Illya opened the heavy door and stepped out. The corridor was low and dark and the floor was dirt. There was no one in sight. The iron bar that had locked the door lay on the floor with the iron loop released by the studs still around it. Illya picked it up as a weapon, and started to the left where he saw a faint rectangle of light.
The rectangle was much closer than he had expected. The light was dimmer. Illya peered out of the open end of the corridor. He saw a large and high room, a cellar. He was in the cellar of some kind of large house. Old garden furniture was piled everywhere. The debris of many years of a large house. He guessed that the room he had been had perhaps been a wine room at one time, which would partly account for the drain.
The garden furniture, and the nature of the cellar, pointed to a country house somewhere. From the size of the cellar, Illya guessed that the house was some old mansion up in the Hudson Valley probably not too far from the city. Which also meant that this was probably the sub-basement.
He listened again, heard nothing, and moved out into the open cellar, gripping the iron bar. He crossed quickly with his cat-like silence toward a low stone archway. He went through the archway and saw, as he had expected, a flight of stone steps leading upward.
He went up the stairs swiftly and silently. There was a heavy wooden door at the top. It was open. Illya scowled. The security seemed very lax. He pushed open the door slowly, and then flattened back. A man in a black suit sat on a chair a few feet from the door.
The man was tilted back against the wall, his right side facing Illya, and a gun in his lap. The man was not asleep, but he was not alert. He had not heard Illya open the door.
Illya peered out and saw that where the man sat was in another corridor that had once been a cellar—the first basement. But it had been converted, and now had darkly paneled walls. An ornate door was at the far end. Illya saw no other guard, and watched the man in the chair yawn and stretch.
Illya leaped out in the middle of the guard's stretch. The guard heard him, tried to break his stretch and go down for his gun. Illya's iron bar caught him on the side of the head and the man went over, chair and all. Illya took the gun and jumped over him and ran down the corridor to the ornate door.
This door, too, was not locked. Illya opened it cautiously. There was no guard and a wooden stair case leading up. Illya went up these stairs slowly and carefully. There was no door at the top, but the stairs made a sharp left and emerged into a large, vaulted baronial-style hallway. Or they opened into a smaller and lower passage that led from the baronial hall.
Now there were sounds and people.
Illya Kuryakin heard voices, and men walked back and forth across the great hall. Through high windows Illya saw the fading sun of evening. From the position of the sun it was clear that the house faced west. The men who paraded through the vaulted entry hall all carried guns.
Illya looked straight across from where he stood to the opposite wall of the smaller passage. There was a door that, if he knew the usual layout of mansions such as this, should lead into a back hall. Unseen, he moved silently across the narrow passage and went through the door. It was a back hall.
He went down the back hall to ward the far door, looking for the door that should lead into the kitchen. He held his submachine gun ready. He could not find the kitchen door, and he suddenly heard voices coming toward the back hall from in front of him. He turned to retrace his steps, and heard someone coming from the other end. He looked around quickly. In the rear hall he was trapped, and one gun would not win against a house full of enemies.
Quickly he tried the doors that led from the rear hall. The first two were locked. The third was open, and Illya jumped through just as the first men appeared in the rear hall. He stood for a moment catching his breath—and then became aware that he was in a lighted room.
"Ah, Mr. Kuryakin. Come in, come in."
The voice was soft and mocking. It came from behind him in the lighted room. Illya tensed. His muscles bunched as he prepared to turn.
"I wouldn't try that, my dear Illya. If you turn slowly you will find that you are carefully covered from about six directions," the mocking voice said. "Not to mention the men in the rear hall, who will come in the instant you turn."
Illya turned slowly. He saw the black-uniformed guards all around him, their guns leveled. He was in a comfortable paneled room furnished with the best leather furniture. A lion's head bared its teeth above a massive fireplace. But that was not what Illya looked at. He looked at a tall, distinguished, grey-haired man in immaculate dinner clothes and black tie who stood in the center of the room with a drink in his hand and a smile on his well-groomed face.
"That's better," this man said in his mocking voice. "Now lay down your gun, my dear Illya, and we can have our talk."
Illya laid down his gun and stood facing the elegant man.
"Good. I must say you showed the usual U.N.C.L.E. initiative in getting here," the man said, and looked at his watch. "In good time, too. I told my people that a simple spoon left in the right place would be enough for Illya Kuryakin to escape, and I was right, eh? But not all U.N.C.L.E. men could have done it, you know? I have often wondered why you continue to take a back seat to Solo. I consider you far more dangerous."
"Thank you," Illya said wryly. "I'll be glad to tell Napoleon. You've been watching me? You left the spoon?"
The elegant man shrugged. "A small amusement. But not all a game, eh? I have always told my fellow Council members that keeping an U.N.C.L.E. agent busy is far better than the most total security. Give them a project to occupy their busy minds and hands, and that way I always know what you are up to, eh? I mean, my dear Illya, if I had not provided you with the spoon and the old door, you might have come up with an escape plan that would have been better. You see?"
The elegant man laughed. His men, their guns ready, all grinned. Illya smiled himself.
"Very clever, Danton. I have al ways said that you are one of the most clever of THRUSH leaders."
Emil Danton, North American Leader of THRUSH, bowed his head and laughed again as his men moved in on Illya Kuryakin.
FOUR
SOLO CAME awake in an instant. He did not move. Only his eyes moved. As far as he could see he was on the floor of the room where he had been attacked. The room was dark, and nothing seemed to move anywhere.
He sat up. He was not tied. He listened but heard nothing. Then he heard a groan. It came from close by in the dark room. Solo looked to his right and saw the figure on the floor. He crawled to the man. It was the wide, muscular man who had followed Forsyte.
Solo looked down at the man, who moaned again but did not open his eyes. Solo saw the blood and the ugly wound on the man's head. He raised the man's eyelids. The eyes rolled. The wide man had obviously been hit harder, or more often, than Solo.
Solo stood up. His head hurt, but he brushed it off. He was thinking. He still had his ring. But before he contacted Control he wanted to know more. Why had they left him and the muscular man alive—and who were they? He got part of his answer at once.
He went out into the larger bare room where the machine had been. The machine was gone. He looked down through the hole in the floor. The hot room below was dark. Solo turned and went warily out into the hall. All was dark and silent. He walked along the hall to the door he had come up through, opened it softly, and looked down.