"Set us down!" Suvorov demanded nervously. "Over there, a hundred meters from the road in that glade."

The pilot nodded and gently eased the helicopter's landing skids into the soft grassy earth, sending up a swirl of dead and moldy leaves. He set the engine on inle with the blades 'Slowly turning and opened the door, Suvorov leaped out and ran stumbling through the underbrush back to the road. After a few minutes of frantic searchin he stared at the bank of the creek and looked around in exasperation.

"What's the problem?" asked the pilot as he approached.

"Not here," Suvorov said dazedly. "A warehouse with an elevator that dropped down to a laboratory. It's gone."

"Buildings can't vanish in six hours," said the pilot. He was beginning to look bored. "You must be on the wrong road."

"No, no, this has to be the right one."

"I only see trees and swamp"-he hesitated and pointed-"and that decrepit old houseboat on the other side of the creek."

"A boat!" Suvorov said as though having a revelation. "It must have been a boat."

The pilot gazed down into the muddy water of the creek. "The bottom here is only three or four feet deep. Impossible to bring a vessel the size of a warehouse, requiring an elevator, in here from the waterway."

Suvorov threw up his hands in bewilderment. "We must keep searching."

"Sorry," the pilot said firmly. "We haven't the time or the fuel to continue. To keep our appointment we've got to leave now."

He turned without waiting for a reply and walked back to the helicopter. Slowly Suvorov followed him, looking for all the world like a man deep in a trance.

As the helicopter lifted above the trees and swung toward Savannah, a gunnysack curtain in the window of the houseboat was pulled aside to reveal an old Chinaman peering through an expensive pair of Celestron 11 x 80 binoculars.

Satisfied he had read the aircraft's identification number on the fuselage correctly, he lain down the glasses and dialed a number on a portable telephone scrambling unit and spoke in rapid Chinese.

"GOT A MINUTE, DAN?" Curtis Mayo asked as Dan Fawcett got out of his car in the private street beside the White House.

"You'll have to catch me on the run," Fawcett replied without looking in Mayo's direction. "I'm late for a meeting."

"Another heavy situation in the Situation Room?"

Fawcett sucked in his breath. Then, as calmly as his trembling fingers would permit, he locked the car door and picked up his attache' case.

"Care to comment?" Mayo asked.

Fawcett marched off toward the security gate. "I shot an arrow in the air . . ."

"It fell to earth, I know not where," Mayo finished, keeping step.

"Longfellow. Want to see my arrow?"

"Not particularly."

"This one is going to land on the six o'clock news."

Fawcett slowed his pace. "Just what are you after?"