"Under water?" Rifle butts probed but could not sound the inlet. The woman's voice. "If he is hiding down below he'll have to come up for air." "When? We gotta search this whole damn beach. Here, I'll just give the water a burst." Casimir, sharply--"Don't be a fool. You won't even know if you hit him. Nobody can hold his breath more than three minutes." "Yeah, that's right, Joe. How long we been in here?" "One minute, I guess. Give him a couple more. Cripes! D'ja see how he ran? He ain't human!" "He's killable, though. Me, I think he's just rolling around in the surf out there. This could be fish blood. A 'cuda chased another fish in here and bit it." Casimir: "Or if his body drifted in, it's safely under. Got a cigarette?" "Here y'are, Miss. But say, I never thought to ask. How come you come with us?" Casimir: "I'm as good a shot as you are, buster, and I want to be sure this job's done right." Pause. Casimir: "Almost five minutes. If he can come up now he's a seal. Especially with his body oxygen-starved after all that running." In the slowness of Dalgetty's brain there was a chill wonder about the woman. He had read her thought, she was FBI, but she seemed strangely eager to hunt him down. "Okay, le's get outta here." Casimir: "You go on. I'll wait here just in case and come up to the house pretty soon. I'm tired of following you around." "Okay. Le's go, Joe." It was another four minutes or so before the pain and tension in his lungs became unendurable. Dalgetty knew he would be helpless as he rose, still in his semi-hibernating state, but his body was shrieking for air. Slowly he broke the surface. The woman gasped. Then the automatic jumped into her hand and leveled between his eyes. "All right, friend. Come on out." Her voice was very low and shook a trifle but there was grimness in it. Dalgetty climbed onto the ledge beside her and sat with his legs dangling, hunched in the misery of returning strength. When full wakefulness was achieved he looked at her and found she had moved to the farther end of the cave. "Don't try to jump," she said. Her eyes caught the vague light in a wide glimmer, half frightened. "I don't know what to make of you." Dalgetty drew a long breath and sat upright, bracing himself on the cold slippery stone. "I know who you are," he said. "Who, then?" she challenged. "You're an FBI agent planted on Bancroft." Her gaze narrowed, her lips compressed. "What makes you think so?" "Never mind--you are. That gives me a certain hold on you, whatever your purposes." The blond head nodded. "I wondered about that. That remark you made to me down in the cell suggested--well, I couldn't take chances. Especially when you showed you were something extraordinary by snapping those straps and bursting the door open. I came along with the search party in hope of finding you." He had to admire the quick mind behind the wide smooth brow. "You damn near did--for them," he accused her.