Текст книги "[Magazine 1966-­05] - The World's End Affair"

Автор книги: Robert Hart Davis

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"And THRUSH will be left to pick up the pieces?" Solo grated.

"Yes, isn't that splendid?" Dr. Dargon made unpleasant juicy noises as he sucked his front tooth. His eyes moved like darting fish behind his lenses. "The test will place THRUSH in the position of being able to successfully submit its demands to every government on the globe. Those demands will call for total surrender. And when nations face devastation by hurricanes, floods, blizzards, parching droughts – surrender will be both total and prompt."

The technician said, "General? The aircraft -"

"Yes, I'll be on my way. Good day to all of you. Dr. Dargon, Major Otako, I leave our guests to your tender ministrations."

And, with a potentate's magnificence, General Weng lifted his chin and marched toward the ramp.

Solo sidled near Illya. He hoped to whisper a code word. He had to alert Illya to what he was planning. A desperate course, naturally.

General Weng had already reached the base of the ramp. THRUSH functionaries followed him, one carrying the decal-decorated suitcase, the other pushing the trunk. Each wore a holstered pistol.

The light above the ramp doors changed from red to amber. Then it showed green and stopped blinking. Solo inched closer to Illya.

Major Otako whacked Illya viciously on the right wrist with his swagger stick. "Keep a suitable distance between you!"

Solo would never have a chance to communicate with Illya now. From the corner of an eye he observed the TV monitor scanning the hangar. The screen showed a sleek, unmarked four-engine THRUSH turbo-jet taxiing forward. Solo took the action the moment required.

He spun on the ball of his foot, catching a last glimpse of the monitor camera as it panned to follow the turbo-jet out to the loading ramp.

"Stand still!" Major Otako shouted as Solo moved.

The U.N.C.L.E. agent spun, yanked the swagger stick from the hand of the astonished officer, and bashed him over the nose. Blood spurted. Otako howled and reeled backwards. Solo shoved his hand into the voluminous folds of his holy robe.

The THRUSH searchers had not been quite thorough enough. A couple of items had gone undetected. Solo pulled out one of those now, thumbing the clip on the combination ball point pen and anti-personnel weapon.

A deadly lime-colored cloud of 14-4 tranquilizer gas sprayed over the THRUSH soldiers and technicians who were charging him from the left.

"Down, Illya!" Solo shouted. The younger agent flattened, dragging Ah Lan and Mei with him. Solo kept spinning like a top. The swath of greenish gas trailed around him in a circle.

One THRUSH minion leveled his machine pistol at Solo's neck. He caught a whiff of the gas. He grinned foolishly and fainted away.

Alarm sirens warbled. Scarlet lights danced on the console boards. The huge iron doors to the ramp where the prisoners had entered clanged open. Fresh THRUSH reinforcements charged in, bumbling against one another in their eagerness to be the first to shoot. But the greenish gas had made vision difficult. Solo seized Illya's shoulder.

"We've got to stop that plane! Follow me!"

Quickly Illya helped Mei and a struggling Ah Lan to their feet. He threw his woolly-robed arm across his mouth and nose by way of demonstration. "Cover your faces when we go out through the ring of gas. Now run!" And he followed Solo, who was already charging toward the ramp.

The guards at the head of the ramp sighted their rifles at him. Solo wrestled with the folds of his robe. He had to hold his skirts up with one hand and hunt for what he wanted with the other.

He found it. The rifles of the guards crashed. A bullet whizzed past his head, tugging at the earflap of his hat. Solo flung the globular pellet he had taken from a concealed pocket in his robe.

The pellet went pong on the iron doors. Then the ramp heated up to an unbearable temperature. Solo ran straight ahead into the billowing, steamy clouds. Sweat popped out on his face. His cheeks felt parboiled. But in seconds the effect diminished.

Solo pulled up short in front of the doors. They had melted in their frames and now resembled puddles of metal margarine. Both THRUSH guards were dead, boiled alive by the thermal device. One had stood a bit too close. The white bone of his skull leered.

