Solo felt a stab of pain going through him and he touched gingerly at the fire in his side. He tried to keep his face expressionless, disliking the thought of giving in to the sharp burn of abrasion and contusion marring his face. His eye was swelling, purpling, and he tasted blood in the corner of his mouth.

He experienced some small satisfaction when he looked at the four young thugs sprawled unconscious around him. The hell with them. He had not bowed to them, though his jacket was knife-ripped and stained with rancid refuse. His shirt was torn.

But he had another lead—the silver whip—despite the deaths of Ursula and the flower girl and her beach boy. He tried to smile. He had walked into a wall—and he looked it. Solo raised the back of his hand and drew it across his mouth.

After a long time, when he was sure his legs would support him, he straightened from the wall and gave his opponents a sardonic bow, but carefully and not very deeply. Even so, the sky and the littered pavement changed places for a second.

He turned to walk away, but a movement caught his attention and he stopped.

The stocky boy folded across the barrel was coming around. Solo turned to him, almost sadly, caught him by the collar and forcibly lifted him to his feet, bracing him against the wall.

Solo shook him, both hands holding his bright shirt.

“Who hired you to do this?” He kept asking the question until he saw those dark eyes focus, and comprehension return to them.

The boy shook his head. Solo saw fear and admiration in the youth’s face where there had once been only cold contempt. “No. No, sir. Nobody. You see, Kaina was our friend…”

“Who did he work for?”

“With us, sir. At the beach.”

“Who else? Answer me! Who else?”

The boy shook his head, frightened. “No. No, sir. No one.”

Solo stared at him, seeing that the boy was not lying. He was too frightened to dissemble.

Solo was calm. He held the youth’s shirt, forcing him to meet his gaze.

“And this girl? Polly Jade Ing? What about her? What do you know of her?”

“I have known her many years. She and Kaina. They were to marry.”

“Did you know who she worked for?”

“Only with the Chamber—that’s all. I swear it, sir! Are you a cop? Some kind of a cop?”

Solo sighed, deciding that the attack on him was a matter of vengeance, the need to cleanse Kaina’s honor, and nothing more—unless you counted the need for violence that had spurred them.

He tightened his grip on the boy’s shirt. “I’m going to give you a chance to get out of here, away from these others. If not, I’ll put you right back to sleep with them—”

“Oh, no, sir. No. That won’t be needed. I should be at work already. I am much late already. There’s no need.”

“Then get out of here. Move and keep moving.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

When the boy was gone, running through the littered alley, Solo remained where he was for another moment From the pocket of his jacket, he removed the sender-receiver he had used in the hotel room to summon Kuryakin. Now, after checking the alley and finding it empty and silent, he pulled out the antennae and said into the speaker:

“Bubba. Acknowledge. Acknowledge.”

He frowned, waiting. The call should have carried at least five miles. He glanced around him, thinking he wanted to clear out of here. A man could get hurt in this island paradise. Further, he wanted to communicate to Illya his need to pursue the clues offered by that silver whip.

“Bubba. Acknowledge, please.,

He spoke calmly and clearly, but without emotion. He touched at the darkening spot beside his mouth.

He pressed the button, listening.

He made one last effort. “Bubba. Come in please. Acknowledge.”

There was no answer and he stopped listening. He reset the antennae, replaced the set in his jacket pocket and walked toward the train station in the distance, carrying the soiled, slashed coat across his shoulder.

He decided that Illya had gone off alert, because it was basic computing inside the machinery of Kuryakin’s unemotional mind that if he did not hear from Solo, it was no signal to hit the panic switch. If anything he became calmer than ever, certain he was on a DC-7 winging stateside.

VII

SPRAWLED on the cot in his darkening cell at the Honolulu jail, Illya looked through the bars at the lighted corridor, at the guards and trustys moving around out there in the onion yellow light.

He struggled violently, in a way he had never struggled before. It had nothing to do with actual movement, action of any kind. His body was stilled as if in a catatonic trance. His eyes were still tear-clouded, burning from the fluid sprayed into them. The struggling was all inside his mind.

He began to be filled with a distracting terror that this paralysis might be permanent. Suddenly this cell was like a tiny box, a cheap coffin. He wondered if this were what it all finally added up to: lying helpless in an alien cell, among strangers. It had never occurred to him that he would not have to pay for having served U.N.C.L.E., the things he had done for the united command, and the misdoings in the years before he had joined them. He had not looked for a reward—no more than a few hours off once in a while to enjoy his collection of jazz. But it was bad to know one was so alone, and helpless.

Lying there, he watched the cell-block door open and then close. Trustys were carrying tin plates of food to the inmates. He wondered how long it would be before they came and found him like this. He struggled again, ordering his hands to move. He didn’t want to be found here like this.

He heard the distant ring of a telephone. It was silenced and he sweated, concentrating on moving his hands.

Inside his skull he laughed when his fingers twitched, and then bent, and then straightened. Now he concentrated fiercely upon his feet and his legs, forcing his conscious mind to ignore the bite of acid in his eyes and nostrils.

His feet moved. His legs moved. He did not know how long it was but finally he was able to sit up on the edge of the cot. His clothing was sweat damp, and he was wide-eyed and tense.

He reached out his arms, found support and pulled himself to his feet. He attempted to take a forward step, but lost his balance and sprawled outward. He caught himself on the lavatory, and then dragged his legs after him, straightening.

He turned the tap water on full. Slowly he lowered his face into the rush of water. He let it run for a long time.

The burn lessened in his eyes, and the sting ceased in his nostrils. He kept bathing his face with the water. He realized that feeling had returned to his legs, and his hands and forearms ached with the returning strength. He bent slowly forward and immersed his face in the water.

He stayed as long as he could hold his breath like that. He heard the trusty shout at him from the bars, telling him his food was there. He managed to turn his head and nod.

He straightened up at last, massaging his face with his hands, and rubbing them briskly along his arms, trying to escape the last traces of the drug as quickly as he could.

He walked to the bars, took up the tin tray of food. He ate slowly, holding the tray, then he replaced it on the floor where it could be collected.

He went back to his bunk then and sat down on the side of it. He glanced through the bars at the corridor, then bent over and removed his right shoe.

Holding the shoe, he turned the heel and shook out a heat-bomb pellet, thinking about the force concentrated inside it. From his tray he got a spoon and scooped out a small hole under the bars. He set the pellet inside it, checking the corridor across his shoulder. He pushed a half-dozen cigarettes around the pellet, securing it. He flicked light from his cigarette lighter, setting fire to the paper.