A hundred feet down the corridor, he rounded a turn. Up ahead he saw Stanton just entering Lennick's office. Then, without hesitation, Frank ducked into a nearby office, his own, and locked the door on the inside. The lowest drawer of his desk had a false bottom. He triggered the release on this, now, and lifted out the small black earphone-set there, setting it dextrously across his head, magnetic speaker directly over his ear. In the hollow of the now-exposed section was a telephone dial. Frank swiftly spun it through the sequence of Lennick's office number, then sat hunched forward over his desk, listening hard. He heard Stanton pick up the phone, and say, "This is Stanton. What is it?!"
Madge Benedict, his personal secretary, "It's Lloyd Bodger, Junior. You told me to contact you the instant he got out of line again. Well, he has, but good."
"As bad as the other two?" Stanton queried.
"Worse, much worse, sir. Bad enough to make the other two look good by comparison. He was seen, this afternoon, on Ninety-Three-Level, in the company of Andra Corby, the fugitive from hospitalization. You know, sir, the movie star who was injured on the set yesterday."
Something sparked in Stanton's brain, then, and a hard light of comprehension dawned in his eyes. "Wait—Let me think.... Of course! She vanished yesterday from the Temple on Ninety-Five! And Lloyd was there, too. I wonder—" He stopped idle speculation and snapped, "Get me Bodger, quick!"
"His office," Madge told him after a moment on another line, "says he's gone home, and you can—"
"I know he's at home!" Stanton growled, "I just left him there. Get him!"
There was a short silence, then she spoke again. "I'm ringing him, sir. I don't think he's at home. No one answers."
"You know what to do as well as I do!" he said impatiently. "Put a tracer on his Voteplate! See where he's gone to."
Another pause; while Madge coded an inquiry and flashed it to the memory circuits of the enormous Brain beneath the Hive, and received the near-instantaneous reply. "Sir," she replied, "he's taken the lift to Ninety-Three-Level. The same place his son was seen."