Beyond the doors the corridor ran on to an elevator. General Weng was struggling with his wheeled steamer trunk and his valise. Finally he crammed them inside. A moment later the doors snapped shut.

Nearer to Solo, the two THRUSH functionaries who had been assisting Weng had turned back. They each went to one knee, sighting their pistols. Solo tossed his second and last thermal pill. Heat and steam vapor and shrieks of agony filled the corridor.

About to jump over the superheated metal of the melted doors, Solo jerked up short. He whirled.

"Illya?" The shout of alarm was out before he saw what had happened.

On this side of the chamber, the only threats had been the door guards. On the other side, the THRUSH reinforcements were advancing warily toward the greenish fumes which hung like a mammoth smoke ring in the air. Charging through that smoke, Ah Lan had evidently been overcome despite the precaution of holding his arm across his face. He had fallen. In the thick of the smoke Illya and Mei were bending over the prostrate old man.

They were inhaling too much of the gas. Illya staggered. He wigwagged his arm vaguely in Solo's direction.

"Go – on, Napoleon. Can't make it. The old man is -" Illya corkscrewed to the floor, his humanitarian efforts having undone him. Mei collapsed on top of him. The THRUSH soldiers across the room let out a bay of triumph.

Solo remained at the top of the ramp for one tortured moment. In that moment his emotions rebelled against his training. Of necessity, training won. With a choked curse he turned his back on the control chamber and ran.

He tried to wipe the sight of Illya's stricken face from his mind as he pounded up the corridor to the elevator. The sirens wailed insanely.

How much time had passed? Was the plane already taking off? Solo hit the elevator's call switch, waited, prayed.

The THRUSH officers yelled as they charged through the tranquilizing gas, uniform sleeves covering their mouths and eyes. Solo wanted to go back to the chamber, fight and die in the attempt to rescue Illya. Yet he knew that he had no choice but to go the other way. Should General Weng reach Hong Kong with the storm generator, war would be unleashed. Solo had a higher allegiance than that which he owed to Illya. The name of it was U.N.C.L.E.

Machine pistols began to stutter. Solo ducked, dived, dodged. The elevator doors opened. He leaped inside. Bullets stitched a pattern up and down the rear wall of the cage as the doors banged shut.

Panting, Solo leaned against the side of the elevator. His heart thudded hard in his chest. The elevator rose steadily, humming. Solo worried that THRUSH would cut off the power and trap him inside. But evidently his break had thrown the base into confusion. Sirens still wailed tinnily through speakers in the elevator's ceiling. But the sensation of upward movement did not stop.

Solo tried to organize his thoughts. He had no weapons left. He had to find one, so that he would be armed when he got aboard the plane – if he got aboard.

The elevator stopped. The doors rolled back and sinister sundown light flooded in. Dead ahead Solo saw the turbo-jet on the concrete ready line.

A controller stood on the tarmac near the black-painted nose, wigwagging with lighted batons. The main door of the fuselage was open. The elephantine General Weng was struggling up a baggage ramp with his suitcase and steamer trunk. The turbo-jet's engines screamed at full rev. Weng's suit flapped like laundry in the prop wash.

All this registered on Solo in an instant. So did the two THRUSH soldiers turning to charge him, bayonets fixed.

Solo sidestepped at the last second. He kicked the soldier nearest him in the backside. The man hit his head on the black concrete wall of the building. Solo seized the man's rifle, spun around and thought of Illya and rammed the bayonet to its hilt in the stomach of the THRUSH soldier still on his feet.

The man wasn't on his feet for long. Solo wrenched the bayonet free. He knocked it off its mount and left it behind, checking the rifle mechanism as he ran toward the aircraft.

The controller with the lighted batons threw them aside. He jerked out a pistol. He began firing as Solo's weird, flapping figure came charging out of the weird reddish gloom.

