t they obstructing the
entrance, as it had been arranged?

The street was a scene of wild confusion now; people milled everywhere.
Alan saw Jensen writhing in the steel grip of a roboguard. Had Webber's
device failed? Evidently so.

Alan was unable to move. He saw Freeman and McGuire streaking wildly
down the street with police in keen pursuit. Hollis stood staring dumbly
inside the bank door. Alan saw Kovak come running toward him.

"Everything's gone wrong!" Kovak whispered harshly. "The cops were
waiting for us! Byng and Hawkes are dead. Come on--run, if you want to
save yourself!"

_Chapter Fifteen_

Alan sat very quietly in the empty apartment that had once belonged to
Max Hawkes, and stared at nothing in particular. It was five hours since
the abortive robbery. He was alone.

The news had been blared out over every form of communication there was;
he knew the story by heart. A daring robbery had been attempted, but
police detection methods had yielded advance warning, and the robbers
had been frustrated. The roboguards had been specially equipped ones
which could shift to an alternate wavelength in case of emergency; they
had blanked out only momentarily. And special guards had been posted
within the bank, ready to charge out. Byng and Hawkes had tried to block
the doorway and they had been shot down. Hawkes was killed instantly;
Byng died an hour later in the hospital.

At least two other members of the gang had been apprehended--Jensen and
Smith, both trapped by the roboguards. It was known that at least two
other men and possibly more had participated in the attempt, and these
were being traced now.

Alan was not worried. He had not been within a hundred feet of the
crime, and it had been easy for him to slip away unnoticed. The others
had had little difficulty either--Webber, Hollis, Kovak, McGuire, and
Freeman. There was a chance that Hollis or Kovak had been recognized; in
that case, they could be tracked down by televector. But Alan was not
registered on the televector screens--and there was no other way of
linking him with the crime.

He glanced around the apartment at Hawkes' bar and his audio system and
all the dead man's other things. Yesterday, Alan thought, Hawkes had
been here, alive, eyes sparkling as he outlined the plans for the
robbery a final time. Now he was dead. It was hard to believe that such
a many-sided person could have been snuffed out so soon, so quickly.

A though