“That, of course, is impossible,” Solo said. “Everything has a natural explanation, but I’ll admit that it did look that way.”

“She was really a beautiful girl,” Illya said. “I feel guilty about running off without trying to help her. But when Mr. Waverly calls, damsels in distress must shift for themselves.”

“Somehow, Illya, I have a hunch that we have not seen the last of that girl,” Napoleon Solo said. “And it -”

“And what?” his partner asked.

“And it scares me,” Solo finished quietly.

TWO

IN NEW YORK the two men from U.N.C.L.E. took a taxi from Kennedy International Airport to a street in the lower Fifties. Here they dismissed the cab. They went on foot past several blocks of brownstone fronts. To their right the United Nations building loomed up, a checkerboard of lighted windows against the night sky.

After a short walk the two men turned into a small shop. Peeling gold leaf spelled out Del Floria’s Tailor Shop on the window.

Inside a little gnome of a man nodded absent-mindedly at them. They went behind the counter. A girl at the pressing machine smiled as they went by her. She touched a hidden button. Her eyes lingered a long moment on Solo’s broad back before she sighed slightly and went back to her work.

The two men entered a dressing room. Illya pulled the curtain shut while Solo turned one of the hooks on the wall. The back slid open. They stepped into a room that was totally dark when the door slid shut behind them.

They waited quietly while infrared sensors converted their bodily heat waves into a picture for a special TV surveillance scanner.

Once they were identified, the opposite wall opened. The two U.N.C.L.E. operatives stepped into a modernistic furnished office that gleamed with chrome and efficiency. A pretty girl at a desk smiled and handed each a triangular badge. It was their passport into the secret corridors of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement headquarters. Strategically placed scanners would pick up the badge’s transmissions.

“How are things coming along?” Solo asked her.

She looked up at him fondly.

“Wonderful,” she said. “I can never thank you and Mr. Kuryakin enough for getting U.N.C.L.E. to give me a job.”

She spoke with a strong Irish brogue.

“You earned it,” Napoleon said. “If it hadn’t been for you, Illya and I would probably be still floating in the Irish Sea!”

“You over-estimate what I did,” she replied.

“I see you are in an argumentative mood tonight,” he said brightly. “Mr. Waverly doesn’t take kindly to the hired help talking when they should be working. So what do you say to the two of us continuing the argument over a plate of Irish potatoes after we finish upstairs?”

“Just the two of us?” she said with mock concern. “What about Mr. Kuryakin? I can’t split up two old friends. Can he come too?”

“He can not!” Solo retorted. “It is obviously true, my lovely colleen, that you have never heard of the American adage that three is a crowd.”

The Irish smile turned a little wistful.

“Eight,” she said. “Or is it nine?”

“What?” Solo asked blankly.

“Is it the eighth or ninth time you two have invited me out to dinner as soon as you came from upstairs and then failed to come back.”

“Well, it isn’t my fault,” Solo said sadly. “It is that slave driver Waverly.”

“Well, speaking of that slave driver,” she said, “he has been calling down here for the last hour wanting to know if you had arrived. I’d suggest -”

“I know a brush-off when I get one,” Solo said. “Come on, Illya.”

The two went over to a bank of six elevators. Each was tagged with the name of one of the six sections of the United Network for Law and Enforcement: Section I - Policy and Operations; Section II - Operations and Enforcement; Section III - Enforcement and Intelligence; Section IV - Intelligence and Communications; Section V - Communications and Security; Section VI - Security and Personnel.

The two men took the Section I elevator and it sped them straight to the top floor. Here they stepped out into a wide corridor lined with steel doors cleverly laminated to look like oak. They walked to the far end, passing men and women of a dozen nations on the way. Organized as it was to combat international crime and aggression, U.N.C.L.E. was intentionally a multi-raced group. With headquarters subdivisions in all the large cities of the world, its operations were unhampered by international borders.

They paused in front of the last door. They did not knock or ring a bell. Neither was necessary. Electronic guards scanned them, checked their every detail with computerized memory banks, and then automatically opened the door.

Alexander Waverly looked up as his two top operatives entered. He rose to offer them his hand, a smile on his face.

The U.N.C.L.E. operations chief was a man past middle age. His hair was iron gray and his strong face was deeply lined. Yet he did not give the appearance of being aged as much as he did being ageless. He had a tweedy look and his voice had a clipped, slightly British accent.

After greeting Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo in a soft voice, Alexander Waverly turned, his attention caught by a red light that flashed on the console that served him for a desk.

“One moment, please,” he said to his visitors.

Waverly punched a button to complete a communications connection. A woman’s voice said, “Mr. Waverly, this is April Dancer in Paris. Mark and I are moving in on the assassins. It is only a matter of time now.”

“Good!” Waverly said. “Please keep me informed, Miss Dancer.”

He cut the trans-Atlantic connection and leaned back in his chair.

“Although Miss Dancer sounds most confident,” he said, “I think that I will send you gentlemen over to help wind up the mess. I -”

He paused, looking at Solo with disfavor. Napoleon had leaned back in his leather chair. He was staring at the floor. Obviously he had not heard a word his chief said.

“Don’t you think that is the wrong thing to do, Mr. Solo?” he said, raising his voice.

“Oh!” Solo jerked erect. “Oh, yes, sir!” he said hastily.

Illya Kuryakin grinned crookedly, obviously enjoying his partner’s confusion.

“Mr. Solo! What has engaged your thoughts more important than the pursuit of these THRUSH assassination groups in Europe?”

Napoleon looked sheepish. “Well sir, it was a rather odd girl. I can’t seem to get her out of my mind. Now before you say the obvious, let me explain.”

He quickly sketched for his chief the odd actions of the girl in Los Angeles.

“Very peculiar,” Waverly said. “I find her resistance to our knockout drug very interesting. I wish you would make a full report to our chemical laboratory about it. Now enough about this girl; we have an extremely important matter to consider.”

“Yes, sir,” Solo said. “If possible, sir, we’d like permission to look into this Marsha Mallon affair when we get back. There is something decidedly curious about her.”

Alexander Waverly’s head jerked up. He shot a hard, suspicious stare at Illya. Kuryakin wondered uneasily what he had done to have such an effect on his chief.

“Marsha - Mallon?” Waverly said, almost accusingly. “In Hollywood?”

“Yes, sir,” Illya said, showing his bewilderment. “She was the girl. Nothing personal, you understand. It’s just impossible for anyone to keep moving after they receive -”

“I am aware of the implication concerning the ineffectiveness of a very important tool in our U.N.C.L.E. protective devices, Mr. Kuryakin. That is of secondary importance now. Is this Marsha Mallon related in any manner to a Fred B. Mallon, who has been identified to me as a movie producer?”

“Yes, sir,” Solo put in. “The police claimed she was his daughter.”

“Is she an actress?”

“No, sir,” Illya said. “I remember the policeman saying that she was trying to make a career in scientific research.”