st disappeared when you started for him? No wonder their names
hadn't appeared on the police blotter, Malone thought.

Spooks didn't get into trouble. They didn't have to.

They could get into any place big enough to hold them, take what they
wanted and just disappear. They'd been doing it for about eight
months, according to the figures Malone had received from Fernack;
maybe teleportative ability didn't develop until you were around
fourteen or fifteen.

But it had developed in these kids--and they were using it in the most
obvious way. They had a sure method of getting away from the cops, and
a sure method of taking anything they wanted. No wonder they had so
much money.

Malone got up, feeling slightly dazed, and left the hotel room.

8

By three o'clock, he was again among the living. Maybe his occupations
had had something to do with it; he'd spent about four hours
supervising Operation Dismemberment, and then listening to the reports
on the dismantled Cadillacs. It was nice, peaceful, unimportant work,
but there just wasn't anything else to do. FBI work was ninety-five
per cent marking time, anyway. Malone felt grateful that there was any
action at all in what he was doing.

Dr. Leibowitz had found all sort of things in the commandeered
Caddies--everything from guns and narcotics to pornographic pictures
in lots of three hundred, for shipment into New York City from the
suburbs where the processing plant probably was. Of course, there had
been personal effects, too--maps and lucky dolls and, just once, a
single crutch.

Malone wondered about that for quite a while. Who'd just walk off and
leave one crutch in a car? But people did things like that all the
time, he finally told himself heavily. There wasn't any explanation
for it, and there probably never would be.

But in spite of the majestic assortment of valuables found in the
cars, there was no sign of anything remotely resembling an
electro-psionic brain. Dr. Leibowitz had found just about everything--
except what he was looking for.

At a quarter to three, Malone gave up. The search wasn't quite
finished, but he'd heard enough to last him for a long time. He
grabbed a cab downstairs and went over to Lynch's office to meet
Kettleman.

The "social worker or something" was a large, balding man about six
feet tall. Malone estimated his weight as close to two hundred and
fifty pounds, and he looked every pound of