ts ahead of him was stopped, apparently wedged.

Yetsko stood for a moment, grimacing in an effort to reach a decision.

"I'd like to just go forward and hit them from behind," he said. "But
I don't know how many of them there are, and we'd have to be careful,
shooting into them, that we didn't shoot up your father's gang, beyond
them. I wish--"

"Well, let's go through the conduit, then," Ray said. "We can slide
down a branch conduit that runs a power line into the basement. I'll
go ahead; everybody at the store knows me, and they don't know you.
They might shoot you before they found out you were a friend."

Before Yetsko could object, he started up the ladder, Yetsko behind
him and the others following. At the next conduit port, they could
hear shooting very plainly, seeming to be in front of them. At the
next one, the shooting seemed to be going on directly under them, in
the tunnel. With the flashlight Yetsko had passed forward to him, Ray
could see that the dust on the concrete floor of the three-foot by
three-foot passage between and under the power and telephone cables
was undisturbed.

A little farther on, there was an opening on the left, and a power
cable branched off downward, at a sharp angle, overhead. Ray was able
to turn about and get his feet in front of him; Yetsko had to crawl on
until he had passed it, and then back into it after Ray had entered.
Bracing one foot on either side, Ray inched his way down the
forty-degree slope, hoping that the two hundred pound weight of Doug
Yetsko wouldn't start sliding upon him.

Ahead, he could hear voices. He drew his hands and feet away from the
sides of the branch conduit and let himself slip, landing in a heap in
the electricians' shop, above the furnace rooms. Two men, who had been
working at a bench, trying to assemble a mass of equipment into a
radio, whirled, snatching weapons. Ray knew both of them--Sam
Jacobowitz and George Nyman, who serviced the store's communications
equipment. They both stared at him, swearing in amazement.

"All right, Doug!" Ray called out. "We're in! Bring the gang down!"

* * * * *

Frank Cardon and Ralph Prestonby were waiting at the freight-elevator
door when it opened and Russell Latterman emerged, a rifle slung over
one shoulder. Cardon stepped forward and took the rifle from him.

"Come on over here, Russ," he said. "And don't do anything reckless."

They led him to one side. Latterm