?" Flinn managed a faint smile. "And I'm supposed to be the telepath." "Let's be entirely rational about it," Wilmer said. "Dobbs is a brilliant man, granted. But he is also a lecher and a coward." "There's some of the pig and the wolf in every man," Flinn said. "Depends on the extent," Wilmer went on. "Dobbs is way overboard. And he's a craven. I know it's hard to picture a man who voluntarily crosses a bridge into the unknown as anything but brave. I suppose there is a sort of bravado in it. But when he turns that bridge into a club to threaten the rest of mankind--is this courage?" He turned to the FBI man. "What do you think about it, Fred?" Hayes pulled himself out of the shell of disciplined impassivity into which he had retreated shortly after passing his own unofficial death sentence upon Dobbs. He looked at the physicist and the parapsychologist. "Nothing," Hayes said bluntly. "Absolutely nothing. I'm just one of the expendables." "Aren't we all?" Wilmer said. He shrugged at Flinn. "That's why we were chosen originally. Me because I was there at the atoll when all this started, and was acquainted with Dobbs, and capable of understanding the implications of his acts. Hayes because--" "Because I've a good enough record to be above suspicion, and because I'm young enough not to be missed," the agent said.