It gave the chauffeur just enough time to lift the Chinese woman in his arms and stagger with her back to the car. Before Solo could fire again the limousine was roaring down the street in the opposite direction from which it had come.

FOUR

THE WEB TIGHTENS

ALEXANDER WAVERLY, for the second time that day, had ceased to be his usual business-like self. A small muscle in his jaw twitched as he stood staring down at the angular, somewhat flattened metal object on his desk.

The object had been removed from the attaché case which Solo had carried into the quiet brownstone, and turned over to U.N.C.L.E.'s most experienced bomb disassembling expert without delay. A number of unattached wires projected from a yawning cavity from which a metal cap had been lifted by Waverly himself, for the expert had assured him that the device was now as harmless as the paper weight which had been pushed aside to make room for it in the precise middle of the desk.

"You would both have been killed instantly," Waverly said. "It would have been hurled straight at you, and they would have dropped to the pavement and flattened themselves. The blast would have ripped through you at chest-level, and blown you apart. It has a built-in radiation dampening mechanism, which goes into operation the instant the concussion starts to spread."

Waverly nodded grimly, his eyes riveted to the dismantled instrument of destruction on his desk. "A self-limiting bomb with a vengeance—an achievement we've kept so secret, so scrupulously guarded, its theft would have seemed inconceivable to me if those two telecasts hadn't convinced me that all of our technological secrets are in jeopardy. From what you told me that long-gowned woman said—"

He stopped, as if the startled exclamation which the announcement had elicited from Solo had reminded him that an apology was due. "I had no intention, of course, of keeping it a secret from you, Mr. Solo. Or from you, Mr. Kuryakin. But its perfection was of very recent date, and for the past few days what you saw on the screen this morning has driven every other thought from my mind."

"It was natural enough for you to think that the telecasts had nothing to do with the perfection of a new kind of—hand grenade, I guess you'd call it," Solo said, nod ding. "If the theft had not occurred the matter would have been of no great importance. Field testing of such a device can't be hurried, as a rule. You'd have let us know about it before it became operational."

"It seems to have taken THRUSH a comparatively short time to duplicate it, make it operational right in front of this house." Waverly paused an instant to stare down again at the device on his desk.

"If the chauffeur had been willing to sacrifice his long-gowned girlfriend and had snatched up the attaché case instead we might have had a conclusive demonstration of the weapon's effectiveness in a field test. Only you wouldn't have been here to fill us in."

"I don't think she was his girlfriend, Mr. Waverly," Illya said. "Or the girlfriend of the man who was carrying the attaché case."

"Why not?" Waverly asked.

"The chauffeur must have been extremely fond of her, to take the risk he did. The chances were all against him, and if he hadn't fired at almost point-blank range and moved incredibly fast after scoring amiss—"

"I think I know why Mr. Kuryakin shares my feeling that she wasn't the girlfriend of the two younger men," Solo said. "Or of the elderly one, for that matter. Just the fact that there were no weapons on her person suggests that she had absolute confidence in the weapon they stole from us. She almost had to have another reason for being there."

"You've told me what you thought that reason might have been," Alexander Waverly re minded him. "To round out the picture in Chinese brocade. Take the long-gowned woman away and what reason would you have had to think that they were headed for the United Nations?"

"They could have made it look convincing in some other way," Solo said. "What I told you was true—up to a point. But I still believe she had another reason for being there."

"Well, let's have it," Waverly said. "I hope it's based on some thing more solid than conjecture."

"It may have to be partly conjecture," Solo said. "There's nothing about this affair that provides the kind of evidence a lawyer could use in a courtroom to convince a jury. We're dealing with an empire of crime that knows how to strike in the dark and leave plenty of misleading clues."

"An empire of crime," Waverly said, nodding. "I think I know why you referred to THRUSH in that way, Mr. Solo. You're going to tell me she impressed you as being— well, empresslike. By her manner, perhaps. An air of dominance about her?"

Solo found it difficult to conceal his astonishment. "That hits it pretty squarely on the head," he said. "She didn't do any actual commanding. But there was something about her, all apart from her striking beauty, that made me feel she was accustomed to giving orders and would if the need arose."

"I got that impression too," Illya said. "I think Mr. Solo means that she was there because the attack was so important that she felt her presence might be needed. She wanted to make sure it went off as planned."

"There's one thing that strongly supports that conjecture," Waverly conceded, nodding. "What she said to Mr. Solo. 'Knowing that you are under observation, night and day, will make you more vulnerable. We are so strong now we can afford to let you know this.'"

"That's about it," Solo said. "I was so concerned about what was happening at the end of the street I didn't catch everything she said."

"You caught enough." Waverly said. "Only someone very high up in THRUSH would have talked that way. She was deliberately revealing something that ordinarily would have been kept a carefully guarded secret, in a clear attempt to spread demoralization throughout our entire organization."

"But she must have been lying, Mr. Waverly," Illya said. "If everything that takes place here is instantly known to THRUSH, including what we're saying right now, we'd be facing a threat to our survival that could destroy us in a week. The blueprints alone—" Something in Waverly's eyes stopped him from going on.

"IF THEIR eavesdropping capacity had reached that stage we would have been destroyed already," Illya Kuryakin said. "Make no mistake about that. A continuous conversational pickup would be a weapon we'd have no way of overcoming."

"But what about the Newfoundland and Gobi telecasts?" Solo said. "And the theft and swift duplication of at least one of our weapons? The failure of their surprise attack doesn't strip it of its eavesdropping implications. They undoubtedly knew just when we'd be leaving this house, after looking at the telecasts and discussing the Gobi assignment. Their timing was perfect."

"That observation is very much to the point," Waverly said. "But to me it's far from conclusive. They must have possessed the stolen weapon long before they planned the attack, for they could hardly have duplicated it overnight. A minor consideration, but an important one. It suggests that they've been gathering information piecemeal, sporadically, over a considerable period of time."

Waverly remained silent for an instant. Then he said: "I mentioned operational delays in connection with the actual field testing of a new weapon. The weapon may work very well once or twice and then develop defects which it may take a long time to overcome."