He pressed down on the gas going in front of the truck with only inches to spare.

As he'd hoped, the truck driver panicked, stalled the truck. When he looked back, a crowd was gathering in the avenue, but his pursuers were unable to get past.

By the time the truck was moved, he had gained a precious mile on the men back there. As he neared the market places of Paris, the traffic increased.

But they were back there. He whipped around a corner, climbed a steep, cobbled hill, plunged downward, horns yapping at him.

When he checked his mirror, the larger cars were still trailing him.

He jerked the car around a corner, slammed on the brakes. He was already out of it as it rolled to stop in a no-parking zone.

He ran across the walk, plunged into a kiosk, going downward, racing toward a slowing Metro on the underground tracks.

FOUR

ILLYA SAW he was not going to make it to the midget choppers.

Men with attack hounds came running from beyond the small helicopters in the early morning. Their shadows lunged in the flood lights, ravenous upon the grass.

Marksmen fired from the chateau parapets.

Illya hit the ground, rolling toward the sorry protection of a lilac bush. He lay a moment, panting like a fox. Sounds battered inside his skull. He heard the yowling of the dogs, the raging of men, the gunfire, the sound of cars coughing to life, racing on the drive.

He grinned faintly, knowing that Solo had made it that far at least.

He saw the dogs running toward him. They were still beyond the copters. Other men came from the driveway, and more from the veranda at the front of the chateau.

He made up his mind. The nearest protection was the window in the dungeon. He had accomplished most of his objective. He had caused enough diversion to enable Solo to get into a car and off the grounds.

He came lithely up to his knees. He faked toward the 'copters. When the gunmen wheeled their guns that way, he reversed himself; crouching low, he raced back to the shrubbery at the dungeon window.

He drew a long breath and at the last possible moment dove the remaining few feet into the shrubbery. He stuck his head into the blasted window space and almost bumped heads with a startled guard on a ladder inside the dungeon.

In an instinctive reflex action, Illya thrust out his hand in a stiff-arm motion, catching the man under the chin. He shoved as hard as he could.

He was already scrambling back into the shrubbery, scrambling through it along the wall.

The dogs were nearer; the shouting of the men sounded as if they were in the hedge growth with him. He freed a friction-bomb pellet, set himself and threw it with all his strength at the window. More stones shattered and sprayed in fragments.

For the space of three breaths, everything ceased on the yard.

Illya did not wait to enjoy his small victory. He crawled as fast as he could on all fours along the inside of the shrubbery.

Ahead were gunmen on a small veranda. Setting himself, Illya tossed a small pellet. The explosion rocked the yard, knocked the sentries off their feet.

Illya was over the low wall almost before the debris settled.

He scooped up a gun from the fallen sentry nearest him. The tattoo of gunfire from the yard and from positions above him, sent him scrambling through a smashed window.

With a savage laugh, he looked about, almost as if surprised to find himself back in the house.

The intercom crackled. "Kuryakin! He's in the east wing sun room! Converge there at once!" Maunchaun's voice lashed at Illya in triumph.

Illya jerked the gun up. He shot the eye of the watching camera and then put a round into the intercom. It was almost––but not quite–– as satisfactory as blasting the doctor himself.

He heard steps racing toward him along the corridors. He ran across the room, stepped through the draperies.

He shoved open one half of the casement window, let himself through.

The room was loud with people. Illya pressed through the window, but a burst of gunfire from the yard drove him back. From within the room, guns crackled. Glass smashed around him and the draperies shivered under the impact of bullets.

Illya sprang out to the soft ground outside the window. He lost his balance for a moment and lost time setting himself. They continued firing down at him, keeping him in close to the projecting stones of the walls.

As he turned, he saw Albert leaning out of the window, rifle upraised like a club. For one second, Illya stared up at him. He thought in agony, "Oh, no, not my head!"

As Albert brought the gun-butt down, Illya fired upward. The bullet slashed across Albert's cheek, driving him back a little.

Illya dropped his gun, caught at the rifle in Albert's hands. Putting his feet against the stone foundation, he lunged backward, drawing Albert through the window upon him.

This effectively stopped the gun fire.

Illya wrenched the gun from Albert's hands. He tossed it over his head. Albert's fist sank into Illya's stomach, the breath driven from him.

For a moment, Illya simply hung on while earth, sky, chateau and lawn switched places. He felt the battering of Albert's fists. He gripped Albert's belt in both hands and levered him upward. Then he shoved forward, driving Albert against the huge stones of the chateau.

Albert cried out, going limp. When Illya released him, the big Moor slid limply down the stones, crumpling to the ground.

Illya looked about wildly for one of the guns, but when his head came up, he saw Marie a few feet from him. She stood in the window, something—a dart gun—in her mouth! He shook his head at her, tried to fall away.

But then something stung him in the neck, with the savagery of a wasp, but he knew it was not a wasp. Instinctively, his hand clapped at his neck. But it never rose that high. He felt as if his legs melted off at the knees below him. He was conscious of being nauseated, sick at his stomach, and then he was diving from an incredible distance down toward where Albert lay crumpled on the ground beside the house. He did not re member making it.

FIVE

AT ELEVEN that morning, Napoleon Solo, shaven, refreshed, wearing a faultless gray suit, rearmed, entered the Paris banking district.

Helie strolled into the Rothschild Building, went up in one of the elevators to the Caillou Interests suite.

He entered the reception room of the Caillou offices, and stopped, eyes widening, stunned.

Yvonne sat at her desk, as if this day were like any other day at Caillou, International.

He was staggered to see her here. He had last seen her when she was taken away, crying last night from the dungeon. Looking at her, in a smart dress, an immaculate coiffure, you could not believe that last night had happened to her, outside a nightmare.

She looked up at him as if she had never seen him before.

"Yes, sir? May I serve you?" she said to him in French.

Solo approached her desk, studying her. "Yvonne, are you all right?"

"Of course, M'sieur. Why should I not be all right?"

He flinched, seeing that she was all right only in her brain-washed mind. She was moving in a drug-induced state of euphoria.

Her pupils were like pin-points. Her smile was too loose, and her eyes barely focused.

"What did you wish, sir?" she asked again.

"I want to see Monsieur Caillou," Solo said.

"Have you an appointment? What is your name? I'll announce you."

"I'd rather you didn't do that," he said. He caught her hand as she reached toward the intercom switch. "Why don't we just walk in on him, Yvonne?"

"We couldn't do that, sir." Her tone remained bright and warm—and mindless.