"I hoped tonight would be the turning point."

Anders sighed. "Well, I'm waiting on a call from the Coast Guard. They're taking the freighter, maybe they'll get someone for us."

There was a quick knock at the door. Gadgets Schwarz came in. "The shouting over?"

"Oh, yeah." Lyons stood. "We're just leaving. You get anything interesting, Gadgets?"

"Man, you cannot believe how interesting."

"On the accident?"

"Guess again, Lyons," Gadgets told him. "That big boom was no accident."

They crowded into Gadgets' motel room. Electronic gear — consoles, modules, racks of circuitry interlocked with receivers and tape machines — left space only for Gadgets' chair. Tools and cables and components covered the bed. A bundle of thick wires ran out the window to the temporary antennas hanging in the trees. Lyons pushed the cables aside, sat on the windowsill.

"I got it all. Listen." Gadgets ran tapes as he briefed them. "Here's the static of the launch engine, then your hand-sets clicking back and forth..."

"Could they have picked up the walkie-talkies?" Anders asked. "When Lyons and Blancanales..."

"Take it easy," Gadgets grinned. "Don't get paranoid. Just because I can, doesn't mean they can. Listen." Gadgets accelerated the tape, slowed it. "Here's the coded message, probably to New York. They had to send it twice before they got their confirmation. Hear it?"

A series of pulses came from the monitor speakers.

There was a pause, then the pulses repeated. Then a return pulse answered the code.

"That's their confirmation. Now a minute or two later, this voice comes on in the clear. It breaks in on their frequency. No code, no double talk, no scrambler."

It was in Castilian Spanish: "Please call in your comrade. It is imperative I immediately issue instructions to both of you."