voice shouted
from it. "Any muckrakers there?"

"One," Gordon shouted back, and ran toward it, motioning the others to
follow. He'd always objected to the nickname, but it made a good code.
Randolph's frail hand came down to help them up, but a bigger paw did
the actual lifting.

"Why didn't you two wait?" Mother Corey asked, his voice booming out of
his Marspeaker. "I figured Izzy'd stop by first. Here, sit over there.
Not much room, with my stuff and Randolph's, but it beats walking."

"What in hell brings you back?" Gordon asked.

The huge man shrugged ponderously. "A man gets tired of being
respectable, cobber. And I'm getting old and sentimental about the
Chicken Coop." He chuckled, rubbing his hands together. "But not so old
that I can't handle a couple of guards that are stubborn about trucks,
eh, Izzy?"

"Messy, but nice," Izzy agreed from the pile above them. "Tell those
trained apes of yours to cut the lights, will you, Mother? Somebody must
be using the Coop."

They stopped the truck before reaching the old wreck. In the few dim
lights, the old building still gave off an air of mold and decay. Gordon
shuddered faintly, then followed Izzy and the Mother into the
semi-secret entrance.

Izzy went ahead, almost silent, with a thin strand of wire between his
hands, his elbows weaving back and forth slowly to guide him. He was
apparently as familiar with the garrote as the knife. But they found no
guard. Izzy pressed the seal release and slid in cautiously, while the
others followed.

In the beam of Gordon's torch, a single figure lay sprawled out on the
floor halfway to the rickety stairs to the main house. Mother Corey
grunted, and moved quickly to the coughing, battered old air machine.
His fingers closed a valve equipped with a combination lock.

"They're all dead, cobbers," he wheezed. "Dead because a crook had to
try his hand on a lock. Years ago, I had a flask of poison gas attached,
in case a gang should ever squeeze me out."

In the filthy rooms above, Gordon found the corpses--about fifteen of
them, and some former members of the Jurgens organization. He found the
apelike bodyguard stretched out on a bunk, a vacant smile on his face.

A yell from the basement called him back down to where Izzy was busily
going through piles of crates and boxes stacked along one wall. He was
pointing to a lead-foil-covered box. "Dope! And all that other stuff's
ammunition!"

He shivered, staring at the fort