by Unknown
"Maybe," Solo said cynically.
"Pay the check for me, will you?" Illya flung back over his shoulder.
"So that's it!" Solo said, smiling, as he leaned across the clipped hibiscus hedge to watch Kuryakin follow the girl.
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. For all his banter, he had more than the average respect for his partner's ability. He did not himself get as good a look at the girl as Kuryakin had. Like any good investigator seeking for a missing person, he did not expect to find them looking just their pictures.
But certain things cannot be disguised. Hairdos can be altered. The shape of lips changed by curving lipsticks slightly. Different types of clothing can alter the outward appearances of personality. However, basic bodily shapes are difficult to alter. The way a person walks. The tilt of the head. And a hundred more little mannerisms are more tell-tale than the obvious features.
When Solo leaned out to look down the street the girl was out of sight. He glimpsed the back of Kuryakin just vanishing into the darkness. Solo grunted and started to turn back when his attention was arrested by the shadowy shape of two men who stepped out on the sidewalk behind Kuryakin.
Napoleon hesitated for a fraction of a second. The sudden appearance of the two men did not necessarily have a sinister meaning, but deep inside one of his famous hunches was nudging him into action.
"When you deal with THRUSH it is better to be safe that sorry," he muttered.
He motioned to the waitress, who glided up with a sway of her hips under the grass skirt which was more tourist than genuine Hawaiian. She smiled brightly.
"I wish I had time to enjoy that smile," he said with a sad grin. "But I got to run. Is this enough to cover the bill?"
He handed her a twenty.
"And enough to leave a tip that will make you more than welcome any time you want to come back!" she said, her scarlet lips smiling out of her tanned face.
"I hoped I'd be welcome for some other reason," he said and closed his eye in a sly wink.
Her smile broadened.
"You will be!" she said.
She sighed when he jumped over the hibiscus hedge to the street and strode rapidly away without a backward look.
Solo followed the two men for a couple of blocks. They kept their distance behind Kuryakin. Napoleon could not tell for sure if they were following his partner.
They left the more brightly lighted section of Waikiki and the girl cut across Kalakaua Avenue at Fort DeRussy, the Army's Waikiki rest center. Kuryakin, after a pause to make sure she did not see him, crossed over behind her. The two men continued down on the east side of the street.
Solo shrugged and turned back, sure now that they were not following Illya. But in the middle of the block he glanced back. The two shadowy figure were crossing now. Solo stopped, his heart starting to beat rapidly. He could not see either Kuryakin or the girl.
Apparently the two shadows waited until Illya was out of sight before crossing. This marked them as professionals who knew how to divert attention.
Napoleon reached for the gun in his shoulder holster. He slipped it in his jacket pocket and kept his hand on the butt and his finger on the trigger.
He hurried after the shadowy figures. He caught just a glimpse of them turning up a side street toward the beach. In the distance he could see a beach hotel.
The two men cut suddenly down a path running across a small park to the right of the street. It was obvious to Napoleon Solo that they intended to flank Kuryakin.
He started after them. They were out of sight behind a thick stand of ornamental bamboo. He advanced cautiously.
There was always the possibility that they had spotted him following them.
But when he came around the bend he saw one of the men just disappearing around another turn in the park path. He started forward in a half run. As he did another figure stepped from behind the bole of a huge palm. A shaft of bright tropic moon streaming through the rustling palms overhead clearly outlined the gun in his hand.
Solo jerked his own automatic from his pocket. But he was too slow. Before he could shoot the shadowy figure pulled his own trigger.
There was no loud report, only a muffled snapping whine. The tiny, needlelike projectile the gun fired struck Solo in the shoulder. He felt a sudden spreading numbness that flashed through his body with lightning speed.
He tried to shoot, but his arm was paralyzed. The gun dropped from his nerveless fingers. He tried to shout a warning to Kuryakin. His tongue froze in his mouth. He tried to run. His knees collapsed. He fell forward, hitting the grass.
