I felt his arms slip loose like a broken spring uncoiling. Twisting free, I backed away from him down the hall. He stood transfixed, his great bulk filling the narrow space, and I saw in his eyes the dumb pain of an animal goaded into a corner, trapped in an intolerable dilemma of conflict. It was only then that I caught some remote glimmering of the torment my counter-command had produced in his captive mind.
I thought again of the swami's ringing words: "Know your own strength, believe in it, fear not!" The little man no longer seemed ridiculous.
The squeal of a police helicopter's siren shrilled close by—so loud that it seemed to come from almost directly overhead. Its shriek seemed to snap something in Mike Boyle's mind. I felt a shiver of horror, as if I had seen a mind broken even as a neck might snap or a rib crack under pressure.
He plunged toward me. Stumbling out of the corridor, I lost my balance and fell backwards. Boyle brushed past me as if I had not been there. He charged across to the door, clawed at its knob, hurled himself through the opening. His shoulder struck the door frame and he went out staggering.
As I reached the doorway, he was lurching into the street. A spotlight slashed toward him out of the darkness. He darted away from it, but the beam pinned his running figure against the outline of a trailer across the way.
"Halt!" a voice barked.
I caught the dim shape of a black police helicopter, its yellow stripe gleaming dully, and I had time to wonder how the police had got there, and I was aware out of the corner of my eye of light glowing in the next-door trailer. Then Mike Boyle was sprinting down the street, ignoring the warning shout, dodging like a halfback through an open field, moving his bulk with startling agility and speed.
Low and vicious, a policeman's silenced special spat out of the darkness. Boyle's legs went out from under him as if he had been hit by a low, hard tackle. The smack as he hit the pavement was brutally audible. Echoing it, so close that it brought me spinning around, was a low cry.
I stared into the frightened eyes of the blonde girl next door. She stood barely two paces away. I had a sudden intuition as if she had spoken to me aloud.
"You called the police," I said.