The priest, now thoroughly alarmed, glanced about nervously, his automatic pointing at the floor. The guards, who knew no English, looked at each other in surprise.
Baker took quick advantage of the confusion.
"We must not allow him to become suspicious. I will continue talking over the microphone while your guards take my friends to safety."
With this he stepped to the microphone and projector. The priest seemed for an instant about to stop him, and then he turned to the guards and gave a series of rapid orders. They advanced and surrounded Martin, Walt and me, and indicated by gesture that we were to go with them to the walk-way which led to the wall of the great room. In panic I looked at Baker, but he was bent over the glass plate of the projector, drawing something and speaking in his precise clipped voice.
"I shall now show you a map of the United States and indicate the principal cities. First, on the Atlantic coast we have New York...."
We were out of the room and on the gallery. For a moment I thought that Kazu might see us, and then I realized that the whole place was dark and that he was concentrating on Baker's silly map. Briefly I wondered what Baker was up to anyway, but this sudden terrible turn of events made any kind of calm reasoning very difficult.
Outside the projection room, Baker's voice came booming over the loudspeakers.
"Chicago is located at the southern end of Lake Michigan, just west of Detroit, while St. Louis—"
SUDDENLY the room lights came on, and the whole structure of the bridge shook as from an earthquake. The guards ahead abruptly turned and scrambled back, knocking us over in their haste. I grabbed the handrail for support, and then became aware of a vast blurry shape looming above and of a hand as large as a building that reached down toward the guards, now halfway back to the projection room. In a sort of hypnotic horror I watched the thumb and forefinger snap them and a thirty foot section of railing off into space. Then, very gently the hand plucked the roof from the projection room, exposing Baker and the priest. Yellow-robe dropped his gun and ran towards a corner, but Baker neatly tripped him and then stepped back for Kazu to finish the job.