Текст книги "[Magazine 1966-­09] - The Brainwash Affair"

Автор книги: Robert Hart Davis

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Solo and Illya were marched along the corridor, past rooms converted into chemistry labs. They were shoved into a metal lined chamber twenty feet long, but less than nine feet wide.

The metal was cool to the touch. The room was bare of any furnishings. They found that the metal was perforated from floor through ceiling. Faint sound began to flare through the tiny perforations, already higher than a whistle, and steadily increasing in intensity and rising in decibels.

Solo sagged first. The sounds penetrating his ears were like lances. But when he toppled against the wall, the sound on this side increased unbearably.

It was no better in the center of the area. As they moved from the wall, sound intensity increased, stalking them.

It was like some brain-smashing force, relentless, without pity.

Suddenly the sounds ceased, but the silence was unbearable. Solo felt as if his head were expanding, as though his brain would burst.

Illya sank to his knees, but then the sounds started again. They came upward through the perforated flooring. At first they were welcome, now that their force seemed to press inward upon their brains.

The intensity increased, going beyond the range they could endure. It was like physical blows slapping them about. They ran from one end of the room to the other, unable to escape the unwavering intensity of the sound waves.

They pressed their arms like shields against their heads, but the sounds would have penetrated steel.

Then silence again. They screamed against the pressures and expanding agonies of the silence. They almost welcomed the increase of the sound waves.

Neither was conscious at the end of the hour.

THREE

ILLYA REGAINED consciousness first. He pressed his palms against the throb in his temples. It was a headache beyond description—no hangover could ever approach it. But when his hands touched the sides of his head, he screamed. His head was too sore to touch.

Yvonne was kneeling over him, her face constricted with pity.

"Oh, you poor dears," she whispered. "What have they done to you?"

She extended her hand toward his face. Illya rolled away from it, crying out in panic. "Just don't touch me."

Movement jarred him until he wavered a moment on the brink of unconsciousness. But he did not pass out again. That would have been too easy.

After a long time, Solo stirred. He sat up, his head bent forward loosely on his neck. As Illya had been, Napoleon was unable to touch his temples or his cheeks. He throbbed with pain from his neck up.

He lay still a long time.

"Drug-induced hypnosis," he whispered. "Brainwash. So that's how he controls Caillou."

Illya stared at the distant gray ceiling of the dungeon. "And there's nothing we can do to help him—or the people who are going to be ruined in this game of money manipulation."

Solo did not speak for a long time. Illya thought maybe he had fainted, but it was too terrible an effort to turn his head to see. When he moved even the slightest, he felt as if his brain rattled inside his agonized skull.

The dungeon door squealed open. Biting his mouth, Illya managed to keep from screaming against the rusty sounds.

Marie entered, accompanied by Albert and an armed guard. They came into Illya's line of vision, or he would not have seen them. They wavered before him in some kind of red haze.

"You. Yvonne," Marie said. "Let's go."

Yvonne cried out, protesting. She caught Illya's hand, pleadingly.

Illya winced in agony. "I'm sorry we got you in this, Yvonne," he whispered.

She pressed his hand.

"It's not your fault," she said. "You are very brave, very good. Both of you. You have done all you could."

"Not quite," Illya whispered grimly between his teeth.

He lay there helplessly and watched them lead Yvonne away. For a long time strange sounds drifted into the dungeon through the high window, even through the walls. He tried to think his way out, but thinking was as painful as a physical touch inside his mind, and finally he sank into a troubled sleep.

Illya awakened in the deepest darkness, feeling as if he were b ing battered by an earth tremor. For some moments he did not know where he was. Then he felt the rough texture of the dungeon floor, the late night chill, the touch of Solo's hand on his shoulder, shaking him.

"What's the matter?" Illya said. His head hurt less intensely now, though he was painfully aware of movement.

"I've figured it out," Solo said.

"You figured what out?"

"The one weakness in Maunchaun's scheme."

"You mean there is one?" Illya's tone doubted it.

"There is one. Drug-induced hypnosis. That's why they had to find Caillou's precise double—that's why they had to bring in a ringer. That's why everything has to go on exact schedule."

"Maybe it's just my headache, but you've lost me somewhere."

"No. Don't you see? There are no ill after-effects of ordinary hypnosis. It can even be benefiting. But drug-induced. That's the key. Lester Caillou had to be prepared for this drug-induced hypnosis. He had to be destroyed."

"You mean this drug is killing him?" Illya sat up, headache forgotten.

