The guard suddenly flicked his hand inside his coat to emerge with a laser pistol, and began hurrying down.

Paul Kosloff gave him a few moments, then left his hiding place and hustled along the hall. He gently tried the doorknob of the room that was his destination. It wasn’t locked. He pulled a comb from his pocket, drew it through his hair a couple of times and returned it. He straightened his suit, moistened dry lips, then opened the door and walked through, nonchalantly.

The man reclining on the bed, reading, looked up at him.

“Paul Kosloff?” he said.

“Well, I’m not the ghost of Spiro Agnew,” Paul Kosloff said, closing the door behind him. “What in the hell is this all about?”

“How did you get in without detection?”

“I didn’t completely. You’ve either got a dead dog or one with a whale of a headache out in your garden. Again, what’s this all about?” Kosloff pulled up a chair without invitation and sat down.

“A double motive,” the man in the bed said. “First, I wanted to find out whether you’re as good as you’re supposed to be as an espionage-counter-espionage agent. And, second, I wanted to give you an assignment without anyone, anyone at all, even knowing we’ve ever met. Do you know who I am?”

“You’re the head of what some of us field men call the Commission of Dirty Tricks of the State Department, often working hand in glove with the CIA.”

The other looked at him. “Very few people know of me. In my section, we need publicity like a broken leg.”

Paul Kosloff said evenly, “Yes, I know. I was just a child when the Bay of Pigs took place, but there have been other farces since. Publicity doesn’t help.”

The man in the bed was obviously not pleased at that. He said, “Kosloff, do you consider yourself a patriotic American?”

The cloak-and-dagger operative said reasonably, “How could I be? When a special bill was brought before Congress to grant me citizenship, it was decided my odor was too high and it was turned down.