Operation Triple Cross, that saved the country during some fantastic
war he imagined...."

"_What did you say?_"

The question cracked out like a string of pistol shots. Everybody
turned. The quiet man in the brown tweed suit had spoken; now he
looked as though he were very much regretting it.

"Is there such a thing as Operation Triple Cross?" Fitch was asking.

"No, no. I never heard anything about that; that wasn't what I meant.
It was this Terran Federation thing," the major said, a trifle too
quickly and too smoothly. He turned to Chalmers. "You never did any
work for PSPB; did you ever talk to anybody who did?" he asked.

"I don't even know what the letters mean," Chalmers replied.

"Politico-Strategic Planning Board. It's all pretty hush-hush, but
this term Terran Federation is a tentative name for a proposed
organization to take the place of the U. N. if that organization
breaks up. It's nothing particularly important, and it only exists on
paper."

It won't exist only on paper very long, Chalmers thought. He was
wondering what Operation Triple Cross was; he had some notes on it,
but he had forgotten what they were.

"Maybe he did pick that up from somebody who'd talked indiscreetly,"
Whitburn conceded. "But the rest of this tommyrot! Why, he was talking