Captain Ahab's voice was thick with derision. Solo slashed his free hand across his brow to clear the sweat from his eyes. He made an effort to move his right leg, then his left.

His boots were locked tight to the floor.

Still he clutched the explosive capsule, hesitating.

"The pseudo-heroics of you U.N.C.L.E. people nauseate me," Ahab said, scowling.

Illya's lips were white. "Still, Commander, we can destroy you if we choose."

Ahab reached off screen. He picked up what appeared to be a canned sardine, tipped his head back and ingested the morsel in a gulp. "Ah, Kuryakin, of course you can. But I do not believe you will. First, there is your natural instinct for self-preservation. Second, and more important, I am sure both you and Mr. Solo are intensely curious as to why we allowed you to penetrate this project base to this point.

"After all, we were reasonably certain as to who you were the moment you passed the Castle entrance booth. We have been monitoring you with concealed audio and video pickups every step of the way. We deliberately cleared the sub pen of personnel so that you would come aboard. Don't you wonder why?"

He made a flashy gesture to emphasize his rhetorical question, went on: "Of course you do! And the only way in which you can both find out is for you, Mr. Solo, to put down that wretched bomb and join me in my quarters."

Solo's fingers were slippery with perspiration. One toss of the explosive cap and that would be it. But Ahab had damnably piqued his curiosity.

Swallowing, hoping blindly that somehow he and Illya would eventually be able to negotiate a way out of this trap, Solo closed thumb and index finger around the gelcap and extended his arm to the nearest seaman.

"You win, Ahab. Your magnets and your psychology are too much."

The seaman slid his palm under Napoleon Solo's hand. Solo opened his fingers. The gelcap dropped. The other THRUSH sailors in the chamber exhaled with relief.

Solo felt the tingling stop beneath his feet. He discovered he could move his legs. Overhead feet pounded again. Men bawled orders.

"Naturally we are superior to you, Mr. Solo," Ahab said, jovial now. "For too many years, THRUSH has operated from a position of weakness. But we were bound to succeed. Our secret—THRUSH's secret, if you will—is simply this." Commander Ahab beetled his brows in a caricature of confidence. "We're only number two, Mr. Solo. We try harder."

Commander Ahab barked a command. Seamen swarmed around the pair of U.N.C.L.E. agents and marched them to the forward bulkhead. They were led through complex instrument control rooms jammed with other THRUSH sailors, who had been lurking quietly aboard while the trap was sprung.

By the time they were ushered into Commander Ahab's personal quarters at the bow of the monster submarine, a rumble of power through the hull told Illya and Solo that their fortunes had just taken another dive.

The Moby Dick was putting out to sea.

ACT Ill

A DROWNING DAY FOR LONDON TOWN

COMMANDER VICTOR Ahab poised the ladle over the gleaming solid silver tureen.

"More lobster Newburg, Mr. Solo?"

Napoleon Solo suppressed a shudder. He was seated opposite Commander Ahab at a good-sized dining table in the latter's quarters. To his right, Illya slouched in a chair, most of his food left untasted.

Solo felt wretched. He and Illya had been jammed into small cells overnight, unable to talk to each other, alone with their thoughts while the atomic engines of the Moby Dick thrummed all around them. Solo had finally managed to drift off to sleep around five in the morning. He was wakened forty- five minutes later by a siren he was sure Ahab had turned on for the sole purpose of fraying his nerves even more.

He'd been given no soap, no chance to shave. His skin felt grubby. His beard was sprouting. Commander Ahab, by contrast, was freshly tonsured, smartly attired in a white naval dress uniform with a cluster of gaudy THRUSH ribbons on the left bosom. He presided cheerfully over the breakfast table to which the U.N.C.L.E. agents had been led by guards.

"I don't think our friends care for our hospitality." said the fourth guest at the table.

"Alas, no, Cleo my sweet," said Commander Ahab, attacking a lobster claw with stainless steel crackers.

Miss Cleo St. Cloud looked quite attractive in tight-fitting gold lamé slacks and blouse. She was smoking a cigarette in a long holder and watching the captives with amusement.

Cleo sat with her back toward the sharp angle formed by the bow-plates of the gigantic sub. Looking past her shining blonde head, Solo could see two of those large, dark green viewports which revealed the churning darkness of the ocean. It was morning, but the sub was evidently so far down that sunlight could not penetrate.

"Surely you will have a spot of breakfast juice at least, Mr. Kuryakin?" Ahab asked.

Illya cocked a sour eye at a pitcher of clam broth. "I eat nothing but peanut butter and jelly in the morning, thanks all the same."

Cleo exhaled smoke. "I'd eat hearty, darlings. Especially you, Mr. Solo. Ahab has a little task in store for you this morning."

Ahab got up, wiping his lips with an oversized white napkin. He went to a chart table and consulted a large map.

"That's quite correct, Mr. Solo. We should be reaching our rendezvous point within ten minutes." He turned, rubbing his pudgy hands together. "And then—the beginning of the end for the enemies of THRUSH."

Pushing his chair back, Solo stood up, stretched. A seaman stationed near the bulkhead lifted his short-muzzled power rifle to firing position. Irritably, Solo waved him away, walked to the forward viewports. A pearl-gray fish of unusual size nosed up on the other side. It regarded Solo with a sorrowful eye, then flicked its tail and shot out of sight.

Solo said: "I don't want any fried shrimp, stewed oysters or diced eel, Ahab. But I would like some in formation."

Commander Ahab stroked his beard. "I suppose that would be in order. Appreciating the totality of our plan will heighten your feeling of dismay as we carry it out. Very well. Ask."

"First of all—" Solo gestured to the foaming sea outside "—where are we?"

"Somewhere under the North Atlantic. Exactly where needn't trouble you. Next question?" said Commander Ahab.

"What's the reason behind this elaborate floating cigar?"

Ahab chortled. "Floating cigar indeed! The Moby Dick has been in construction for better than three years. It is a mobile operations base from which we shall put to use certain principles of oceanographic knowledge discovered and applied by various members of the THRUSH research wing.

"Poor Dr. Shelley, by the way, apparently had done some research along parallel lines, and had also collected scraps of data which made him suspect that we were going in the same general direction. Our preliminary tests couldn't be carried out in complete secrecy, you know. We did disturb the ocean here and there. At any rate, we have perfected a means to quickly and drastically alter major ocean currents. When explosive charges are placed at the proper depths and positions on the ocean floor, and exploded simultaneously, the result is the instantaneous creation of tidal waves of staggering size and destructive power.

"The one we sent in a vain at tempt to rescue Naglesmith—he was supposed to rendezvous with the Moby Dick, you see—was an infant compared to the one we are preparing now."

Ahab's manner was easy and conversational but his eyes were full of the bright, fanatic glitter of the dedicated THRUSH officer determined to attack civilization at its foundations, and destroy it.