Holmes perfected it—would be one of them. He scanned the serial numbers of the metal cubes, looking for the LC-111, the only instrument that could destroy the most important Soviet invention of the decade: The Volga. The Volga was 200,000 pounds of victory that would assure Soviet domination of space, and only the LC-111 could render it harmless.

He saw it. The computer was the second cube from the right, and it had no serial number stamped on it. It bore the legend: personal

PROPERTY OF DR. FRANCES PAYTON-HOLMES, UCLA.

Very clever, Istoropovich thought, to identify the LC-111 as her personal property. Clever and inaccurate. It's not yours anymore, he thought.

Because of the constant police patrols, he could not take a chance on trying to get the computer off the center's grounds. Instead, using a handtruck, Istoropovich carefully wheeled the computer to a tall Dempsey Dumpster that stood next to the cement block building. It was Tuesday, and he had learned that garbage pickups were scheduled for Wednesday evenings. It would be safe, next to the overflowing garbage bin, until he came back for it at 5:30 a.m., when the campus police were changing shifts and he could get through them without difficulty.

He relocked the laboratory and went back to his car, fingering the gold balls around his neck. The gold balls had a purpose, one he had been prepared for since his earliest days as a deep-cover agent. But he would not need them, not yet, not this time. He was.going to get out of this one

alive, and in Moscow Center, the headquarters of the Soviet spy network, where men were waiting for word from him on this mission, he would be an instant hero. Nothing could go wrong now.

The moon was full but the sky was cloudy, so that the moonlight fell only occasionally on a few objects dotting the landscape. While most of the vehicles on the highway were shrouded in darkness, a garbage truck bearing the legend "Hollywood Disposal Service . . . Garbage of the Stars" lit up, shimmering in the moonglow like the Holy Grail.