"That's right. They can induce hypnosis, or anything else they want with it, but enough of it is fatal. Nobody knows that better than Maunchaun. They can control Caillou just so long—so many weeks, or days, or hours. I don't know that. But you can bet Maunchaun has it figured to the minute. Everything has got to go right for him until the moment that Caillou falls dead from the effects of that poppy-seed drug—or Maunchaun is lost."

"Looks like he's got nothing to worry about," Illya said emptily.

"He would have," Solo said. "If I could just get out of here. If could do nothing else, I could upset his schedule. I might even save Lester's life—"

"Or lose your own."

"We're expendable, Illya," Solo said. "I don't have to tell you that."

Illya tried to grin. "No. You don't. And I sort of wish you wouldn't keep reminding me."

"Death's been playing with me. It just missed me a few days ago in an Istanbul street. Maybe this time it won't miss. I hate to sit here waiting for it."

Illya sighed heavily. He crawled along the wall, and after a few moments returned with a small packet.

"Maybe I can help you," he whispered.

"What have you got?"

"Friction-bomb blasting pellets. THRUSH made. I took them off that pilot when we had to help him from the midget copter."

Solo laughed admiringly. "That's what they were looking for when they searched us up in Maunchaun's room?"

"I think so." Illya nodded. "I knew the TV cameras were on us when they threw us in here, so when I found that crevice in the wall, I sat there and hid my find."

Solo grinned warmly. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

Illya smiled. "I do. You'd sit here and nurse that king-sized headache."

Solo exhaled. "Let's go."

Illya nodded. "Which way?"

"Will one of those pellets take out that door?"

"Probably. But there are guns out there. If we timed it right, we could go out the window with a better chance."

"I'm with you."

Illya swung up on Solo's shoulders. They walked toward the high window. Illya drew back his arm and threw a friction bomb pellet at the window base.

He sprang from Solo's shoulders then and both retreated swiftly to the wall farthest from the window.

Everything happened with instant suddenness. The bomb exploded outward, carrying the bars of the window with it. While the explosive sound still reverberated inside their heads, they raced across the room.

They moved then with the grace and precision of circus acrobats. Illya flung himself against the wall beneath the window on his knee. Making stirrups of his hands, he waited until the toe of Solo shoe touched his palms. Then he sprang upward, levering Solo into the opening.

Shouts and footsteps rang in the corridors outside the dungeon. The chateau intercom crackled, and then Dr. Maunchaun's voice rattled through it.

Neither Solo nor Illya bothered to listen. They knew that they were on camera, but this no longer mattered.

Solo went all the way through the window. Then he turned, hooked his toe over the outer sill and sprawled inward, reaching out his arms as far as they would go.

Inside the dungeon, Illya stood on his toes, stretching his arms upward tautly.

Solo's hands struck hard against his, fingers clasped around his wrists. Then Illya scrambled upward, using his ties against the rough wall while Solo wriggled himself through the window, drawing Illya after him.

The chateau grounds were black in the dark hour before dawn. But as Illya and Solo sprang from the wall shrubbery dozens of flood lights erupted from everywhere, blasting the lawn with light.

They heard the dungeon door thrown open as Illya wriggled free. Men shouted from the yard, from parapets. Distantly dogs yowled. Somewhere in the darkness a gun fired. A man swore, and the shooting ceased.

Solo and Illya crouched in the concealment of the shrubbery. Solo pointed toward a car in the drive. "Run for it!"

He did not wait to see if Illya heard. Bent low, he sprinted to ward the drive. He took fifteen giant steps and then sprawled face down in the grass at the precise moment guns fired from the parapets.

He glanced over his shoulder, crawling frantically in the grass. Illya was not with him.

Gunfire sounded and bullets splatted into the sod around him. He had to keep moving.

Something flickered, and from the corner of his eye he saw Illya racing toward one of the red midget helicopters roosting on the lawn.

He came up on his knee, ran, fell forward, rolled over, came up to his feet and threw himself in against a Fiat as the rifles barked, snapping at his heels.

He rolled under the car, the gravel biting into him. Armed men ran from the house. He heard Illya yell, saw the men turn, racing toward the copters.

He reached up, opened the door on the side away from the house. He pulled himself up into the car, let the door close quietly.

There was no key in the switch. He was not disappointed or even delayed, because he had not expected one.

Using a strip of metal, he reached under the dash, shorted the ignition, pressing the starter. The little car shook itself, coming alive.

