Inside the tavern the six or seven dilapidated customers at the long bar did not even look up. They held their drinks in both hands, stared into the depths of the whisky or at their own faces in the mirror behind the bar. They were long past caring about anything that moved, cared only for the small glasses of golden liquid in front of them.
Solo dashed through the long, dirty room with its gaudy signs that advertised the various beers and whiskies, and no one noticed—except the bartender and two drunks sitting in a booth near the door.
The bartender turned and touched a key on the cash register. Then the bartender reached under the bar and his hidden hand held a strange-looking pistol that was a twin of the pistol in Solo's Berns-Martin shoulder holster.
The two drunks in the booth near the door did not change noticeably, but one of them staggered to his feet and lurched across to the bar. He leaned there, asking drunkenly for a drink. The eyes of both drunks seemed lost in some bleary dream world. They were not. They were alert, watchful, and now there was one flanking each side of the door.
Solo went through the room without a glance at anyone, turned once to look back as if in fear. Then he vanished into the men's room. In the men's room he stepped to a section of wall and pulled a hook that was fixed on the wall for hanging clothes.
The wall opened, the mechanism activated by the bartender touching the cash register key out front. Solo stepped through. The door closed automatically, locked.
Solo stood in a small room that contained a table and two chairs, a rack of weapons for emergencies, and a small television set. Solo switched on the television. Instantly he saw a view of the street in front of the shabby-looking tavern. The Cadillac was nowhere in sight, but a shadowy figure stood only a few feet from the door.
Solo smiled. The missing Cadillac was what he had expected. He pressed a button on the television set and another picture appeared. Now it was the side street, where the alley behind the bar came out.
Another shadowy figure stood there, watching the mouth of the alley.
He switched to the third camera. The Cadillac was parked in the dark of the next avenue behind the tavern. Somewhere they had picked up a third or even fourth man, probably hidden on the floor of the Cadillac all the time.
They had covered all exits.
Solo grinned to himself in the hidden room. That anyone trailing an agent would have the sense to cover all exits was precisely what U.N.C.L E. expected and planned for. This room, one of the many escape routes involved in perpetual Plan 9, was designed to enable an agent to evade any shadower.
The routes, the locations, were changed every few days, of course. Tomorrow this would be only a tavern again.
Solo switched back to the camera that covered the front entrance. The shadowy figure out there suddenly moved, came into the light from the tavern windows. A woman who held a small, deadly pistol—a woman Solo knew only too well. Maxine Trent!
A Maxine Trent returned from the dead—but Solo had never believed that the high-ranking Thrush agent was dead. Maxine was too deadly to die easily. Maxine was no low-rated assassin. U.N.C.L.E. could use her alive, and now she was walking into the trap. He quickly switched to the other cameras—they were all closing in on the tavern.
He pressed a tiny button on the table. The warning light would flash out front where the bartender could see it. The rest was in the hands of Section-V, Security and Personnel. His own orders were standard and strict—the job came first; he had to make his escape.
In the hidden room he stepped to a closet, opened it, went in, closed the door and pressed the switch. The closet began to move downward, a small elevator that stopped at the sub-basement level. The door opened and Solo stood in a narrow tunnel.
Minutes later he was four blocks away, out in the night, hailing a taxi.
FIVE
ILLYA KURYAKIN leaned forward in his taxi and spoke softly to the driver.
"I think we are being followed, driver. I suggest you attempt to lose them. It is me they want, but they would be reluctant to leave a witness alive, I'm afraid."
The driver, a small man, cast a frightened glance behind him at Illya. The small Russian smiled his most reassuring smile. The driver saw the pistol in the agent's hand and his eyes bulged. Then the driver faced front, watched his mirror, and began to weave in and out of the airport-bound traffic.
After ten minutes, Illya saw that it was no use. The taxi driver was not trained in evading pursuit. He, Illya, would have to resort to more direct methods. And he would have to pick his own ground, not their ground. He leaned forward again.
"At the next street make a left, driver. Drive as fast as you can. We will be on a side street and they will close in."
The driver nodded, made the sharp left, barely missing an oncoming car, and drove fast down the darker side street. Illya looked behind. The black Mercedes was already behind them and gaining.
Illya narrowed his eyes and made a rapid mental estimate. He nodded; they would reach the area of open swamps that bordered Jamaica Bay before the Mercedes could catch them.
It would be close, but that was just what the blond agent wanted. Close, but not too close. He clicked his pistol on to bullets, and bent to his small suitcase. He came up with two tiny round pellets. Then he waited.
The taxi reached the deserted area of marsh and reeds and dark black water. The road had become a dirt road. The Mercedes raced closer behind.
"When I give the signal, slow down. When I'm out, drive away as fast as you can. Go to this address, and you will be well paid. Report what happened."
The driver nodded and took the piece of paper Illya gave him with the address of Del Floria's cleaning shop on it. The taxi drove on into the depths of the marshy shore. The houses were far behind now; to the left and right deep, wide channels of black water led in from the open bay.
The Mercedes was less than fifty yards behind and coming fast.
Illya leaned out the window and tossed both small round pellets onto the road behind the taxi. Two dense clouds of white smoke erupted in the night. In an instant the Mercedes vanished from sight behind the clouds of smoke that merged and covered the road.
"Now!" Illya hissed.
The driver braked, skidded, slowed. Illya opened the door and jumped out. He hit, fell, rolled, and came up on his feet with his U.N.C.L.E. special in one hand and the small suitcase in the other. The taxi roared off into the night.
Illya crouched at the side of the road, his U.N.C.L.E. special ready and pointed at the cloud of smoke. The Mercedes should come through any second, burst out of the smoke, eager, unaware, and partly blinded.
The Mercedes did not come.
Illya waited, watched.
The Mercedes did not come. There was no more sound of its powerful engine.
Illya waited no longer. The trick had not worked. He did not hesitate another second. He turned and ran away from the road toward the marshes and the black channel of foul water that led in from the bay.
He moved not a second too soon.
As he ran, a man came through the smoke, his strange rifle held ready, its infra-red scope bulky above the barrel. A second man came from around the right side of the dissipating smoke cloud.
Both men wore grotesque gas masks, the large round eyepieces making them look like monsters risen from the swampy land itself.