Up the baggage ramp Solo went, two steps at a time. Just before he jumped inside he heard the controller shout something to the plane's pilot.

The fuselage door closed and locked automatically. Solo blinked in the gloom of the lavishly appointed cabin. The cockpit door remained closed. There was an odd aroma in the air, coming through tiny ceiling ventilators as the plane began to roll.

On the carpeted floor General Weng lay spread-eagled, unconscious. Solo took a step toward the obese man. The smell from the ceiling ventilators increased. Solo recognized it.

He raised the rifle to try one shot at the steamer trunk. His hands were putty. He could not hold the rifle.

He cursed the THRUSH pilot who had decided on his own authority to incapacitate General Weng in order to incapacitate Solo also. He cursed the THRUSH technologists who had dreamed up the idea of pumping ether through the air system into the plane's cabin. He cursed most of all his own miserable failure, as everything around him took on the blurred motion of a camera in the flash pan.

Slowly Solo spiraled to the floor. With a scream of turbo-jets, the THRUSH aircraft lifted in the red sunset toward the high Himalayan peaks.

Two

You are a very brave girl," said Illya Kuryakin to the pale-cheeked Mei.

"The worst shock has passed," she replied. "My honorable father was advanced in years. His ancestors will make him welcome. And the blow which the THRUSH soldier gave him with the butt of his rifle –"

Mei's lovely face wrenched. "The blow was quick. I pray he felt little pain."

Illya's wrists were already tingling. "How about you? Does it hurt?"

"Not too much."

"Good. Because I am afraid it will get worse."

"You are a very brave person yourself, Mr. Kuryakin."

Manacles had been placed around his wrists. These had been hooked to a chain which hung from the center of the ceiling of a large room. The room was shaped like the interior of a chicken's egg, point downward. Its walls were gray. The lighting was medicinally bright, but diffuse.

A winch had raised Illya so that his feet were a good yard above its floor.

Mei was similarly chained, dangling by her wrists beside him. The THRUSH guards had completed hanging up their prisoners some ten minutes earlier. They had vanished through an oval door in the wall. Illya noticed that the door had thick gasketing all around it. A very tight seal on the chamber boded no good.

A faint electronic hum filled the chamber. Illya twisted his head too suddenly. The effort put additional strain on his arms. The manacles cut into his wrists and he swayed uncontrollably. He reminded himself not to indulge in that sort of violent maneuver again.

"Greetings, conspirators," said the voice of Dr. Dargon. It was a voice with a somewhat crazed cackle in it. Dr. Dargon was peering at them from behind a thick window in the curved wall. The electronic hum had been the sound of the motor which rolled back the panel covering the window.

Beside Dargon, in some sort of control booth, stood Major Otako. His S-scar shone like a white worm on his cheek. Illya made out two technicians huddled over consoles where small lights flickered in sequence.

"Major Otako suggested that we give you a first-hand taste of our storm apparatus," Dargon said.

"If it's all the same to you -" Illya began.

Filtered through amplifiers, Dargon's voice rasped: "Unfortunately it is not."

"Well, Napoleon Solo got away, and he'll cook your Cantonese hash for you, I promise!" Illya shouted. "What happens to us is of no importance."

"Why must you hurt us?" Mei said. The blood had drained from her face. "Why can't you simply kill us? What can you want from us at this point?"

Dr. Dargon sucked his tooth noisily. The sound carried over the amplifiers. His pig eyes loomed through the double thickness of his spectacles and the control booth glass.

"Why, my dear child, all we want from you is a simple thing." Dr. Dargon pressed his nose against the glass. "We want to hear you say – as the Americans have it – uncle!"

This convulsed Major Otako. Dr. Dargon's face beaded with perspiration. The THRUSH scientist obviously enjoyed torturing people. To one of the technicians he exclaimed:

"Shall we demonstrate our weather control chamber? Perhaps some winds to begin with?"

