McLeod nodded. "All I want to know is this: can you do the job Sunday night?" Lantrel scanned the file again. "Subject leaves his house at twenty-two hundred, returns by twenty-two forty-five. That gives us forty-five minutes. Probably, Darius." "Good enough." * * * * * Lantrel slid a gunman form into his thinkwriter, hunched himself down in his chair and watched the machine type. Presently the sheet of paper slipped out the other side of the squat machine and McLeod read: DATE: 14 Dec 2103 NAME: Darius John McLeod ASSIGNMENT (CURRENT): City Desk JOB NO.: 03-4-12 CLASSIFICATION: Top Priority SUBJECT: Peter Winston Spurgess, Mayor, New York City DATE OF EXECUTION (APPROX): 15 Dec 2103 METHOD: Vehicular, or other, accident CODE: 4-12-DJM APPROVED: /s/Jack Lantrel JACK LANTREL GUNMAN EDITOR THE UNDERSIGNED HEREBY CERTIFIES THAT JOB NO. 03-4-12, HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS 4-12-DJM, HAS BEEN ORDERED IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE EXISTING REGULATIONS GOVERNING ASSASSINATION-ACCIDENTS, AND THAT 4-12-DJM HAS BEEN APPROVED, ORALLY OR IN WRITING, BY THE City Editor. THE UNDERSIGNED IS COGNIZANT OF THE FACT THAT ANY FRAUD OR DECEIT IN THIS APPLICATION, WHETHER FOR PERSONAL GAIN OR OTHERWISE, IS PUNISHABLE BY SUMMARY REVOCATION OF HIS (HER) NEWSPAPER LICENSE. DARIUS JOHN MCLEOD It suddenly was no simple matter for McLeod to scrawl his name at the bottom of the sheet. He was aware of Lantrel, a puzzled expression on his face, watching him. It seemed entirely routine to affix his signature, but quite suddenly he was aware of the machinery that would put into operation. Gunmen would be selected for the job, would study Mayor Spurgess' habit file, would agree with Lantrel on the _modus operandi_. Within thirty-six hours, Mayor Spurgess would be dead. Darius McLeod executioner? Hardly. He was merely carrying out an assignment. Newspapers were active agents in the modern world. If it had not been his assignment, it would have been someone else's. You could hardly consider it murder. Murder was punishable today as it had always been--by capital punishment or a long prison term. A newspaperman was above reproach--or imprisonment.