They ignored the dormitory of sleeping girls and the separate rooms of the unconscious overseer women, although they first checked on these females. But they wasted no time on them.

Mark said: "Quick and rough. We've no time to tangle if we can help it. H.Q. has to have this stuff as soon as we can rush it to them."

They were three very experienced wreckers. Files were blown open, contents packed into a few handy-sized boxes which once held banknote paper. They took samples of this and rammed the rest in the basement furnace. Samples of inks and the plates were carefully packed, telephone wires, radar and TV sets and cables wrecked beyond any chance of repair.

The press was a superb piece of machinery controlled by a small computer. Count Kazan complained:

"A beautiful sculpture, the sculptured beauty of a woman, and a beautifully created machine—to me they are all God's work, my friends. It makes me sad to have to destroy this. Did you ever see such perfection of design? Swiss, of course. Where else can you get such craftsmanship? And the computer—American, naturally. Who else could produce such an electronic marvel? Now—we place a small explosive charge here, and here, and there. We insert this metal bar and rip apart the frame and carrier. Mark Slate deguts the computer, crushing its tiny contacts underfoot. Soon it will all be gone—pouff!"

"And pouff to you too!" said Mark. "Set that charge and let's go."

"I need violence," said Kazan. "I want to crush and kill the men who made this necessary. Let us await the men and smash them too."

"They'll be smashed," said Mark. "We've no time to stay and be heroes. Maybe your H.Q. will send you in with the clean-up detail. Right?"

Count Kazan shrugged. "It is right."

"Charge set," said Sama Paru. "All the boxes are out side. How much time have we got?"

Kazan checked his watch. "Nearly an hour."

Mark took the wires they had rigged from cable found in the basement. "Let's go." He thrust a wire through one window, let it trail, put the other through the next window.

In the compound he gathered one in each hand. They crouched below window level. Mark touched the wires together.

The blast blew out the window with such force that the shattered pieces went clear beyond them.

Mark stood up and peered inside.

Count Kazan said: "An efficient wrecking job."

Mark nodded. "Well judged. Hasn't brought even a spot of plaster off the ceiling. The ladies sleep undisturbed."

Sama Paru said: "I have my choice of sleeping beauties and all I do is run away. This is a hard life!"

Mark pulled out his U.N.C.L.E. communicator. "This is Mark Slate. Channel D. Hear me! Mark Slate from France. Hear this!"

When he had concluded his report, they gathered up the boxes, collected Count Kazan's suit from the bush, and were surprised to see the donkey waiting for them as they came hurrying from the trees.

"Oh, no!" Kazan wailed. "This is too much! I will never live it down!" He refused to ride on the beast although Sama offered to walk. Instead, he ran with the donkey all the way to the farm.

"A man's dignity," said Count Kazan, "is like a woman's virginity—you either have it or you don't. There is no compromise."

CHAPTER NINE: OPERATION PHAGOCYTE

"GIBBERISH," said Mr. Waverly in his office at New York headquarters, "is for the gibberers. A report containing enough figures of formula construction to fill three text books is extraordinary clever and I hope somebody receives a great deal of money for it." He tapped his pipe-stem on a folder in front of him. "Our French-based scientists excelled themselves. So have their American colleagues who, in words we not only can understand but act upon, have translated, condensed, extracted, collated the French and English reports and come up with the following."

He peered across the console at April Dancer and Mark Slate.

"Pardon me for overlooking the courtesy, but did you both enjoy your holiday in England?"

April and Mark exchanged glances. April sighed gently.

"Delightful, thank you, Mr. Waverly."

Mark murmured: "How kind of you to ask! We had a wonderful two hours!"

"So glad, so glad. Now..." He began filling another pipe. "Salient facts: K.S.R.6 is undoubtedly a fluid designed to attack all known banknote paper and has an affinity with the dyes and inks used in such printing processes. It will penetrate all clothing, leather, etcetera, and, as an invisible vapor, will or can enter bank vaults, locked safes, cash boxes—and junior's piggy bank.

"This chemical has been isolated." He glanced across at them. "A delightfully ambiguous phrase, is it not? It is the experts' way of saying, 'We have an idea what it may be, but not one hope in the hereafter of saying exactly what it is, although we know the group to which it belongs'. In other words—somebody is a lot cleverer than we are, so please catch him before he makes monkeys out of us.

"I think they took fourteen pages to say that. But the results of their dispersal tests are more to the point. After all, our concern is: how, when and where. We know why. Globules of K.S.R.6, when fired into natural rainfall, or under misty or foggy conditions, become suspended in the water. They are not washed away. The actual K.S.R.6 becomes activated when the water dries out. This activation takes the form of an invisible vapor against which only a metal-like material is effective.

"This material is a mixture of fiberglass, exploded chrome dust and a bonding agent. The dresses and suits bear no stitching. They are hot to wear although very light, but a gadget for conditioning the apparel is used when it is to be worn for any length of time. It is not possible to make this material within the foreseeable future unless the original formula is discovered. As in the formula for K.S.R.6, it is not the ingredients which confuse us but the method of manufacture.

"A later report after further tests shows that K.S.R.6 can be dispersed in chain-reaction globules in dry conditions. These will dowse a given area with concentrated spray as they burst. In these conditions, the K.S.R must be dispersed under pressure not less than six feet, not more than forty feet from ground level. Fast-moving machines, such as small motor bikes, would be ideal because pressure of air against the globules as they are released from the nozzle of a pressurized container would give maximum effect."

"More so with cars?" Mark asked.

"I thought that, but it appears not to be so. There is an aerodynamic effect caused by a car's shape which would possibly sweep them upward, thus causing much wastage of the globules. It would be most helpful if this brilliant invention could be used only by massive equipment, or even large pop-guns—anything that is different.

"Unfortunately the objects which can be adapted for use as dispersal units for K.S.R.6 are things we see all around us in every street and shop. Miss Dancer's report on the test items she discovered in the house on Dartmoor gives good examples: such as street signs, lamp posts, awning, barbers' pole signs. In fact, almost anything can be adapted, even personal sprays, such as aerosol cans labeled Fly Killer, Hair Lacquer, etcetera.

"You will see that even though we may cover every street and shop in every town, we cannot hope to trace and destroy dispersal units. And a comparatively small number of people could fix these units. We should need the Army, Navy, Air Force, and every Boy Scout in the Universe to discover them."