"Welcome to sitting-ducksville," Solo spat. "Any license number?"
"The numbers were blacked out," Illya said.
"It figures. Anyway, that guy was the poorest shot I've ever seen. How could he have missed?"
"Be happy he did."
"But what do you suppose it was all about?" Solo faced Illya, his eyes still snapping black.
"Attempted murder!" Illya said simply.
"Gangster style? We're not after gangsters, Illya, so they shouldn't be after us."
"Then perhaps it was Dundee's ghost. Don't argue with Fate. At least you're whole."
The few pedestrians who had screamed and run had now gathered up their courage to stand in a semicircle about twenty feet away from the two agents. They hung there, curious, their bodies anxious, but their feet braced, ready to flee again if these two men repeated their performance.
"There must have been more to this last place we investigated than we thought." Solo peered up to the third floor of the building where the list had led them.
"We'll take that possibility up with Mr. Waverly. Right now, we're creating a scene." Illya pulled Solo's attention to the crowd of onlookers. "Let's move on be fore the police come. We don't have time to answer questions, and these people are nervous."
Solo grinned, noticing Illya's one faux pas. "It might be tranquilizing to them if you'd put your gun away."
Illya holstered his gun, a slight echo of Solo's grin pulling at his lips that so seldom smiled at anything.
Solo headed straight for the crowd and pushed his way through, calling briskly to the people, "Excuse me, folks. Your neighborhood's just too noisy for a peace loving man like me."
The crowd parted at the banter and the two agents walked down the street, feeling stares on their backs like hard pinpoints. They turned the first corner and hailed a taxi. As they climbed inside and rested their tired bodies against the cushions, Solo asked, "One thing, Illya. How is it that you weren't any part of the target? They had clear shots at you, but they passed you over as though you were bulletproof."
"One never can guess about such things, Napoleon. It's better not to try."
---
The two agents went into U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters through Del Floria's Tailor Shop with only a wave for the oldish man who pressed the proper buttons to give them access to the vast honeycomb of the Command. The girl at the reception desk who pinned their badges on today was Illya s particular subject for teasing, so Solo didn't glance at her a second time. She went all out for the somber Russian, her eyelashes fluttering, and a flirtatious smile on her pretty face as she pulled her shoulders back, but Illya only murmured to her, "Careful, Lynn - you'll pop your buttons," and led the way to the automatic doors that took them into their second home.
Second home, Solo thought, as he walked side by side with this wiry man who was more of a friend than be liked to admit. Solo's life was completely segmented, split down the middle. One part was steel corridors and dark alleys, guns, bullets, and desperation. The other half was soft lights and softer music, good liquor, and heady women. But even the pleasant side always carried an overtone. Always there was a gun nestled under his arm; always there was a communicator in his pocket that could launch him out of warm, soft arms back into the alleys. As Chief Enforcement Agent for U.N.C.L.E., he was definitely agent first and man second. He relished it that way.
They stepped into the elevator that would whisk them to Mr. Alexander Waverly, the man who bore the weight of making policy for U.N.C.L.E. and, thus, for the world; the man who never gave praise, who put up with a carefully balanced amount of horseplay from his agents for the sake of morale, but who really would have preferred a carefully groomed line of robots to take and obey his commands. Indestructible robots, of course, that couldn't tire, fail, or die.
They went directly to his office, knowing Waverly expected them. He had eyes throughout the building. He was waiting in his place by the big revolving table. Solo and Illya sat down as his gaze swept across them, assessing, bright, and cool.
"Well, gentlemen," Waverly said, "since I know you have nothing to report on the Dundee affair, why have you come shoulder to shoulder to see me?"
"You know we have nothing to report, sir?" Solo asked. "Quite. Archer was the one to find the treasure trove this time. He reported in ten minutes ago. He found the chemical supply office that has done business with Dundee and his mystifying chemicals. We can go on from there."
"We have no idea of what Dundee is doing, as I understand it," Illya put in.
"Precisely, Mr. Kuryakin. Hopefully, we'll discover it - and soon."
Solo remembered the flurry that had set the legwork in motion. An agent named Randolph had gasped out a final report from a shabby hotel in Chicago, groaning a bare, few words: "Dundee – chemical – plant - check chemical supply - New York. Thrush." And Randolph had died on that word, as too many U.N.C.L.E. agents had died on it.
Waverly had immediately thrown the organization into action and the computers had divested the fact that Dundee was a medium-high Thrush official, generally a supplier. Following the dead agent's last request, the legwork had begun, trudging from one chemical supply house to another, armed with a picture of Dundee, hoping to find where he had done his business and what he had purchased. Now that part of the affair was complete. They had found the place and the product.
"What was the chemical, sir?" Solo asked.
"Blasted if I know, Mr. Solo. Our chemists are working on it. Oh, we have the name, but no idea how it might be used. The entire message from Randolph is a puzzle. It has so many possible resolutions."
Illya jumped in on that cue, eager to explore the resolutions. "I've been trying to decipher it, as a matter of fact, sir. And just that one phrase, 'Chemical - plant,' could mean three different things."
Solo grinned at Illya's eagerness. "Now we'll get a list of the three."
Illya ignored his friend's thrust. "First, he could have meant an actual chemical plant - a factory or lab. Second, he could have meant a plant in the form of a drop, a cache. Or, he might have simply meant flora - a real, living, growing plant. And the chemical would have something to do with plants, then."
"Well reasoned." Mr. Waverly nodded. "We're assuming our chemists will give us the answer when they discover what use the chemical could possibly be. I don't like this business, I can tell you. When an agent is killed it can only mean something big." He dismissed their rising curiosity quickly. "But it doesn't concern you two anymore. Unless it evolves into something, you have no further need to study it."
"At least the legwork is finished," Solo sighed.
"Too much for you, Mr. Solo?" Waverly looked at him, the ice in his eyes melting into a twinkle.
"Frankly, sir - yes."
Illya said, "Not even meeting a long line of office girls could alleviate it for Napoleon, sir. So you can see how hard it was on him
Solo cast Illya a quick glance. "The machine gun fire alleviated it nicely."
"I don't make the connection between office girls and machine guns, Mr. Solo." Waverly sat forward. "Explain, please."
Solo recited exactly what had happened without attempting to excuse his or Illya's ineptitude. "We fouled it up completely, sir," he concluded. "There was no reason why we couldn't have stopped that car, but neither of us managed. I got off exactly one shot, and that missed."