He shut off the thoughts of Beth as he reached the busy section of town and concentrated on his driving. He could wait, he decided in closing off the thoughts. Sooner or later she would be ready to accept the truth, and he would be right there waiting. He maneuvered the Ford around several other cars parked in the lot of the City Hall and found the berth that bore his name. He killed the engine, got out and went inside to his office. When he opened the door and saw the two men and the Chief sitting in his office, he knew it was something big. After awhile, it was so you could spot a Fed a mile away. Especially when they were sitting in your office. Chief Daniels looked grouchy at him, but his tone was cordial. "You finish with Peters?" "Yes." Daniels nodded, his florid, moon face looking lumpy and important. "Lieutenant Brice. This is John Cartwell and Sam Morgan. Secret Service. I've promised to give them assistance in an important matter. They'll brief you." He nodded an important good-by and left the three of them alone. "What's the problem, gentlemen," Nolan said and settled behind his desk. Cartwell, a stocky looking thirty year old, with wavy blond hair, did the talking, while his dark complected friend puffed placidly on a cigar. "Lieutenant Brice," Cartwell said, "your boss seemed to think that you'd be the best man to help us set up our plan of operation. We've already contacted the Civil Air Patrol and the National Guard outfit here. We have an air search under way and for the meanwhile that's all we can do. We were hoping that you could help us get in touch with all the ground observing corps' branches; we'll use this office as a headquarters for operations." Nolan blinked, "What's up? An Air Force test plane down?" Cartwell shook his head. "We got a UFO report..." "A flying saucer?" Nolan was stunned. Cartwell chuckled and his partner grinned. "An Unidentified Flying Object does not necessarily constitute a space craft, Brice. But something was spotted off the Grand Banks, early this morning, going like hell and apparently out of control. We got our last sighting over Auburn, New York. We checked the observation posts around Everett and found that nothing was seen. We also checked Binghamton and Elmira, with a negative report. Since the object was on a southerly heading, when spotted near Auburn, we can only assume that it went down in the area between Everett and Auburn, and Binghamton and Elmira." Nolan gave a long low whistle. "Not one of ours, huh?" "No." "Canadian?" "Not at that speed." "That leaves the big one, then. Russian?" Cartwell shrugged. "Could be. If it is, we want the wreckage. No matter what it is, or whose it is, we are very interested in any aircraft that travels at speeds of fifteen to nineteen thousand miles per hour." Nolan whistled again. "That's rolling," he grinned. "Yeah," mused Sam Morgan, "and we'd kind of like to know what makes it roll like that."