A ring of concealed panels up near the ceiling sprang open. Gusts of air whipped into the chamber. Illya began to twist and sway as the winds gripped him.

The chain linking his wrists to the ceiling creaked and revolved. Illya was twisted one way until the chain could twist no more. Then the chain unwound. Illya spun back the opposite way. To this wild motion was added the back and forth thrust of huge air currents which alternately caught him from two directions.

Over the keening sound of the mechanized wind came Mei's whimper of pain. Then Dargon's voice again:

"In this chamber, Mr. Kuryakin, we first achieved our breakthrough. We created artificial weather conditions. Of course this room is primitive. This antiquated installation is ideal for our present purpose, however." Dargon clapped his hands. "Major, our guests are not suitably impressed. Shall we generate a bigger storm?"

Major Otako smiled viciously. "Oh, Dargon, let's not be pikers. Typhoon velocity winds."

"Typhoon velocity it is!"

The incredible burst of wind which poured into the chamber made Illya swing wildly at the end of the chain. Each swing brought fresh shocks of pain to his shoulders, his arms, and soon his whole body. The winds veered direction without warning. This increased the sudden, savage pull. Mei began to cry again. Her tears were whipped away by the wind's force.

Illya's mind boggled at the infernal cacophony beating on his ears. Somehow, though, Dr. Dargon's amplified cackle penetrated it:

"For dessert, let us try a sampling of Sahara heat."

To the wind was suddenly added boiling temperature. Perspiration rivered down Illya's face. He wanted to shout aloud in pain. He would not give Dragon and Otako the satisfaction.

He shut his eyes.

The heat was rising well into the one hundred and twenties. Illya felt as though he were being slammed back and forth by a killer sirocco. His arms vibrated with agony. Even his toes had begun to ache. Sweat plastered him. He felt himself growing faint –

With an abrupt jerk his body stilled at the end of the chain. The wind died. The heat diminished. Dimly he heard Dargon say, "The weak little fool has passed out."

Painfully Illya turned his head. He was glad to see Mei's head slumped on her breast. Unconsciousness was the best narcotic for this sort of punishment.

Dr. Dargon conferred with Major Otako. He seemed to agree with the major's whispered suggestion. A door inside the control booth opened, flooding it momentarily with light.

The technicians and a chuckling Otako departed.

Dr. Dargon removed a ring of keys from the pocket of his smock. He jingled them derisively at Illya hanging there and panting.

"Only a temporary rest, only temporary. We'll lock up until the girl recovers. We have a great many thrilling experiences in store for you. These were simply samples. I can see you didn't care for them. Well, it's a pity, because we'll be back. Of course you won't know how soon. Ten minutes? Two hours?" Dr. Dargon jangled the keys. "You can agonize over how soon we'll begin again. That, too, is part of the sport. Pleasant worries, Mr. Kuryakin!"

The amplifier coughed and went out. Dargon left the control booth.

"Napoleon," Illya said to the emptiness, "I hope you're grateful."

There was a faint clink of the chain as Illya accidentally moved and set himself swinging again. His arms felt hot and swollen. For the first time, he groaned in agony.

Time became unreal. Fear became the true reality. Illya tried not to dwell on the very thought which Dargon had planted. It was impossible.

The solitude and pain created dread. The dread induced a kind of reverse anticipation. Illya found himself hanging stone-still and staring at the heavily gasketed door, wondering, how soon will it open? How soon will the booth be occupied again? How soon? How soon?

Three

His head jerked up. He glanced around the egg-shaped room. The lights had been lowered. The chamber had a twilight dimness. It felt like the middle of the night.

Illya's arms were totally numb. He had feeling from his waist down, but precious little. He realized that he must have passed out for a time. Cautiously he turned his head. The small movement started him swinging. His arms throbbed and ached.

Mei's eyes were open. She stared at him dully, too tortured to speak.

"I think it's night," Illya croaked. "I think they're leaving us alone."

