If the Oliss plan worked, all well and fine he'd ease them out after they handed over the goods. If his own plan worked, then he wouldn't even have to put up with a scene of recriminations and threats which would be sure to follow the realization by the Olisses that they'd been taken. Besides, two ways were better than one – Zeigler like to hedge his bets; or, like so many of the underworld executives, he didn't gamble unless it was on a sure thing.

Along with the recruitment of the Olisses some months back, Sam Zeigler had also hired a call-girl that he knew. She had been a private secretary before turning to the profession of prostitution for the simplest of reasons: she liked the money and liked the work. What the hell, as she had said, she'd been going to bed with men for years; she might as well start getting money for what she'd always given away. Zeigler, spotting the combination of beauty – for Kim Copeland was one of the cutest girls he'd ever met – and talent in and out of the bed, told her to go to Kirsten and get a job at the Skopos manufacturing plant. She was to be a ringer, and one way or the other see if she could get information on the device Carmel was making.

Kim hated the small town; only the fat bonus Zeigler paid her every week made up for the dust and dumb characters and no action. She couldn't ply her trade without jeopardizing her job – which she had she had finally gotten – so Zeigler had to fork over her average weekly take on top of his bonus, and added to her paycheck at Skopos, she was able to salt away a sizable amount. But the only position which had occurred at Skopos had been secretary to the personnel manager and the result was that she had learned very little about the miniscopos, even in spite of the love affair she had instigated with the assistant chief of production. It seemed that all the important information was stored in Roger Carmel's head, and others only knew inconsequential bits and pieces of the whole jig-saw, and had no access to his files.