goon squad spill them
in the headlines!"

She threw herself into an armchair and crossed her knees. Long stood in
the middle of the floor staring down at the woman he had held in his
arms minutes ago, and his temples began throbbing. "What--what else is
there to do?" he asked hoarsely. "This was my best chance to draw
attention to the reality of our police state. I have much more to die
for than to live for. This has been my life's work--gathering the facts
and contriving to present them dramatically enough to attract national
attention. My only fear was that they wouldn't come after me, and I
might be written off as a crackpot."

"I regret," she intoned, "that I have but one life to give to my
country!" Then her lip curled. "Very well, brainy, if that's the best
you can think up. Let's make it better yet. How about this for a
headline: _Dr. Long and Lovely Model Murdered by Federal Hoods!_"

"Are you insane?"

She shook her head. "I'm dead serious. I'm sticking right in the line of
fire until you figure out a way to stay alive at a profit."

He argued, pleaded and even lost his temper, pulling her to her feet and
trying to force her out the door. He didn't make it. Somehow his arms
slipped too far around her, and she clamped herself to him in a defiant
embrace. The soft warmth of her body, her sweet breath in his nostrils,
the faint essence of her perfume enveloped him in a befuddling weakness.

Live at a profit? How could a man want to die with Julie Stone in his
arms?

He knew it was supremely idiotic, but the thought of her fabulous form
crumpled and riddled with bullets slashed at the tendons of his resolve,
and he clutched her lips to his with the hunger of the condemned man he
was.

"Julie, Julie! Why did you have to--"

"One bullet, a single bullet will do it now." Her lips peeled back from
her white teeth. "Let's stay this way, darling. That's the way you want
it."

Her low, black sedan nibbled at the 100-mile-per-hour limit on the
Freeway as they crossed the state line. In the back seat, reclining out
of sight, his head pillowed on his brief case full of his documented
case against the Humanist Party, was a very thoughtful Dr. Hubert Long,
recently of Mentioch University.

He had driven until dawn while Julie Stone slept, and now, after a brief
nap, he was waking to some of the realities of the morning.

This flight was utterly absurd. When the federal people discovered he
was not dead they wou