She led them, Kennedy first, followed by Haugen and Spalding, through the vast salon which served Dinoli by way of a vestibule and waiting room, then into the narrower corridor where tiny television cameras studied them as they approached. Kennedy heard relays click shut as he went past; the spy-system had passed on him, it seemed.

Dinoli’s office door was a thick plank of rich-grained oak, in which a tiny gold plaque reading L. D. Dinoli was deeply inset. The door swung open as they drew near.

The vista thus revealed had always seemed breathtaking to Kennedy. Dinoli’s private office was a room five times as long as it was broad, which seemed to swing away into the reaches of infinity. A giant picture window, always immaculate, gave access to a panoramic view of Manhattan’s bustling streets.

Dinoli himself sat at the head of a long, burnished table. He was a small, piercing-eyed man of sixty-six, his face lean and fleshless and surmounted by a massive hook of a nose. Wrinkles spread almost concentrically from that mighty nose, like elevation-lines on a geological contour map. Dinoli radiated energy.

“Ah, gentlemen. Won’t you come in and be seated.” Again, statements, not questions. His voice was a deep black-sounding one, half croak and half boom.

Immediately at Dinoli’s right and left hands sat the agency’s four second-level men. Dinoli, of course, occupied the lofty eminence of the first level alone. After the second-level boys came those of the third: Presslie, Cameron, and four others. Kennedy took a seat near Cameron, and Haugen slipped in across the table facing him. Spalding sat to Kennedy’s right. He was the only jarring figure in the otherwise neat pyramid, which began with Dinoli, sloped to the four second-level men, and was based on the eight third-level executives.

“We’re all here, then,” Dinoli said calmly. The clock over his head, just above the upper rim of the picture window, read 9:00:00. It was the only clock Kennedy had ever seen that gave the time in seconds elapsed, as well as minutes and hours. “Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet our new clients, if you will.” His clawlike forefinger nudged a button on the elaborate control panel near his hand.