Solo watched for any sign of surprise, or any other sign. Jezzi Mahal showed nothing. The beautiful woman was either very innocent or very controlled.
"Inspector Tembo? I'm afraid I don't know the inspector very well. I certainly haven't seen him in months. And now, will you leave, or must I call for help?"
"You wouldn't really?" Solo said. "After all, I returned your matches. They could have been awkward."
"Awkward?" the woman said. "Because Tembo was murdered? Really, whoever you are, do you know how many of those matchbooks I have? How many people take them from my house?"
"How did you know Tembo was dead?"
Jezzi Mahal laughed. "I have many friends. The inspector's murder happened last night. Zambala is a small country. Now, must I become obnoxious?"
"I'll bet you could," Solo said.
"I could and will."
"I'll bet you'd even get me in trouble with Zamyatta," Solo said.
For the first time the woman showed a reaction. Almost imperceptibly her eyes glanced toward her desk, toward the drawer with the hidden compartment. She recovered so quickly Solo could almost have believed he had not startled her into the glance. But he had seen the faint motion.
"Mr. Zamyatta and I are not exactly friends," Jezzi Mahal said.
Solo raised a surprised eyebrow. 'No? How stupid of me. I meant Colonel Brown. The man in the picture there."
"The colonel is not a man to have for an enemy, whoever you may be," Jezzi Mahal said. "If you wish him for an enemy, it can be arranged."
"I'll bet it could," Solo said. "I better leave, hadn't I?"
"I strongly suspect it."
Solo grinned again and left the woman in the study. He walked easily across the living room, opened the doors—and closed them again. He jumped back into the cover of a large chair and crouched low. Unseen, he saw the woman come to the study door, look, and immediately go back. He heard her lift the receiver of the telephone.
Solo moved quickly to the doors again, opened them silently this time, and went out. He ran across the terrace and into the gully in the sand hills. He climbed up the hills to his car as fast as he could.
At the edge of the highway he looked carefully in all directions. People were on the beach again—men who carried weapons. Other men moved at a run through the sand hills below.
Solo grinned and ran for his car. He jumped in and started the engine. A long, black car appeared up the highway from the direction of San Pablo. It was coming fast. Solo threw his car into gear and drove off away from San Pablo.
The black car did not stop at The Silver Dunes. It came on at a fast pace.
Ahead there was a curve. Solo went around the curve and swerved off the road into a side road the instant the black car was hidden behind him. Moments later a jeep came around the bend from the opposite direction. The jeep and the black car raced together, passed, and both screeched to a halt. The two cars backed toward each other.
The man in uniform in the jeep looked up at the hills and at the side road. Two men jumped from the black car. The three men all looked at the side road.
Solo got out of his car, where he had parked it out of sight from the highway, but from where he could watch the road. He checked his U.N.C.L.E. Special and plunged silently into the bushes. He worked his way down the hillside.
On the highway the three men drew guns and started up the side road. They moved swiftly but warily. Hidden, Solo let them pass, and then worked the rest of the way down to the highway.
The man left in the black car neither saw nor heard Solo creep up on him. Not until the agent was almost on top of him. Then the man heard, turned, raised an ugly-looking Luger. Solo shot him in the neck with a sleep dart from his Special. The man collapsed.
Up on the side road there were loud voices. They had found his empty car. Solo leaped into the jeep. The keys were still in it. The three men were still running down the side road when he drove away in the jeep.
Solo raced back along the highway toward San Pablo. As he approached the gravel drive down to the beach house of Jezzi Mahal, he saw the men all across the road. Armed men. Solo bent low and pretended to slow the jeep. The men opened a path. Solo jammed down on the gas and the jeep leaped forward, through, and past the men.
He drove on, crouched low, but no shots came. He raised up and looked back. The black car was coming. Napoleon Solo grinned; they would not catch him now.
But someone was worried about what he might have found at The Silver Dunes.
FOUR
The International Tribunal held the special session in the San Pablo presidential palace, the former palace of the governor general. All members were there. Martin O'Hara held the floor.
"I am sorry to have to tell you, gentlemen, but I have definite indications that Opposition Leader Zamyatta, the Stengali, and Colonel Julio Brown of the second regiment appear to be involved in some form of plot!"
There was a hubbub in the ornate room that had once held the glitter of colonial pomp. The two Western members, and the Zambalan labor leader, Mark Boya, nodded their agreement with O'Hara. The Pole and the Indian demanded to know what kind of indications O'Hara had, demanded that he produce his evidence.
Carlos Ramirez listened for a time, and then banged for order. The room fell silent.
"If this is true, we must act. If it is true. I will call in the Organization of American States. But I agree that we must know what proof we have."
The tall old man glared like a lion around the table in the elegant room. His thick shock of white hair seemed to dominate them all. His strong, alert eyes flashed from face to face in the silent room. He pounded his cane harshly against the floor.
"I repeat, gentlemen, we must have proof!" Ramirez said in a voice that had lost none of its power. "I have perhaps more than anyone to lose in this island if Zamyatta should come to power in a coup, but I will not let my personal business blind me to justice and the will of the people."
The old poet and patriot glared around him. Then he faced O'Hara.
"What exactly is your information, O'Hara?"
O'Hara hesitated. All the proof he had was the possible murder of Tembo by the Mahal woman, the list in her desk that he could not produce, and the experiences of Illya and Solo.
"Very well," and O'Hara told them what he had learned, but without telling them of U.N.C.L.E. He made it sound as if some chance information had come to friends of his.
There was another silence. Ramirez frowned, his craggy old grandee's face set in lines of thought. The Pole and the Indian member sneered.
"None of that can be called proof," the Pole said.
"We have had many rumors since we came here," the Indian pointed out mildly.
"I say it's enough," Mark Boya, the labor leader said.
"We do have a national crisis to consider," one of the two Western members said.
Ramirez listened, and then the old man spoke. "No, we do not have enough proof to charge Zamyatta and Colonel Brown. What O'Hara tells us is enough to convince me, perhaps, but we must be sure. The future of Zambala is at stake. I suggest that we alert the premier and the deputy premier, and that they quietly prepare all the military units they know to be loyal.
"I suggest we be ready, that we make quiet preparations to protect San Pablo. The deputy premier will know what to do. But we must make no move, no public announcement until we have more proof to show the world."