Текст книги "The Final Affair"

Автор книги: David McDaniel

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The office door opened and two men strode in. The second closed it quietly behind them.

“– them in…” she finished lamely.

-Yes, thank YOU. Robin. You might also send for a security force and have them ready at the door.“Good afternoon t ,Doctor. ” said the front man. in the same sturdy tones which had come through the intercom. -Allow me to introduce myself and my partner.“Don’t tell me.” said Baldwin. “You’re Gryptytte-Thynne and he’s Count Fred Moriarty.The second individual. a large mound of what might have been muscle but was probably fatt stepped forward and bowed silently.

“Not even closet” said the first. “I’m Vince Kerrigan and this pitiful wreck is my partner. Chou Tee Fang. He’s Formosant of course. Now what we have to do here need never bother you again. It’s just a technical sort of thingt running around with instruments and checking a few circuits and talking to a few people. We’ve done this before and we guarantee not to get in anybody’s way. Now if you’ll just initial this, I will vanish out of your life as swiftly as I came into —”

“What sort of technical?”

“Surely Central explained it to you.”

“They served me a helping of doubletalk about imbalanced impedances and unaccounted line losses. Before I give you permission to prowl my territory I want to know just what is going on.”

“Simply, Doctor, that there seems to be an open circuit somewhere in the San Francisco Relay Area.” Chou’s nasal bass joined the conversation. “The probability was determined by demand analysis and checked by Central through UlComp as far as could be accomplished remotely. My partner and I are here to inquire more closely into the matter.” His voice was deep for a Chinese, and slightly pompous.

“In all likelihood it’s no more than a faulty piece of equipment” said Kerrigan. “Didn’t you just receive a new master terminal?”

“Yes —and I must thank someone at Central for the special cabinet in which it was constructed. It goes quite as well with my office as the old one did.”

“Well, I hope you won’t have to lose it. The transmission anomalies first appeared about a week after the change-over, and there might be a stuck .relay or scwnething like that. It’s as’if you didn’t hang up the telephone.”

“No, Vince,” said Fang. “Then you couldn’t receive any incaning calls.

In this case it doesn’t seem to interfere with the full functioning of the tenninal unit.”

“Sure, Fang, but what I meant was that it’s as if he had an open line all the time.”

“Of course. I only meant that your ana1ogy was poorly chosen. you have no grasp of these technical things. You must forgive my partner, Dr. Baldwin.

All he ever has on his mind —”

.Gentlemen,” said Ward Baldwin harshly. .You broke in here to tell me about a telephone problen?”

-Well, it’s more than just a –I “You invited us int and .t.k)w long do you expect to take finding it?”

–Oh, the checking routine takes about a week, but we might find it the first day.”

“On the other hand, it might not be routine,– said Fang.

.1 see. You gentlemen are experienced field agents, are yoo not?”

Baldwin asked sweetly.

“Our record speaks for itself,” said Kerrigan with a bit of a swagger.

“I was afraid it might,” said Baldwin. “Nevertheless, I have an interesting and possibly challenging intellectual problem at the moment, and I was wondering if you might be able to help me with it. It involves a recent double murder under very suspicious circumstances, with the distinct likelihood that U.N.C.L.E.

may have been involved. r suspect there may have been a plot to extract information from the very heart of Thrush, using a subverted agent. That agent may now be dead.”

He studied them from the corner of his eye as he sorted absently through some papers on his desk.. “Have you heard of the KugelBlitzGewehr —or Plasmoid Projector? My Satrapy has been testing the pilot model for the last three months. In the course of a general investigation surrounding the emotional breakdown and subsequent mysterious death of this suspected agent we discovered that one k.ey device, fortunately a spare, is missing. I stron9ly suspect that U.N.C.L.E. has it. I have evidence that United Network Commandos attempted to rescue Harry Stevens. but were surprised in the attempt. I should give a great deal to k.now how our other security systems were avoided. The guard who stumbled across them apparently fired once and hit Stevens. while the agent carrying him had time to return his fire fatally. Then he set up this little tableau.R

Baldwin indicated the photographs of the murder scene. and sighed. “All these modern stylists.” he said. “It looks good from a distance, but under any intellectual scrutiny it falls to pieces.”

“You think. an U.N.C.L.E. agent killed a guard in your own restricted area?”

“I doubt it was Zodiac.” said Baldwin sarcastically.