Solo already had the car in gear before he pulled himself up under the steering wheel.

He saw men racing from the house. They fired with their small arms, the bullets shattering windows, embedding in the metal. The car lurched forward into the drive. He stepped down hard on the gas.

Other and larger cars were already in pursuit before he reached the opened gate and turned out on the highway, headed toward Paris.

He could hear the gunfire back there. But he felt empty, knowing they were no longer shooting at him. They were shooting at Illya. And he knew something else. Illya had run toward those parked copters in order to give him a chance of escape.

He glanced in the rear-view mirror. Other cars came racing out of the driveway. They skidded almost off the shoulders, righting them selves.

With a sense of frustration, Solo pressed the accelerator to the floor. Ahead he saw the faint lights of Paris.

He came around a wide curve, banking. Car horns blared and he skidded past a truck. His pursuers had to slow, and one of them went careening off the roadway.

Solo gripped the wheel, silently begging five more miles of speed from the Fiat.

Checking his rear-view mirror, he found the cars on his trail again.

He saw side roads whirled past on the wind in transit, knowing that he could lose the larger cars only by hitting these side roads.

It was too risky. He saw a truck pulling out of a cross-road ahead.

Timing it exactly, holding his breath, he whipped the little car to the left, directly in front of the horrified driver.

He pressed down on the gas going in front of the truck with only inches to spare.

As he'd hoped, the truck driver panicked, stalled the truck. When he looked back, a crowd was gathering in the avenue, but his pursuers were unable to get past.

By the time the truck was moved, he had gained a precious mile on the men back there. As he neared the market places of Paris, the traffic increased.

But they were back there. He whipped around a corner, climbed a steep, cobbled hill, plunged downward, horns yapping at him.

When he checked his mirror, the larger cars were still trailing him.

He jerked the car around a corner, slammed on the brakes. He was already out of it as it rolled to stop in a no-parking zone.

He ran across the walk, plunged into a kiosk, going downward, racing toward a slowing Metro on the underground tracks.

FOUR

ILLYA SAW he was not going to make it to the midget choppers.

Men with attack hounds came running from beyond the small helicopters in the early morning. Their shadows lunged in the flood lights, ravenous upon the grass.

Marksmen fired from the chateau parapets.

Illya hit the ground, rolling toward the sorry protection of a lilac bush. He lay a moment, panting like a fox. Sounds battered inside his skull. He heard the yowling of the dogs, the raging of men, the gunfire, the sound of cars coughing to life, racing on the drive.

He grinned faintly, knowing that Solo had made it that far at least.

He saw the dogs running toward him. They were still beyond the copters. Other men came from the driveway, and more from the veranda at the front of the chateau.

He made up his mind. The nearest protection was the window in the dungeon. He had accomplished most of his objective. He had caused enough diversion to enable Solo to get into a car and off the grounds.

He came lithely up to his knees. He faked toward the 'copters. When the gunmen wheeled their guns that way, he reversed himself; crouching low, he raced back to the shrubbery at the dungeon window.

He drew a long breath and at the last possible moment dove the remaining few feet into the shrubbery. He stuck his head into the blasted window space and almost bumped heads with a startled guard on a ladder inside the dungeon.

In an instinctive reflex action, Illya thrust out his hand in a stiff-arm motion, catching the man under the chin. He shoved as hard as he could.

He was already scrambling back into the shrubbery, scrambling through it along the wall.

The dogs were nearer; the shouting of the men sounded as if they were in the hedge growth with him. He freed a friction-bomb pellet, set himself and threw it with all his strength at the window. More stones shattered and sprayed in fragments.

For the space of three breaths, everything ceased on the yard.

Illya did not wait to enjoy his small victory. He crawled as fast as he could on all fours along the inside of the shrubbery.

Ahead were gunmen on a small veranda. Setting himself, Illya tossed a small pellet. The explosion rocked the yard, knocked the sentries off their feet.

Illya was over the low wall almost before the debris settled.

He scooped up a gun from the fallen sentry nearest him. The tattoo of gunfire from the yard and from positions above him, sent him scrambling through a smashed window.

With a savage laugh, he looked about, almost as if surprised to find himself back in the house.

The intercom crackled. "Kuryakin! He's in the east wing sun room! Converge there at once!" Maunchaun's voice lashed at Illya in triumph.

Illya jerked the gun up. He shot the eye of the watching camera and then put a round into the intercom. It was almost–but not quite– as satisfactory as blasting the doctor himself.

