"I know, sir. I know. Don't you think I haven't reproached myself a hundred times in the last hour? But there was this other commotion I was watching on Number One, you see."

"Commotion? What commotion?"

"Some nut tried to force his way in through the staff entrance in the garage," McGrath interrupted. "When they wouldn't let him by, he got violent and tried to start a fight. I went there myself to sort it out."

"The classic diversionary tactic on the opposite flank," Waverly mused. "There's been some planning here! Why wasn't I told of this before?"

"It's all in the reports, sir. On your desk."

Waverly stirred the pile of papers and folders contemptuously with the stem of his pipe. "Reports, reports!" he snapped.

"I want action. The man who staged this decoy routine—you let him go, I suppose?"

"I'm afraid so, sir. Threatened him with an action for trespass and threw him out. It's standard procedure, sir. Of course, if we'd known..."

The Head of Policy and Operations growled something unintelligible. He shot the girl from Reception a sudden glance from under his eyebrows. "You know what this means?' he rapped.

The redhead gulped. She nodded. "I understand sir," she said in a low voice. "But I swear I'd no idea. Truly..."

"Quite so. Miss Marsh. You'd better go and wait in Personnel, in case Mr. McGrath or the Lieutenant have any further questions they want to ask you. We can attend to the formalities later."

"What do you think?" the policeman queried after the sobbing girl had left. "You know your staff. Was she in on the deal? Had someone got at her, persuaded her to take a bribe, look the wrong way for five minutes?"

"I don't know," Waverly replied. "I'm inclined to think not. The screening is pretty tough here. But she has to go, of course. That's standard procedure, too. We simply can't afford to take chances... and even if we had the time to check it out, you can never be a hundred per cent sure of anyone after a thing like that. Not a hundred per cent."

"I guess not," Trevitt said, "Now how shall we handle this, sir? The main thing, naturally, is to get your man back. We've put out a call on the car, of course..."

"I'm leaving the outside angle to you. Lieutenant," Waverly cut in. "You're better equipped for it than we are. But since you don't hold out much hope of identifying the vehicle—which may have been stolen anyway—I imagine the best, if not the only, lead has to come from the scene of the—ah—snatch itself. We'll handle things inside the building: the Reception affair, checking on who knew Solo was coming, the diversion at the other entrance, and so on. Mr. Kuryakin here is in overall charge of the operation. I suggest the two of you liaise on the most promising aspect of the enquiry: the events inside Del Florio's and on the pavement outside."

The Russian nodded. "I'll put a dozen men on the inside stuff," he said. "Mac, you can handle that, can't you?... You'd better keep an open line between your office and the squad room at the precinct house... Lieutenant, should we start, do you think, by talking to Sol and Del Florio and your lady witness again? We might be able to get something more definite on that getaway car."

The policeman nodded and walked to the door. "Let's go," he said. "Del Florio's still in hospital and the dame's with my boys down at the station. But we let Zimmermann stay on at his stand. There's nobody to take over and he can't afford to lose the regular business."

Outside, they stood at the edge of the sidewalk waiting for a gap in the lunchtime traffic so that they could cross the street. Trevitt waved cheerily to the news vendor. Zimmermann himself, two hundred and forty pounds of blue-chinned geniality sweating in the sun, shouted back something incomprehensible as he flourished a bottle he had produced from under the counter.

"He's a character, that one," Trevitt said with a crooked smile. "No, wait a minute: he's going too fast. Those cab drivers!"

Kuryakin nodded absently. "Tell me. Lieutenant," he asked, "what are the chances of our getting a lead on this car—assuming Mr. Zimmermann can tell us something a little more... definite?"

The policeman studied the lock of tow-colored hair the breeze was stirring from the Russian's forehead. "Special friend of yours, isn't he?" he replied. "If you want a straight answer, I'd say absolutely nil... Come on. We can make it now, before that truck—Look out!"

Automobiles, cabs, trucks, buildings wheeled about Illya's head as he spun to the macadam, propelled by a violent thrust between the shoulder blades. The crump of the explosion was drowned in the clatter of his own feet as he went down.

Three distinct impressions struck him as he caught his breath and sat up, one arm raised instinctively to cover his face; the smell of warm tar from a hand pitted by contact with the gritty surface of the roadway; the sight of the familiar plaster dust and cordite cloud; the sound of a car howling away in the indirect gears. It was only later, when the ringing in his own ears had stopped, that he noticed the woman screaming. Lieutenant Trevitt levered himself up from the ground with the palms of his hands. He shook his head like a dog leaving the water. "Too late," he panted. "Too late by the width of a street, dammit!" Scowling, he stared after the car from which the bomb had been thrown—a pale-colored, nondescript sedan hurtling towards the intersection by the garage.

As the lights flashed from green to red, the sedan swerved out from behind a truck, pulled across to the left-hand side of the road, and rocketed past the line of slowing cars to take the junction across the surge of oncoming traffic. Over the outraged hooting of the other drivers, they heard the squeal of its tires as it lurched into a side street on the far side of the road. Kuryakin was staring at the opposite pavement. "So far as you and I are concerned," he said shakily, "I should say it was too early by the width of a street..."

Through the dust, the splintered remains of the newsstand pierced the air like the spars of a sinking ship. Above the glass littering the sidewalk, thousands of pinups ripped by the explosion from Zimmermann's girlie magazines were still fluttering down through the spring sunshine like the leaves of some bizarre September Song. There was a great deal of blood.

But of the man with the bottle himself, the witness who might have been able to give them some more definite information on the car in which Napoleon Solo had been abducted, nothing recognizable remained.

CHAPTER THREE

Back To Square One

The atmosphere in Waverly's office was gloomy. Illya and Lieutenant Trevitt sat uneasily on one side of the big desk while the head of Section One's Policy and Operations department paced up and down on the other.

"Twice in one day!" Waverly barked. "I'm not blaming you personally, mind, but after a couple of body blows like that, one begins to doubt the capabilities of the whole organization. It's too much. It really is too much!"

After an uncomfortable silence, the policeman cleared his throat. "Still no news from the—ah—the other side?" he asked. "No ransom notes, no threatening telephone calls, no attempts to bargain?"

"Nothing. And now I don't imagine there will be anything. In my experience," Waverly said oracularly, "the kind of kidnapper who abducts because he wants to use the missing person as a bargaining counter—whether for a sum of money or not is a detail—such a person usually makes his play almost at once. While the relatives or associates are still reeling from the shock, as it were."