Ted Marino left for the elevators to corral his men, arranging to meet Faircloth in the concourse five minutes later. Paul found a visiphone relay booth, and sank his long, lean body down in a relaxer facing the screen. The last of the rush-hour people were still drifting by in the corridor; Paul watched them anxiously. Then he gave a nervous laugh, forcing himself to relax for a moment. If only Jean were here! He battled an impulse to call her. Finally he dialed the priority code for the Federal Security Commission offices in Washington.
The relays clicked, and the code carried him through the front-line secretaries without any trouble. He gave a sigh of relief. He was in no mood to argue with secretaries. A moment later he was blinking at Roberts' tri-di image on the screen.
Roberts' face looked haggard. He nodded to Faircloth. "You got there, then. Good. How does it look, Paul?"
"Everything's just real nice," Faircloth growled. "They think they've got him pinned. The building here has a central power source, and we can bottleneck the whole place if we time it right."
"Don't miss, Paul." Roberts' voice was tense. "Whatever you do, don't miss."
"What's the matter?"
"Ben Towne has worked his way into this."
"Oh, god!"
"Well, I can't help it, there was nothing I could do. He has the whole American Council behind him, and the Liberals can't hold out long on negative results. Towne has the whole picture now, and if we don't wrap it up fast, things here in the Capitol are going to blow sky high."
Faircloth scowled. "Did you see the newstapes tonight?"