s chief villain of the outfit; he was
a mild, bland man, quiet and friendly. Besides, his position made him
an obvious suspect; naturally, the majority stockholder of the firm
would profit most by the increased power of the company. And, equally
obviously, a Controller wouldn't want to put himself in such an exposed
position.

Which made Lasser, in Houston's mind, a hell of a good suspect. If
anything happened, Lasser could cover by claiming that he, too, had been
controlled, and the chances were that he could get away with it. A
Controller never did anything directly; their dirty work was done by
someone else--a puppet under their mental control. At least, so ran the
popular misconception. If Lasser were the man, he stood a good chance of
getting away with it, even if he were caught, provided he played his
cards right.

* * * * *

That reasoning still didn't eliminate Sager or Pederson. Either of them
could be the Controller. And there still remained the possibility that
some unknown, unsuspected fourth person had the company of Lasser & Sons
under his thumb.

That was what Houston intended to find out tonight.

He took a sip of his coffee, found it still reasonably hot.

Damn the megalomaniacs, anyway! Houston subconsciously tightened his
fists. He, personally, had more to fear from the Normals than from
another Controller. Normals could kill or imprison him, while a
Controller would have a hard time doing either, directly.

But Houston could understand the Normal man; he could see how fear of a
Controller could drive a man without the ability into a frenzied panic.
He could understand, even forgive their actions, born and bred in
ignorance and fear.

No, the ones he hated were the ones who had conceived and fostered that
fear--the psychologically unstable megalomaniac Controllers. There were
only a handful of them--probably not more than a few hundred or a
thousand. But because of them, every telepath on Earth found his life in
danger, and every Normal found his life a hell of terror.

Let Dorrine and her do-nothing friends run around the globe recruiting
members for their precious Group; that was all right for them.
Meanwhile, David Houston would be doing something on a more basic action
level.

He glanced at his watch. Almost time.

"How's the deployment?" he whispered in his throat.

"We've got the building surrounded now," said the voice in his ear. "You
can go in an