His fingers closed around his pistol-butt. "I think we've gotten a delivery of the wrong kind of gas—Illya!" He called it out sharply and dragged his pistol free.

The two attendants handling the cart gave it a jerk. The cylinder tipped. The first attendant jumped to catch it. He pressed the cylinder's wall. A small panel sprang open. The man reached in, twisted a lever. Pinkish colored gas that smelled of cinnamon began to spray from the nozzle-holes in the cap.

All this took barely seconds. At the same time the cart handlers whipped the cart around, gave it a shove at Solo and let go.

The heavy metal caught him in the shins, knocking him off balance. Solo had to wrench and twist hard to keep from falling against the bed. Other men in green jumpers and masks clogged the doorway. The three regular physicians stumbled over themselves in confusion.

"A THRUSH infiltration team, Mr. Waverly," Illya barked. "Get down!"

One of the attendants by the tank had drawn a gun. Twisting and still off balance, Napoleon Solo got a shot away. It made a flat, popping sound. The man jerked up on his heels and fell forward, his face passing through the cloud of pinkish gas beginning to envelop that side of the room.

As soon as the man got a substantial whiff of the stuff, his cheeks began to blacken. He slammed down on the floor, dead.

The trio of regular doctors had crouched down behind the bed. Three more green-jumpered killers were in the room, making a total of five Thrushmen on the scene. Every one had a pistol out.

Illya Kuryakin rolled prone under the bed, and fired at a pair of legs against the far wall. Another Thrushman went down.

Mr. Waverly had sought cover behind a heavy metal bureau. The pinkish gas was spreading rapidly. Solo was already a trifle dizzy. He dodged back away from it. The cinnamon tang was tantalizingly, seductively pleasant. Another of the THRUSH killers craned around the end of the bed. Aiming, he accidentally inhaled a draught of the pink cloud.

The man's eyes bulged. His tongue shot out as though it were on a spring.

His cheeks darkened and he sprawled and died.

Napoleon Solo was aware of his vulnerability in trying to crouch and fire in the open. His only advantage was the dimness of the room. A THRUSH man by the door shot at him. The bullet bit a hole in the metal bed post near Solo's head. On one knee Solo squeezed his trigger. Hit, the THRUSH agent went spilling backwards into the hall, knocking over his companion.

As the second man struggled to fight his way out from underneath the corpse, Illya darted over to the door. He shot the floundering man three times.

In the corridor alarm bells bonged. Footsteps slapped. A nurse shrieked suddenly. It was a nightmare fight, the pistols popping with a ghastly softness. Solo peered up over the end of the bed, through the tenting. Something glittered on the other side—glittered and came flashing and slashing down at the thin polyethylene guarding Shelley's life.

Solo flung himself forward on his belly. He skidded past the end of the bed, rolled on his right side and fired to his left all in one swift moment.

He missed.

The first attendant, mask fallen off to reveal a florid Middle European face, had the knife. He meant to slash the tent so that the pinkish gas could creep in. The gas was settling. Solo only had a foot or two of air space in which to breathe as he got off his second shot.

The attendant's skin was blackening from the neck upward. But he was frantically determined to score with the blade. Solo's shot spun him halfway around.

Still the man's knife arm refused to go limp. The shining tip of the weapon flirted toward the polyethylene, driven by a spasm of the dying man's will. Through the pinkish gas Solo aimed at the bridge of the man's nose and pulled the trigger.

The knife tip was less than an inch from the plastic shroud as the bullet drove up into the THRUSH assassin's skull and drove him back against the wall.

Two of the doctors had stumbled to their feet. Mr. Waverly was shouting, "Get Shelley out of here at once!"

"It's too risky to lift him," one of the doctors exclaimed.

"Clear the hall out there!" Solo yelled, gesturing. He had a football-shaped pellet in his hand. He flung it at the corridor wall, ducked.

There was a shattering rap of sound, a burst of fire and more smoke, this time whitish. But half the corridor wall had dissolved in to a mess of lath and plaster. There was now an opening large enough to roll Dr. Shelley's entire bed through.

With Illya and Mr. Waverly and Solo and the doctors all working at it, they got the bed out and rolling along the corridor to the elevator. By that time virtually half the hospital staff had arrived.

Solo shook his head to clear it. Then he and Illya began issuing rapid orders.

Because the pinkish gas traveled slowly, they were able to evacuate the entire floor successfully. Patients were wheeled or helped into the huge elevators. Then the fire doors at either end were sealed.

Dr. Artemus Shelley was still alive and apparently had been done no further injury, according to the doctors who checked him over on the next floor below.

The U.N.C.L.E. chemical counteraction squad summoned by Mr. Waverly slipped up the fire stairs like so many glass-faced, asbestos-suited ghosts, to damp the cylinder of lethal gas.

FOUR

THE NAME of the club was The Rocker Shop, though there were no patrons present who could classify as rockers by virtue of leather apparel, hostile sneers, or tire chains at the ready.

An executive at London HO had recommended it as an excellent place for a mixed grille and a few ales, if you could stand the floor show. This consisted of an unending sequence of music hall turns. The acts appeared on a tiny stage.

A brittle flow of Establishment talk clipped back and forth in the air over the tiny tables. The only illumination in the smoky hole came from a few weak bar lights, from the baby spots aimed at the stage, and from electric candles inside tinny holders on each table. Napoleon Solo forgot to applaud as a juggler gave way to a howling, electrified teenage musical group.

A sign at the side of the stage announced the group as The Costermongers. None of the well-groomed, upper-class guests paid much attention. Solo downed some more ale, then pushed aside the remains of his mixed grille. He eyed the crowd.

"Solo in Soho. With you instead of that shopgirl. What a come down."

Illya rolled up his napkin. "Hold your temper, Napoleon. Our uncle from New York sent us out to think after we got our bellies comfortably full, not to entertain ourselves. Do you feel the same way I do?"

"How's that?" Solo asked as The Costermongers howled and twanged away ferociously.

"Not in the least eager to conduct strategy talks, for the simple reason that I am completely out of ideas about our next move."

"You're not the only one. About the only thing we can do is visit Shelley's lab in Golder's Green to night. According to the doctors, Shelley isn't going to be able to stand the shock of another revival for at least twenty-four hours. I have the unpleasant feeling that while we spin our wheels, THRUSH is gaining ground."

Illya stared rather apathetically into his water glass. "Sad but true. Well—as long as we're on expense account, perhaps I'll break my habit and indulge myself." He rose. "Excuse me, Napoleon. I'm going to try to locate a one dollar cigar. While I'm gone, try to think about Project Ahab. Come up with some thing original."

"Go get yourself a Beatle cut," said his friend with some distemper.

"But I already have one."