have helped. But Stanton had disappeared.

Mannheim was well aware that Stanton had been in the habit of leaving
the Institute for long walks during the evenings, but this was the first
time he had been gone for twenty-four hours. And even Yoritomo, that
master psychologist, had been unable to give any solid reason for
Stanton's disappearance.

"You must remember, my dear Colonel," Yoritomo had said, "our young Mr.
Stanton is a great deal more complex in his thinking than is our friend
the Nipe."

_A hell of a job for a police officer_, Mannheim thought to himself. _I
know where the criminal is, but I have to hunt for the only cop on Earth
who can arrest him._

He drained his glass, put it on the nightstand, and closed his eyes to
think.

* * * * *

An operator on duty at the spy screens that watched every move of the
Nipe while he was in the tunnels underneath Government City thumbed down
a switch and said, "All stations alert. Subject is moving southward
toward exit, carrying raiding equipment."

It was all that was necessary. The Nipe could not be followed after he
left his lair, but the proper groups would be standing by. Somewhere,
the Nipe would hit and raid again. Somewhere, there were human lives in
danger.

All anyone could do was wait.

* * * * *

Cautiously and carefully, the Nipe lifted his head out of the cool salt
water of the Hudson River, near the point where it widened into New York
Harbor--still so called after the city that had been the greatest on the
North American continent before the violence of a sun bomb had
demolished it forever.

He looked around carefully to get his bearings, then submerged again.
The opening into the ancient sewer was nearby. Once into that network,
he would know exactly where he was heading. It had taken weeks to find
his way around within the unexplored maze of the old sewers, and he had
been uncertain whether they would lead him to the place he intended to
visit, but luck had been with him.

Now he knew exactly where he wanted to go, and exactly what he would
find there.

He had avoided Government City itself since his first appearance there,
shortly after his arrival, just as he had, as much as possible, avoided
ever striking in the same place more than once. But now that it had
become necessary, he went about his work with the same cool
determination that had always marked his activities.