He couldn't. He'd called out the full force available on a wild goose chase, made a fool of himself in front of dozens of his men, and in the process had let slip enough control over everything else to bring simultaneous disaster on half a dozen operations around the world.

There was Askandi, for instance. If he could have received the support he'd called for in time, be probably would still be alive. He'd gotten the data he'd been sent after—the minisubs had been using the whaling factory ship as a floating submarine pen with maintenance and refueling capacity for a dozen of the speedy little killers. But the ship and its cargo had gotten away, and a good agent had been killed. Which might not have happened if Napoleon Solo had been at his desk, where he was supposed to be, instead of all the way across Manhattan in the middle of a gunbattle just because he was feeling bored!

And of course the Flin Flon Monster had broken loose just about the moment he'd charged into the hotel suite, guns blazing all around him from a vast force of plainclothes and uniformed Thrush and his own small army of battle-tough U.N.C.L.E. men. The fight around the suite had been pitched and bloody, and had kept both sides thoroughly occupied for the better part of an hour. But the suite was a cul-de-sac, chosen by Thrush for defendability. No windows, only one door, and an en closed ventilating duct which Solo had taken the precaution of riveting closed. It was a perfect trap, and at the time had seemed perfectly reasonable.

The concealed microphones in the various rooms of the suite were picking up conversations in many voices, full of phrases like "... expanding into the solid-state device line, we could carry your full catalogue of… suppose I do; could you arrange to loan me a good assassin from one of... fiscal 1966 used 18 percent more computer time than... chick comes in from Central and flashes on me, so I have to fast-talk her into..." Hidden tape decks turned, and conferral went on while silenced gunfire plopped and thudded back and forth along the ornate halls.

At last the guards fell back and Napoleon charged forward, his men behind him, to kick in the door of the suite and stumble to a dazed halt in the center of the room, listening to a babble of voices from two small tape recorders playing their canned conversations. He stood in surprise at first, shock and understanding growing while the first two men in after him turned the machines off. Then they had gone through every room in the suite, turning off the other portable tape recorders which had been talking to the concealed microphones for at least an hour and a half.

As the voices died one by one, he became aware of the twittering of his pocket communicator. Slowly, unwillingly, he took it out, the beginnings of a full awful awareness growing as he realized what must await him on the other end.

"Solo here."

"There are a number of top priority calls on Channel D and several more on other lines. Would you like to handle them now?"

And then the delayed messages began to come through. Flin Flon. Clipperton Island. Tierra Caliente. Cleveland. Denver—well, that had come out all right. Anchorage meant six months of careful preparation blown and a good agent in the hospital. Hong Kong was still holding, and the attack had finally fallen off again, but he didn't learn that for a while.

He stood there in the hotel room, words falling about him telling of disasters of every description. At last he turned without a word, got back into his limousine and rode back to U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters in silence. For part of the long crosstown journey he wondered about suicide, but ruled it out. Now that he knew the news had preceded him, he wondered seriously about resigning his command. Carlo had run things across the Atlantic before for short periods, and Waverly would be back in two weeks.

He looked up from the desk as the door sighed open and Miss Williamson came in at her usual graceful pace. She set a stack of folders and a spool of film on his desk, straightened and looked him in the eye.

"You really blew it this time, didn't you?" she said matter-of-factly.

He looked up at her for several seconds. "Yes," he said at last. "I guess I did."

Section IV "The Pride Of Utopia."

Chapter 13

"You Knew The Job Was Dangerous When You Took It."

SILVERTHORNE had a regular luncheon date with his opponent in the war game, and Dodgson seemed to find their meetings stimulating. So much so that Silverthorne was confident he would be on the dining terrace at the usual time, vacating his office shortly past noon. Silverthorne had also made it an irregular practice to arrive late, as he would this time, though normally he was precisely punctual.

When Dodgson left his office at 12:06, Silverthorne was just around the corner of the hall, watching. The brisk, sturdy figure walked out the open door into the bright spring sunshine and vanished up the graveled walk, and moments later the thin dark watcher drifted out of the shadows and moved quietly to the just-locked door. With the tip of a short ribbon of spring steel he attacked the bolt, shielding his work with his body so any passerby would have seen only a man fumbling with his key.

In seconds the action yielded to his touch and the door eased open. He looked around the small, spartan room. Where would it be? The desk? His glance settled and he moved to follow it. Top drawer? Second? Third? They opened and closed before his search, but revealed only a few small personal items. If Dodgson was to have any hope of gaining a winning advantage before the game's end, he must have made some notes. The action of the game was too complex for even a mind like this man's to carry around in ready memory.

Standing up, he sent his searching gaze swiftly around the room. There—on a shelf lying in plain sight though half-hidden behind the door, the faded brown dust jacket. The book of mystery fiction with the hollow center. He had only moments—Dodgson might wonder if he was more than a few minutes late. There were no other obvious or reasonable hiding places in the room.

Quickly he stepped across the office and picked it up, flipping open the cover. The hollow was empty. He shook it, turned the volume over and checked the spine. The broken back of the old book gaped open and empty. Then if the plan was not here—could it be that he really didn't have one after all and would go into battle this afternoon essentially unprepared? The mere fact of the book's presence in the office confirmed his suspicion that it related to Dodgson's war effort as a secret safe. Could he have carried the plans on his person? He wouldn't have brought the book if he hadn't needed its services—or expected to need them. It would not be impossible for him to play the action by ear, since they had both opted to supervise the approaching battle personally rather than let the computer adjust the forces within the limits of their basic orders and without imagination, but did he really expect to be able to juggle and coordinate the fantastically complex scheme of play improvisatorially?

Then he knew what to do. Dodgson had studied his style of play, his habitual placement of forces; it was time to switch. Use direct confrontation, perhaps feint at his supply lines first—After all, Silverthorne thought, I am already in a winning position and fighting an essentially defensive campaign…

Plans were forming in his mind as he let himself out of the office, restored the latch to its proper condition and hurried off to keep his luncheon date with his friend and enemy.

Well, they'd vacated their quarters, but nobody minded because they had three days off. Three days—in that time they could have a dozen chances to kill Waverly. And he didn't even know where they were. Illya brooded in the corner of the kitchen, his uniform and mood a patch of black among the gleaming utensils. He was off duty in another ten minutes, but until then he had to stand ready to hop into the electric cart and wheel off to deliver a meal or a few bottles. He had played many roles without complaint during his years with U.N.C.L.E. and before, but few were as difficult to maintain as six weeks of subservience.