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When the automobile carrying the People’s Minister of Finance, the Honorable Chou Lung, went through the Gate of the Dog to enter the inner court of the Palace, none of the four men inside it had any notion that they were carrying an unwanted guest. How could they? The car was a small one; its low, streamlined body carried only four people, and there was no luggage compartment, since the powerful little vehicle was designed only for maneuvering in a crowded city or for fast, short trips to nearby towns. There was simply no room for another passenger, and both the man in the car and the guards who passed it through were so well aware of that fact that they didn’t even bother to think about it. It never occurred to them that a slight, elderly-looking gentleman might be hanging beneath the car, floating a few inches off the ground, holding on with his fingertips, and allowing the car to pull him along as it moved on into the Palace of the Great Chinese People’s Government.

Getting into the subterranean cell where Dr. James Ch’ien was being held was a different kind of problem. Candron knew the interior of the Palace by map only, and the map he had studied had been admittedly inadequate. It took him nearly an hour to get to the right place. Twice, he avoided a patrolling guard by taking to the air and concealing himself in the darkness of an overhead balcony. Several other times, he met men in civilian clothing walking along the narrow walks, and he merely nodded at them. He looked too old and too well-dressed to be dangerous.

The principle that made it easy was the fact that no one expects a lone man to break into a heavily guarded prison.

After he had located the building where James Ch’ien was held, he went high-flying. The building itself was one which contained the living quarters of several high-ranking officers of the People’s Government. Candron knew he would be conspicuous if he tried to climb up the side of the building from the outside, but he managed to get into the second floor without being observed. Then he headed for the elevator shafts.

It took him several minutes to jimmy open the elevator door. His mind was sensitive enough to sense the nearness of others, so there was no chance of his being caught red-handed. When he got the door open, he stepped into the shaft, brought his loathing for the bottom into the fore, and floated up to the top floor. From there it was a simple matter to get to the roof, drop down the side, and enter the open window of an officer’s apartment.

He entered a lighted window rather than a darkened one. He wanted to know what he was getting into. He had his gun ready, just in case, but there was no sign of anyone in the room he entered. A quick search showed that the other two rooms were also empty. His mind had told him that there was no one awake in the apartment, but a sleeping man’s mind, filled with dimmed, chaotic thoughts, blended into the background and might easily be missed.

Then Spencer Candron used the telephone, punching the first of the two code numbers he had been given. A connection was made to the room where a twenty-four-hour guard kept watch over James Ch’ien via television pickups hidden in the walls of his prison apartment in the basement.

Candron had listened to recordings of one man’s voice for hours, getting the exact inflection, accent, and usage. Now, he made use of that practice.

“This is General Soong,” he said sharply. “We are sending a Dr. Wan down to persuade the guest. We will want recordings of all that takes place.”