know the package has been tampered with." Even as he watched, one of the white lights flickered and died. Tanner looked surprised. "What happened?" "We just lost an agent," Stan said grimly. "Chicago sector." He glanced over at the bank of red lights—they were still lit. "It couldn't have been about the fusion packages. It must have been about the ... other operation." He looked at Tanner. "The one you were sent to handle." "What are you going to do about it?" Stan shrugged. "We'll handle it ourselves, and then recruit another agent." He leafed through a filing cabinet, then finally pulled a dossier and gave it to Tanner. "Trace this man and find out what you can. We'll meet there in a week." Tanner tapped the card lightly against his knuckles. "Mr. Ainsworth didn't think you'd be meeting any opposition." Stan blanked his face of expression. He wasn't exactly sure why, but he didn't like Tanner. "I didn't expect to." There was a short silence and then Tanner walked to the hoop and worked the dial. The shimmering black sprang up and he stepped up on the marble. Just before he went through, he said: "What are you going to do about the ... opposition?" "When we find them, we'll smash them," Stan said coldly. After Tanner had gone through, Stan shut off the hoop. As the circle faded it caught his image and held it briefly, like a mirror. He stared at it abstractly. The problem of possible opposition bothered him but there was something that worried him even more. Something he caught himself thinking about when he woke up in the morning. Something he thought about all day and something he couldn't get out of his mind when he went to bed at night. Who was he? CHAPTER VI It was a summer evening and downtown Chicago was a hot-box of sweltering buildings and steaming tar streets. People stretched out on the lawns in front of Buckingham fountain for any stray breezes that might wander in off the lake or else they curled up in front of fans and read until the small hours of the morning when the temperature had
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