Solo would have allowed himself to be momentarily overcome by her truly statuesque beauty had he not gotten a glimpse of her slightly slanting green eyes.

That color tipped him off. He scanned his mental files, remembered.

"Vanessa Robin," he said. "The last time I heard about you, it was Ankara. You were THRUSH enforcement officer there." And an infamous killer, he added by way of a mental note. This did nothing to reassure him.

Vanessa Robin stalked up in front of him and peered down at the top of Solo's head. She stood seven feet tall, a beautiful, cold-eyed giantess.

"My," Solo said, "how little girls grow these days."

Vanessa laughed liltingly. "Then you really do remember."

"You were in the five-foot-six vicinity the last time I looked at your dossier."

"How sweet of you to recall! Even more sweet since we've never met!"

"I gather, dear, that Dr. Bauer has been tinkering with your enzymes?"

Vanessa Robin tickled the tip of his nose with her riding crop. "You have seen Klaanger, haven't you?"

"I've had that unpleasant pleasure."

"Then you must know that dear Dr. Bauer's process is a complete success. After all, look what it did for Felix. And for me. I was Dr. Bauer's first experiment, I am proud to say."

Vanessa actually sounded as though she was, which distressed Solo no end. Without that terrible fanatic light in her slanting green eyes, she would have been a highly desirable woman. But the power hunger in her eyes repelled him.

"I am equally proud," she continued, "that I was selected to supervise this station for THRUSH."

Solo could stifle a surprised mmm. "You're in charge here?"

"Completely. Here, my dear Mr. Solo, we shall forge the weapons that will destroy the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement and then allow THRUSH to achieve world domination. We have allied ourselves with these dreadfully single-minded Fourth Reich persons for one reason only—to gain Dr. Bauer's allegiance and his secrets."

Helene bristled. "You needn't be so cynical about it."

"Oh do shut up, Helene," Vanessa said. "You'll all get your sadistic little pieces of cake when the time comes. Solo, you'd be astonished to learn what we've had to promise all their people who are working for us. Positively dreadful things—" Vanessa pretended to be shocked.

"They have some ideas about what to do when we take over the leading governments of the world. Well, I can only say that their ideas of torture make the gas ovens of twenty years ago look humane. But we're all cooperating. Our aim is to build a cadre of the toughest fighters that the world has ever seen.

"Very shortly plane-loads of THRUSH soldiers will be flown in and out of here around the clock. Each man in turn will be treated by Dr. Bauer's process.

"And from this dreary old baronial hall will march an army no other force of men in the world will be able to resist! Tireless. Incredibly strong. with positively frightening resistance to the sapping effects of wounds. I'm afraid U.N.C.L.E.'s time—and the world's—has run out at last."

Solo grimaced. "What am I supposed to do? Applaud before you shoot me?"

Vanessa Robin leaned down close. Solo caught a whiff of the raspberry scent of her bright scarlet lipstick.

Her slanting green eyes loomed above him.

"Dr. Bauer has a little experiment he wants to perform on you, Napoleon Solo."

"I don't think I'd make a good superman."

"Oh, not that kind of experiment."

Dr. Bauer clucked. "We have been seeking a special subject, Herr Solo."

"This particular experiment is new," Helene put in.

"And possibly extremely destructive to human tissue," Bauer said. "We are uncertain. Thus when Fraulein Robin informed me that agents of U.N.C.L.E. were in Munich, attempting to locate General Klaanger—"

"—who is here on the station, by the way," Vanessa told Solo. "He's simply dying to meet you face to face again." She tapped his forehead with her riding crop, teasingly. Solo had to fight an urge to seize her throat and throttle her.

"Felix, the dear impetuous boy, wants us to turn you over to him. He's gotten so strong, he simply loves working over a—guest. But Herr Doktor Bauer needs your corpus much more urgently. This experiment is vital to his program. We don't want to risk one of our own people. So what more natural than to kill the proverbial two birds? We'll prevent you from telling your superiors about our hideaway and plan, and we'll do it by utilizing your person for this experiment."

Dr. Klaus Bauer was now almost literally capering from one foot to the other, dry-washing his hands in a frenzy of scientific eagerness:

"Bitte, can't we proceed—"

"I have two more things to tell Mr. Solo," Vanessa said. "One concerns his friend on this little mission."

Black anger blazed on Solo's face. "Illya? Where is he?"

"Be assured, he is under scrutiny and will soon join you here. If he lives long enough."

The situation had lost every last one of its comical overtones. No longer was Solo even faintly amused by the sight of little Dr. Bauer rolling his eyes behind his thick lenses while his palms went whisper-whisper as he dry-washed them rapidly.

Vanessa Robin, for all her grotesque increase in size since Solo had last studied her description in the files, was a top-flight THRUSH organizer, bright, utterly merciless and completely professional. The plan which she was carrying out here could be just the critical factor which would tip the balance against U.N.C.L.E. the final time.

With U.N.C.L.E. already stretched thin around the world, a sudden onslaught by THRUSH against key U.N.C.L.E. stations could be disastrous. It could remove the last really strong defense which the free world had against the machinations of the supranation.

The road could lie open to complete THRUSH conquest.

Word had to be gotten back to Mr. Waverly somehow. A fleet of bomber planes on a quick sweep could wipe out this viper's nest in an hour, nullify the threat—

But how could that word be gotten back?

From the gleam in the THRUSH woman's green eyes, Napoleon Solo was dismally certain that she was telling the truth about Illya.

"One more thing before we begin," Vanessa whispered. Her lips were fragrant, hovering near his. "I have always heard that you were quite the romantic. I want to find out—"

Vanessa Robin closed her eyes for a kiss.

Before Solo could even respond, a murderous pain erupted in his groin. Vanessa had whipped up her right knee to slam him with agonizing force.

Solo reeled back, flailing and punching. The THRUSH technicians swarmed around him. Vanessa's mocking laughter pealed.

Solo stumbled, got off one powerhouse punch that broke the nose of a squealing technician before the others clambered all over him and bore him to the leather-padded table. They flung him out on his back and strapped him down. Vanessa was still laughing, tears of cruel humor running down her cheeks. Solo cursed, writhed—

Dr. Bauer's face loomed over him, as the scientists checked the bindings.

"What we wish to test, Herr Solo," he said, "is the reversing effects of my ray process. We wish to discover whether the process can also shrink a person's physical stature and reduce his strength. I must warn you that when we conclude this little session, you may be a dwarf with the strength of a two-year old. Or the process may not work at all in reverse. You may simply be dead. Ah, but that's the scientific method, isn't it? Well, I believe everything is in order. Achtung!"