Carrero's voice was quavering with concern. "I came looking for you, Senor. I worried. I thought you would not look right without your butterfly net. I went out and found it for you."

Solo grinned, whispering it. "What you did, was, you saved my life, old friend."

He tried to smile, but knew his face was a bloodied, hideous caricature of smiling.

FIVE

IN THE pressurized Pan-American jet cabin at thirty thousand feet, Napoleon Solo sweated.

He heard people chatting calmly around him. A stewardess tried to engage him in conversation, but he was in too much discomfort to think casually.

He went back over all he had seen, and had not seen, what he'd found and failed to find in that jungle.

He was still kicking it around in his mind when the plane set down at Kennedy airport. He passed through customs, came out on the concourse and hailed a taxi.

The cab driver had just missed making a killing in the market. He told Solo all about it on the ride into Manhattan. He was still explaining the details when Napoleon Solo stepped out of the cab in the east forties.

He walked toward the gleaming structure of the United Nations Building which dominated the neighborhood.

Going down a flight of steps, Solo entered Del Floria's Cleaning' and Tailoring shop, an unprepossessing establishment in the basement of an ordinary-appearing whitestone building in the middle of a long block.

At the rear of the shop, Solo passed through a curtained dressing room; soon he entered the charged atmosphere of United Network Command for Law and Enforcement headquarters.

It was a gleaming place of chrome and steel where men and women moved swiftly.

The building itself quivered with the electronic feelers that reached out from roof and under ground to the farthest crannies of the earth, continuously sending and receiving messages by every known method from carrier pigeon to the highest-secret sound-by-light apparatus.

At the admissions desk the young receptionist pinned an identification tag to Solo's lapel. This tag would be scanned and read and approved by concealed electric eyes every few feet throughout the labyrinth of corridors.

Solo had gone only a few steps when lovely April Dancer came hurrying from one of the many elevators. "Solo." She touched his arm, wincing slightly at the sight of his bruised face. "What did you learn about Don?"

"I'm afraid he's dead," Solo said.

"You look as if you'd met his enemies. I hope they look even worse than you do."

"Afraid it was THRUSH's inning this time, April. But at least I know they were there, even if I don't why, or where they got to."

"You look ready to fall on your face."

Napoleon Solo tried to smile. "Nothing that a little loving care wouldn't improve. How about dinner after I report to Waverly?"

"Afraid I wouldn't be very good company," April said. "Just can't get my mind on pleasure—this dreadful business we're in."

Solo smiled at her. "Man does not live by dread alone, April."

April squeezed his arm. "Why don't you see me after you've talked with Alexander?"

Solo hadn't realized he was still smiling faintly when he faced Alexander Waverly in the Command Room until the chief demanded testily, "What do you find to smile about in a battered face like that?"

Solo wiped away the smile. "No, sir," he agreed. "There's nothing to smile about."

He made a full report of his arrival in San Miguel, his trek into the jungle. "At first I thought the whole thing was insane. There was absolutely no trace of this laboratory that Sayres described in such detail. In fact, the jungle in that spot looked exactly like all the swamp around it."

"Impossible."

"That's what I thought. But I was able to find the general outline of where the lab had stood—less than a week before!"

"Plant life grows lushly in the tropics, Solo," Waverly said. "But nothing like this."

"Nothing like this," Solo agreed. "Plants, vines, trees growing, full height, where a lab had stood a few days earlier. There is some kind of artificial stimulation of growth here, and as far as I can see, this must be behind whatever project THRUSH is working on."

"You're convinced THRUSH is behind this?"

Solo touched gingerly at his bruised face. "Physically I am convinced, sir. THRUSH—or somebody—left three guards at the port shipping warehouse to be sure nobody pried into the shipment of plants and equipment."

"Obviously you pried," Waverly said with a faint smile.

"I have the scars to prove it," Solo said. "But I also have an address. Big Belt, Montana. I could barely locate it on any map. A village in the Big Belt Mountain ranges."

Waverly stood up, smiling crookedly. "I am proud of you, Solo. And I don't often say this to my men. I don't like to spoil them."

"I didn't find out how Sayres and Diego Viero were killed," So lo said. "But somehow, all traces of their body, clothing and equipment were destroyed, as if by some kind of intense heat."

Waverly nodded. "You'll want to be most cautious then."

"Sir?"

"When you arrive in the Big Belt Mountains. Our computers showed an area of disturbance up there. We dispatched Mr. Kuryakin to investigate a short time ago. You will join him at once via jet and copter."

Solo opened his battered mouth to protest—he could barely walk and he was looking forward to a hot shower and a date with April Dancer, in that order—but he was too tired to make the effort. Mr. Waverly was like the umpire in a baseball game. You couldn't win, disputing one of his decisions anyhow.

SIX

ILLYA KURYAKIN stepped off the Greyhound bus into the flat village silence of Big Belt, Montana.

"You're sure this is the place?" he said doubtfully to the driver.

The driver grinned at him. "Leave the driving to us."

"Your driving was all right. I'm worried about your sense of direction," Illya said. He stared along the single hard packed main street, the dusty trees, the aged, wind abrased buildings.

Inside the cafe-bus station, Illya inquired about the four-wheel jeep that had been ordered for him.

The clerk behind the desk didn't even bother looking up. "Afraid that jeep's not ready, sir."

"But we ordered it ready and waiting!" Illya said, annoyed by the villager's apathy.

The clerk shrugged. "Like I said, I'm sorry, mister."

Illya counted a slow ten. He managed a smile. "Where is the jeep?"

"Round the corner there at Mapes' Garage. You can't miss it."

Illya grinned. You couldn't miss anything in this town.

The bus was gone and there were only a few people lounging along Main Street when Illya stepped out on the walk.

He turned right, going past a grocery store, a dress shop toward a bar and the side street.

The gun that fired was not silenced. The rifle cracked and instinctively Illya toppled forward. The bullet sang waspishly past his head.

Illya crawled forward, then sprawled behind the questionable concealment of a rain barrel.

He did not move for a moment. He tried to make sense in his being ambushed. Friendly little town. No wonder U.N.C.L.E.'s computers kept spewing out reports of turbulence in the area, mysterious influx of strangers, sudden unexplained activity.

Cautiously, Illya edged his unruly blond head around the barrel. He stared across the street. A two-storied brick hotel, a window open, a curtain riffling in the breeze. The shot had come from that window, all right.