Su Yan’s eyes narrowed for an instant; Solo heard a quick breath. Then the imperturbable mask returned, and he said, “Insult me if you wish, Solo. Perhaps it makes you feel better, like an aspirin to alleviate the pain of your failure against me. I have no objection to your being as comfortable and happy as possible. Look about you. Look at the elegance of this suite, the fine appointments. Nothing has been spared for creature comfort. You see, Mr. Solo, you may not be here very long actually, but it may seem long as the time drags past. That’s why I’d like you comfortable—and occupied.” With a faint smile, he upturned the cardboard box, spilling out Solo’s U.N.C.L.E. attaché case. Its component parts had been carefully dismantled so that the cleverly rigged bag of electronic communication and survival gimmicks, as well as those of attack and demolition, were so much useless wire, plastic, copper, wool, welding, chemicals and miscellaneous metal.

Solo stared at the complete ruin, expertly accomplished.

“We turned it over to our chemists and engineers for dismantling, Solo. They were very amused by it. They found it in part ingenious, and other parts completely naive, almost backward. As compared to our best efforts, of course.”

“Of course,” Solo said.

“I have returned your dismantled toys, in all their childlike splendor, to help you pass your time while you are our guest. It will help you pass the hours, and can do no harm, unless you happen to blow off your hand, or explode an eye.” He gazed at Solo. “You will play carefully with your toys, won’t you?”

“Does it please you to display your contempt, Su Yan?”

“We all have our different manners of achieving pleasure, eh?”

“If you say so.”

“Have fun, Solo. I am afraid, however, that no matter in what manner you assemble all these component parts, they will avail you nothing in this place. The room is solid concrete, and completely sound proof. You’ll disturb no one. But I’m sure you will enjoy trying.”

“Speaking of pleasures, Su Yan. There’s one of your pleasures I’d like to inquire about.”

Su Yan shrugged. “Ask me anything.”

“Where is Barbry? What kind of sadism are you practicing on her?”

Su Yan gave him a baleful look of mock hurt. “How you wrong me, Solo.”

“Where is she?”

Su Yan laughed and shrugged. “I said I wanted you comfortable and this would include peace of mind, would it not? His mouth pulled in an enigmatic smile. “I wouldn’t want you fretting over little Esther Kappmyer.”

He shook a small two-inch microphone from his cuff into his palm, and spoke into it.

Barbry was brought in almost at once by a whitesmocked nurse. Solo studied the girl closely. She looked tired, and there was a resigned slump to her shoulders, to her whole body. Her eyes held that empty glaze he had seen in them when he had returned to his room in the St. Francis Hotel. She remained in whatever trance it pleased Su Yan to hold her in. She was like a robot. Solo saw he would be unable to reach her consciousness either by speaking to her or touching her.

“Are you all right, Barbry?” he said with no hope that she would even look at him.

She sat on the edge of the round, king-sized bed where the nurse had led her. She stared straight ahead of her.

“Of course she’s all right,” Su Yan said impatiently. Why shouldn’t she be? She’ll live in elegance here that, believe me, she was entirely unaccustomed to outside.” Su Yan glanced about the room, at the dining alcove, the impressive fireplace, the sitting room, the bath, the second bathroom. He nodded, pleased. “Very cozy. However, I think I can give you an even happier group—by adding a member.”

His face was twisted with chilled smiling as he spoke commands a second time into the hand microphone.

Solo tensed, watching him. He stood unmoving as the suite doors were pushed open again. His eyes widened, and illness spread in the pit of his stomach, compounded of outrage and futility.

Two white-suited orderlies, bulkily made, their faces gleaming with their sweated, almost cattle-like stupidity, their muscles thick and corded, entered. Between them walked Illya Kuryakin. His slender face was pale, his fair eyes fixed on nothingness. The difference in the way he moved, and Barbry, was that she was like a robot, mechanical, awaiting commands. Illya looked mindless, not like a robot at all, but like a zombie.

Solo stiffened, hearing Su Yan’s blandly mocking voice: so you see, Solo, no matter how rugged things may look to you, you are much better off than many others, aren’t you?”

III

SOLO HELD ms breath at the sight of the two mindless bodies left with him inside this smartly furnished suite for the insane. The indirect lighting reflected itself in the flat surfaces of their eyes.

He lifted Illya’s arm, tested his pulse, finding the merest trace. On the other extreme was Barbry’s racing pulses, the swirling shadows in her eyes.

He looked at them, thinking they would stay seated as they were until the world ended—which might not be the too distant future unless he was able to find some way out of here, for all of them or for himself alone.

He gently pushed Barbry back on the bed, so that she at least looked comfortable to him. He supposed in her state, she rested as well sitting up. She lay down obediently for him, upon her back. She did not close her eyes. She lay staring through the ceiling, through the dome of the sky, through the roof of heaven…

He winced, thinking that he might find a way out alone. He hated the thought of leaving them behind, and yet all he needed was the chance to get word to U.N.C.L.E. headquarters—as quickly as that, the balance would shift to their side. But if they found him gone, how long would Illya or Barbry live? If he stayed, how long would the world itself last?

Solo smiled wryly. Here he was, considering the possibility of his escaping from what must be an improbable fortress.

He prowled the room, unable to sit still. Not even the complicated puzzle of the dismantled component parts from his attack and survival case could keep him at a chair. He needed something to make, something that would aid him somehow. There seemed a million unrelated parts spread out there, waiting, challenging. If only he knew what to do with them…

The steady hum he had noticed from the depths of this building—somewhere under him, and there were no windows that looked from this room upon anything except stone foundation, which meant this suite was below ground—the unceasing sound continued.

He found the steel bars at the windows were sunk deeply in the concrete, defying even a heat bomb. Besides, the window led nowhere. Set high in the walls were the grates of the air conditioning complex. The fireplace had once been a working one, apparently, but now it was strictly ornamental. A heavy steel plate barred the chimney opening. The doors of the room were flat-surfaced inside, with a small peep-hole, covered on the outer facing—the kind of sighting-opening in any insane asylum. The doors swung inward easily, but there seemed no way to force them open from within.

He exhaled heavily, sweated, prowling all the rooms of the suite like a caged animal, despairing, but not tired.

Lunch came. Solo abandoned his fruitless searching of the suite and sat at the linen-covered table in the alcove. He ate alone. Orderlies attempted to rouse Illya and Barbry to the food, quickly dismissed the idea. As he ate, he stared at Illya and the girl, trying to think how he might lift them from this artificially imposed lethargy. The food—a roast chicken, with tiny green peas, feathery-light mashed potatoes, a tossed salad, wine and coffee—was served by a tan-suited waiter who was obsequiously polite, but watchful. The service was perfect, but the man neither asked questions nor answered them.