He heard steps racing toward him along the corridors. He ran across the room, stepped through the draperies.

He shoved open one half of the casement window, let himself through.

The room was loud with people. Illya pressed through the window, but a burst of gunfire from the yard drove him back. From within the room, guns crackled. Glass smashed around him and the draperies shivered under the impact of bullets.

Illya sprang out to the soft ground outside the window. He lost his balance for a moment and lost time setting himself. They continued firing down at him, keeping him in close to the projecting stones of the walls.

As he turned, he saw Albert leaning out of the window, rifle upraised like a club. For one second, Illya stared up at him. He thought in agony, "Oh, no, not my head!"

As Albert brought the gun-butt down, Illya fired upward. The bullet slashed across Albert's cheek, driving him back a little.

Illya dropped his gun, caught at the rifle in Albert's hands. Putting his feet against the stone foundation, he lunged backward, drawing Albert through the window upon him.

This effectively stopped the gun fire.

Illya wrenched the gun from Albert's hands. He tossed it over his head. Albert's fist sank into Illya's stomach, the breath driven from him.

For a moment, Illya simply hung on while earth, sky, chateau and lawn switched places. He felt the battering of Albert's fists. He gripped Albert's belt in both hands and levered him upward. Then he shoved forward, driving Albert against the huge stones of the chateau.

Albert cried out, going limp. When Illya released him, the big Moor slid limply down the stones, crumpling to the ground.

Illya looked about wildly for one of the guns, but when his head came up, he saw Marie a few feet from him. She stood in the window, something—a dart gun—in her mouth! He shook his head at her, tried to fall away.

But then something stung him in the neck, with the savagery of a wasp, but he knew it was not a wasp. Instinctively, his hand clapped at his neck. But it never rose that high. He felt as if his legs melted off at the knees below him. He was conscious of being nauseated, sick at his stomach, and then he was diving from an incredible distance down toward where Albert lay crumpled on the ground beside the house. He did not re member making it.

FIVE

AT ELEVEN that morning, Napoleon Solo, shaven, refreshed, wearing a faultless gray suit, rearmed, entered the Paris banking district.

Helie strolled into the Rothschild Building, went up in one of the elevators to the Caillou Interests suite.

He entered the reception room of the Caillou offices, and stopped, eyes widening, stunned.

Yvonne sat at her desk, as if this day were like any other day at Caillou, International.

He was staggered to see her here. He had last seen her when she was taken away, crying last night from the dungeon. Looking at her, in a smart dress, an immaculate coiffure, you could not believe that last night had happened to her, outside a nightmare.

She looked up at him as if she had never seen him before.

"Yes, sir? May I serve you?" she said to him in French.

Solo approached her desk, studying her. "Yvonne, are you all right?"

"Of course, M'sieur. Why should I not be all right?"

He flinched, seeing that she was all right only in her brain-washed mind. She was moving in a drug-induced state of euphoria.

Her pupils were like pin-points. Her smile was too loose, and her eyes barely focused.

"What did you wish, sir?" she asked again.

"I want to see Monsieur Caillou," Solo said.

"Have you an appointment? What is your name? I'll announce you."

"I'd rather you didn't do that," he said. He caught her hand as she reached toward the intercom switch. "Why don't we just walk in on him, Yvonne?"

"We couldn't do that, sir." Her tone remained bright and warm—and mindless.

She was like a robot.

He lifted her from the chair, hand clasping her wrist.

"You're hurting me, sir," she said in that smiling, empty voice.

He saw there was no sense trying to reason with her. She had no memory of him, none of having been prisoner in the dungeon.

He simply smiled back at her, marched her across the inner office to the door marked M. Caillou, Private.

He did not knock. The false Caillou swung around as Solo closed the door behind him and Yvonne.

Caillou leaped toward the phone. But Solo said, "Don't do it, fellow." He showed him the U.N.C.L.E. .38 Special.

Caillou winced, straightened. "What do you want?"

"We'll start with the easy questions," Solo said. "Who are you?"

"Why, he's Monsieur Lester Caillou," Yvonne said, as if a tape had been activated inside her by the question.

He sighed, seeing that Yvonne had been programmed by Dr. Maunchaun to recognize this man as the real Caillou under every condition. He ignored her.

He tilted the gun. "I'm waiting, fellow. I tell you this. If I kill you now, Maunchaun's little plan will fall apart. I can end it at any moment, simply by removing you. You better think about that. No matter what they promised you, you won't collect it with bullets in you."