“An U.N.C.L.E. infiltration. and a good one.” said Kerrigan. obviously.

interested.

“Infiltration. attempted kidnapping and double murder.” said Baldwin.

“And not a bad job on the first two. I must admit. For amateurs.”

“What about the K~?” asked Chou. “You think this Stevens passed something of it to U.N.C.L.E.?”

“I think he stole a spare unit from the aiming mechanism. which is a key sub-assembly. U.N.C.L.Ł. could just as well have broken in here to pick it up; we don’t know Stevens took it. But he was not suspected of more than incipient nervous collapse; he could easily have carried the missing device on his person.

We may never know how he was induced to betray us. His loyalty had been unquestioned. His profiles. his.whole record was exemplary. Whatever force they used caused such emotional conflicts his mind apparentlybe9an to crack.

I would like to know just what was the hold they had on him. Their meddling has cost me a valuable worker —I’m told —and an annoying security leak.

Regrettably, my bailiwick has a shortage of such highly trained men as yourselves. or I should already have directed steps of retaliation against the United Network Command. My work here is largely of a theoretical nature -pure research. if you understand me. My staff if more suited for the battles of the laboratory than the conflicts of the streets. and against the Network’s trained killers we would be hopelessly outmatched.”

“But not weaponless,” Chou pointed out. “1 believe your prototype KBG

is operational. Has it been tested under combat conditions?”

.Hey.” said Vince. “That sounds like fun. How much dope do you have on U.N.C.L.E.~s local defenses?”

“Quite enough.. said Baldwin. “I do not lack for plans —only for men capable of carrying them out. I have permission to employ the KBG at my discretion. and inasmuch as U.N.C.L.E. already knows about it. I thou9ht we might arrange to give them a practical demonstration.”

“What can it do best? We’ll want to use it to best advantage.”

“You may have time to familiarize yourselves w1th it. But I want this punitive raid undertaken before the week is out.”

“Would Thursday night be convenient?”

“Perfectly. Such a blow must be neither too hastily struck nor too long delayed. Pull up chairs, gentlemen. and I will show you an attack plan for your consideration…”’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Absolutely Fascinating!”

Of course Baldwin checked with Central for permission to use their two men and the KBG, .and inevitab1y Alexander Waverly knew that permission had been granted about thirty seconds before Baldwin knew. Thus, when the final attack plans were confirmed and set in motion, recording units in U.N.C.L.E.‘s San Francisco office copied down every step, and every calculation leading to that step. The defenders had begun preparations and rehearsals before the full assault force had been picked.

Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin were appraised of the impending attack twenty-six hours before T-zero. As usual, they received summons to Hr.

Waverly’s home-from-home, his field office, for “a briefing,” subject unspecified.

“Gentlemen,” he began without preamble as they draped themselves appropriately over convenient pieces of furniture, “tomorrow night we will he invaded by Thrush, hopefully with the KeG in fu11 operation.”

“Hopefully?” said Illya.

“We know exactly when and where they will strike, as well as how hard and towards what goal. We also know what they want, where they expect to find it —and most important, how hard they are willing to fight to attain it. We shall therefore give it to them with a convincing minimum of resistance, including simulated casualties on our side and real ones on theirs. Neither of you will participate in the sham defense —the risk of your being recognised is too great.

“Nevertheless, I believe I can promise you an opportunity to stretch your atrophying muscles very soon. Less than an hour ago the locations of Thrush Central were identified, and we may be ready to move against them in forty-eight hours. You will be fully briefed after tomorrow night’s action, but basically the situation is this: the Central complex which currently has control is located in Darjeeling —a ticklish spot, with Nepal and Pakistan, China, Bhutan and India clustered around the borders of Sikkim with missiles bristling and hostility heavy; any sort of overt military activity in the area could start World War 111 in a matter of hours. I would prefer tD wait another few weeks until control .is shifted to the present standby Central, which is in an ideal site for our purposes, but Thrush is already aware of some kind of communications anomaly in this relay area, and has sent a team here to trace it. We cannot hope to remain undiscovered another week. We must act at once.”

“Where is the back-up unit?” asked Illya.

“Are we going to Darjeeling?” asked Napoleon.

“No,” said Mr. Waverly, “You’re going to San niego. The standby Central is set up in one of the exposition buildings in Balboa Park there.”

