He blocked off sensitivity as Bancroft snapped, "Enough. One of you is going to yield. If Dr. Tighe won't, then we'll work on him and see if Mr. Dalgetty can hold out." He waved his hand as he took out a cigar. Two of the goons stepped up to the chair. They had rubberite hoses in their hands. The first blow thudded against Dalgetty's ribs. He didn't feel it--he had thrown up a nerve bloc--but it rattled his teeth together. And while he was insensitive he'd be unable to listen in on.... Another thud, and another. Dalgetty clenched his fists. What to do, what to do? He looked over to the desk. Bancroft was smoking and watching as dispassionately as if it were some mildly interesting experiment. Casimir had turned her back. "Something funny here, chief." One of the goons straightened. "I don't think he's feeling nothing." "Doped?" Bancroft frowned. "No, that's hardly possible." He rubbed his chin, regarding Dalgetty with wondering eyes. Casimir wheeled around to stare. Sweat filmed Michael Tighe's face, glistening in the chill white light. "He can still be hurt," said the guard. Bancroft winced. "I don't like outright mutilation," he said. "But still--I've warned you, Dalgetty." "_Get out, Simon_," whispered Tighe. "_Get out of here._" Dalgetty's red head lifted. Decision crystalized within him. He would be no use to anyone with a broken leg, a crushed foot, an eye knocked out, seared lungs--and Casimir was FBI, she might be able to do something at this end in spite of all. He tested the straps. A quarter inch of leatherite--he could snap them but would he break his bones doing it? _Only one way to find out_, he thought bleakly. "I'll get a blowtorch," said one of the guards in the rear of the room. His face was wholly impassive. Most of these goons must be moronic, thought Dalgetty. Most of the guards in the twentieth-century extermination camps had been. No inconvenient empathy with the human flesh they broke and flayed and burned. He gathered himself. This time it was rage, a cloud of fury rising in his mind, a ragged red haze across his vision. That they would _dare_! He snarled as the strength surged up in him. He didn't even feel the straps as they popped across. The same movement hurtled him across the room toward the door. Someone yelled. A guard leaped in his path, a giant of a man. Dalgetty's fist sprang before him, there was a cracking sound and the goon's head snapped back against his own spine. Dalgetty was already past him. The door was shut in his face. Wood crashed as he went through it. A bullet wailed after him. He dodged down the corridor, up the nearest steps, the walls blurred with his own speed. Another slug smacked into the paneling beside him. He rounded a corner, saw a window and covered his eyes with an arm as he leaped. The plastic was tough but a hundred and seventy pounds hit it at fifteen feet per second. Dalgetty went through!