The false Caillou sank into a chair behind his desk. "My name is Jacques DuMont. I am nobody. I was a race-track gambler from Marseilles. I was forced into this. It is not from choice I do it. You will gain nothing by killing me."

"Unfortunately, you're wrong. Still, I hope I don't have to."

DuMont shivered. His face revealed his sickness. "What do you want of me?"

"Quite a bit, I'm afraid. We'll begin by having you call for your car. You are to tell your chauffeur to meet you at the building entrance. But if you say one word more than this, it will be your last."

He held the gun near DuMont's face while the impostor made the call to the building garage. He re placed the phone, his hand shaking.

"Let's go."

DuMont got his hat.

Solo said, "I warn you. I have filed the firing mechanism of my gun so that even anything that disturbs me will cause it to fire. Even if I am killed, you also are dead. You'd better concentrate on keeping me alive."

They went through the outer offices. DuMont spoke to no one, looked neither left nor right. Yvonne accompanied them.

They entered one of the elevators, descended to the street. At the door, Solo checked, seeing the Rolls Royce in the loading area. He also saw the men lounging along the building, aware that they were THRUSH gunmen.

"You will cross the walk, get in the car," Solo told DuMont and Yvonne. "Walk naturally. Remember that my gun is fixed on you. You lose, no matter what happens."

DuMont nodded. The chauffeur got out of the car, came around and opened its rear door as Yvonne and the false banker crossed the walk under the canopy.

Solo waited until the chauffeur closed the door and started around the car again. He stepped out of the door, angled across the walk. He moved along the car behind the chauffeur, timing it so that his gun touched his back as he opened the door.

"Get in and drive as I tell you," Solo ordered. He got into the rear of the car. The driver moved the car out into the traffic. He spoke into the communicator.

"Where do you wish to go?"

Solo spoke grimly. "The Chateau Caillou, driver."

DuMont and the chauffeur stared at him as if he were crazy. Solo shrugged. Perhaps they were right.

PART FOUR:

INCIDENT OF THE EIFFEL TOWER

A MILE FROM the Caillou chateau, Napoleon Solo ordered the driver to turn the car off the highway. They pulled into a copse of trees in the hammock below the huge old estate.

Solo secured the driver with ropes, and left him gagged on the rear floor of the Rolls. Walking behind Yvonne and Jacques, he entered the grounds through a wooden door in the stone wall.

They came up behind the servants' quarters, moved past the garage. At the wall of the house, Solo found the lever which opened a sliding door.

They stepped into the stairway, leading down.

They reached the foot of the steps in the basement foyer before the alarms wailed through the ancient castle.

Maunchaun's voice crackled on the inter-com. When Albert and the guards ran out on the level above them, Solo did not even move his gun from Jacques' spine. Maunchaun ordered: "Shoot him. I do not care why he came back here. I shall no longer tolerate his meddling!"

Solo said nothing, but Jacques DuMont screamed in the terror that had been building inside him on the long ride out from the city. "Wait!"

Guns were already raised, sighted on Solo. Yvonne continued to stand near them, robot-like, unmoved by anything that happened around her.

"Wait!" DuMont yelled again. "A hair-trigger. Even if he is shot, I shall be killed. Wait!"

The men with the guns hesitated.

Solo spoke in a conversational tone. "I hope you heard that, Dr. Maunchaun."

There was a pause. The intercom crackled vibrantly.

At last Maunchaun spoke. "If you kill DuMont, I shall be forced to use the real Caillou. It will not be as easy, but it will still succeed."

"You know better, Maunchaun," Solo said. "It's all over. You know that. It has been, since I got out of here this morning. United Network Command has a full report. They are waiting at a medical center now to receive Lester Caillou—the real Caillou."

"And you expect to walk in here and simply walk out with him unharmed?"

"I haven't given you any terms," Solo said. "I came back for Illya Kuryakin and Lester Caillou. When you bring them here, I will tell you what your chances are to get out of this alive."

Maunchaun laughed. After a moment a guard brought Lester down the steps. At the sight of the real Caillou, Yvonne whimpered gently, looking from him to DuMont–puzzled, the terrors starting in her again.

From the dungeon, a guard led Illya.

Solo winced, seeing his partner. Illya's face was battered and bruised from the beatings inflicted upon him since dawn. He dragged his feet when he walked. His wrists were linked in handcuffs chained to a band about his waist.

Maunchaun laughed again. "You do not look very large, or very awesome on my television screen, Mr. Solo."