“And the ttiird unit?”

“In six DC-3s in Central Africa. They are the most vulnerable, and we should be acle to immobilize them with little effort.

“But we’ll go into all this in your briefing Friday. Tonight’s operation demands most of our attention at the moment. Baldwin believes we stole the gamma laser the night Mr. Stevens was killed, and is anxious to recover it before we can finish analyzing it. I’m afraid, r. Solo, that your improvisation didn’t hold up against even a relatively superficial autopsy.”

“I think we did pretty well, under the circumstances,” said Napoleon.

Mr. Waverly commenced stuffing a pipe. “Be that as it may,” he said, “they will be allowed to find the gamma laser in the second of six places they have been instructed to look for it – in the High-Energy Lab, next to the mass spectrometer. A work-order with it will indicate that it has not yet been subjected to more than a superficial examination. Considering how long it took us to borrow the X-ray crystallograph from Stanford. Section Eight is doing an excellent job —they expect to finish within twelve hours.

Microphotogrammetry was completed the day after you brought the laser rod to us. If we offer Thrush a convincing resistance before allowing them to recapture it. they may retire convinced of an effective victory.”

“When are they due to arrive?”

“Fifteen minutes before midnight tomorrow. through a fire exit on the second level.”

At twenty minutes before midnight, though everything seemed perfectly normal in U.N.C.L.E. HO San Francisco, a subtle atmosphere of tension seeped through the silent corridors. During the afternoon, Mr. Simpson had mounted two thermographs in protective housings, several sealed photographic plates and a recording magnetometer inconspicuously around the second-level fire exit which would shortly open to admit the not-unwelcome invaders. A Fastax WF-4

high speed instrumentation camera was mounted behind a ceiling fixture; it would be started bya burst of magnetic flux or heat striking the other sensors, and its 400 feet of XR film would last approximately fifteen seconds at 1000 frames/second. Samples of various materials were placed along the projected invasion route, arranged to blend with the rather spartan decor.

His personal portable observation post was centered around an optical thermograph which was too large to carry and too expensive to abandon, mounted on a rubber-tired waist-high lab cart which had heen designed to bear an obsolete oscilloscope. His final preparations completed by 9:00 o’clock, he retired to a private office for an hour’s nap.

Now as the moment of attack approached, the normally deserted corridors of the second level were quiet. Access doors leading to other areas had been secured, as had the main elevator bank. Guards were at their posts, nylon body armor under their suits, palms sweating slightly.

Mr. Simpson loaded and checked his motorized Nikon and its 250-shot magazine; as long as he held down its button it would shoot five pictures a second. He set the shutter to 1/1000th with the lens wide open at f/1.8, two stops underexposed for the 85 ambient foot-candles of the corridor, and took his position as ordered behind the first corner with instructions to fall back when the Thrush force advanced.

Napoleon paced his small quarters endlessly, watched by Joan, who was not to be told what was happening but asked repeatedly if he was edgy. Illya was downstairs locked in his room, also as ordered. drumming his fingertips and fretting quietly. Considering the building’s structure, he wasn’t even likely to hear anything of the battle but what came over the intercom monitor considerately left open for him.

Mr. Waverly would be directing operations from the central communications room, where banks of TV screens showed him the corridors of the second level and a microphone stood before him to transmit order to all his units. ow the c~nd channel was silent, and cameras stared down empty corridors as the last minutes ticked away.

On level two Mr. Simpsom slipped into a heavy asbestos lib smock, with matching boots and hood. Under the exigencies of field observation of an unwilling and even uncooperative subject, certain discomforts were to be expected. He switched on his lab cart, directing current from the heavy batteries on the lower shelf to the recording optical thermograph and the magnetometer beside it. Five minutes remained as he took his position around the corner of a crossing corridor some thirty yards from the fire exit.

According to his Accutron it was T-minus-one when a flare of light around the fire door and a muffled WHAFF! pushed a wave of hot air down the passage.

Instantly one hand dropped to the start-button on his datacorder and the other brought up the Nikon. Quickly, before the 15-second load of the Fastax ran out, he stuck the Nikon vertically around the corner, centering its right-angle viewfinder on the converging lines of the corridor and the action already starting towards him through the molten ruins of a once-sturdy door.

