The helicopters winged upward from the hotel roof like frightened pigeons.
Solo fought at the metal bands, but he was bound helplessly. He found Yvonne in tears when he glanced at her. He tried to think of some comforting words, but there were none.
The city, the fabled river, the dust-glinting trees whipped past be low them. The helicopter circled on the outskirts of Paris, hovered above a chateau, hundreds of years old, majestic and isolated within its own park.
Yvonne stared numbly down ward through the plastic bubble. She gazed blankly at Solo.
Solo glanced down. The turrets and roof of the chateau gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. Bright cars by the dozens were sunning quietly in the drive.
The helicopter dipped downward, angling in toward the lawn.
Yvonne shook her head. "Why, that's M'sieur Caillou's own chateau!"
The pilot spoke coldly. "That's right."
Yvonne's voice was puzzled. "They're having a reception for the men and women of the emergency international monetary meeting!"
"If I'd known it was a party," Solo said, "I'd have worn a tux."
The pilot said, "You two were not invited—to the party."
Solo stared at the pilot incredulously. "Those are brilliant world leaders down there."
"So?"
"You think you can put us down there and not attract their attention?"
"Their minds are on more important matters," the pilot said calmly. "Banks are closing all over the world." He shrugged. "Anyhow, we've been delivering guests, just like this, all afternoon."
Solo did not speak. The helicopter put down on its tricycle under carriage on the spacious lawn. The second small chopper followed within seconds.
No one came out of the house. Through French windows Solo saw formally attired people gathered in worried knots, lost on the distressed tension in the afternoon.
The pilot pressed a button and the seat and metal bands relaxed their tenacious grip on Solo and Yvonne. The pilot left his rifle inside the chopper, but kept his hand on a clearly outlined automatic in his flight-suit pocket.
"Get out, nice and easy," he ordered.
Solo followed Yvonne, jumping out to the ground. Across a short space the other pilot knelt over Illya, passing an ammonia vial back and forth under his nose.
Illya resisted for a moment, then revived suddenly and violently. He sprang upward as if catapulted, carrying the pilot with him. The man yelled, going over on his back.
Illya closed his hands on the pilot's throat and they toppled out of the copter hatch. They struck the ground hard.
Illya did not surrender his advantage. He chopped the pilot across the Adam's apple, drove his extended hand into his solar plexus, and leaped up—in the face of the drawn gun of the other pilot.
"Hold it," the pilot said, fixing his gun on Illya, but ready to wheel around on Solo.
Solo stood unmoving. "Vengeance is a big thing with you, isn't it, Kuryakin?"
Illya stared at him groggily. "Where were you?"
The pilot said, "All right, you two. Grab that pilot. Help him up."
Solo shrugged. He and Illya hefted the gagging pilot to his feet and they crossed the lawn toward the side of the stone chateau. Frivolous music blared out from the windows, somehow like a desecration.
"Hold it," the pilot with the gun said when they reached what appeared to be a solid wall in the base of a high-rising turret.
Holding the automatic on them, the pilot edged warily to the wall, shoved a lever concealed in the stone. A door-sized opening was made as the stones slid into themselves silently.
The pilot jerked his head, ordering them inside.
When they were on the landing at the head of wide stone steps leading to the depth of a silent dungeon, the pilot pressed an inside lever and the wall closed.
"Down the steps," he said.
They came off the stairs into a vaguely lighted foyer, devoid of furniture. A man armed with a rifle stood at each of the four walls. A door opened and Marie, Albert and Gizelle emerged, none looking too healthy.
"Here they are, Marie," the pilot
Marie reached out and grasped a gun from the nearest guard.
"I'll kill them now!" she said.
Solo and Illya released the pilot and he struck the floor hard. Marie jerked the rifle up to her shoulder.
A voice crackled from a concealed speaker. It was Oriental in its inflections and quality, cultured in tone: "Until I order it, Marie, you will kill no one."
Marie lowered the rifle, but her face was livid.
"I want them!" she answered defiantly. "Especially this Solo. I will deliver his skin to you—in strips!"
The Oriental voice remained at a conversational pitch, but chilled with its authority. "Perhaps you will. In good time. Don't let hatred suspend your reason. We do not need the notoriety of murder just now, my girl. Why else do you think we brought them here, in stead of leaving their corpses at the hotel? In order to indulge your violent whims? I need not remind you—I had better not have to remind you again—that we walk on eggs until our plan is in operation. I'll tell you when, my dear. Until then— remember—I see everything that goes on."
Marie exhaled heavily, and thrust the gun out to the guard, who retrieved it silently.
The three prisoners were prodded across the empty foyer to an empty dungeon.
A door creaked open.
"Inside," the guards said.
Yvonne pressed close to Solo.
"What kind of a place is this?" she whispered in terror.
"I know what it looks like," Illya said. "It looks like something from an old Errol Flynn movie."
PART THREE:
INTERLUDE AT A FRENCH CHATEAU
SILENCE DRIPPED oppressively in the thick-walled dungeon. There were no chairs, stools, cots—not even straw upon the stone flooring.
A deeply inset window, eight feet above the floor, shone with remote light. Making a stirrup of his clasped hands. Illya boosted Solo, who then chinned himself up to the sill and hung there, staring through the bars at a limited square of lawn and drive.
Illya sank against a wall, crossed his legs and closed his eyes.
Yvonne prowled the room. She shook the door, struck the rough walls with her small fists.
She stared down at Illya. Her voice quivered with outrage. "Why would M'sieur Caillou treat me in this brutal manner? Why would he do this to you, his friends?"
Illya spoke gently. "Don't fret about him."
"I've always revered him. Now I hate him."
"Don't hate M'sieur Caillou."
"Don't you?"
Illya gazed up at her. "I think, Yvonne, no matter where Lester Caillou is right now, it's a worse spot than we're in."
Solo spoke from the window, where he had supported himself on his elbows. His voice was strained with effort. "The party's over—the guests are leaving."
Yvonne said worriedly, "Is that good?"
Solo glanced down at her. "It means that the Caillou on duty up there got away with it. It means the good doctor, whoever he is, will have time for us now."
Sudden screaming of sirens replaced the wail of inane music. Solo pulled himself closer to the bars, clinging to them.
"Les flics!" Yvonne cried. "The police! It is the police, isn't it?"