"Until the morning," the girl breathed through puffy lips.

"Napoleon will reach Hong Kong. He'll do something to help us."

"No one can help us. At least I shall die with – a brave friend."

The oval door clanged back. Dr. Dargon stepped over the sill. He carried a pistol in one hand and what appeared to be a black and white glossy photograph in the other.

Dargon approached and peered up at them. "Ah, you're awake. It is late, and other matters prevented us from returning our attentions to you this evening. However, I felt you must receive this vital news. It is my pleasure to inform you that your friend Solo has run out of rope. He is dead."

Illya's heart missed one pumping beat. "You're lying."

Dargon shrugged. "Well, for all practical purposes he is dead. Very likely General Weng has already attended to it. Solo's assault on the plane failed. Here, see for yourself. This picture was just transmitted from the electrophoto unit in the aircraft."

Horrified, Illya recognized the subject of the photo. Napoleon Solo lay unconscious on a carpet. A rifle had fallen at his side. Background details suggested the interior of an airplane. Illya squinted to see the photo better. It was untouched. Solo's face looked chalky, lifeless.

Dargon said: "I felt these tidings would help guarantee cheerful thoughts until we return to visit with you again. I am sure – aargh!"

The sudden slam of Illya's feet against the sides of Dargon's neck made the doctor squeal. In one burst of ebbing strength, Illya had swung forward and smacked his heels together. His feet held the scrawny flesh above Dargon's collar in a tight grip. Adrenalin pumping into Illya's body gave him the tiny extra measure of strength he needed.

Dargon struggled feebly and dropped his gun. It clattered away.

"The keys," Illya panted. "Throw the keys up toward my hands or I'll break your neck."

Dargon peered into Illya's face. What he saw there, coupled with his own innate cowardice, convinced him that temporary cooperation was the wisest course. He gulped in genuine terror.

Illya used every bit of his considerable strength to maintain the pressure on Dargon's neck. He said through tightly-locked teeth, "If you make a single move in the direction of that gun, I will cut off your circulation and kill you with the pressure of my foot. U.N.C.L.E trains its people in neurophysiology. My right heel is resting in a potentially fatal spot. You may be able to jerk away, but you will be dead by the time you reach your gun. Now throw the keys at my hands, and very carefully. You have only one chance.

I hope your aim is accurate."

Dargon's eyes grew saucer-like. "It's a – a cheap, filthy bluff."

"Then you have nothing to lose by submitting your conviction to the scientific method. Shall we run a little test, Doctor?"

He did no know how much longer he could maintain his pressure. But Dargon gave in. He clawed the keys from his smock. He licked his lips and threw them high.

Illya released Dargon's neck. The doctor had aimed to miss, as Illya knew he would. Illya

wrenched his body forward in a tremendous tumbler's kick-out. That way he managed to bring his hands into a position to catch the keys as Dargon dove for the gun on the floor.

Illya had to work by feel, twisting one key after another into the lock mechanism which he had previously located in the six-inch bar between the manacles. Dargon got hold of the gun. He whirled. Illya found the right key. The manacles snapped open. He dropped and hit the floor as Dargon's shot thundered.

Like a cat Illya raced for the scientist as Dargon tried to level the gun for another shot. His hand trembled like a wind-lashed bough.

"Help, help!" Dargon piped in ludicrously reedy tone. Then Illya chopped him brutally in the throat. Dargon collapsed.

"The shot!" Mei exclaimed. "The guards will come -"

"Possibly not," Illya breathed. "Unless I am wrong, a test chamber like this is amply insulated. Wait here."

He snatched the keys and ran out through the oval door. In moments, he had entered the control booth from an empty corridor. He located and activated the winch. Mei was soon on the floor, covered with several yards of chain. More was coming down on top of her every second as Illya sprinted back in and unlocked her. His eyes were grim.

"We must assume Napoleon is dead, Mei. Therefore this foul lump -" He prodded the just-awakening Dargon with the pistol. "– is going to be our tour escort. He is going to show us how to get out of here, and guide us to Hong Kong."

