He shoved the unconscious agent to the floor boards, pressed the stud on the knife handle. The blade of sparkling flame glittered into life.
"Take us up!" he said to the startled man at the controls; "and don't touch the radio!" Almost as an afterthought he added softly: "I'm Vickers. I'd just as soon die now, all at once, as be sent back to the Jupiter Mines to die by degrees."
The ISP man blanched. He lifted the patrol boat into the air, sent it scooting down the street. He kept dropping his eyes to the shimmering blade of flame.
"Don't get that thing too close," he pleaded hoarsely.
Vickers said: "B624-1/2 Water Street, level 3. And I won't get the blade too close if we get through without trouble."
"But suppose I'm ordered in?"
"That's your tough luck."
The ISP man was sweating. But he didn't dare remove his hands from the controls. Beadlets of perspiration rolled down his cheeks and chin unheeded.
As they approached the roadblock, he touched the siren. At its eerie wail, a man hauled up the net, and the patrol boat slid beneath it.
Vickers let his breath escape. He was sweating too, he realized. His forehead felt clammy as a dead fish.