Kinsman's fingers tightened around the wires.
"Chet!" Colt raised his gun, arm fully extended. The muzzle was ten centimeters from Kinsman's face, a yawning black tunnel to eternity.
"That's the only way you'll stop me, Frank." Kinsman heard his own voice as if it were coming from a long way off: strangely flat and calm, as if he were reading lines that had been rehearsed eons ago.
"Chet, HI kill you!"
"Then do it. If you have your way, everybody's going to die anyway."
Kelly found his voice. "Shoot him! What are you waiting for?"
"Chet," Colt said again, "take your hands off the wires and step away. If you don't, I'll have to shoot."
"No way, Frank."
Colt pulled the gun back slowly, then with his left hand slid the action back, cocking it with a loud metallic click, clack.
"I mean it, Chet."
"I know. It all boils down to the two of us, doesn't it? It's you and me, Frank. Life or death."
"If you're wrong," Colt said, his face shining with sweat. "If you're wrong . . ."
"Leonov is with us. He's doing the same thing in Lunagrad that we're doing here."
"That's what he wants you to think."
"That's the truth."
"No . . ."
"Yes! The only way to prevent the end of the world is by trusting him. And if you can't trust him, Frank, then trust me. This is the only way, Frank. The only way."
The gun wavered just the slightest fraction of a centime- ter.
"Don't listen to him!" Kelly screamed. "Shoot him! Shoot!"
Colt let his arm drop. He turned to Kelly. "You shoot him, hero. You get the job done."
