"Where he's right handy and near, yet where nobody can walk in on him," said Pudgy. "Bedloe's Island, in New York harbor. You know, the old Statue of Liberty island."
Wales thought, his mind a turmoil. Now the flames were marching up the hillside streets toward them, and now the sound of drums and distant chanting came from away southward.
The Brotherhood were leaving Castletown, on their way to make some other lifeless city a fiery sign of their atonement.
"I still," said Wales, "can't believe it. But we'll prove it, one way or another. We'll go back to New York, and see if Lee is really on that island."
"You haven't got a prayer!" said Pudgy, his voice rising into a high whine. "They've got him guarded there."
"And you," Wales said, "can tell us just where the guards are and how best to pass them. Yes, you're going with us."
He ignored the man's frantic objections, and started the car. He headed eastward, to skirt the flaming city at a safe distance.
The danger ahead, the hunters who would still be seeking him, Wales ignored. What was there anywhere but danger, on an Earth rocking toward Doomsday?
CHAPTER VIII