On hands and knees the stupefied, terrified Dargon stared up into the muzzle of Illya's gun.

Illya dragged Dargon to his feet. "Show us the scenic exit route. And quickly!"

Four

Napoleon Solo wakened with a buzzing skull and a mouth which tasted like a mixture of camphor oil and woolen athletic socks.

Above him soared a pastel ceiling. He turned his head. A rich wine-colored sea of nylon carpeting stretched away to a pair of white doors with gold hardware. Dotted here and there like islands upon the carpet sea were assorted pieces of furniture in the style Solo characterized as Assembly Line Modern. White, and upholstered in plastic.

Cautiously Solo stood up. In a couple of minutes the Oriental gong players inside his temples suspended their music.

The floor tilted into place and held steady.

Solo was in a luxurious hotel room. Tall French doors stood open on a small marble terrace. Past the balustrade he glimpsed high peaks with bright buildings crowding their shoulders. He saw water – a harbor.

A ferryboat chugged toward the distant, misty mainland. Junks and sampans clogged the water in the nearer distance. From out of sight below the balcony, a city's sing-song cacophony rose.

"Welcome to Hong Kong, Mr. Solo," boomed a familiar voice.

Spinning round, Solo gaped. Beside an open door which he had not noticed stood a Eurasian girl with shoulder-length black hair. Her eyes were pansy-colored. She did not have the typical, slender build of the Oriental woman. She was a few inches taller than Solo himself.

The girl wore a white, shimmering blouse, voluptuously tight black riding trousers and highly polished black boots. Her figure was gorgeous. Her eyes and her pistol weren't.

"Is someone using you for a dummy?" Solo said. "I heard General Weng."

The general's polished head poked around the edge of the open doorway where the girl with the slanted eyes had taken up her stance. "My little charade," Weng said in his asthmatic wheeze. "I am here, in the flesh, so to speak." He appeared, hands pressed to paunch and a jaunty white woven tropical hat freshly jammed onto his skull. "Are you surprised to find yourself alive in my suite in Hong Kong?"

"That's a considerable understatement." Solo had been outfitted in slacks, a fresh white shirt, shoes, socks and other linen, all of his size. In his shirt's breast pocket he felt an oblong thing, like an old friend. He reached up to pull it out.

"Do not raise your hand," said the girl with a charming smile, "or I will shoot you."

"You don't have to enjoy your work so much. I only wanted a cigarette."

"It will be permissible for him to smoke," Weng nodded. "Our agents searched him thoroughly when the plane landed. He has no weapons. A brilliant idea my pilot had, eh, Solo? Doping us both in order to capture you? And captured you are. May I present Miss Rachel Fong of our Hong Kong apparatus? Miss Fong is only twenty-two, but she has held the regional THRUSH medal for superior marksmanship for the past three years. I trust that will be sufficient warning."

The girl's ripe smile widened. At first, her pansy-colored eyes had seemed to hold a smoky, romantic warmth. Now Solo decided with a shiver that he had confused sensuality for good clean sadism.

Carefully he reached into his shirt pocket. He drew out the cigarette case and flicked the top open. After he had lit up, he replaced the case.

He did not yet know how he would capitalize on the error of the THRUSH searchers who had overlooked his pocket communicator. Probably there had been no time for an electronic scan of his person. The communicator did hold several cigarettes.

Unfortunately, the unwavering presence of Miss Rachel Fong's mammoth snout-nosed pistol gave him no immediate opportunity to use the communicator. So he left it in his shirt as his ace. He needed one if he was to play this game out, not only for Mr. Waverly, but for the sake of Illya, and Ah Lan and Mei. He wondered how they had died.

General Weng gestured to the open French doors. "Lovely morning, isn't it?"

"I suppose you'll do your best to change it," Solo said.

