"Defection. The girl. I don't know the details. The boy and our boy are out, along with the girl. Initials P.H."

"I read you. Go!"

"They're in a restaurant called Pullman Diner in a town on the North Shore called Carbonville. Have Numbers Three, Four, and Five go directly and pick them up. Now!"

"I read you! So do they! We're all tuned in!"

"Change in operation, Mac. No more exchange. Bring back A.S. Stay in communication, all of you—among yourselves, and all of you back to me. Hear?"

"Check! We all hear!"

"I'll keep this thing wide open! Talk, any one of you, whenever you want to!"

"Check!"

Waverly slumped back in his swivel chair, looked up to Sir William. "Before, there was a faint possibility of trouble. Now it's for sure." He reached out, clicked shut the lever on the oblong box, and sighed. "But McNabb's a sturdy old bird. He'll keep the young ones in rein. You and I—even older birds—all we can do is sit and wait."

"Steve?"

"He's out of it now. Safe and sound."

"I thank you, Mr. Waverly."

Waverly grunted, clicked open the lever, and sat slumped in his chair.

13. "Two-Gun McNabb"

OUTSIDE, THE SUN glared hotly. Inside the gray Rolls, Solo was not uncomfortable. He was, in fact, cool. The car was air-conditioned, but not cold. Burrows had adjusted the thermostat after Stanley had reminded him that Solo was not wearing conventional clothes. He was a strange man, this saboteur. Aside from his work—which was exploding places and killing people—he was as kindly and considerate as a devoted grandfather. Once he had even had Burrows stop the car so that he could get a light blanket from the trunk in the rear for Solo's knees. It was as though, in the new circumstances, he was the host. He chatted with Solo, offered cigarettes, even a drink from a bar in the car, courteously; and as courteously Solo refused. The little man sipped brandy and chatted affably. It must have bored the man in front; he touched a button on the dashboard and the dividing window rose up, shutting him off from the two in the rear. He did not once turn his head; Solo's view of Burrows was black hair, the back of a thick, strong neck, and an occasional flash of a rugged profile.

But the view outside the car had changed. The Rolls now sped along a good-surfaced road; the landscape now had trees and bushes and rolling hills and fine houses deeply set in the hills. Once they passed a golf course with brightly dressed men and women at play, trying to escape the oppressive heat.

"Lovely countryside," Stanley said. "So peaceful, slumbering in the summertime. I adore a pleasant countryside. I paint, you know, in my leisure. Oil, mostly landscapes. Quite good, if I may be so immodest as to say; I've had several showings in London galleries."

Solo's eyes were hidden behind his sunglasses; Stanley could not see the amusement that crinkled the corners. "I don't get you," Solo said.

"What is there to get, Mr. Solo?"

"I mean—if I didn't know what you do..."

"One must not judge a man by the work that earns him his keep."

"But your work."

"It is work. One need not love one's own work; one may take pride, but not love. A long time ago, Mr. Solo, I was greatly respected—by respectable people—for just that kind of work. A long time ago, during a shooting war, I was a major in the British service; I was a demolitions expert." He shrugged his thin shoulders. "Quite natural, I would imagine, that peacetime people would gather in a wartime expert." He smiled a melancholy smile. "Expert! The expert failed here quite miserably, didn't he? You told Mr. Burrows I was spotted at the airport. Where at the airport, if I may inquire?"

"Customs."

"But I was only a salesman with a dispatch case that was utterly innocent."

"The dispatch case may have been innocent. But not you."

"But who would know me?"

"UNCLE is efficient, Mr. Stanley."

"We do not underestimate UNCLE, I assure you."

"Had you been as innocent as your dispatch case, you wouldn't have been molested. We would have loved to pluck you out of circulation—whether or not you made any wrongful move—but we don't work like that in this country. Instead, a heavy surveillance was put around you. The room next door to yours was ours, and we were in the lobby, and we were outside in the streets; the taxi that drove you to Liberty Island was ours."

The little man puckered his lips. "Clever, these Americans."

The man up front was talking into the microphone.

This time Burrows received no acknowledgment, but it did not disturb him. Tudor was probably out in the helicopter and the girl out front on the portico as a welcoming committee of one. For that, she would be valuable; psychology had its uses. A blond, shining, cherubic-faced girl did not present an image of a terrorist, an executioner; and it was best to keep this Mr. Solo placid.

Not that he could do any damage with all his lethal little gadgets lying useless in that clearing in the weeds, but it was best to keep him placid because time was of the essence, and UNCLE was not stupid. Certainly they were about—somehow—somewhere—and he, Burrows, was a veteran. Never play down the enemy, always expect the worst. They were somewhere about, but they could not risk, would not dare, an awkward interruption. They had two lives at stake, including one of their own valuable men—he himself would have been sufficient in exchange for Stanley— plus a boy whose death could produce international furor, the son of the British Ambassador to the United Nations.

No, they wouldn't dare; nevertheless, time was of the essence! If it went according to plan it would be over five minutes after their arrival—the concrete room, an accommodating Solo supposedly to be locked in for an hour, the cyanide pellet exploded in the concrete room, the slide-door snapped shut—and the four agents from THRUSH would be off and away in the aircraft and out of the country. All told, no more than five minutes—but keep Mr. Solo placid. A break in the smooth-flowing scheme, a Mr. Solo grown suspicious and balking, the waste of time in scuffling and physical persuasion, gunfire out doors—and the people from UNCLE might swoop in, no matter the risk.

The man up front put away the microphone. The Rolls turned into a wide private pathway of gleaming white pebbles.

"Are we there?" Solo asked Stanley.

"I don't know," Stanley said. "Believe me, I don't know where we're going. They don't tell me everything. I work under orders and try to do my job; that's all." He peered out the window with casual interest.

Solo watched with more than casual interest, sitting up straight now, tense, alert. The pebbled roadway was lined with tall green trees.

The Rolls rode up it perhaps half a mile. Then it stopped at high iron gates in a high picket fence—a black iron fence, high, very high, sharp spokes like knives pointing upward, razor-edge-sharp, malevolently gleaming in the sun shine, cutting, killing long points like the points of gigantic upthrust sabers, protective, forbidding. Beyond the iron gates the white-pebbled roadway continued, curving away.

The motor of the Rolls died to a silence. All was still.

Then Burrows got out, a black automatic pistol in one hand, a huge black key in the other, and stood outside the rear door. Stanley rolled down the window.

"Is this it, Mr. Burrows?"

"Well, what do you think? Out, gentlemen. Yes, this is it, Mr. Stanley."