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 o
f U.N.C.L.E. and the false Caillou?
"After all, Solo, my plan is deep into fruition––many international bankers agree with my theories––as advance through the brainwashed Monsieur Caillou. Do you begin to understand?"
Suddenly the midget helicopter vibrated from bow to stern. Yvonne screamed. Only Caillou, sprawled on the small floor space, did not react.
Solo fought the controls. Nothing happened.
The copter veered abruptly, flying upward at a furious burst of speed.
It continued in a roll, going all the way over.
Solo worked the foot levers, the hand controls. The small plane trembled, finally righting itself, but not through anything Solo was able to do.
"Do you begin to understand?" Maunchaun's voice taunted. "You are on radio control now, Solo. That is another wonderful feature of our midget birds. They can be flown without pilots. I am this moment directing your flight… As you have been every moment in these past days, you are completely at my mercy."
Solo did not answer. He looked around the small cockpit.
Maunchaun's voice taunted, "Looking for parachutes, Mr. Solo?"
Illya lifted the two packs silently.
"Only two of them?" Maunchaun's voice was filled with mock concern. "Will only two of you be able to leap from the copter, Solo? Who will be saved? Caillou? Will he live long enough to get to earth? And if he does, long enough to get to medical aid? The secretary? You? Kuryakin?"
The midget helicopter held a steady course, now that Dr. Maunchaun had demonstrated his complete mastery of it.
Ahead, Solo saw the buildings of Paris, near and yet impossibly removed, as if on another planet.
He abandoned any attempt to control the chopper.
The radio speaker crackled. "Do you see the Eiffel Tower ahead, Solo?" Maunchaun's taunting voice inquired.
"I see
"I have electronically set your helicopter on a collision course with the upper stories of the tower, Solo. The course is locked. It cannot be altered. I need no longer concern myself with you or your fate. The copter will be smashed—friction-bomb pellets are aboard, will demolish further the ship and you people. You will be destroyed beyond any hope of identification by any chemical or other scientific means. Good bye, Mr. Solo. You waged a persistent battle."
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