Someone in security evidently had let him sneak his plea out of the Keep. Martinez? Well, it didn't matter. By 1500 Fred would be free, and the long-suppressed Prior incident would be smeared all over the telefax system. That would finish Walton; affairs were at too delicate an impasse for him to risk having to defend himself now. Fred might not be able to save himself, but he could certainly topple his brother. There was no possible way to get a mind-pick request through before 1500; President Lanson himself would have to sign the authorization, and the old dodderer would take his time about it. Mind picking was out, but there was still one weapon left to the head of Popeek, if he cared to use it. Walton moistened his lips. "It sounds very neat," he said. "I'll ask you one more time: will you yield Lamarre's serum to me for use in my negotiations with the Dirnan?" "Are you kidding? No!" Fred said positively. "Not to save your life or mine. I've got you exactly where I want you, Roy. Where I've wanted you all my life. And you can't wriggle out of it." "I think you've underestimated me again," Walton said in a quiet voice. "And for the last time." He stood up and opened the door of the room. A gray-clad security man hovered outside. "Will you tell Mr. Martinez I'm ready to leave?" Walton said. The jetcopter pilot was dozing when Walton reached the landing stage. Walton woke him and said, "Let's get back to the Cullen Building, fast." The trip took about ten minutes. Walton entered his office, signaling his return but indicating he wanted no calls just yet. Carefully, thoughtfully, he arranged the various strands of circumstance in his mind, building them into a symmetrical structure. Di Cassio and the other conspirators would be rounded up by nightfall, certainly. But no time element operated there; Walton knew he could get mind-pick authorizations in a day or so, and go through one after another of them until the whereabouts of Lamarre's formula turned up. It was brutal, but necessary. Fred was a different problem. Unless Walton prevented it, he'd be freed on his writ within hours--and when he revealed the Prior incident, it would smash Walton's whole fragile construct to flinders. He couldn't fight habeas corpus. But the director of Popeek did have one weapon that legally superseded all others. Fred had gambled on his brother's softness, and Fred had lost. Walton reached for his voicewrite and, in a calm, controlled voice, began to dictate an order for the immediate removal of Frederic Walton from Security Keep, and for his prompt transference to the Euthanasia Clinic on grounds of criminal insanity. XX Even after that--for which he felt no guilt, only relief--Walton felt oppressive foreboding hanging over him. Martinez phoned, late that day, to inform him that the hundred landowners had been duly corralled and were being held in the lower reaches of Security Keep.