Illya lay on his stomach and breathed deeply. Now, at last, his shoulder started to hurt again. He lay still for several seconds, then very slowly rose to his knees and backed away until he was well within the cover of the woods. Then at last he stood erect, stretched, and made his way home by a roundabout route for a well-earned rest. He might just possibly pull this one out of the fire after all.

Chapter 14

"Stop Them."

NAPOLEON SOLO'S expression was habitually grim as he came into the office shortly after dawn. He nodded curtly to Miss Williamson as she entered just behind him, and said, "Is the preliminary analysis on the Anchorage situation ready?"

"Right here." She handed him a file folder from the top drawer of the desk, and dropped her hat and gloves into the lower drawer.

"Have Section Eight call me as soon as he comes in." He carried the folder into his office and spread it on the desk, scanning through it from a standing position as he removed his coat and hung it in the concealed closet. There was one possibility for recovery of the situation.

He scribbled a memo to himself to call Gavin at the hospital in Anchorage when it was a reasonable hour there. And for the moment...

He initiated a Channel D signal and shuffled the report together as the connection was made. During the conversation be made notes on various cards in the priority file and sifted a few forward.

"Harbeson here," said a breezy voice. "Your man on the spot with the Akhoond of Swat!"

"You're cheerful," said Napoleon. "I take it everything is proceeding satisfactorily?"

"It's falling into place, chief. The Number Four Wife was behind the whole thing. Her second cousin ran the kennels. There was a nice little palace revolution brewing. A few things turned up on the Number One, however, and now she's teetering between a headsman's axe and permanent exile. His Royal Incredibility took a good look at Number Four and she talked things around so she had saved him from the recently divorced. Now she's in the top spot after all. Chief, what does all this fuss really accomplish, anyway?"

"When you can answer that one," said Solo, "you'll be sitting here."

"I suppose you've got another seemingly pointless assignment for me. If it's all the same to you, I'd like to stick around here a while. The, uh, scenery is beautiful."

Napoleon, who had been in Swat more than once, recalled its sandy wasteland, and nodded. "And you want a few weeks to appreciate her." He was torn remembering himself on the other end of the stick hoping for a chance to make friends with a charming stranger, thinking Do unto others; while clearly aware that Waverly never did leave him on post without a job to do. His eye touched on the freshly-lettered sign taped to the upper panel of the communications console. It read: WHAT WOULD HE HAVE DONE?

Solo cleared his throat. "Mr. Harbeson, your leave period is not due until March. You may forfeit it if you continue leaving assignments unfinished. How thoroughly have you checked into the background on that second cousin? He could easily have been under someone else's orders. I doubt the Number Four Wife could be entirely responsible for the complex plot you have outlined to me."

"Oh, chief, you haven't seen her! She's about five-four, with golden eyes—."

"You're kidding!" said Solo, breaking character.

"I'll swear it. She's a belly dancer."

"Oh." He cleared his throat again. "Mr. Harbeson, you have your assignment. I'll expect a preliminary report on her family's connections by the end of the week. If anything more important comes up, we'll let you know."

"Right-ho, Chief. Don't call me—I'll call you. Harbeson out."

The intercom signaled. "Mr. Simpson, Section Eight, on your line, sir."

"Mr. Simpson, I'd like to talk to you about the Flin Flon Monster. Would you pull together the material you have on it and drop up here for a cup of coffee."

"Tea?"

"Ten minutes."

He looked over a lighted display on the map and tried to guess how the situation would develop in however long it would take to get ready whatever he was going to use. He ordered a requisition drawn up for a C-141; on second thought, he made that three C-141s. "And bring in some coffee with plenty of sugar and a vitamin pill. And start Simpson's tea."

He pulled out a new pipe delivered from the best New York tobacconist and dipped again into Waverly's humidor before starting down the stack of daily summaries from the other four Continental Headquarters until interrupted by the sound of the door.

They sipped and chatted about the Monster for a few minutes, while Napoleon learned just how much Simpson actually had figured out about the thing. As it turned out, it was very little.

"The crux of the matter is," Napoleon finally stud, "could you build one?"

"Well...not a real one. But I was thinking about a counterfeit."

"A counterfeit?"

"It wouldn't do everything the real one does. It wouldn't do much of anything. But it might fool somebody who'd never seen the real one."

"It would look like it, you mean."

"Well... maybe from a distance and with your eyes half-closed..."

"That's all we'll need. Now, if you can make one, can you make three?"

"I suppose so. I think we have the materials lying around the lab."

"How soon?"

"Mmmm... Tomorrow morning?"

"All three?"

"Oh, making three monsters isn't really that much more trouble than making one."

"Somehow I thought you'd say that. What'll it consist of?"

"About twenty-five cubic feet of tactical smudge. That's essentially a sort of highly compressed smoke. We could let that go, under a parachute or a radar-equipped steerable balloon. It would tend to drift with the wind, and it wouldn't be much for tearing up buildings, but as I said, from a distance and with your eyes half closed…"

"Very well. Make me three of them, and they ought to be a good half mile high. Oh, and can you turn them off or do they have to run down?"

"I could add a precipitant which would clear the air in two or three minutes."

Channel D signaled. "That'll be fine. Solo here."

"Navarre in Tierra Caliente. Maria and I are free of surveillance for the moment, and I just saw fifteen divisions of the rebel army crossing the plaza heading for the Presidential Palace. What should we do?"

Napoleon closed his eyes. He didn't know where they were in the city, how the troops were armed, whether the trolleys were still running, or any of hundreds of other factors that could be important. How could he tell them what to do when they knew the situation better than he? His eyes opened and focused on the sign on the upper panel. What would he have said?

"What should you do?" he said aloud. "Stop them."

There was a pause from the other end, and the agent said, "No holds barred?"

"Mr. Navarre, there are fifteen divisions between you and your goal. Under the circumstances, sportsmanship would seem a minor consideration."

"And I was hoping, sir, that you would put in a word for us with the Mexico City office—we may need to draw reinforcements from there again."

"Very well. I'm sure they can be spared. Signal them in ten minutes with a list of everything you will need. The situation there deserves all the attention we can afford."