This night, the single guard dozed at his desk. Since the murder of Nathan Bedford, the police had been working hard and the guard had done a double shift. With the murder, the assassination attempts on the premier, and the threat of a Stengali war, the San Pablo police were short-handed and the guard did not hear the soft footsteps approach him.
He cam alert just long enough to see the boyish young man leap on him and hold the cloth over his mouth.
The guard asleep, Napoleon Solo stepped over his prostrate form dn. moved on into the building. There were low voices talking somewhere as Solo moved as silent as a cat along the dim halls. The office of Inspector Tembo was on the second floor in the rear.
As yet the involvement of U.N.C.L.E. in the affairs of Zambala was not known, and Solo intended to keep it that way. He wanted to talk to Inspector Tembo, but first he wanted to search the office of the inspector. Tembo was aware of the true identity of Martin O'Hara, and had tacitly called U.N.C.L.E. into the matter. Solo wanted to know why.
He moved quickly up the stairs to the second floor. The long corridor was empty. There was no sound. At the far end of the corridor light showed under the door of one office. Solo moved catlike along the corridor. The door that showed light was Inspector Tembo's office!
Solo frowned. Tembo was in his office. There would be no opportunity to search. He put his U.N.C.L.E. Special away in its shoulder holster and stepped to the door. For some reason, some sixth sense perhaps, he opened the door quietly and without knocking.
It was a small office with a single window and the ground of the hill behind the prison close outside the window. There were two straight chairs, filing cabinets, and a small wooden desk. But it was not the furniture nor the office itself that Solo saw first.
And it was not Inspector Tembo.
The chair behind the desk was empty.
The window was open.
And behind the desk, studying papers on the desk, stood a tall, slender woman wearing a black uniform!
The woman heard him the instant he saw her. She looked up. Solo saw that she wore a black hood as a mask, only her sharp eyes visible through the eye-holes. Green eyes. Solo reached for his Special. The woman did not wait. Her hand snaked into her pocket and came out with a round, black object.
Solo threw himself backwards, his Special out.
There was no chance to fire.
The woman dropped the black object and a thick cloud of dark smoke filled the small office.
Choking, Solo backed out of the office and dug in his pocket. He brought out his miniature gas mask, opened it, and placed it over his nose and mouth. He ran back into the office and through the thick smoke.
The office was empty.
Solo went through the window in a single leap. Ahead up the hill the woman ran. She turned at the crest and fired. Solo dived for the dirt. The bullet whistled past his ear. He was up and running. At the crest of the hill he looked down. The woman was vanishing into a slump of trees. Solo raced down after her.
They came out of the trees.
Four of them—men wearing black uniforms, their ugly Soviet submachine guns in their hands and pointing up the hill at Solo.
The U.N.C.L.E. agent skidded to a halt on the steep downslope.
The four men began to move toward him up the hill.
* * *
Illya Kuryakin awoke and they were there again. The small, wiry man with the wisp of beard. The grey-haired man called Mr. Smith. The silent guards in the black uniforms. Illya struggled up to a sitting position on the cold floor of the cave.
They had been questioning him for hours. He had no idea what time it was, whether it was night or day, whether days had passed or only hours. As soon as he slept, they awakened him and it began again. The questions.
"Tell us who you are and who you work for," the small man with the thin wisp of beard asked quietly.
"No," Illya said, his voice a croak now, his throat dry for lack of water.
"Why are you in Zambala? Who sent you?" the man named Mr. Smith asked.
Illya said nothing. They were the same questions. Behind the two men who asked the same questions over and over, Illya saw the guards as silent and motionless as ever. There was nothing else, only the blank stone walls of the cave, the steel door behind the guard, and beyond the door, what?
"You were following the beggar? Why?" the man with the wisp or beard asked.
"You were watching the prison. Why?" the man named Mr. Smith asked.
Illya's weary mind came alert. These were new questions! There had been a sudden change, a shift in questions, as if the men in front of him thought that it was time to change, that his resistance was ebbing and a sudden shift would confuse him.
Illya fought to keep his mind steady, because they were almost right. The hours were beginning to work on him. He battled within his mind to keep control.
"Tell us why you were there at the prison," the man with the thin beard said. "What did you suspect?"
"What made you interested?" Mr. Smith said.
"What do you know about Premier Roy?"
"What was Pandit Tavvi doing in that room?"
"Why was Tavvi killed?"
"Who sent the premier to that room?"
"Who do you work for"
"Who are you?"
Illya's mind reeled. No sleep for—how long? Was it day or night? Where was this cave? Where was Napoleon? Illya felt his mind slipping—slipping -slipping—With a powerful effort, unseen by the pounding questioners, he moved his free forearm across one of the rings on his right hand. With his thumb, the thumb of his right hand, he pressed hard against the ring on the inside. He felt the tiny prick.
The needle, which came a hair out from the ring when he pressed against the inside of the ring, pricked his forearm. He hung on, forcing his brain to remain alert. Ten seconds—twenty seconds.
Almost a minute, and the questions continued to reel against his brain. Then he felt it, the powerful drug coursing through his body, the emergency drug intended for just such a situation, to be used only in extremity because of its side-effects.
The drug entered his brain and, suddenly, he felt no more fatigue, no weariness, no slipping of his senses. He felt strong, alert, in complete control. He showed none of this to his interrogators. Instead he continued to pretend that he was on the edge of breaking.
"What really happened at The Morgan House?" the man with the wisp of beard said.
"Why was Tavvi there?" Mr. Smith said.
Illya listened now, his brain clear, more than clear. Alert, he heard the questions. They were asking him what they should have known! Pandit Tavvi was one of the Stengali, and these men had to be the Stengali—or did they? He had been sure that these were the Stengali, but now—if they were the Stengali, why were they asking what had happened I that room of The Morgan House? And if they were not the Stengali, who were they?
* * *
Napoleon Solo laid down a withering fire from his U.N.C.L.E. Special on automatic. The four men in black went to ground. Instantly, Solo crawled back over the crest of the hill and ran down the hill, back toward the prison. The four men came to the crest of the hill, stood there against the lighter dark of the sky for a moment, and then vanished.