“Hold them back with what?” Illya snapped. “They’re breaking the fire door in. They’ll be on us in a couple of minutes.”
“Build a fire in the hall!” Solo yelled back. “That should stop them long enough for us to get this thing working.”
“And cook us with them!” Kuryakin retorted. “Well, that’s better than letting THRUSH win!”
He grabbed a full waste paper basket for tinder and rushed out.
“It’s ready, all five lights are burning now,” Solo said to the girl.
“Hold the transmitter so the lens points in the direction of Sunset,” she said. “Speak into what looks like a camera viewfinder, tell them to destroy the Mallon Studios. I don’t know where the transmitting station is, but I suspect that it must be on top of the studio administration building. Send them there first.”
“Any special tone?” Solo asked.
“The transmitter is automatic,” she replied. “Open with the call letters Seven-seven-Four. That activates the subliminally induced hypnosis in their minds. Then give your orders.”
“Seven-seven-four!” Solo cried into the disguised microphone. “Seven-seven-four. Rush to the Mallon Studios. Destroy the Administration building! Then rush the processing laboratory. More of your enemies are there! Seven-seven-four -”
He was interrupted by Illya rushing in, dripping wet. “The fire in the hall only activated the automatic fire extinguisher sprays. It’s out. They’re coming, Napoleon!”
“Come on!” Solo cried. “Back into the processing room. There’s still a vat of acid in the bleach room. There are some buckets in the corner. We’ll make a last stand there. We’ll throw acid on them when they come in the door!”
“Look out!” Illya shouted. “Here they come!”
He grabbed the chair that lately had been bound to Solo and hurled it though the door as the first running THRUSH man bore down upon them with a gun in his hand.
A gun exploded behind him. He whirled to see Marsha Mallon emptying her gun at the oncoming men from THRUSH. Two shots and she was through. The three retreated back into the processing room. Their enemies halted. Two of the THRUSH men were dead. A third had a bad cut where the chair hit him.
“Don’t stand there like a pack of fools!” In the other room the three fugitives heard a man’s angry voice cry out. “I’m in charge here now that Griffis is dead. Get in there and drag them out. Don’t worry about taking prisoners. We’re through with them now. Slaughter them!”
“How long will it take the zombie-monsters to get here?” Illya asked Napoleon.
“It shouldn’t take more than five minutes,” Solo replied, “if they got the message.”
“Can we hold out?” the girl asked fearfully.
“Yes,” Illya said quickly. “I don’t know how. But we’ll do it. We have to!”
“There’s one!” Marsha cried as a THRUSH man appeared in the light trap opening.
Solo hit the light switch, plunging the room back into total darkness. At the same time he kicked the processing machine, making a sound almost like a bullet exploding. They heard a scramble of feet as their pursuer withdrew.
“They got guns!” the trapped trio heard him squall. “It’s pitch black in there. We have no chance to rush them.”
“Then set some rags afire in a trash can,” their boss ordered. “Throw that in. We’ll smoke them out!”
“Mr. Clary! Mr. Clary!” It was a voice from the far end of the hall.
“More reinforcements!” Illya said. “That’s no worry to us. When the odds are already impossible what does it matter whether you face fifty or a hundred?”
“Quiet, Illya!” Napoleon said. “Let’s hear what he says. He sounds hysterical to me. Maybe -”
“Mr. Clary!” the newcomer squalled again, his voice coming nearer. “The monster-kids! Something has gone wrong! They’re attacking the studio. They broke through the gate and are ripping everything to pieces.”
“What! Then that woman has one of the transmitters working! Get back to the satellite transmitter and tell them to start the signal early. We’ll drown out her transmission and take over! Get moving! We’re in one hell of a spot! Damn those U.N.C.L.E. rats!”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Clary, I - Help! The monster-kids are coming down the hall. They’re closing in on us!”
“Stop them! Shoot them! Do something, you fools, or we’ll be overrun!” Clary screamed.
Shots echoed through the narrow halls. Screams cut above the din. The tramp of running feet beat like a thousand drums. The noise sounded like they were inside the office. The three fugitives could hear nothing but the crash of furniture and the shouts and screams.
“Leave the lights off,” Solo said. “Maybe they won’t notice we are in here.”
Just then the entire wall separating the office from the processing room collapsed under the crush of the mob screaming in.
“Turn them! Turn them!” Marsha cried. “Use the transmitter.”
“Seven, seven, four!” Solo cried into the mouthpiece. “Seven, seven, four! To the administration building! Tear down the transmitter!”
The mob obediently turned and charged out of the building. The trio came out of the darkroom behind them. Clary and those with them were dead - beaten and trampled to a bloody pulp by the monsters they made themselves.
Once in the open, Solo and Kuryakin were shocked at the terrible damage. The place looked like a town after an artillery bombardment. Across the block the administration building was aflame.
“Is that -” Solo asked.
“Yes,” she said, “the transmitter was there. That wooden tower on top disguises the antenna. It is all over. THRUSH has lost. Thank you for forcing me to help you. I -”
She turned and fled into the darkness. Illya started after her, but Napoleon Solo stopped him.
“Remember,” he told Kuryakin, “in our report there is to be nothing about her that implies she was at fault in letting THRUSH get this secret. That was one of the things she feared. She wanted to save her own reputation and that of her dead father.”
“As far as I’m concerned,” Illya said, “if she did anything wrong, she more than atoned for it. We wouldn’t be here but for her.”
“I think we can call off these Frankenstein teenagers now,” Solo said.
He gave the order into the speaker. Instantly all the wild commotion stopped just as screaming police cars wheeled up the street fronting the studio.
A burly nineteen-year-old who looked like center timber for a Notre Dame football squad looked at Solo in amazed confusion.
“I just had a coke,” he mumbled, “and this happened! What do they put in those things now?”
Illya smiled wearily.
“Making them stronger, I guess,” he said. “And watch out for those California milk shakes too. Can’t tell how they’ll make you act either!”
“Come on,” Solo said. “We must report to Waverly. THRUSH has lost again.”
“But just a setback,” Illya said. “That crazy group never stops trying.”
“Stop complaining,” Napoleon said. “It provides a living for us.”
“A living that comes pretty close at times to dying!” Illya Kuryakin retorted.
“You can say that again!” Napoleon Solo replied.
He was suddenly very tired.
THE END
In the Next Issue - Complete and Exclusively Yours -
The VANISHING CITY AFFAIR
A Thrilling New “Man From U.N.C.L.E.” Novel by ROBERT HART DAVIS
Next month’s big lead novel is a truly spine-tingling story of Evil which, unchecked, threatens a nation. For shrouded in darkness, peopled by fear-maddened hordes, a once proud city awaited her doom, as Solo and Illya, racing against THRUSH’S deadline of death, sought to track down the dread riddle of the metropolis which had vanished from the world. Don’t miss this truly extraordinary U.N.C.L.E. story!