The paralyzing shot apparently only affected the motor nerves. Solo did not lose consciousness. He heard quick footsteps of the other man returning.
Then a sneering voice said, "I thought you said these U.N.C.L.E. rats were tough!"
"Don't underestimate them, Taro. Watch them every second. They are tricky."
"They won't put anything over me!" the heavy voice of the man addressed as Taro said.
"I'm giving it to you straight, Taro," the other THRUSH man said impatiently. "Don't get over-confident. The only U.N.C.L.E. man you can count on is a dead one!"
"Well, in just a little while that is how you can describe this punk!"
He laughed—a cold, sneering chuckle.
THREE
"Get in the car!" Taro said. "When Horton gets the other one, I'll dump 'em both in the Ala Wai Canal!"
"Be sure you make it look like an accident," the other THRUSH man said. "Things are too shaky right now to risk getting the Honolulu police mixed up in this mess. They're not open to bribery."
"I know my business!" Taro snapped. "When I do a job it's done right."
"Okay, but work fast. That paralyzing serum only holds for a short time. It has to be that way so none of it will show in any autopsies after a victim is found dead."
"Just get me the other punk," Taro said. "Then I promise you it will be over in fifteen minutes."
"Horton is a good man. He'll have the other one here in a minute."
There was no more conversation between the two. They pulled Napoleon Solo back behind the clump of bamboo. He lay there trying to figure what had happened. He was sure that he had not been followed himself. Also he never detected either of the men he was trailing looking back. Yet he had run directly into a trap. It was hard to explain.
Shortly a car pulled up at the curb behind them.
"Horton?" Taro asked.
"Get a move on. I got the other one!" a heavy voice said from the car.
The two men picked up Napoleon and rushed him into the car. He was propped up in the backseat beside an equally paralyzed Illya Kuryakin.
"Okay, you two take care of them," the THRUSH man said, turning the murder over to Horton and Taro. "I've got to get Lupe and get her on the seaplane out of here. Things worked out great. I'll file a report to THRUSH headquarters on what a great job you boys did."
"Thanks, chief!" Horton said. "I thought for a minute it wasn't going to work. Lupe paraded past that sidewalk restaurant twice before that jerk from U.N.C.L.E. was bright enough to spot her."
"Yeah," Taro put in. "And I thought for a minute the other one wasn't going to have brains enough to follow him. I though I would have to go in and poison his salad!"
"There's no time for talking. Get moving," the THRUSH cell chief said. "And don't waste too much time. That serum wears off fast, but don't worry if they move a little. It will be at least another fifteen minutes before either can use his limbs enough to pose a threat."
"Should we tie 'em up?" Taro asked.
"No, I don't want any rope burns on their wrists. It must look like an accident with absolutely nothing suspicious about their being corpses."
"Okay, so long, chief; we'll—"
"Wait!" the cell chief said hurriedly. "I almost forgot something. Frisk them. These U.N.C.L.E. rats carry all sorts of cute gadgets like rings with hidden knockout needles, little balls of tear gas, chewing gum that explodes, mint
s that turn into fire bombs, and all sorts of trick devices. Unload their pockets."
"We'll have this thing over before they come to enough to use anything like that," Horton said confidently.
"I know," his boss replied, "but THRUSH laboratories are always interested in what new gadgets the competition has come up with."
They quickly turned out both men's pockets. The miniature tape recorder shaped like a package of cigarettes, the pen-communicator, the ring with its hidden needle for dispensing knockout potions, and the lighter that doubled as a cutting torch, all went into the THRUSH cell chief's pocket.
"Turn on the dome light," Taro said. "Maybe he's got something we didn't get."
"Don't!" the cell chief cautioned. "We can't afford to attract attention. Feel for them."
"Hey! Here's something in Kuryakin's lapel. It's like a lapel button, but there's a tiny bulb on the back!"
A thin hope Napoleon Solo retained crumbled when Taro made that discovery. He had hoped they would overlook that hidden reserve of pressurized tear gas.
