"I can't help that... Will you let go of my arm -"

"You come across from the estancia that's what, ain't it? Now you know you birds got no business this side of the wire… that's why Macdonald would never let you through at the gates. Either you go through the mountain or you stay outside at the estancia, right?... Now I'm gonna take you right back to the guardroom and we'll see what…"

And suddenly he was on the ground. Illya could not see exactly how it was done - an ankle was placed to one side, a trim hip was thrust out and something expert took place with the arm that had been held up be hind the girl's back - but the result was that the guard, momentarily inattentive as his thoughts ran ahead, found himself flying through the air over Coralie Simone' shoulder.

He landed flat on his back among the grasses. There were lumps of limestone bidden by the tussocks an the force of the impact would have knocked out many men. But this one was tough. He was on his feet almost at once, lips snarled back from discolored teeth, approaching the girl like a wrestler, with outstretched hands.

His mistake was to go on thinking, after the initial surprise, that he could handle the thing himself. Had he blown the whistle that hung around his neck on a chain, that would have been that: a patrol of men would have been down on them within minutes and the girl would have been taken prisoner. But with the arrogance of the true bully, the guard was confident that he could overpower a mere woman.

From behind his screen of oleanders, Kuryakin watched the man and the girl circling each other over the rough ground. He wasn't sure what to do. There was an overhanging branch from a big tree some way down the fence; he could probably swing himself across without disturbing the alarm wire there. Yet there was a risk that the guard might see or hear him on the way to it. And they had to avoid at all costs any attempt to summon help.

In the event, the decision was taken from the Russian's hands. Having had three attempts at grappling with his adversary frustrated by well timed judo grips, the guard began to lose his temper. He leaped at the girl with flailing fists.

Coralie Simone sprang agilely away towards the fence - but as she went, one heel caught in a projection of rock concealed among the grasses and she stumbled backwards. With a growl of triumph, the guard was on her, pinning her arms to her sides in a bear hug and forcing her to the ground. The girl brought one sharp knee up into his stomach as she tried desperately to free her arms. She twisted her head and sank her teeth into the rough material of his sleeve, attempting to bite through the cloth to the muscles of the biceps beneath. She jerked her forehead back and forth trying to butt him in the face.

The man chuckled and spun her around as easily as if her body had been a bale of cotton. As she lay face downwards in the tall grass, he kneeled on the backs of her thighs and seized the collar of her jacket in both hands. The green stuff ripped up the back seam as be yanked with all his strength and the garment came away from her in two pieces.

As he grunted in triumph and in amusement, his eyes looked through the wire strands of the fence and met the glittering stare of Kuryakin concealed among the leaves on the other side.

Before the round O of his mouth could utter the cry of astonishment it was framing, the agent's forefinger had tightened on the trigger of the miniature automatic in his hand. The weapon - it looked no more dangerous than a gadget cigarette lighter - emitted a staccato chock and the guard keeled over backwards. As he crashed down among the grasses, the girl got shakily to her feet.

"You!" she said, seeing Kuryakin. "What are you doing here?... I suppose I ought to thank you, though I could have bandied him perfectly well myself. Even so…" She looked dubiously down at the fallen guard.

"Do not worry," Illya said. "I dislike violence and I never kill unnecessarily. It was just what we call a sleep dart; he will be hors de combat for an hour, that's all. So far as thanks go, I think I deserve them.. considering that I still have a headache from our last meeting."

Coralie Simone blushed. "I'm sorry about that," she said, "but I wanted to make sure you didn't follow me here."

"You could have saved yourself the trouble, as you see. Why not?"

"Because I have an investigation to carry out and don't like snoopers. You wouldn't say who you were."

"So have I and neither would you. But before we start quarreling again let us deal with this man - otherwise both our investigations will fail." He rose to his feet, made his way to the tree with the overhanging brand and worked his way along it until he could drop safely to the ground on the far side of the fence.

"The sleep dart will take care of this specimen for an hour," he said as he came up to the girl and the recumbent guard. "But I need him to be out of the way for at least two - so that he cannot possibly raise an alarm until I'm well away. If only I knew how often he is supposed -"

"He patrols a five hundred yard sector of the fence," the girl said crisply. "I've been checking. He doesn't have to make contact - or not necessarily - with the men on either side. There is no overlapping. And he isn't due for relief for another three hours."

"So he's just possibly not going to be missed?"

"Exactly. We are more than a hundred and fifty yards from the nearest adjoining sector."

The agent was rolling the unconscious guard over onto his face. "Okay," he said. "So if we take off his belt… so… and strap his arms to his sides… like this... and lash his wrists together with his tie… we should be able to prolong his period of forced inactivity beyond the hour given to us by the dart. Now what about his knees, his ankles, and some sort of gag?"

"You could use this," the girl said doubtfully. "It's of no further use to me now." She was holding up the two torn halves of her jacket.

Kuryakin took the green tatters from her. He ripped a back panel into three sections, binding the guard's ankles with one, his knees with another, and using the third to tie into place a wadded handkerchief which he rammed into the man's open mouth. "That should keep him out of the way until they start to look for him when he doesn't report at the end of his shift," he murmured as they dragged the bound and gagged man into the shelter of a thorn bush. "Now what about you, young. Aha!"

"What is it, Sherlock Holmes?"

The agent was looking at the remaining half of the D.A.M.E.S. jacket which he held in his hands. Below the torn collar a name tape, shiny with continued use, slightly soiled from contact with other clothes, was neatly sewn. On the pale ribbon, red letters spelled out C. SIMONE.

"Unless your principals specialize in detail work more perfect than any used by the world's intelligence services," Illya said slowly, "this is an old jacket that's been worn a lot. It really is your own garment - not a cover disguise. You really do work for the D.A.M.E.S."

"Of course I do," the girl said impatiently. "I work for the Special Investigation section. Lots of our girls come from very particular families and we have to take special care about conditions and so on when we send teams abroad. We're always having to make inquiries about one thing or another - and of course when we find people pretending to be D.A.M.E.S. when they're not, then naturally the Committee wants to find out why."

"But why didn't you say so? It would have saved so much -"