"Take two of them?"
. "Right."
The two agents circled back and dropped into the cover of a small ravine. Soon the THRUSH search moved close to them. Two THRUSH men passed above the low ravine. Solo and Illya rose up behind them like wraiths in the night. Both men fell without a sound under the single chops of the U.N.C.L.E. agents.
Moments later Solo and Illya were moving in the line of search toward the river. Danton was at the other end of the line. The search fanned out until Danton ordered a halt.
"They've gone to cover. Turn back and don't miss anywhere, you understand!" Danton shouted.
His men all nodded. Danton's voice was no longer smooth and urbane. The penalty for failure was high in THRUSH.
The search turned back inland.
Illya and Solo slid silently into the river and began to swim south.
ACT III
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE LATELY?
THEY EMERGED dripping from the river, a mile and a half south of the massive old mansion on the Hudson shore. They moved warily. Illya Kuryakin motioned Napoleon Solo to silence and crept up from the bank to a paved road that ran near the shore.
"All clear?" Solo whispered.
"All clear at the moment," Illya said. "Danton isn't a fool, Napoleon. He'll have figured it out by now, and then he'll fan out along the river."
"At least we know that THRUSH doesn't know anything about how Forsyte passed the information," Solo said.
"Do we?"
"We do," Solo said, and explained the macabre machine that he had seen in the room above the hot room of the Health Club.
"A machine?" Illya said. "No wonder THRUSH is so interested. They must have an idea, and in their hands such a machine would be murderous."
Solo was about to answer when both men heard the sound. Cars approached along the river road. They had no headlights. Illya and Solo went across the road quickly and burrowed into the deep bushes.
Two dark jeeps went past slowly. They were filled with THRUSH men, and in each jeep a sub-leader scanned the river and the shore through infra-red glasses.
The jeeps passed and vanished. But Illya and Solo did not move. They waited where they were hidden in the bushes. Moments later another car came by, its motor almost soundless in the night. In this car a man scanned the inland side of the road through infra-red binoculars.
The third car passed on and disappeared into the night.
"Let's move," Solo said.
With Illya Kuryakin following, Napoleon Solo walked away from the road toward the lights of a town some distance inland from the river. They avoided the roads, and crossed dark fields in the night. When they were near the town, and were sure that they were clear of THRUSH, Solo bent over his ring.
"Control Central this is Sonny. Come in Control Central. Sonny and Bubba calling."
Waverly's voice came calm in the night. "You have located Mr. uh, Kuryakin, I see, Mr. Solo. Good. Where are you?"
"About thirty miles up the Hudson Valley from New York. We've run into THRUSH."
"THRUSH, eh?" Waverly's voice said quietly. "I can't say that I'm surprised. The affair in Anagua had their fine touch about it. I gather that you have eluded them?"
"We were both caught, but we escaped. Danton is running the operation," Solo said.
"Emil himself? They must place considerable value on the affair," Waverly's imperturbable voice said. "Which I do myself, as I told you, Mr. Solo."
"Do you want us to go back and tackle THRUSH again?"
"That can wait, Mr. Solo," Waverly's voice said, and for the first time there was an edge to the voice of the Section-I Chief. "It seems that you may be safe, but I'm afraid no one else is. In addition to Forsyte, another man visited that health club today, gentlemen. He went there early this morning. Unlike all the others, who appear to have noticed nothing amiss, this man reported to his superiors that he was strangely 'groggy,' as he put it, when he left the health club."
"They must have used the machine, maybe too long," Solo said. "I heard their boss say it could have bad effects."
"Very probably, Mr. Solo," Waverly said. "But that is not my concern just now. What concerns me is the nature of the man in question. You see, he had the full details of the United States' nuclear detection program for outer space in his head."
Solo whistled. "The whole detection system?"
"Precisely," Waverly's voice sail. "You understand that in the wrong hands this top secret system information could mean the control of space. I do not want this data to be passed on—to anyone, especially not to THRUSH. The job has been put into our hands."
Solo and Illya looked at each other. The outer space nuclear detection program was so secret its very existence was not known out side the immediate military, the White House, and U.N.C.L.E. In the wrong hands—?
"We don't know where the machine or the men who use it have gone," Solo said. "THRUSH doesn't seem to know either."
"Mr. Solo," Waverly's dry voice said from the distant room of U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, "never underestimate THRUSH or me. Or yourself, for that matter. You may recall that you reported the machine. Our men were outside the health club. Fortunately, one of our teams noticed some men carrying a bulky object out of the next building and followed them."
"They must have had a secret passage between the buildings," Solo said.
"Apparently," Waverly said. "Be that as it may, our team followed them to an electronics plant near Princeton, New Jersey. The plant is named Rand Electronics, Inc. A Mr. Edgar Rand is listed as president. We do not know if Rand is involved, or if his plant is simply being used. But I suggest you find out."
"Yes sir," Solo said.
"The team on watch there is Peters and Jenkins. I want you to contact them and assume command of the operation—at once."
"Yes sir."
"And Mr. Solo, get that machine."
"Yes sir."
The night became silent. Where they crouched on the edge of the village they could hear the sounds of revelry and whisky from a roadhouse in the center of the town. The people of the small town were at their pleasure, their momentary joys, while around them in the dark night a deadly game was being played by men they had never heard of, a game that could mean the end of their lives or their pleasures if it ended the wrong way. And one way or the other they would probably never know that the game had even been played.
"Well?" Illya said.
"I guess we go to Princeton."
"Perhaps we better stop and pick up our equipment first, Napoleon."
"Peters and Jenkins can supply us," Solo said. "The Rand plant may be only a short stop. From what I heard, they sounded like they were ready for a big move."
"Then we better move," Illya said.
The two agents searched the night carefully. THRUSH would not give up easily. It was certain that the black-garbed soldiers were still scouring the countryside for them. Solo and Illya entered the small village silently, like shadows in the night that flitted in and out of the light from the windows of the houses. They moved within the desperately happy noises from the tavern.
Outside the tavern there was a row of cars. One, parked farther away from the door than most of the cars, still had its keys in the ignition. Illya climbed in behind the wheel. Solo sat beside him. They started the engine and drove off. Illya turned into a side road that wound through the hills of Palisades Interstate Park. They did not see THRUSH.