He unlocked his door, switched on the lights in his room and checked his personal "signposts" to make sure it had not been searched in his absence.

Dropping the ridiculous coolie's head on a settee, he dragged off his jacket and strode through to the bathroom to switch on the taps.

"This absurdly large perforated thing is a silencer," the girl said. She was sitting on the edge of the tub. "The gun behind it is small. It's a Berretta, and unless you shoot terribly accurately, you haven't a hope in hell of stopping a man with one. The only thing is - I'm afraid I do shoot terribly accurately."

She rose swiftly to her feet. "Now - into the other room, if you please," she said briskly. "There are one or two questions I want to ask you..."

Chapter 7

Trespassers Will Be Liquidated

ILLYA KURYAKIN slumped into an easy chair, sighed, and broke open a pack of cigarettes. "Look, I don't know who you are..." he began.

"Put that down," the girl rapped. "I've seen that one before: the first cigarette to come out of that pack is a bolt of metal, painted white. It comes out fast, because there is a powerful spring inside the pack - and it hits me right between the eyes. By the time I've recovered consciousness, you have the gun."

The agent shrugged and tossed the pack onto the bed. There were unusual glints of copper in the mass of dark hair, he saw in the bright lights of the hotel room, and the face was even more rakish and thoroughbred than he had thought

"All right," the girl was saying, "we'll have your hands lying along the arms of the chair if you please… that's it… and now perhaps you'll tell me just exactly who you are and what you're doing here."

"Surely we have the roles reversed?" Kuryakin murmured. "Those are my lines you are saying."

The girl tossed her head impatiently. "I lose my temper easily," she warned, "and a slug from a Berretta can be very painful - through the ear or a wrist, for example."

"Oh, come now," the Russian said easily, leaning forward to rise from the chair. "You know very well you wouldn't use that thing, even if it is silenced."

He dropped abruptly back into his seat. He had seen the almost imperceptible whitening of the knuckle as the girl put the first pressure on the trigger. "So-ho," he said softly. "We really would have used it, would we? Or else we know enough to bluff - knowing also that a professional couldn't afford to take a chance on it."

"All right, all right," the girl said. "So you read the sign, which told me what I wanted to know too; so let's just assume we're both professionals shall we, and go on from there?... I repeat: Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"My dear young lady, there is no secret about that: you could have found out simply by coming up to me and asking. There was no need for all the melodrama."

"I'm waiting."

"My name is Illya Kuryakin; I live in New York; and I am in Rio looking for a friend who has disappeared."

"What was his name and what was he doing here?"

"His name is Williams, I hope. He was investigating something for some friends of mine."

"Investigating what?"

"I'm sorry, but I do not think that is any of your business."

"That's just where you're wrong," the girl said. "It is just that which makes it my business. For these friends of yours on whose behalf the so-called Mr. Williams was investigating are actually friends of mine - and they have never heard of Mr. Williams!"

"Friends of yours?" the Russian echoed. "You're working for the D.A.M.E.S.? But this is ridiculous!"

"I did not say I was working for the Daughters of America Missionary Emergency Service. Your Mr. Williams affected to be doing that: he went all over, asking questions and searching around, claiming to be a lawyer briefed by the organization. This was not true; nor is there a New York lawyer named Williams with his particular description. Naturally enough, therefore, there are a number of interested parties wanting to find out what gives.

"I see. And you represent which one of them?"

"So, to begin with," the girl said, ignoring, his questions, "I ask you once more: Who sent you here? And who sent Williams?"

"The same people."

"Thank you very much. And there's no use pretending to be a member of the C.I.A., the Brazilian counter intelligence service, or any special branch of the Rio police. I have friends in many places arid I have checked them all."

"I wouldn't presume," Kuryakin said. "I wasn't aware that this matter impinged in any way on espionage… Look, a man has disappeared. I'm trying to find him. That's all."

"Are you working for any American organization?"

"No."

"Any Brazilian organization?"

"No."

"Any underworld group? Any international organization?"

"I told you. I'm hired. To find a man. The hirers are clients and their identity is privileged information. You know that."

"I'm not a policewomen. I have a gun on you. I don't have to observe the niceties of legal protocol. You're a private detective?"

Illya glanced over the girl's shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "All right, Petersen," he said. "Don't hurt her - just take the gun."

The weapon remained steady as the girl said evenly, "The French windows are locked. The catch makes quite a noise when it is operated. The balcony is nine floors up. There is no drainpipe, no fire escape connecting with it, and no way of reaching it from the neighboring rooms... Do you think I'd sit here with my back to the windows if I hadn't checked all this, for God's sake? I thought we agreed to consider each other professionals."

"My apologies for underestimating both your training and your intelligence," Illya said dryly. "What is your name?"

"Coralie Simone, if it matters. Don't you ever smile?"

"Only when something amuses me. Don't you?"

"I'm too busy to notice. Now… once more: Who hired you?"

"An organization calling itself Thrush," the agent said blandly.

"I never heard of it. What's that?"

"A syndicate of powerful and ruthless men dedicated to the overthrow of all legal government and the eventual despotism of the world."

"I don't believe you."

"Don't believe what - that there is such an organization, or that I am hired by it?"

"I don't believe either of them."

"Well, I've heard of candor," Kuryakin said, "but this really is something..."

Although the affair of the windows had not fooled the girl into turning around - he hadn't thought it would - the subsequent exchange had sufficiently diverted and held her attention for him to do what he wanted to. He was sitting fairly well forward in the chair, his forearms lying along its padded arms. The chair, he knew, ran very easily on its castors across the tiled floor. Imperceptibly as he had talked and held her eyes with his own, he bad drawn his feet back under him and edged his hands forward so that the fingers now dropped over the front ends of the chair arms. His center of gravity now should be such that, if the chair was suddenly removed from under him, be could stay in the same squatted position and not fall over. He flexed his muscles experimentally. Yes. He could make it.