He held the button five seconds, long enough to record in color as much of two more fireballs as the relatively limited range of his emulsion could handle. He could synchronise these frames with the ultrahigh speed 16mm XR

footage, perforce in monochrome, to study the development of the plasmoid.

Recorder needles leaped wildly as the drive motor hurmled and tape flew past polished heads, while above ceiling lights flashed and alarm bells hammered through the halls. Guards urst forth from appropriate directions after a reasonable delay; by tnat time the attack force was two-thirds of the way to the corner and advancing rapidly. Mr. Simpson retired unseen down the hall they would follow, wheeling his equipment cart ahead of him at a dog-trot.

Gunfire spat behind him as be ducked behind the steel partition which backed the Section Receptionist’s deserted desk. He paused here as U.N.C.L.E.

guards rushed past him in Both directions, then a fusillade of slugs slapped the wall and suddenly the corridor was empty again. Behind him and his steel shield, two memers of the Home Team popped out, released a few rounds and popped back again.

Mr. Simpson barely had time to 5link as the leap of a magnetometer needle gave him a fraction of a second warning and a sphere of unspeakably intense light shot past a few feet away and burst with a quiet padded concussion ten yards behind him. He felt a wash of warmth reflecting from the wall he hugged and a surge of gratitude for the asbestos smock.

They were definitely coming this way. As if to remind him, a voice , spoke tinnjly from the open communicator in his pocket. “Simpson! Simpson!

Fall back to post three! Fall back!”

how for the first time since his glimpse at their entrance, he got a direct look at the fantastic weapon wielded by Thrush. It was probably the same unit he’d seen in the film: its fat, ribbed barrel Dlossomed like a flower into a two-foot translucent wi.re-laced dish with a slender Dright pistil tapering six inches to its focus at a needle point, Flux in the dish could spin the plasma as it emerged from the nozzle until the mass of super-heated ionised gas was released in a whirling fireball. His Nikon fired ba-ba-ba-ba-bap

as he stuck his head around the corner to aim and look for himself; as the hiss and crackle began again H~ ducked back, But held the camera out with one gloved hand until the magnetometer needle slammed against its stop pin.

He jerked back almost simultaneously with another flare, this time from the opposite side of his partition, which suddenly grew uncomfortably warm about waist level as a large patch of paint 5ubbled and stank. Boots clattered towards him over the sound of the KBG preparing another thunderbolt, until a shouted order stopped them and a two-foot circle in the middle of his sheltering wall smoked briefly as the blistered paint charred and evaporated, then turned cherry red and began to slag.

By that time Mr. Simpson was racing down the corridor, heavy smock flapping behind him. rubber-tired cart slewing slightly on the waxed floor.

The Nikon lay atop the bank of batteries, lens cracked and fused, paint burned from its face except for a clean patch where an asbestos glove had protected it.

There were vague shouts behind him and another fireball burst ten yards short. throwing his blue silhouette before him on the wall beside the opening elevator. Enamel soft~ned and bubbled on the exposed corners of the lab cart.

and the rear tires stuck stringily to the floor a moment until he lifted it like a wheelbarrow and flung it ahead of him towards the padded rear wall of the waiting cart diving after it as the doors began to close and the last guard. who had stayed to hold the car for him. fired two shots between the shuttering sheets of steel as the KBG wanmed up for another blast. The doors met a second before it came. They shuddered and smelt. but the elevator had already started up. and its occupants sighed with shared relief.

“Get everything?’. asked the guard.

“Very nearly.” said Mr. Simpson.

“How was it?”

His eyes gleamed with delight as he rose from a cursory check of his gear. “Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“It’s A Nice Little Plan”

“Tomorrow afternoon,” said Mr. Waverly, “at 3:00 o’clock Pacific Daylight Time, Thrush, as a coherent international entity, will effectively cease to exist. In an operation of devilish subtlety, requiring a minimum of force and a maximum of surprise, as well as split-second coordination, not one, nor two, but all three Thrush Centrals should fall into our hands. The attack plans you will be using should be infallible; it was entirely prepared by the Untimate Computer.”

“Are you sure you can trust it?” Napoleon asked.

“Implicitly. I’m afraid you and Mr. Kuryakin may find your part of the job frustratingly simple – there will be no frontal atack, just a few minutes’

skulking in a public park on a Saturday afternoon.”

“It seems too simple,” said Illya.

