e his eyes wearily, and vanished.

When he opened them, he was in his Washington apartment. He went over
to the big couch and sat down, feeling that if he were going to curse
he might as well be comfortable while he did it. But, some minutes
later, when the air was a bright electric blue around him, he didn't
feel any better. Cursing was not the answer.

Nothing seemed to be.

What was his next move?

Where did he go from here?

The more he thought about it, the more his mind spun. He was, he
realized, at an absolute, total dead end.

Oh, there were things he could do. Malone knew that very well. He
could make a lot of noise and go through a lot of waste motion; that
was what it amounted to. He could have all the homes of all the
missing PRS members checked somehow. That would undoubtedly result in
the startling discovery that the PRS members involved weren't home. He
could have their dossiers sent to him, which would clutter everything
with a great many more pieces of paper. But he felt quite sure that
the pieces of paper would do no good at all. In general, he could
raise all hell--and find nothing whatever.

Now, he told himself sadly, he had the evidence to start the FBI in
motion. The only trouble was that he could think of nowhere for them
to go.

And, though he had evidence that might convince Burris--the PRS
members, after all, _had_ done a rather unusual fadeout--he had
nowhere near enough to carry the case into court, much less make a
try at getting the case to stand up once carried in. That was one
thing he couldn't do, he realized, he couldn't issue warrants for the
arrest of anybody at all.

[Illustration]

But, vacation or no vacation, he thought solemnly, he was an FBI
Agent, and his motto was: "There's always a way." No normal method of
tracking down the PRS members, or finding their present whereabouts,
was going to work. They'd been covering themselves for such an
emergency, undoubtedly, for a good many years--and if anyone got
close, a burst of mental energy was quite enough to turn the seeker
aside.

Nobody, Malone told himself grimly, was perfect. There were clues
lying around somewhere; he was sure of that. There had to be. The
problem was simply to figure out where to look, and how to look, and
what to look for.

Somewhere, the clues were sitting quietly and waiting for him to find
them. The thought cheered him slightly, but not very much. He stood up
slowly and went into the kit