The girl held perfectly still, facing her gang. "Range about ten feet," she said quietly. And there was something in her almost bored tone, Steel didn't like. "No tricks," he said, eyes fixed on the trigger fingers outside. He tried to get as much of himself behind her as possible, a difficult thing, however, hiding his shoulders behind not too much woman. "I mean business." "So do we," the girl said to him over her shoulder. As she spoke, Steel heard an angry buzzing sound, like a rattlesnake's warning. But there was nothing he could do about such a warning. Instantly, the pistol he was pressing against the girl's back was snatched from his hand. Steel was too astonished to move. The pistol flew up toward the ceiling, halted, and then moved across the room through the bars of the door. There was nothing holding it up. It moved the way the ice balls had moved outside. Standing there with his empty hand at the girl's back, Steel stared at the gun till it was grabbed from the air by one of the men outside. Then the gang was swarming through the door. Steel shook his head like a fighter struggling up after the ninth count. The things that happened in this place were beyond reason. How could you fight anything in a place like this! Then the girl had jerked away from him, the mob was upon him, and he was lying on the floor fighting blindly. In a moment however it was all over. There were too many of them. "That's enough! Get him on his feet!" It was the girl's voice. Dazed and beaten, Steel was yanked up, somebody holding both arms and an elbow hooked around his neck. "We've wasted enough time on you now," Lois Harmon said. She stood in front of him, eyes blazing. "But--it might interest you to know that everything you've tried to do here hasn't amounted to a damn thing! You'll have company here shortly. We're kidnapping your fat boss tonight. We're going to bring Hampton Stahl here and hold him for a cool million ransom--enough to bankrupt Vita-Heat completely...." She turned and stalked from the room, leaving Steel staring after her, the full meaning of her words creeping over him like a chill. Stahl's ransom--Vita-Heat's bankruptcy! If that happened, the upper levels wouldn't even benefit by that insurance policy.... * * * * * They gathered up the wrecked mechanical bear. They carried out Dirk who again had slept through the whole proceedings. They left, locking the cell door behind them. Steel sat on the bunk, watched them step on the belt and disappear up the shaft. _Lois Harmon._ Why, she'd been a plant right under his nose when that Radium Bank was held up while he was in the building! For years, she'd been using her innocent-looking beauty and social position to discover the choicest jobs for her gang.