“We have no reason to doubt Thrush’s own top secret security files on the matter. Mr. Simpson has modified or manufactured —I myself am uncertain how —an Alpha variartof the Paralane knockout gas you have been using for the last year.”

“what does it do besides put them to sleep in two seconds?”

“Like the dog in the night-time, of primary importance is what it does not do: in this case it does not stimulate the ventilation monitor used in the Balboa Park enclave. The intake ducts will be your target.”

He tapped his pipe on the side of an ashtray as Napoleon said, “You mean we just put them to sleep and walk in?” I

“Exactly. Mr. Gold will go with you, and will check the proper reception of a full emergency dump from the other side of the world. Because simultaneously with your secural of the standby unit in San Diego, at 4:30

Sunday morning in Darjeeling, the second largest special assault force in the history of the United Network Command will move in quietly and surround the Bengali Opium Processing Plant, vacant for the last five years under the new regime, but an ideal location for Thrush Central.

“The local government has been informed at the very highest levels and without being told just what will be going on they have been persuaded to withhold official reaction for up to half an hour, but with agent Castora in command nothing should be allowed to disturb the natives. A few shots exchanged, nothing more. Thrush expects to be able to lose one Central unit without serious inconvenience —hence this fantastic electromagnetic will-o’-the-wisp they have created. But you, Mr. Solo, Mr. Kuryakin, will have captured their back-up system and effectively defeated them a moment before they became vulnerable.

“The final unit is broken down for transportation in six DC-3’s in Central Africa. It was bound for Lisbon, but our field agent Philip Lebow single-handedly sabotaged the aircraft, thus immobilising the third and last operational unit.”

“That sounds like a checkmate,” said Illya.

“Indeed. But there is increasing evidence that our opponent has one major piece yet unexposed. A hard base of some magnitude, isolated and concealed somewhere in the world —where they probably have an equivalent master computer unit, if not direct communication with or control of the rest of the Hierarchy. Inasmuch as we have found no less than four references in appropriate contexts to fT~sh IsZand’ on the comm tapes we have monitored so far, we recognise the fact that it may or may not be an island, Thrush is perfectly capable of assigning that designation to a post in the Sobi Desert or the Mat to Grosso.”

“But the U1Comp doesn’t know —or won’t tell —‘Where it is?”

“We aren’t sure yet. It may be a slang term of some unguessable content. When we have Central’s own Canks to work through, we expect to find the answers to these and many other questions.”

wAh, excuse me,” said Napoleon doubtfully, .but did I understand you to say that we would stage our sneaky raid on Central at three o’clock in the afternoon?”

“Yes. The situation in Darjeeling is much more sensitive than in San Diego, and the hour of four-thirty in the morning is ideal for the kind of operation Mr. Castora feels is appropriate. At the same time, the middle of a hot Saturday afternoon will find Balboa Park filled with innocent by-standers, among whom our operative should be comparatively inconspicuous. Some female workers from the Los Angeles office will be assigned to accompany you as assistants and general cover.”

“It looks so simple,” said Illya, tracing the plans with a forefinger.

“I jumper these wires, ‘While Napoleon plants the gas cannisters here, ‘We ‘Wait two minutes) and walk in.”

“It’s a fine plan,” said Mr. Waverly. wThe Ultimate Computer worked it out for us at the request of Mr. Gold, who set it up as a test of the strategic planning program.”

“I thought you couldn’t get at their top security programs,” said Napoleon. “I thought that was why we were doing all this.”

“We can’t get at them. But we can use them. Remember, the program is the master form or blueprint of everything that is to be done with the given data and from which the decision is reached. We can put data into one side of the black box and get results out the other, but e want to kno what goes on inside the box. And it can’t. be examined through a terminal. Only Central staff is allowed to get inside. Therefore -Therefore we have to take over Central.

Did U1Comp also set up the Darjeeling Operation?”

“Not in detail. While there is no objection to testing the security of a standby site, oddly enough, the Acting Central at any given moment is not an acceptable subject for defense analysis. A touch of paranoia. if not enough to protect tnem. Still. we know just how much effort will be needed; the order of priority is headed by transfer of control, followed by flight, defense or surrender. We want them to dump, then surrender.“And this will destroy Thrush?”

“This will destroy its central nervous system. The 14,872 individual Satrapys will Be abandoned to their fates and initiative of their leaders. We have adequate evidence of most of the criminal activities of Thrush, hopefully sufficient to Bring specific indictments against most of the Satraps and some of their staffs; it will Be presented to whatever authorities have jurisdiction.

