THE ASSASSINATION AFFAIR

NAPOLEON SOLO came down the dilapidated stairway slowly, hearing the tired pad of Illya Kuryakin's feet following behind him. He glanced at his watch. Four-thirty. Four-thirty, and they still weren't finished with this dismal legwork. His feet were finished. Hot and aching, they screamed for a rest, and his calves and thighs cried for an end to stair climbing. But Alexander Waverly had handed out the lists of businesses to investigate, and that was that.

Solo stopped at the foot of the stairs and leaned against the drab, plastered wall, as Illya negotiated the last few steps. Solo was a young man, of average height, his highly trim and fit body exuding a vitality that verged on magnetism. His eyes challenged the candid handsomeness of his face by looking at the world with the gleam of a rogue. "Playboy," strangers might peg him, or "Jet-set bachelor," unaware that his carefully tailored suit-coat concealed a deadly pistol, that his body was fit not because of tennis but from unarmed combat practice, and that his smile didn't always mean what it said. In reality, Napoleon Solo was no casual man-about-town, but Chief Enforcement Agent of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement

Illya Kuryakin was an inverted image of Solo. Blond and blue-eyed, with his yellow hair cut in a "non-cut," he gazed at the world somberly, absorbing the humor of what he saw without acknowledgment, keeping his intellect and personality introverted to the point where it hit subliminally. He was small, but immensely strong; Slavic and stoic; and his associates guessed he played the brooding gypsy purposefully to throw them off the track of his true emotions.

"Heads up," Illya said. "Every one down stays down. We don't have to retrace any steps."

"I must be out of condition," Solo sighed, knowing it wasn't true, but wanting to gripe. "Three days of walking the cement of this town - I still say it's a waste!"

Illya's blue eyes agreed, but he didn't voice it. "You must allow Mr. Waverly his flights of humor. If he wants us to pound the pavement searching for someone who has seen a mysterious man, then we pound the pavement."

"Rule number one - Waverly is boss. Right."

"But you think it's beneath your dignity," Illya prodded.

"I can tell you, it's beneath the dignity of my feet." Solo pushed away from the wall. "Well - What have we accomplished today?"

Illya reached inside his black jacket and pulled out the notebook that contained the list. A quick count, and he recited, "We've investigated twenty places. All with no result. We have eight left to go."

"And the next one? By foot? Or, hopefully, taxi?"

"Foot. It's only five blocks."

"Okay." Solo straightened his coat, resigned to the five block walk, another narrow flight of stairs, another confused office girl, and another blank. "Maybe by tomorrow something big will have popped up so we can get out of the gum-shoe business and back into the action." He glanced around the small landing, decided it was deserted enough, and reached for his pen communicator. "Before we ruin our dispositions anymore, I'll check with Headquarters to see if it's necessary."

Illya smiled a tiny smile and took his turn relaxing against the wall as Solo spoke into the transceiver. "Open Channel D, please."

A girl's voice answered his sibilantly, "Channel D is open, Mr. Solo."

"Thanks for recognizing me, dear. Now - and you'd better say yes - has anyone had any luck? We haven't."

"It's the same all around," the girl answered. "Nothing has turned up. We're beginning to think this Mr. Dundee you're trying to track is really a ghost and doesn't exist except in someone's addled mind."

"Don't knock it," Solo told her. "At least ghost chasing offers some exciting possibilities."

Her voice came back intimately. "You poor thing. Do your feet hurt?"

Solo smiled at her tone, envisioning her, a lovely among lovelies, and definitely alone in the Communications Room. Otherwise she wouldn't have dared make small talk over the channel. "Do you know a good remedy for aches and pains?"

"Just try me, Napoleon. I'm the girl with all the remedies. But if you want in on them, first rule is that it must be evening, with a big moon, and -" Her voice broke off, he heard her cough self-consciously, and when she came back her tone was businesslike. "Your orders, Mr. Solo, are to complete your list and come back here to compare notes."

"Right. But it's a long list."

"Then get busy, Mr. Solo."

The communicator closed off and Solo put it in his pocket. Illya stepped away from the wall where he had been listening to the conversation with his usual imperturbable stare. "You're going to get one of those girls a reprimand some day, Napoleon."

"Mr. Waverly won't be hard on them. He'll know whose fault it is. Now - lead the way, friend. The ghost of Mr. Dundee awaits us." As they started out of the building he added, "I had a date to go dancing tonight, but I think I'll arrange to sit the evening out."

They emerged from the dark hall into a bright day. Little traffic moved and the sun shone dully, reflecting in streaks on the store-fronts. The building they came from housed a men's clothing store on the ground floor, but there were few pedestrians to window-shop. Solo stopped to do just that, his practiced eye scanning the falls of ties and oddments on display. Illya went on a few yards before he stopped to wait impatiently.

The comparative quiet of the little-used street was shattered by the howl of rubber tires taking the corner with a burn of blue smoke, and the roar of a powerful engine. Solo spun around to see a great black Cadillac, old model, struggling to steady itself on four wheels as it thundered down the pavement. It was upon him before he had time to refocus his eyes, the tires yelping as the brakes were crushed by some heavy foot. But he saw the back window. It was open, and sticking from it in a deadly threat was the snout of a machine gun. There were eyes glinting behind the gun, but Solo had no time to identify them as the gun leaped into orange fire and sprayed death at him.

Solo dimly heard the cries and running steps of the pedestrians as he fell to one knee, yanking out his U.N.C.L.E. Special to return the fire. Glass split and jangled to the sidewalk from the display window behind him, but he ignored the impact of it, trying to hold steady for a decent shot. A tire. A gas tank.

The Cadillac sped ahead full tilt, careening, and his one reflexive round missed. The car swept by the place where Illya stood startled, and its brakes breathed blue smoke again, its gears ground into reverse, and it catapulted itself up the street on a suicidal backwards course. It passed Illya by, coming on for Solo.

Solo sprang up and hurled himself into the shelter of the doorway, drawing a bead to meet the car as it came across his sights. It came too fast, the machine gun spraying lead, and he had no time for return fire. He counted a fast three and ran onto the sidewalk, but the car was backtracking across the corner intersection. It howled as it shifted gears, made a roaring U-turn, and sped away.

Solo stood on the sidewalk, frustrated. It had been too fast. And too close. The aches had been driven from his body by adrenalin, but the adrenalin just sat in his blood, making his hands shake. He holstered his gun and brushed the glass fragments off his suit and out of his hair with short, angry motions. Then Illya was beside him, gun in hand, helping to pick the glass shards off his hack.