But he heard the footsteps behind him on the stairs.
He reached the street and for an instant was out or sight of the footsteps behind him. He reached into his jacket pocket for the tiny radio, raised the threadlike antennae, pressed the sending button.
"Sonny, this is Bubba. I have a bandit in tow. Plan 9."
Illya pressed his receive button. Instantly, the tiny transmitter-receiver whispered low to him.
"Bubba, from Sonny. Possible bandit here, too. Plan 9."
The voice of Napoleon Solo faded. Illya walked on down the sunny street. In a store window he saw the figure of the old man behind him.
THREE
There is a brownstone house on East 44th Street in Manhattan. It seems an innocent dwelling, with a small printing shop on the ground floor. A narrow alley runs beside it. The alley is a dead-end, or seems so, ending one hundred feet back from the street in a high brick wall topped with broken glass.
Approximately fifteen minutes after their whispered words over the miniature radio sets, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin approached the East 44th Street brownstone from opposite directions. They seemed intent on their own business, paid no attention to each other, and walked without looking back.
They seemed to meet as strangers at the mouth of the alley beside this innocent brownstone with its print shop. They both turned into the alley, nodding politely to each other, and began to walk toward the blank high wall at the rear.
At this precise instant, the printing presses in the ground floor print shop began to operate. They were old presses, the windows of the pressroom were open, and the noise in the alley was deafening. Solo and Kuryakin walked on down the alley toward the blank wall as if oblivious to the shattering noise of the presses.
Behind them the old man from the private library jumped into the alley, a grim smile on his face as he heard the noise of the presses. The old man moved down the alley with a speed that proved he was far from old beneath his disguise. A heavy, wide-mouthed gun in his hand proved that he was not a scholar. He raised the gun, still grinning at the convenient noise of the presses that would hide any sound.
He never fired his strange gun.
The seemingly blank wall of the brownstone building opened abruptly. Two men stepped out. The pistols in their hands spat twice each, the noise totally covered by the sound of the printing presses.
The fake old man fell like a stone, his body stiff and rigid.
The two men who had shot him ran to him, picked him up and hustled him through the secret openings into the brownstone building. The wall closed.
Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin walked on toward the rear wall.
The alley was silent except for the noise of the printing presses. There was not even a drop of blood on the stones to show that anything had happened. The ersatz old man who had followed Illya Kuryakin was not dead, merely paralyzed and sleeping from the effect of the darts fired from the special pistols of the two U.N.C.L.E. men of Section-V—Security and Personnel.
Solo and Illya continued to walk as if they had seen nothing until they reached the rear wall.
And vanished.
* * *
The beautiful woman lurked in the doorway of a building on East 45th Street. She watched as the young man came down the steps of another brownstone two doors up the street closer to the East River. She frowned. She had expected Napoleon Solo to be carrying something when he emerged.
Aware that the wail of his miniature radio had been a summons to U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, she had trailed him to the 44th Street brownstone. She had not gone up the alley; it was too convenient. Instead, she, Maxine Trent, had come around the block and been rewarded for her quick guessing by the appearance of Solo from another brownstone. But the U.N.C.L.E. agent was empty-handed.
Maxine stared at the figure of Solo. The handsome young man was walking east toward the river. She sighed to herself; Napoleon Solo was such a good-looking man; it was too bad that she would have to stop him now, and search him. He could easily be carrying what she wanted hidden somewhere on that slender but so nicely masculine body.
She left her refuge and followed down the street in the shadows of the buildings on the shaded side. She was proud of herself. U.N.C.L.E. was so proud of its security! Solo was sure no one could have followed to the building on 44th Street and from the building on 45th Street.
The handsome fool was walking openly, carelessly.
Maxine had to hurry and move closer as people began to pour out of an office at the end of the block. She passed another set of brownstone steps, still smiling but hurrying. She never saw the small blond man step out.
Illya caught her neck, pressed and caught her inert body in his arms as she collapsed. She made no sound, lay totally unconscious in his arms.
A policeman pushed through the crowd.
"I'm sorry, officer. My wife has these spells," Illya said.
"She just passed out," someone said.
"You need a doctor?" the policeman said helpfully.
"That's an excellent idea," Illya said. "If you wouldn't mind holding her, I'll find one at once."
Illya handed the inert form of Maxine Trent to the arms of the policeman, smiled and walked away into the crowd. All the people looked at the nice young man with sympathy. Illya smiled sadly back at them as he turned the corner and vanished.
It was nearly twenty minutes before the policeman began to wonder about the nice young man.
* * *
There are four known entrances to the hidden complex of U.N.C.L.E headquarters in New York. A maze of steel and bomb proof concrete hides behind its innocent faade, which includes a tailor shop, the false offices of an international aid organization also called U.N.C.L.E., and a key-club type restaurant called The Mask Club. The stronghold has no stairs, only elevators, and has been penetrated only once. From that simple penetration, no one in the attacking force survived.
To those who know, the headquarters can also be entered by water from the river through secret tunnels. But the main entrance, used by all but the few who can never be seen going in, is Del Floria's tailor shop.
Del Floria himself is a tall, balding man in his fifties. He is a good tailor, but he is also one of the best and quickest shots with any of the many weapons he has hidden close.
Del Floria is the keeper of the gate. He has been this, a key man in Section-V of U.N.C.L.E., for a long time. To enter the headquarters an enemy must pass him. This has never been done. The one penetration was made through the river entrances. Del Floria knows every U.N.C.L.E. member by sight, the only man below Section-I who does. He knows their faces, and no more. To know more would be his death warrant. Now he smiled as he greeted two old customers.
"If you would step into the fitting rooms, gentlemen," Del Floria said, "we can start fitting you."
Solo and Kuryakin stepped through the curtain into the fitting room. Once inside, they waited a moment; then, on a signal from Del Floria that all was clear, they stepped into one of the many dressing rooms. They closed the curtain. The wall opened. They stepped through. The wall closed behind them.
They stood in the reception room of U.N.C.L.E.
The room was windowless, without doors of any kind. A pretty girl sat behind the reception desk. The controls on the desktop were unlabeled, unidentified. Only she knew which button did what, and the buttons were interchanged at irregular intervals. She looked like a receptionist in any office in the city. Her U.N.C.L.E. special was out of sight in its holster behind her back. She handed Solo and Illya their triangular identity badges.