Hundreds of bells! Everywhere. Bells and shouts and trampling feet. Through the misty walls Vickers could see running soldiers, frightened officials, women and children. A vast terrifying pandemonium like a disturbed ant nest—like a glass ant colony kept for observation.
Then the doors began to whoosh shut. Automatic doors closing off the passages. Blocking escape! One rammed shut just behind them.
A party of guards caught sight of them. Steel jacketed bullets ricocheted and whined down the corridor.
Vickers threw a gas grenade. The guards were blotted out by a fountain of pale green mist. It wasn't deadly, but it would knock out the Arabs, close off the passage temporarily.
Fralick was sobbing for breath. Suddenly Vickers grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Here! This way! Through the harem."
With the atomic knife he freed the door which he'd sealed a few minutes before. A few minutes! He glanced at his watch. Eighteen minutes exactly; it seemed like hours! He was over his time. He put his shoulder to the door, threw it back with a crash.
There was a cluster of frightened women in the corridor. When they saw Vickers and Fralick, they began to scream and fled screaming like chickens from a hawk.
Vickers paid no attention to them, but rushed to the bedroom where he had cut through the wall. Kicking out the segment he almost hurled Fralick through the opening.
Tani was waiting in the air taxi with the door open. A white, strained Tani with a face like a mask.