“There are some known Thrush operations whfch show no criminal taint, and it is not a crime to belong to Thrusfl —merely highly questionable. We can only watch their future activities with the controlling mind behind them gone.

“There will be no lack of work for us in the next few years, gentlemen -every surviving Satrap will see himself the Man of the Hour, lnspired to weld the shattered segments into a new whole ‘With himself at the head. This will inevitably lead to differences of opinion, and likely gang guerflla warfare in a few thousand locations. as well as independent operations on somewhat smaller scales than before.”

“But without Central, all intercommunication and coordination among them will be gone,” said Napoleon, awed.

“Not all,” said Illya. “They can still use public telephone circuits and amateur radio. But it won’t quite have that old —what’s the word, Meyer?”

“Zip.”

“Thank you. Zip.”

“Of course, we will have the advantage of knowing where everyone is, what they have, can do and have done, which will be of inestimable advantage.”

“We knew all that about Baldwin and it never helped,” said Napoleon.

“By the way,” asked Illya, “have you been able to place anything against Baldwin? Indictments? Evidence?”

“Ah…Am. I confidently expect to bring some kind of charges against him, though at present I’m afraid I can’t tell what. After all, we have sifted barely three percent of the data that’s been fed us so far.”

“I put a flag on Baldwin’s name,” said Napoleon. “If anything comes through with him on it I get a copy. He’s done a lot of research for them, all laboratory stuff with legally obtained materials (as far as we can tell) and unspecified results; they pay him a lot of royalties for unspecified uses of his patents; he socializes with many of their top brass. He walks like a Thrush, he has feathers like a Thrush, he chirps like a Thrush and he runs around a lot with Thrush —”

“Besides,” said Il11a, “he told us he was Thrush. And why should he lie?”

“ —But we cannot connect him in any way with any illegal activity.”

“Yet,” said Mr. Waverly.

The August afternoon sun shone hot on irrigated trees and rococo concrete buildings, on bushes, baseball diamond and bandshell. The wheezing music of a carrousel wafted on the warm breeze; kids ran and shouted, or stretched on tiptoe to reach a waterfountain. There was a scent of carmelcorn and of flowers, with an occasional whiff from the zoo just over the hill.

Among a variety of motley groups wandering down the long empty street between shuttered and padlocked exhibition buildings strolled three assorted couples, carrying, respectively, a large briefcase, a large camera bag, and a large leather purse. Most of the members of this unnoticed group wore dark glasses, and two of the men wore caps with bills which shaded their faces perhaps. a little more than necessary.

The boarded windows and untracked portico of the chipped plaster facade they passed bespoke seasons without tenants. Behind those blank walls waited a staff of 47 and several millions of dollars worth of hard.ware, protected by one of the best portable security systems in the world, They waited, ready to De called to duty in a couple of weeks or on sixty seconds notice, but not quite ready to be subject to an attack themselves, feeling as secure as they had almost every right to feel.

Napoleon Solo could have known the name, rank and persona) history of everyone of the 47, had he cared to memorize that list —he did know the entrance code, the b.lock diagram of the air~onditioning system, the master alarm net and cross-check plan, and where the washrooms were.

Since Joan was still restricted in San Francisco, Napoleon was accompanied by Linda Brunelle, a healthy blonde from the Los Angeles office; Illya had been assigned a lean brunette named Terri Travener. Mr. 6old had brought Miss Klingstein with him, as well as a satchel stuffed~th data sheets which held the keys to the Ultimate Computer itself, scrawled in )llegible pencil. Between them they expected to be able to operate at least as much of the hardware as necessary.

Illya carried a photographer’s gadget bag. containing his electronic sensors, assorted cables, and two candy bars. Brandy slung a leather tote bag which held three cannisters of Paralane-Alpha.

“It struck me,” said Napoleon as they wandered with the citizenry through the park past their target, Wthat one of our problems in dealing with Thrush was that they always tooK the initiative, and they knew how to apply that minimum of force in ju.st the right place before you knew it and be finished before you could quite react. And it occurred to me —”

“—That we were doing the same thing to them only more So and first?”

said Illya. -I’m sorry, Napoleon. If I’d thought you’d missed that, I would have pointed it out to you days ago.”