"Only the coffin is of interest to you, Mr. Solo."
"Doctor of what?" Solo asked.
"I've spent my life studying the flora of the world. Plants. Grain. Growing areas. Patterns of vegetation."
"A gentle vocation for such a violent man."
"I'm no ordinary man. I have a mission, Mr. Solo. And the man with a mission always wins. You can see how well I planned. Not all of U.N.C.L.E.'s resources could save you from me."
"You had the help of a viper," Solo spat.
"Inside your Headquarters. Of course! I couldn't have done it otherwise. The point is, I was intelligent enough to know it. Now ask me what my mission is. I'm a killer of killers. A highly honorable thing, don't you think?"
The sound of hammering from behind the closed door interrupted Adams' tirade. For a change, the old man didn't mind. He smiled.
"What's your man doing in there?" Solo asked. "Building a gallows?"
"Nothing so simple. You'll know soon enough. Don't wish your life away when you have so little left."
---
In the next room, Robard went about his work methodically, spending no time with qualms or conscience. The room was actually two, dining and living, joined together in a large el shape. He had only put two dim lights on because he didn't like to see the results of his hammering.
He'd been working on the setup, supervised by the Professor, for a full day. It was nearly ready. The two rooms were a shambles. All the furniture had been pulled away from the wall and placed in various spots on the floor. There they rested in weird positions. Ottomans tilted on their sides. Chairs were upside down. Extra furniture had been brought down from the upper floor - bedside tables, bookcases - and added to the congestion. It was a long obstacle course of furniture that spread out behind him in the dark light, making it impossible to walk a straight line from the kitchen to the front door. Even a carefully maneuvered zigzagging line was dangerous because all the scattered furniture gleamed with the shine of steel.
With his hammer, Robard had attached weapons to the pieces. Knives, kitchen forks, barbecue spits, shish kabob skewers, scissors - anything that Adams could think of to stab a man walking by. And all wooden handled so they could be nailed on the solid old frames with the blades and points sticking out to scrape and mangle passing legs.
On a higher level, there were knife blades waiting on the sides of cabinets, on the door jambs. They stuck out at chest height from a bookcase, at stomach height from the battered piano that would never play a sweet note again. Robard inched gingerly among them, shaking his head, knowing the idea was insane, but also knowing it would work. The old man might be crazy, but he was canny.
He straightened up, giving the last knife a final hammering home, and shivered as he gazed down the length of the room to the door, set slightly off to the right at the front of the house. "Butchering time at the farm," went through his mind. Maybe Adams was right. A gunman he might be, but he wasn't the type of killer who could ever enjoy this kind of thing. The rooms bristled with steel. The horsehair sofa was a comfortable resting place no longer. Brushing against it would mean drawing blood.
Robard picked up his tool case and turned his back on the sight of his handywork. Better to get it done. Then maybe he could forget it.
---
Illya Kuryakin stood in Waverly's office, still holding his wounded arm. He had hastily wrapped a cloth around his hand so the blood wasn't dripping on the floor, but he was a shaft of anxiety as he waited for the head man of U.N.C.L.E. to issue some order - any order - that would release him to search for Napoleon.
Waverly paced back and forth, explaining the foul- up, as though fixing details in his mind would lead to a solution. Illya waited through it because Waverly usually did come up with a solution.
Waverly said, "They took Archer out at Point Eight and we didn't know it. That's why you had no help."
"I understand that, sir. But" - he could wait no longer – "I'm not concerned with the mechanics of the thing. Only with the fact that they have Napoleon. And we have no tracing device on him. They threw it away."
Waverly faced him squarely. "Settle down, Mr. Kuryakin. Emotionalism can't help us. I've put the entire building on emergency duty. All of our facilities are operating. We'll find him."
"Dead," Illya said.
Waverly wasn't surprised at the pessimism. He had come to expect fits of gloom from the Russian. He said, to jolt Kuryakin out of it, "Perhaps you and Mr. Solo have worked together too long. You've become involved on more than a professional basis."
Illya sighed, taking command of himself. "I was his bodyguard. I should have -" He shrugged, ignoring the pain in his shoulder and arm, and reached across to the intercom. "I have one lead anyway. Confirmed tonight." He thumbed a stud on the intercom.
A young woman's voice answered, "Yes, sir."
"This is Illya Kuryakin. I gave you a license yesterday. Did you get it checked through?"
"But you said it wasn't priority."
"Check it now - immediately," Illya commanded, and thumbed the switch off. He swung to Waverly. "We know two of the men. Ordinary hoodlums. I could draw pictures all night of the old man and we might never find him. But that giant - I got his license number when he tried to run me down."
"It shouldn't take long to trace it. Sit down, for heaven's sake, Mr. Kuryakin. You make me frightfully nervous standing there bleeding."
Illya sat, but the intercom beeped and he jumped up again.
Waverly beat him to it, flicking the switch.
"Illya?" the young woman asked.
"Mr. Waverly here. Give me your report."
"Oh - Mr. Waverly. The report was in on the number after all. The car belongs to a Doctor Abel Adams, botanist He has a shabby address."
"Anything else on him?" Waverly asked.
"I've started a check, sir, and there is indication coming through that he is connected with Thrush. In an obscure way."
Waverly glanced up at Illya. "A botanist. Plants." He spoke to the intercom again. "Is he connected in any remote way with anyone in our organization?"
"No, sir.
"Just the same, get a check on every Adams employed by us." Waverly flicked off the machine. "He is connected with us, you can rely on that." He hit another switch. "Enforcement? I want agents Carr and Lansing to check out the address of Doctor Abel Adams immediately. Pick up the details from the Computer Room." He shut the machine off. "Adams won't be there of course."
"Of course." Illya resumed his seat. "He's been too careful. I was fortunate to get his license. He'll do some thing dramatic. From the way he spoke out there in the street, he likes the grand gesture, the display of melodrama." Illya dropped his chin into his right palm, mumbling to himself. Adams. Abel Adams." He straightened quickly. "My Uncle Abel!"
"What is it?" Waverly spoke swiftly so as not to interrupt his agent's train of thought.
"Mada Adams? But - it couldn't be. Just coincidence."
"Spell out the coincidence, please."
Illya told Mr. Waverly about Mada's charm bracelet and the brief conversation when she had mentioned her Uncle Abel. Waverly voiced Illya's own doubts. "Our pre-hiring security investigation would have turned up that relationship. She never would have been accepted."