The elevator stopped, the door opened, the jeep drove out onto the third level.
"Destroy the bomb by dropping it on Earth," said Saavedra. "That way, you will kill two birds with one stone. The bomb and knowledge of how to make it will cease to exist in a single explosion."
"I cannot do it. How can I know for sure that another bomb will be made or that it'll be used? Besides, I am sure that there are other places under the ground and under the seas of Earth where others, innocents, you might say, live. They, too, would die."
"Man has always lived under some form of threat of annihilation," Quiroga said. "In the ancient times, it was the wrath of God or plague and then it was the atomic bombs; somehow, he has managed to survive."
"His luck may run out at any minute," Broward replied. "Oh, oh, who are they?"
They had left the elevator chamber and driven through a long tunnel into a tremendous plaza. Now, a jeep
with three men was driving towards them, and its siren was whooping. Two of the three men were armed with submachine guns.
"The Angels," said Colonel Saavedra. "You will notice that traffic is very small here. It always is. That neo-Gothic building over there is Howards' residence. Anybody who enters this plaza is likely to be challenged. He takes no chances."
"If they try to take us into custody, shoot," Broward said. He nodded at another building across the plaza from Hows' mansion. By the colonel's description, he knew it was the Pope's house. "We'll make a run for it"
"Then what?" muttered Quiroga.
Broward stopped the jeep. The Angels' vehicle turned broadside and halted just before the jeep. Its occupants, dressed in white uniforms with much gold braiding, got out. One of the gunners walked around behind the jeep to cover it. The officer approached from the driver's, Broward's, side. The second gunner remained by his car.
The officer, a short very muscular man with a hard face, said, "Let's see your identification and travel permits."
"We just got here from Deimos," the colonel replied. "I was told nothing about local travel permits."
"Your identification," said the officer harshly.
Broward reached into his coveralls, saying, "I have the permit, Captain. I did not think it necessary to burden the colonel with knowledge of it."
His words did not make logic, but he was talking to divert the officer's mind. The captain reached out his hand to take the papers, and Broward pressed the little knob on the matchbox-sized object in his hand. The captain, his heart muscles spasming, fell to the ground.
Broward whirled around and caught the other two with a sweep of the beam. The man by the jeep fell at once. The other, behind the jeep, shifted the tommy to his shoulder to fire, and then he fell face forward on his weapon.
"Knock them out," ordered Broward loudly. "Quickly. They'll recover almost at once."
He jumped from the jeep and brought the edge of his palm against the thick neck of the captain, who was just rising from the ground. As if it had been planned, the colonel took the man nearest him, the Angel by the official vehicle. He drove his knee upwards to catch the rising man under the chin with it. The Angel fell backwards and struck the back of his neck against the wheel. Quiroga kicked the gunner behind the jeep in the belly.
Broward looked across the plaza towards Howards' building. The plaza was empty, and nobody was coming out of the mansion. It seemed incredible that nobody had noticed the fight. But they had not.
Under Broward's direction, the Angels were dragged into the back of the jeep. "Quiroga, drive their jeep into the corridor. I'll drive ours there."
In the corridor, out of sight of anybody in the plaza, Broward began to undress the captain. The others followed suit with each of the Angels.
"What do we do with them?" said the colonel. He glanced toward the tunnel leading to the elevator chamber.
"Why didn't I think of that?" moaned Broward. "Let's get out of here and into an elevator. We'll do the uniform exchange there."
They drove the jeeps into the tunnel and thence into the room beyond and then dragged the unconscious men into the elevator at the extreme left end of the room. Quiroga started it downward, then resumed taking his man's clothes off. He paused several times to reverse the elevator's direction.
"That little weapon of yours is a wonderful device," the colonel said. He was breathing hard. "We don't have anything like that, that I know of."
They completed the switch. One Angel groaned, and Broward kicked him hard in the head. "Stop it at the level where we got on," he said to the lieutenant. "We've got to get something to hold the door open while we send this elevator back up again. Well drop these men down the shaft."
The cage stopped; the door slid open. With the tommy held ready, Broward stepped out into the room. He saw five Angels getting out of a jeep; the foremost was walking towards another elevator entrance.
He could not take a chance that they would stop him to talk. He sprayed the group with one burst.
The chamber rang with noise as loud as doom. Then, there was silence.
"Now you've done it," the colonel said. "They'll come running from everywhere."
"Maybe the noise didn't reach them," Broward said. "Anyway, I had no choice. Come on. Let's get rid of them."
He removed his knife from its sheath beneath his coveralls and stabbed each of the three original Angels in the solar plexus. Then, reopening the elevator door, he shoved one of the bodies in to keep the door from closing while the cage ascended. Quiroga shoved the door open even further, and Broward and Saavedra placed another body beside the first to enlarge the opening. Fortunately, the mechanism had no safety provision which kept the cage from moving while the door was not shut. There were no cables attached to the cages, which operated off self-contained gravitypaks.
The bodies, shoved through the opening over the corpses used as doorstops, fell unimpeded to the bottom. When these had been disposed of Broward and Saavedra used jackets stripped from the dead men to wipe away as much of the blood as possible. Unfortunately there was nothing they could do about the scratches on the doors or the chips in the stone walls left by ricocheting bullets. Quiroga placed the weapons of the fallen on the floor of their jeep.
Broward drove that vehicle, and the other two were driven by the colonel and the lieutenant They went back down the corridor and then swung to the side of the plaza on which was the Pope's residence. Broward was relieved that there were no people to be seen. But he knew that they could be easily viewed from within the buildings. As if he had official business, he steered the jeep to the pontiff's building and then around to its rear.
He had to knock hard about twenty times before the back door swung in. A young man in black robes and with an expressionless face confronted him.
"We must see His Holiness at once," the colonel said.
"You may wait inside for him," the priest replied firmly. "The Holy Father is holding a private conference now. He is not to be disturbed."
Broward considered telling him that they were not Angels. But there was the possibility that Howards had succeeded in planting a spy in the Pope's household. Perhaps, it might be this man.
"El Macho sent us," he said. "We have orders to see His Holiness at once."
The priest did not answer; he seemed not to know what to do. Or else he was shocked by the fear that Howards had finally decided to move against the Church.
Broward shouldered him aside, and Saavedra and Quiroga followed.