Solo continued staring at Illya's swollen face. He did not answer. Involuntarily he jabbed the mouth of his gun into DuMont's spine. The impostor screamed.

"Do you think I am going to let you live, Solo?" Maunchaun's Voice persisted. "You, or Caillou—any of you? If as you suggest you have destroyed my plan to use the World Bank as an instrument of world panic, what have I to gain by permitting you to live to testify against me?"

"You've one gamble, Doctor," Solo said. "You know how long Lester Caillou will live on this drug you've been feeding him."

"Indeed I do."

"I'm willing to gamble with you," Solo said. "I'll exchange DuMont for the real Lester. Caillou, if you let us out of here."

"Why should I?"

"There is a chance Caillou won't live to get to the medical center. There is a chance he won't recover sufficiently to testify against you. That's your only chance."

"And all I have to do is to allow you four people safe conduct from this house?"

"I've bad news for you, Doctor. If we are not out of here in—" Solo checked his watch, "—in thirty more minutes, operatives from United Network Command and the French police will move in here. We're giving you thirty minutes, because if this matter can be settled without further notoriety further panic can be avoided. I thought you'd be interested in thirty minutes. A man like you should be able to do many things in thirty minutes."

There was that pause, vibrant in the silence. Finally, Maunchaun said, almost pleasantly, "Let them go. All guards, let them go."

Holding Lester Caillou's arm, Solo retreated. Yvonne moved be side Illya. They went up the steps, through the door in the wall to the yard.

Solo was not deceived that Maunchaun had surrendered so docilely.

The safest plan for Maunchaun would be to permit them to leave, to clear out of the chateau in his midget copters before the world fell in on him.

By now Solo knew that Maunchaun was not interested in safety. His imagination moved through vast spaces, and peril was part of his existence.

He said, "The 'copters. Walk at an angle as if we were going past them toward the gate. At my signal, run to the nearest one."

They walked across the lawn in the sun. Nothing stirred inside the chateau or out of it. Not even a bird whistled in the trees. There was no breeze. It was as if everything held its breath, waiting for Dr. Maunchaun's next move.

Solo felt as if he were wearing a large target in the middle of his back. Maunchaun was not going to let them get Caillou to the waiting physicians—not going to let them live, even though his gigantic fiscal plot had been destroyed.

"Now!" Solo said.

They ran toward the nearest chopper. Caillou staggered.

Fearful, Solo glanced at him. He slipped his arm around him, supporting him. Ahead of them, Yvonne and Illya scrambled into the copter.

Solo half lifted Caillou. He crawled into the bucket seat at the controls. Illya managed to reach his manacled arms out and close the plastic door.

Solo started the engine, revving the motor. Men ran from the house, through the doors, the grounds filling with them. They carried guns.

Solo engaged the controls; the blades whirled. The small whirly bird swung upward like a frantic swan.

Solo tossed Illya the handcuff keys he'd taken from Marie in that side-street hotel. Illya unlocked the cuffs, let them dangle at his waist. He checked the 'copter, found a machine pistol, a box of friction-bomb pellets.

Caillou sagged silently against a bulkhead.

Yvonne shivered, staring at Caillou. Shock and fear were at battle with the effects of the drugs inside her.

Solo stared downward. The men on the lawn outside the chateau looked like ants. They stood unmoving on the grass staring upward.

No one made any move to pursue them.

"This was too easy," Solo said aloud.

The speaker on the helicopter radio crackled. "I wondered when this would occur to you, Mr. Solo," Maunchaun's voice taunted.

"I thought maybe you were truly intelligent, Doctor," Solo answered.

"I am intelligent, Solo. It is you who is naïve. Do you think I can let any of you live?"

"I think you can now. It's over."

"Oh, no, Mr. Solo. With you and the real Caillou aboard the chopper, it has really just begun. After all, Mr. Solo, world domination is at stake here. Could I afford to be outwitted by Napoleon Solo?"

"You're wasting your last thirty minutes, Doctor," Solo reminded him.

"Don't worry about my thirty minutes, Mr. Solo. Worry about yours. Look around you. Secure? Or do you finally se that I have the four of you exactly where I want you?"

"I feel pretty good."

"Mr. Solo, think about it. If you were to die now–the four of you–could I not have Jacque DuMont assume Caillou's identity? Could he not agree with all the articles in your report to your agency? Could we not all regret the death of the two agents of U.N.C.L.E. and the false Caillou?