wer, the car
shot up from the flat. Hunter leaped free. His feet struck the cement.
The lingering trace of paralysis, destroying his normal co-ordination,
made the fall very painful.

Hunter flung himself flat in the shadow of the ornamental shrubs along
the edge of the parking flat. The four police mercenaries sprinted out
of the house and leaped into the police jet. With sirens screaming,
it soared up in pursuit of the empty autojet.

Hunter estimated that he had perhaps thirty minutes before they sent
out a general alarm. A painfully small margin of safety. Where could
he hide that the machines of detection--the skilled, emotionless,
one-track, electronic brains--would not eventually find him? And what
of Ann Saymer? What could he do as a fugitive to save her?

United had planned it all down to the smallest detail. But that was
the way the cartels operated. It was the system Hunter was accustomed
to. He felt neither anger not resentment, simply a determination to
out-plan and out-play the enemy.

If he accepted defeat he would admit frustration, and for Captain Max
Hunter that was impossible. Hadn't he survived a decade of frontier
conflict with an adjustment index of zero-zero? Instead of hopelessly
weighing the odds stacked against him, he counted the advantage which
a single man held in maneuverability and rapid change of pace.

He walked along the museum street, the blaster in his hand. A block
away rose the bulk of a factory building and behind it towered the
monster of center-city, transformed into a fairyland by the glow of
lights on the many levels. Hunter's eye followed the pattern up toward
the top, hidden above the blanket of haze.

The top! Luxury casinos and the castles of the cartels. Werner von
Rausch and his empire of United Researchers. Werner von Rausch, who
gave orders and Ann Saymer disappeared. Werner von Rausch, who gave
new orders and Mrs. Ames lay murdered in her living room.

But behind the facade of his spacefleet and his private army, behind
his police mercenaries, Werner von Rausch was one man--an old man,
Hunter had been told--and a vulnerable target. Hunter weighed his
changes, and the margin of success seemed to be balanced in his favor.

It was not what they would expect him to do. They had framed him for
murder and he should now be running for his life. The hunted turned
hunter. Hunter grinned savagely, enjoying his pun.

* * * * *

He slippe