"I wouldn't presume," Kuryakin said. "I wasn't aware that this matter impinged in any way on espionage… Look, a man has disappeared. I'm trying to find him. That's all."
"Are you working for any American organization?"
"No."
"Any Brazilian organization?"
"No."
"Any underworld group? Any international organization?"
"I told you. I'm hired. To find a man. The hirers are clients and their identity is privileged information. You know that."
"I'm not a policewomen. I have a gun on you. I don't have to observe the niceties of legal protocol. You're a private detective?"
Illya glanced over the girl's shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "All right, Petersen," he said. "Don't hurt her - just take the gun."
The weapon remained steady as the girl said evenly, "The French windows are locked. The catch makes quite a noise when it is operated. The balcony is nine floors up. There is no drainpipe, no fire escape connecting with it, and no way of reaching it from the neighboring rooms... Do you think I'd sit here with my back to the windows if I hadn't checked all this, for God's sake? I thought we agreed to consider each other professionals."
"My apologies for underestimating both your training and your intelligence," Illya said dryly. "What is your name?"
"Coralie Simone, if it matters. Don't you ever smile?"
"Only when something amuses me. Don't you?"
"I'm too busy to notice. Now… once more: Who hired you?"
"An organization calling itself Thrush," the agent said blandly.
"I never heard of it. What's that?"
"A syndicate of powerful and ruthless men dedicated to the overthrow of all legal government and the eventual despotism of the world."
"I don't believe you."
"Don't believe what - that there is such an organization, or that I am hired by it?"
"I don't believe either of them."
"Well, I've heard of candor," Kuryakin said, "but this really is something..."
Although the affair of the windows had not fooled the girl into turning around - he hadn't thought it would - the subsequent exchange had sufficiently diverted and held her attention for him to do what he wanted to. He was sitting fairly well forward in the chair, his forearms lying along its padded arms. The chair, he knew, ran very easily on its castors across the tiled floor. Imperceptibly as he had talked and held her eyes with his own, he bad drawn his feet back under him and edged his hands forward so that the fingers now dropped over the front ends of the chair arms. His center of gravity now should be such that, if the chair was suddenly removed from under him, be could stay in the same squatted position and not fall over. He flexed his muscles experimentally. Yes. He could make it.
The time had come to end the interview. He wasn't sure at all that the girl was employed by the D.A.M.E.S. If she was, surely they would have liaised with Waverly. On the other hand, he couldn't believe she was a Thrush member. Even the most accomplished of actresses could hardly have feigned that bland incredulity when he'd mentioned the organization and its aims. In any event, the riddle of her allegiance must wait until another time: at the moment be was tired of being questioned himself.
"...essential that you tell me your principals," Cora he Simone was saying.
Once more, Illya searched for, caught and held her eyes. "But surely you must realize, my dear..." he began.
Tensing the muscles of calf, back and thigh, he raised himself minutely from the chair and sent it rocketing backwards with a powerful thrust of his fingers.
The girl's eyes tore themselves away from his as the chair skated across the floor with a rumble and a screech. Involuntarily, she followed its path with her glance. At the same time, like a trepak dancer from the Cossack country, Kuryakin kicked out one leg horizontally from his squatting position.
The toe of his shoe caught the underneath of the gun's butt as it nestled in her hand, sending the weapon spinning upwards. Before she had switched her gaze back from the errant chair, he had risen to his feet, stretched out a hand and snatched the Berretta from the air.
"Forgive the liberty," he said quietly. "I have to leave early in the morning and I really do need some sleep."
The girl, scarlet with anger, her eyes flashing, nursed her hand and watched as he broke the automatic, slid the clip out and shook the shells into the palm of one hand. He crossed the room to the bed, picked up the white shoulder-strap bag she had left there, and dropped them inside. Then he bowed, handed her the bag and the empty gun, and turned to open the door for her. He was smiling.
"Until the next time, Miss Simone," he said gently.
"If there is one," the girl said grimly. "I do not like people opening my handbag without my permission. It's rude. Also, I have a rooted objection to being followed. So if you'll forgive me…"
She reversed the gun in her hand and slashed the butt expertly down to the side of Illya's head while he was bent over the lock.
---
He still had a headache when the plane landed at Brasilia the following morning. The weather was humid, close and fiercely hot, the sky overcast by a lowering front.
In view of O'Rourke's information, he decided to go first of all to the auto rental companies. It wasn't until the fourth attempt that he found anyone who had heard of "Mr. Williams." But the boy behind the shabby counter in this one remembered at once.
"Why goodness me, yes!" he exclaimed, his dark face lighting up at the memory. "As a matter of fact he hired the car personally from me. Nice chap, really top-hole."
"He was going up to the San Felipe dam, was he?"
"Oh rather. Absolutely. Told me so himself, don't you know. In fact be asked me to help him work out the jolly old route. He was going to spend the night at Goiás, I believe."
"He didn't bring the car back himself?"
"Well, no. As a matter of fact a different bloke did. Just handed it in, paid out the cash and hooked it, you know."
"And you haven't seen Mr. Williams since?"
"Williams? No. Not a hide nor a jolly old hair. But..."
"You have seen the other man?"
"Not to say since, old bean. Before. I've seen him around. Cove by the name of Greerson. Hardly the type I'd expect your friend -"
"Does he live here?"
"Live here? Who does, old chap, who does? No, I fancy he's a backwoodsman. Tell you the truth, I rather thought he was a foreigner employed on the construction site or something of that sort."
"You've been very helpful," Illya said. "Here, take this - and I'd like to rent a car myself for a few days. Any chance at all of getting the same one Williams had?"
"Oh, I say, thanks awfully. Most decent of you… Not to say the same actual one. One just like it – another VW. But you can't very well have the actual one - the girl's already taken that."
"The girl?"
"Smashing bird, old boy. About an hour ago. Asked all the same questions you've asked - and off she drove."
Kuryakin gave an exclamation of annoyance. If the girl was Coralie Simone, it meant she had help in a big way. For she hadn't been on the first plane, he could have sworn - and that in turn meant she must have a private aircraft, for to have made Brasilia from Rio in any other way would have been impossible in the time.
"Don't you find that collar uncomfortable in this weather?" he asked sourly as they turned together to go out into the garage.