Birrel didn't get it, he didn't get it at all. But Connor gave him no time to think. He demanded,

"You'd help us if you thought it might mean life or death to your country, wouldn't you?"

Birrel knew he was about to be trapped, but there was only one way you could answer that. "Sure, but—"

Connor cut him off. "Fine. Now I'm going to show you someone, Birrel. Come along."

They went out of the office, and down a long corridor and then down a flight of concrete steps. Connor said nothing on the way, and neither did Paley.

The cement-walled basement corridor below was chilly. Lights glowed in its ceiling. In front of a closed steel door stood an alert young man with a submachine-gun cradled in his arm.

Connor nodded to him and said, "All right." He produced a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.

Not until they were inside the room, and the door locked behind them, did either Connor or Paley say another word.

Birrel's glance darted around. The room, an ice-cold concrete cubicle, had nothing in it at all but a hospital table on which lay a long something covered by a sheet. From it came a strongly chemical smell.

He felt a wave of relief. So that was why he had been brought here with all the hush-hush—to identify a dead someone? It was the only possible explanation—

"Six weeks ago," Connor was saying, "near one of our most secret atomic depots, a prowler was challenged. He tried to escape. He was shot and instantly killed."

He said then, "All right, Paley. Uncover him."

Paley went to the table. He took hold of the white sheet. His hand trembled a little, and there were sudden beads of sweat on his forehead despite the freezing cold of the room. He looked as though he did not want at all to carry out the order.

Connor's harsh breathing was loud. Birrel wondered why they were so affected. Surely not by the sight of a dead man—they, even more than he, had seen plenty of dead men in the war years.

The sheet was pulled halfway back. A naked man lay on the table, his dark eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

He was fairly young, black-haired, 

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