He braced himself, desperately trying to force his paralyzed arms up to crush the bulb before Taro could work it out of the lapel. Sweat broke out on his face from the violence of his struggle, but couldn't do more than barely twitch his fingers. He could slightly contract the muscles of his arms, but lacked the power to raise them.
He was sitting upright next to Kuryakin. He suspected that his partner was undergoing an equally desperate attempt to break the paralysis.
Suddenly he switched tactics. He stiffened every workable muscle in his body. He threw everything into a last desperate attempt to move. He did not try to lift his hands any longer. He knew now that this was impossible.
Instead he put every desperate contraction of his sluggish muscles in an attempt to throw his body off balance.
It wasn't too difficult. Kuryakin seemed to realize what he was attempting to do. Illya moved slightly away. With the two bodies not supporting each other so well, Napoleon was able to fall forward.
His head hit against the hand of Taro as the murderous THRUSH agent pulled away the tear gas bulb from Solo's lapel. The blow pushed Taro's fingers down hard against the U.N.C.L.E. protective device. The thin container crushed.
Solo closed his eyes tight as the blinding flood of supercompressed tear gas burst through Taro's fingers. The three THRUSH men jumped back, but it was too late. They fell, choking and crying, too blinded to see.
Both Solo and Illya closed their eyes tightly in preparation for the rush of irritating gases, but even so the highly penetrable material set their eyes streaming with blinding tears.
Solo hunched over, his chin hanging over the back of the front seat. Tears streamed down his face. His body racked with choking coughs.
But despite his painful predicament, his mind was still working sharply. He tried to raise his arms again. He still could do no more then barely move them. He tried to speak to Kuryakin, but his tongue would not move. He shifted his feet and got the slightest movement.
It was true that the effects of the THRUSH numbing injection was wearing off, but he was certain now it would come too late. Even though the soft trade winds dispersed the tear gas, the effect once it entered the eyes would last for about fifteen minutes.
That meant that the THRUSH men would regain their faculties before he and Illya could hope to beat off the paralysis.
There was always a hope that someone would pass, see them and call the police. However, he knew it was a slim one. This section of the park was carefully chosen by the THRUSH men because it was deserted at night.
It was only a short distance to Kalakaua, the Broadway of Waikiki, but for all the good it did them, the street might have been a mile away.
In the background he could hear the THRUSH men coughing and retching. He knew that he had to find some way to call attention to their plight before the nauseating tear gas wore off. The tool for that lay just two feet from his head, but he couldn't move two inches.
He tensed, waiting for a spasm of coughing to pass and then threw his full will into a desperate effort to move.
When this supreme trial failed, he relaxed. His chin fell down over the back curve of the front seat. For a while he huddled there, coughing, eyes streaming and fighting the struggle of his stomach to throw up.
At the same time, he tried to estimate the passing time. It was impossible. Time dragged so slowly for the desperate man that each ticking second moved like an hour.
He waited until he estimated another five minutes had passed. He tensed. His body shivered with his intense struggle to raise his hand. His teeth gritted. Sweat poured from his face. Slowly his hands moved two inches. His feet shifted slightly.
He relaxed, taking fresh courage from the movement. The paralysis was wearing off, but so slowly he doubted it would come fast enough to save them. He strained again, striving with all his strength to force his body. Already he was coughing less, proving that the tear gas was wearing off faster than the paralysis serum.
He tried to estimate the passage of time by the old photographer's system of counting seconds by saying, "One-thousand-and-one, one-thousand-and-two—"
He waited then for another five minutes before throwing all his depleted strength into one more final attempt to move. He knew this was his last chance.
This time he braced his legs, trying to heave his body up. It moved slightly. He managed to get his dragging arms over the back of the front seat. He pulled with his arms and pushed hard with his legs.
But his body shook. It inched up slightly, but his trembling legs lacked the force to push him up. He hung there, taking all his strength to maintain his balance. There was none left to push himself up any higher.
