sprang on Mike and attached the handcuffs to his wrist, and to
Mike's wrist, within seconds.

"Ha!" he said involuntarily. "Now come with me!"

He gave his end of the handcuffs a tremendous yank.

He started to stagger, trailing an empty cuff behind him, flailing his
arms wildly. Ahead of him he could see a big cop with an upraised billy.
Malone tried to alter his course, but it was too late. He skidded
helplessly into the cop, who jerked round and swung the billy
automatically. Malone said: "Yi!" as he caught the blow on the
cheekbone, bounced off the cop and kept going.

He careened past a blur of figures, trying to avoid hard surfaces and
other human beings. But there was--

Oh, no, Malone thought.

Lynch.

Lynch was ready to swing. His fist was cocked, and he was heading for
one of the teen-agers with murder in his eye. Malone knew their paths
were going to intersect. "Watch out!" he yelled. "Watch out, it's me!
Stop me! Stop me! Somebody stop me!"

He went completely unheard.

Lynch swung and missed, hitting a cop who had been hiding behind the
teen-ager. The cop went down to join the wounded, and Lynch roared like
a bull and swung around, looking for more enemies.

That was when Malone hit him.

Long afterward, he remembered Lynch's hat sailing through the air, and
landing in the center of a struggling mass of policemen. He remembered
Lynch saying: "So there you are!" and swinging before he looked.

He remembered the blow on the chin.

And then, he remembered falling, and falling, and falling. Somewhere
there was a voice: "Where are they? They've disappeared for good."

And then, for long seconds, nothing.

* * * * *

He woke up with a headache, but it wasn't too bad. Surprisingly, not
much time had passed; he got up and dusted off his trousers, looking
around at the battlefield. Wounded and groaning cops were all over. The
room was a shambles; the walking wounded--which comprised the rest of
the force--were stumbling around in a slow, hopeless sort of fashion.

Lynch was standing next to him. "Malone," he said, "I'm sorry. I hit
you, didn't I?"

"Uh-huh," Malone said. "You seemed to be hitting everybody."

"I was _trying_ for the kids," Lynch said.

"So was I," Malone said. "I got the cuffs on one and yanked him
along--but he disappeared and left me with the cuffs."

"Great," Lynch said. "Hell of a raid."

"Very jolly," Malone agreed. "Fun and games were