Weng's paunch heaved once or twice by way of appreciation. "You really are most entertaining, Mr. Solo. As a matter of fact I am on my way to do just that. The storm generating apparatus is stowed in my limousine." Weng examined his platinum watch. "The car is at the curb now, I believe. This hotel should be relatively safe. A pity we can't say the same for the Hong Kong International. Good day, Mr. Solo. Enjoy your balcony seat overlooking the display of Mother Nature at her most capricious. About an hour and we should be positioned for a bit of typhoon. Watch the sky."

General Weng waddled toward the door. Solo said, "Why can't you work from here?"

"We follow the recommendations of Dr. Dargon and our other scientists as to optimum location."

"Where is your optimum location, General?"

"Ah, Mr. Solo, even though I am positive that you can do THRUSH no harm while Miss

Fong attends you, it would be unwise, and a breach of policy, for me to reveal the information. Even Miss Fong does not know. As soon as my task is finished I shall return here and we shall fly back to Tibet together. There you will be most permanently decommissioned -"

Weng chuckled at his little euphemism "– as an agent of U.N.C.L.E. I have already decided to have motion pictures shot of the entire proceedings. They will be forwarded anonymously to your superiors, for whatever amusement they may provide."

With a jaunty wave General Weng marched out. Miss Fong latched the door behind him. Solo waited.

The Eurasian girl leaned against the gold-flecked panel and scraped her shoulder blades on the wood in a slow, feline way. Solo cocked a mental eyebrow. Maybe Miss Rachel Fong was not so loyal as General Weng imagined.

Solo unloosed his most potent smile. "Miss Fong, you're the sexiest THRUSH agent I've ever seen. And I've seen scads of them."

The smile on the lips of Miss Rachel Fong widened appreciably, as if in invitation.

With this encouragement Solo advanced a couple of steps. Miss Fong did not fire a bullet into his stomach. That was even more encouraging.

Solo was now barely; a step away from the girl's warm, moist mouth. Her pansy-colored eyes were lidded.

Miss Fong closed her eyes and pouted her lips. Solo murmured, "You are young. Miss Fong. And pretty. Indeed you are pretty pretty -" Solo timed his last word to come out just at the moment he was pressing his lips to Miss Fong's and preparing to rabbit punch her.

Miss Fong hit him in the stomach with her knee.

Two more karate chops and one judo toss later, Solo lay on his back. Miss Fong drew her leg back gracefully and kicked him in the side of the head.

"I didn't realize that in addition to being good with a gun you were the leading actress in the THRUSH theatre guild," Solo groaned.

"That was your error," Miss Fong replied with a smile that was no longer dewy, but venomously delighted. "You U.N.C.L.E. agents are such naive fools. You think a mere flex of a bicep will strip us of our dedication to the most glorious organization in the history of the world." As if to emphasize the incorrectness of Solo's reasoning, Miss Fong hauled off and let him have another kick in the temple.

This final act of defiance was her undoing. Solo grabbed her flying boot and gave it a terrific wrench.

With an enraged scream, Miss Fong spilled backwards. Solo jumped on top of her. He tried to wrestle the gun from her hand. Her long, unpainted nails tore bloody channels down his cheek.

The girl heaved from side to side to roll him off. She was incredibly strong. Solo clamped both hands on her gun wrist. Miss Fong twisted hard. The muzzle swung around, aimed at Solo's rib cage.

Instantly Solo released her and jerked himself away. The abrupt loss of tension threw Miss Fong off balance. Her gun cracked. Two panes of the folded back French doors shattered.

Solo doubled his list. "No lady kicks a gentleman where you kicked me, Miss Fong -" He connected.

Miss Fong's head snapped back and hit the rug. The pistol spurted one more time as her knuckles banged the carpet.

She lay still.

Solo staggered to his feet. It took him only two minutes to arrange the effect he wanted. In one of the bedroom closets he discovered a collection of feminine clothing. The property of one of General Weng's lady friends, perhaps?