Grimly he hung on to the slight gain he had made. Even though he knew he had lost, he refused to let himself fall back. The relentless determination that had carried him through desperate situations before refused to quit even when he knew it was useless to struggle any longer.
Then he felt a weight against his shoulder. He realized it was Illya Kuryakin. His partner seemed to realize what he was doing. He tried to speak to him, but his racking coughs from the special U.N.C.L.E. gas choked his voice.
But he didn't need to speak. Kuryakin understood what he was attempting. He needed no instructions.
Weakly pushing himself partly up, Illya got his shoulder under Solo's armpit. For a breathless moment the two men remained there, gathering strength for the final push that could mean the difference between life and death.
For a brief moment they hesitated. Then Solo's muscles tensed again. Illya felt it and shoved with his feet, putting all his slowly returning strength into a push to help Napoleon.
Solo's legs shook under the strain of heaving his body up. For one nearly fatal moment he thought he was going to fall, but with agonizing slowness he kept moving with Kuryakin's help.
But his rising body reached the overbalance point and he fell forward over the back of the front seat. His head hit the steering wheel with a crack that momentarily dazed him.
Then gasping, choking, he forced his head into a slight shift to the left. It touched the horn button. He pressed his head down harder.
The blast of the horn cut through the soft tropic night, loud, insistent, never stopping!
The effort, plus the hard blow he took on the head when he fell forward in his desperate attempt to hit the horn, was too much for him. His senses reeled. He lost consciousness, but the weight of his body kept the horns screeching out its wild appeal for help.
When he regained consciousness he was in an ambulance. All his frantic appeals that he was not injured, only deathly tired, had no affect on the attendants. They refused to release him.
At the hospital the doctors were equally adamant. He had to call New York and get Waverly to call the surgeon of the U.S. Public Health Service before the stubborn doctor would release his prerogative of deciding when a patient was well or not.
Even then the doctor, a
short little man with bristly hair and the manner of an indignant bulldog, was furious.
Following their release from the hospital, Illya and Napoleon held a hasty conference at their Waikiki hotel.
The three THRUSH men were in the Honolulu jail, but neither would talk. On their own the two men from U.N.C.L.E. might have injected the prisoners with truth serum, but since they were in the hands of the civilian police, this was impossible. The U.S. constitutional guarantee against self-incrimination held true even when the knowledge hidden could mean the destruction of half a dozen of the world's governments.
Lupe de Rosa had vanished. All attempts to find her in Honolulu were fruitless. Late on the second day Illya picked up her trail, but it proved too late. He traced her to Hilo on the "Big Island" and from there she took a chartered seaplane for Maui, but never arrived.
Back checking they discovered the seaplane landed in Honlulu instead. A general alarm was put out for the pilot. Honolulu and the entire island of Oahu were combed for both him and the girl. Absolutely no trace of either were found.
Solo checked back on the pilot's record, utilizing Army service records, FBI facilities and the international records of Interpol and U.N.C.L.E.
"This man is clean," he said in a discouraged voice when he and Illya held their next conference. "There is absolutely no evidence to connect him with THRUSH or any other criminal organization. He was a good family man, an ardent supporter of the church and active in civic affairs."
"Then that means he is probably dead," Illya said. "Lupe or some other THRUSH agent hired the plane. After it flew her to a secret destination, the pilot returned here and was silenced."
"But where did she go?" Napoleon asked irritably. "She didn't leave by plane, by boat or by outrigger!"
"Maybe she swam!" Illya said.
Napoleon gave him a sour look. "It may be closer to the truth than you realized."
He turned to the telephone on the table beside the sitting room couch. He dialed jerkily and sat staring moodily out across the vista of Waikiki visible through the hotel window.
"Colonel Davis, please," he said into the phone when his call was completed. "Colonel? Napoleon Solo here. Did the okay come from Washington to cooperate with Mr. Kuryakin and me? Good! There is something most important. The Islands defense system has means of checking on any submarine penetration of this area?"