Fluorescent tubes overhead cast a flat bluish light over solder-scarred workbenches, racks of equipment and chipped composition walls. A short, heavyset young man with a sour expression was standing beside one rack with two knobs, two meters and a toggle switch. The girl addressed him.
"All right, Frank. Turn it off and help me with these gentlemen."
Frank did things with the controls, and the red pilot light went out. Then he picked up a small drum of insulated cable and moved around behind Napoleon. When Solo's hands were secured to a convenient stanchion, Frank moved on and performed the same service for Illya. The girl's .45 vanished back into her purse as she checked the bonds. Then she spoke again.
"Their car is the blue sedan parked in the alley. Take care of it while I go find Kim."
The two left through opposite doors, Frank going into the alley and the brunette into another part of the building. Napoleon twisted around to look at Illya.
"Your watch is working — how long ago did Thrush let us go?"
"About eight and a half hours. And here we are again — though our captors this time don't seem to be Thrush."
Napoleon sighed. "Today just isn't our day. If we escape from this, we'll probably be captured by Boy Scouts or Martians next. Or run down by a reckless pedestrian." He looked around the laboratory. "You're right about this one not being a Thrush operation. This place is too messy for them."
"Also rather an amateurish capture. Thrush is usually more professional about such things, if often unnecessarily devious."
Napoleon thought a minute. "You know, I don't think I'd be at all surprised to find we'd been captured by DAGGER."
Illya considered this for a little while. "Well, I hope this is DAGGER."
"Why?"
"Because if it is, and this is an example of their efficiency, we have nothing to worry about," he said, pulling his right hand free of the cord that bound it, and setting to work releasing his left.
In a moment he was free, and seconds later Napoleon was rubbing his wrists and looking about the room. Illya was shaking his head sadly. "Shamefully amateurish," he said. "They left us armed, too."
He tried the alley door, and shook his head. "It seems there is a limit to their folly," he said. "The door is bolted. However..."
Napoleon tested the door the girl had used. It was locked, but flimsy. He looked at Illya. "Are we in a hurry?"
"Do we want to bring your girl friend and her pet automatic down on us?" Illya produced his U.N.C.L.E. transceiver and slipped up the antenna. "Channel D, please.... Channel D please." There was no response. Illya listened closely, then smiled wryly. "I should have expected it. We are well shielded."
By this time Napoleon had attached one of U.N.C.L.E.'s "skeleton keys" to the lock on the inner door. After listening carefully at the panel, and hearing no sounds to indicate the next room was occupied, he stepped back and twisted the ends of the wires together, touching off the detonator.
There was a spitting sound as the thermite ignited, and a dazzling glare lasting a few seconds. Acrid smoke filled the room, and billowed into the next as a well-placed foot opened the door.
Gun in hand, Napoleon looked around. Another room like the one they had just left; better lit, and cleaner. There was another door in the far wall, up a couple of steps, and they started toward it. It opened.
Standing in the doorway was a tall thin man. His hair was black and uncombed, his clothes unpressed. His face was long and his jaw narrow. His eyes were large, brilliant and intense; they lit his face like the eyes of a jack-o'-lantern. In the crook of his left elbow rested a crudely constructed circuit with a complex coil of some type pointing toward them — his right hand rested on a control knob.
"Don't raise your guns. Get against the wall or you will be snuffed out like two candles where you stand." His voice was flat and harsh with contempt.
Napoleon and Illya glanced at each other, and started to move apart. He was in an awkward position, some two feet above them, but if they could split his attention
"Back up to that wall," he said, an edge of anger creeping into his voice. "I should have killed you the first time I had a chance. Now you have forced the situation. I promised Garnet I wouldn't kill you unless I absolutely had to. But you will start to interfere soon if you are allowed to run free. If you had only stayed put until you could have been permanently suppressed, we would not be in this unfortunate impasse now...."
The two U.N.C.L.E. agents had been moving backward but for each step back they also took one to the side. The breadboarded circuit the tall man carried was swinging back and forth between them, its coil covering first one, then the other. Timing its oscillations, Napoleon waited until it had passed him and their captor's attention was on Illya. Then he sprang.
The circuit hummed softly, and Napoleon seemed to pause in mid-air. He didn't feel as if he'd hit anything, or anything had hit him, but all the breath seemed drained out of him. Time stopped, and he felt his arms and legs go numb. The room got dimmer, and the slow scraping of Illya's feet on the cement floor seemed far away. He seemed to be wrapped in yards of the finest and softest cotton wool, cutting off every sense. He sank deeper and deeper into it, vaguely aware that he was dying, but not really caring very much. There was no light, no sound, no feeling. He was sinking slowly in deep, dark, warm water which was filling his entire body. Only somewhere far in the back of his mind was a faint voice screaming that he had to get up and move. But there was no "up," and he no longer had a body to move....
Then his face hurt. There was rough concrete pressing into his cheek, and his shoulder felt bruised. He welcomed the pain — it meant he had a body again. His mind was trying to bury the memory of being without one, but it remained a small spot of icy terror. His hand scraped over the harsh surface of the floor, feeling the fingertips rasping against it. There was a smash nearby, and the sounds of a scuffle. His eyes focused.
Illya had floored the tall man, and the jury-rigged circuit lay on the floor, broken. Napoleon pushed himself to his knees, breathing hard, and felt his face gingerly. There was blood on his cheek. He got to his feet.
"Freeze!" snapped a voice above him. He did. So did Illya.
"Let go of my brother!" The girl was back, and so was her .45.
Napoleon sighed. "Sometimes it all seems so futile...."
"Now back off, you two," she said angrily, gesturing with the gun. When they were a safe distance away, she knelt beside the tall man. "Kim, are you all right?"
He snapped something at her as he fumbled about on the floor with the pieces of the device he had dropped. He examined the breadboard carefully, and started picking up the components and trying to fit them back into it, like a child with a broken doll.
She looked down at him, an odd expression in her eyes. "Kim..." she said, "you told me that machine wouldn't affect people. Didn't it almost .. ."
"Shut up, Garnet! The one you asked about wouldn't — but I knew I could fix that. This was the first time I've gotten one with a wide enough Theta range. That's all it takes. Of course that other one wouldn't. Animals aren't electro-mechanical. It was useless except for stopping their silly machines. Now the first one that really works has been smashed by these pigs! It'll take days to fix it!"