The bellboy called again, impatiently. "M'sieur, the message is most urgent."
"I'm anxious to get it," Solo called pleasantly. "I'm just not quite ready for guests."
He stared at Illya, pressed against the wall, across the door from him. Illya nodded.
They timed their movements precisely.
As Solo unlocked and opened the door, thrusting it wide, Illya smashed a gas-pill upon the floor.
Instantly, grey clouds of smoke erupted from the carpeting. The room turned white with smoke.
In that same moment, the bell boy was thrust into the room ahead of two armed men.
They were carried forward into the room under their own impetus.
"This is the message—" The man stopped talking, his nostrils attacked by the acrid gray gas.
The three of them heeled around, trying to retreat.
Illya slammed the door and stepped out in front of it.
The bellhop fell to the carpeting, gagging.
One of the men turned all the way around, swinging his gun, blinded by the gas. Illya waited until he was faced away from him, then clipped him across the neck.
Solo struck the other in the belly, and when he folded forward, he chopped him across the back of his neck. The two men hit the carpeting at almost the same time as their guns did.
Yvonne stood rigid against the wall. Above the plastic nose cone, her eyes were wide.
Illya scooped up one of the guns, Solo the other. Leading Yvonne by the elbow, Solo opened the door and thrust her into the corridor. He and Illya moved beside her, fingers on the triggers of the guns.
The corridor appeared empty.
Wild-eyed, Yvonne kept the cone covering her face, though Illya and Solo had removed theirs.
With Solo leading the way and Illya guarding their rear, they ran along the hall to the elevator bank. Solo pressed a button.
The elevator appeared almost at once. The doors slid open. Solo, Illya and Yvonne retreated as if executing a ballet step. Two armed thugs moved forward from the elevator.
"Sorry," Illya said, "we've changed our mind."
He tossed a gas pellet into the cage as Solo slapped at the down button.
A thug raised his gun to fire as the doors slid closed on him. Down the elevator glided. For a moment they could hear the thugs coughing and yelling for help.
They turned, running again.
Solo pushed open the stairway door. They went through it.
They paused beside the up-and-down flights.
"You go up," Solo said. "We'll go down. That way, part of us have a chance of getting out of here."
Illya gave them a jaunty salute and bounded up the stairs.
Holding Yvonne's elbow tightly, Solo moved them toward the down stairwell.
Yvonne cried out and staggered against him.
Solo got no more than a glimpse of the two men at the landing below them. He swung around, dragging Yvonne after him. They ran up the stairs.
Illya paused, waiting, staring down at them. "What's wrong?"
"We decided to go with you," Solo said.
"That's too bad, because I'd just decided to go with you," Illya said. He jerked his head upward. "Gun boys—two flights up."
Solo nodded toward the exit; "Go out on this floor."
Illya nodded. He held the door open. They heard men running down the stairs and up them. They ran out into the corridor. They turned toward the elevators, but at this moment one of them opened and two men ran out, guns drawn.
Illya fired instinctively. The two men ducked back into the elevator cage.
Solo dragged Yvonne after him. They ran toward the end of the corridor.
"It's six floors straight down that way," Illya warned.
"You got any better ideas?" Solo panted across his shoulder.
"I'm with you," Illya said. He turned, firing again to discourage the gunmen from leaving the elevator.
The stairway door opened, then closed.
Doors along the corridor were thrown open. Women screamed and men yelled, demanding to know what was going on.
Illya laughed, pleased. The more crowded the corridor, the safer they were.
Solo thrust up the window, swung his legs through. Illya opened his mouth to yell until he saw the metal rails of a fire-escape.
He followed Yvonne through the window to the fire-escape landing. He slammed the window closed. Solo took a step downward, but bullets struck the metal railings near him, singing.
"High-powered rifle!" Illya gasped.
Solo turned, pushing Yvonne ahead of him.
"Where to?" Illya said.
"Up," Solo said, as bullets whistled past them. "Where else?"
They clambered up the old iron fire-escape to the seventh floor.
Illya reached for the window to open it when he saw two men running along the seventh floor corridor with guns drawn.
Illya, spent, sagged back against Yvonne.
"Up again," he said.
They climbed swiftly. Below, they heard screaming. The streets teemed with people, stirring like ants in a broken nest.
Illya paused, gazing down. "They watching us get knocked off?"
Solo shook his head, still climbing. "No. It' a run on the banks. rioting against the government. THRUSH has got the world in a panic."
"It's doing a fair job on me," Illya said.
Bullets whistled past them, the sound of gunfire nearer.
Yvonne whimpered, pointing to the floors below, where armed men clambered through windows. They paused only to fire.
Illya spoke gently to Yvonne. "Don't be scared. Bullets lose their thrust fired up at this angle. At least that's what they told me in ballistics. Hope they knew what they were talking about. Is that really true, Napoleon?"
Solo did not answer. He was already over the wall on the hotel roof. Yvonne struggled. Illya helped her over the parapet before he saw what had struck Solo dumb.
Illya stared. Parked on the roof were two of the smallest, reddest helicopters he had ever seen, their blades churning as if they were idling, waiting.
He glanced below. The armed men poured upward on the metal ladders. Shrugging, Illya climbed the wall and stood beside Solo.
Two men in brown zippered flight suits stood near the small helicopters, holding their high-powered rifles negligently.
Illya stared at the impassive faces. There was no doubting they were THRUSH hirelings, as were the gunmen still racing up the fire-escape ladder.
"This is where they were chasing us the whole time," Illya said in disgust.
Solo nodded. He glanced at Yvonne. "You can take that nose-cone away from your face now, Yvonne."
"It doesn't matter," she said. "I'm not breathing anyway."
THREE
THE FLIGHT-SUITED men motioned them politely into the small helicopters. They were most gentlemanly, except that they gestured with guns.
When Solo and Yvonne were in one helicopter, the pilot pressed a button. The small seats compressed tighter, locking them in and metal bands clicked together securely across their chests and legs. Neither of them could move.
Led toward the other helicopter, Illya suddenly swung around, lunging at the pilot.
The man side-stepped almost boredly, and clubbed Illya with the butt of his rifle. Then he lifted Illya as if he were a sack of potatoes and slung him into the rear of the copter.