Before the precognitive vision had cleared from his mind, Goodly was out of his chair, out from behind the Duty Officer's desk, and into the corridor. The spinal corridor was a little less than fifty yards long, thirty from the Duty Officer's room to the Ops room at one end. Racing that way, Goodly's eyes were drawn to the elevator's indicator lights. Originally, the elevator had been part of the hotel downstairs. Now there was only one stop: the top floor, E-Branch HQ. But the floor indicator lights still worked as before, and the cage had just started on its way up!
It could be, of course, that it was an E-Branch agent, a late arrival, coming to see Trask and Nathan off. Except Goodly didn't think so. Bursting through the swing-doors into the Ops room, he saw a circle of espers standing there, shaking hands with Nathan and the Head of Branch. No one seemed in a hurry; Goodly was moving and thinking so fast that everyone else appeared to be stationary; their
heads turned in a weird sort of slow-motion to see what all the fuss was about.
The fuss was about him, shouting, 'Ben, Nathan - get the hell out of here! I mean now! The Minister was on the blower. CMI has men on their way here, and they're after Nathan!'
'What?' Trask's mouth yawned open in a gasp, but he knew Goodly like his own brother and his mind was quick to pick up the precog's warning; he recognized the truth of what Goodly had said. And to Nathan, urgently: 'Son, can we go now?'
Nathan closed his eyes, frowned his concentration, shook his head. 'No. It's early and Chung is still mobile. Also, he was supposed to call us and we haven't heard from him yet. He could be in a car or something; there could be people around. We have to emerge somewhere safe.'
In his mind's eye, Goodly saw the elevator doors hissing open! Then go somewhere else!' he yelled, as he rushed back out into the corridor. Til stall them.'
And they were already there - a handful of paramilitaries with weapons enough to start a small war! But Goodly knew how to handle it, because he'd already seen it. Careering down the corridor, he flew straight into a pair of them. Grabbing him, they pinned him to the wall and asked: 'Your boss, and the one called Nathan - where are they?'
'In the ... in the Ops room!' Goodly gasped through a compressed windpipe, where an arm was pressed to his throat.
'Where?'
'Down there.' He flapped an arm towards the wrong end of the corridor. But at that end, CMI agents were already checking out the rooms. While at the other end, the Ops room doors had been thrown open and a group of espers was emerging into the corridor.
Goodly found himself thrust aside, and followed on behind the paramilitaries as they ran crouching towards the Ops room. Esper protests were ignored; Ben Trask's mindspies were pushed out of the way as the CMI men went through the swing-doors with Goodly right behind them ...
... But in the room . .. there was only a swirl of dust-motes spiralling in a stray beam of sunlight through the slatted windows.
'You.' A CMI agent prodded Goodly with his machine-pistol. 'You lied to us.' He was about five-ten, blocky, broad-shouldered, red-haired and crewcut. A typical bully-boy, he had to weigh about one hundred and eighty pounds. His green eyes were set a little too close together, and his lips were fleshy, the bottom one slightly pendulous.
Goodly scowled and brushed the gun aside. Other espers had come back into the room to stand watching, silent, with their arms folded on their chests. Now that Trask and Nathan were out of it, things were different. It was as the Minister Reponsible had said: these men had specific orders.