many leaks already about too many
things. You know that!"

Joe said: "Sally, see if you can get your father to come here and talk.
Haney's right. Not in his office. Right here."

Sally got up and went inside the house. She came back with an uneasy
expression on her face.

"He's coming. But I couldn't very well tell him what was wanted,
and--I'm not sure he's going to be in a mood to listen."

When the Major arrived he was definitely not in a mood to listen. He was
a harried man, and he was keyed up to the limit by the multiplied strain
due to the imminence of the Platform's take-off. He came back to his
house from a grim conference on exactly the subject of how to make
preparations against any possible sabotage incidents--and ran into a
proposal to stimulate them! He practically exploded. Even if provocation
should be given to saboteurs to lure them into showing their hands, this
was no time for it! And if it were, it would be security business. It
should not be meddled in by amateurs!

Joe said grimly: "I don't mean to be disrespectful, sir, but there's a
point you've missed. It isn't thinkable that you'll be able to prevent
something from being tried at a time the saboteurs pick. They've got
just so much time left, and they'll use it! But Mike's plan would offer
them a diversion under cover of which they could pull their own stuff!
And besides that, you know your office leaks! You couldn't set up a
trick like this through security methods. And for a third fact, this is
the one sort of thing no saboteur would expect from your security
organization! We caught the saboteurs at the pushpot field by guessing
at a new sort of thinking for sabotage. Here's a chance to catch the
saboteurs who'll work their heads off in the next twenty-four hours or
so, by using a new sort of thinking for security!"

Major Holt was not an easy man to get along with at any time, and this
was the worst of all times to differ with him. But he did think
straight. He stared furiously at Joe, growing crimson with anger at
being argued with. But after he had stared a full minute, the angry
flush went slowly away. Then he nodded abruptly.

"There you have a point," he said curtly. "I don't like it. But it is a
point. It would be completely the reverse of anything my antagonists
could possibly expect. So I accept the suggestion. Now--let us make the
arrangements."

He settled down for a quick, comprehensive, detailed plan. In careful
consulta