"Yes," Carlsen echoed. "What would you do, Mr. Solo? Use one of the satellites, make a hologram, scramble them with lasers? Do tell us."

Solo decided to push out his decoy. "If there were other people after the information—who knew I had it—I'd be much more worried about them finding it out from me than from any messages I sent," he said. "After all, the advances made in stupefiants, subliminal narcotics and so-called truth drugs have been considerable, even in the past five years  "

Carlsen killed the subject stone dead. Interrupting Solo with a brusque apology, he summoned the manservant and kicked up a terrible fuss about a strawberry shortcake that was entirely blameless. And then, as soon as the man had removed it and gone to fetch something else, he plunged straight into an analysis of the servant problem before Solo could pick up the threads of his argument. But the agent didn't mind: the volte face had told him exactly what he wanted to know. By inference at least, his own deductions were confirmed.

He knew, now, why he had been kidnapped between missions—and why his captors didn't mind whether he answered their questions or not. For all U.N.C.L.E. agents are subliminally conditioned if they are on assignment to resist brainwashing and vouchsafe certain prepared replies under hypnosis, truth drugs or even torture. The treatment, which involves deep hypnosis itself and is still very secret, is given immediately after the operative has been briefed. Broadly speaking, it implants into the subconscious a succession of conditioned reflexes to any questions concerning the mission which are posed when the conscious mind is withdrawn. Like all good lies, it keeps as near to the truth as possible—for it can never be calculated how much a hostile questioner already knows, and if he finds the subject confirms facts already in his possession, he will be all the more ready to believe the fantasy that follows! And it provides a reason for all an agent's actions that, despite the fact that it fits the facts, is very far from the true one! It is almost impossible adequately to pump an operative who has been treated in this way; even if, in the extremities of torture, the man wishes to talk, the conditioning will impose upon him the false rather than the true line. Solo had good cause to underwrite the system from his own experience. For it had once* been the means of saving his life.

The only thing was... agents between missions were naturally enough not subjected to this treatment. And he was between missions.

Or, to put it another way, he was independently of his own wishes wide open to any system of drugs—whether secretly administered in the excellent food and drink or openly and forcibly—that his captors cared to use!

Now he realized why it didn't matter if he answered the questions or not; now he saw why Carlsen and the girl could be so casual about his replies: the repetitious queries about Thrush and U.N.C.L.E., the insistence on methods of communication, were simply to prepare the ground; to put these subjects in the forefront of his mind. The real questions would come later, when they had drugged him or hypnotized him at their leisure and his subconscious mind, unconditioned to resist, would be completely at their mercy...

Whoever they were—and it was not beyond the bounds of possibility, despite their apparent interest from the outside, that they themselves belonged to Thrush—Carlsen and Lala Eriksson badly wanted some of the mass of secret information that was locked in Solo's mind. And they could not afford to allow the subject of drugs to raise itself, in case it should tip the agent off.

Now that he had found out, he had to discover some way of foiling the guards, the electric fence and the dogs, so that he could escape before it was too late!

*See The Diving Dames Affair

CHAPTER FIVE

Exit By Moonlight!

So far as Napoleon Solo could see, the only possible time to try and escape from the house run by Carlsen and Lala Eriksson was at night. Certainly it was after dark that the guards would be at their most alert, but it was equally true that nighttime gave him the only opportunity to approach unseen the boundary of the property. And in any case, time was precious: he had already been allowed nearly forty-eight hours of good living in which to become "acclimatized", softened up for the drug or hypnosis interrogation which must have been planned. Yet although his captors would freely accept this unproductive period in the interests of long-term success, their need for whatever information they wanted from him must be urgent. The organization of the kidnap showed that. So they would proceed to Stage Two at the earliest possible moment.

In addition to which, people of their sophistication would not make the mistake of underrating Solo's intelligence. They would know quite well that his mind would be racing, racing all the time he was in captivity. He could only hope that they would assume he would want to stay as long as he could in order to find out as much as possible about them. But in any case their fear of what he might deduce would lend an added impetus to their desire to get on with their plan!

Which was why he decided to make his attempt as soon as he had realized what he was up against—the very same night. There were very few preparations he could make. What there were, he went over again and again in his mind before he acted. The exit from the house he had decided to make via the roof: the doors and windows were certain to be guarded by some kind of electronic burglar alarm which would sound whether the person crossing the threshold were coming or going. And he had already marked down a likely trapdoor at the head of the stairs. For a successful essay at crossing the electrified fence, he would need a length of rope, and this he hoped to find in the garages. And finally, to keep the dogs quiet, he was relying—extraordinary though this seemed!—upon his own teeth! There was a shell cap crowning one of his molars, and this could be unscrewed to reveal a tiny cavity in which Solo carried two minute pellets of a quick-acting knockout drug.

He had managed to convey two slices of duck and half a quenelle to his pocket during dinner. And, after he had returned to his room at eleven thirty, the first thing he did was to shake these from his handkerchief and treat them with the tablets.

He unscrewed the crown, shook out the miniature pills and, having ground them to a fine powder with the shaft of his razor, smeared the white dust liberally over the surface of the food. Then, dressing himself in the travel-creased clothes in which he had been kidnapped, he settled down to wait.

Carlsen and Lala Eriksson slept at opposite ends of the big landing. The manservant had a small suite of rooms off the kitchens. It was after twelve before the sounds of activity ceased from these three points, but Solo waited another full hour before he even got up off his bed.

At two-fifteen, water ran for half a minute or so somewhere downstairs. At two-fifty, one of the dogs in the grounds barked and then was silent. Solo eased open his door as three o'clock struck from the clock tower above the stables. When he heard the single note of the half hour, he began tiptoeing silently along the passage towards the landing.

It was a clear, moonlit night and the staircase and most of the space beyond it was barred with pale swathes of light falling in through the deep windows above the front door.

The trapdoor was clearly visible in the gloom. But first the agent had to make a trip downstairs. Placing his weight with infinite care on the extreme outside of the treads, he stole down to the hallway and trod softly through the drawing room and on into the gunroom. He had memorized the position of the furniture but the curtains were still drawn and the journey was difficult. Once he came within an inch of stumbling over a coffee table laden with cups and saucers that must have been moved after he had gone to bed. But at last he was standing in pitch darkness by the billiard table in the gunroom, listening to the silence. He removed the long-handled cue-rest, with its x-shaped brass end, from the rack and began the return journey.