The first fringe of beeches loomed ahead. Mike plunged in among the great trees, running blindly. He had no hope now of finding the path; his one thought was to put as much distance as he could between himself and his pursuers. He had no illusion about what would happen if he fell into the major’s hands again.

Low branches whipped at his face as he stumbled along, and he felt the salt taste of blood in his mouth. Once he fell, and the sharp pain that stabbed at his ankle made him cry out. He limped on desperately, and then suddenly he was on the highway.

Car headlights blazed in his face. He heard a girl call, “Stanning! Here!”

He found the open door and fell into the seat beside the driver. The motor accelerated smoothly.

The same voice said, “Now, soon, friend Mike, you shall buy the drink you promised me in the Linden Tree.”

It was the girl with the red hair.

CHAPTER THREE

NAPOLEON SOLO and Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin entered Del Floria’s tailoring shop together. The old man looked up, smiled fleetingly and pushed a small button on the side of his pressing machine.

The two men walked into the third of the “try-on” cubicles at the rear of the shop. Solo drew the curtain while Illya turned the hook on the back wall. The wall swung open and they walked through to the agents’ admissions desk of U.N.C.L.E. The girl on the desk had watched their progress on her closed-circuit television screen. She had the two white badges ready to pin to their lapels. A chemical on her fingers set up a reaction in each badge as she pinned it into place.

It is one of the safeguards of the U.N.C.L.E. setup that any person passing through certain areas of the building will trip an alarm unless he is wearing a badge that has been properly activated. On every desk in the building a small red light begins to flash and a signal is heard beating in a repeating tempo of alarm. Steel doors slide shut throughout the enclave, forming self-contained cells in which to trap the intruder. Therefore it is highly…uncomfortable…to stray from the prescribed limits within which one’s badge is valid.

White badge territory is the third floor. Here are the Policy and Operations offices, interrogation rooms, the armory, and the cubicles occupied by the enforcement agents, the elite of the organization, during their infrequent visits to the home base.

Here, too, is the office of Alexander Waverly, one of the five men of different nationalities who comprise the Policy department of U.N.C.L.E.’s Section I. The only window in the entire U.N.C.L.E. fortress is in Waverly’s office. It lends itself to a panoramic view of the East River with the United Nations building centered in the frame. It is not known how Waverly enters or leaves his office. He is either there or not there. Some say there is a fifth entrance to the building reserved for the five Policy directors alone. If there is, nobody has ever found it

Waverly is a lean, dry, pedantic man in his early fifties. He looks and talks like a university professor of the old school. He wears seedy tweed jackets with leather-patched arms, baggy flannel trousers and much-darned sweaters. While he talks he handles pipes incessantly, but he has never been seen to smoke one.

In discussions with his enforcement agents he could be lecturing backward students. He talks around points, hesitating, pausing and often “harrumphing” when he comes to a name. Sometimes he will appear even to forget the name of the man he is talking with. There are many things he appears to forget. Somehow, none of them are important. He may forget the name of an agent, but he won’t forget the dangers of the situation into which he is sending him. He may seem to be understating the assignment—but he will have analyzed every aspect very thoroughly before selecting the right man or woman for the job.

When Solo and Illya Kuryakin walked into his office Waverly was sitting alone at the great teak revolving table shaped like a hollow O. Without speaking he motioned them to chairs. Then he flipped a switch and spoke briefly into an inter-office transmitter.

The red-haired girl came into the room with Mike Stanning. She was no longer in the worn black turtleneck and trousers. She wore a brown deerskin jacket, a Danish ski sweater in bright colored wools and white non-stretch slacks. Her feet were shod in light brogues that looked handmade.

Waverly did not get up to greet her. He asked, “Well, Karen?”

The girl said, “I don’t know that I can add anything to my report. Except that he can keep his mouth shut. I’ve worked on him all the way from Copenhagen. Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Good!”

There was silence for a moment. Then Mr. Waverly said, “All right, Mr. Stanning. Wait in the next room, will you? There are one or two things I want to discuss with these people.”

Mike’s long-tried patience gave away.

 “Look, what the hell’s going on?” he burst out. “Who are you? I’m a businessman and I ought to be in London. Instead of that I’ve been shanghaied to New York in an army bomber without even being allowed to make a phone call to my boss. For all I know I’m out of a job already. I’ve got a right to know what it’s all about.

“You have, indeed, my dear fellow.” Waverly stood up and ushered him to the door. “And so you shall…in just a few moments.” He opened the door with Old World courtesy but he shut it as firmly as a jailer.

Mike sat down in the small anteroom and began to turn the pages of a magazine he found on a table. It would have made more sense if it had not been printed in Russian. Still, the pictures were interesting.

Karen put her head around the door. “You can come back now.”

The party had rearranged itself in his absence. Waverly was still in the same chair but now Solo and Illya sat on either side of him. Karen took her place beside Solo. She lit a torpedo-shaped cigar that looked as out of place as a hayfork in the hand of Venus.

Waverly went straight to the point. “The girl you knew as Norah Bland gave you a package to bring to me,” he told Mike.

“Yes.”

“You have it with you?”

Mike took the package from his breast pocket and put it on the table. The teak circle revolved smoothly, bringing the white-wrapped package to Waverly’s hand.

He said, “Have you any idea what is in it?”

“A pack of North State cigarettes.”

“And in the cigarettes?”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t touched them,” Mike said. “They could be reefers, for all of mine.”

“Then let’s find out.”

Waverly expertly broke open the cellophane and carefully unfolded the blue North State pack. Twenty white tubes rolled gently onto the table. They looked like any other cigarettes.

Waverly picked one up. He slit the cigarette paper vertically with a blade like a scalpel. Mike saw a tiny container nestling between two short cylinders of tobacco. There was a similar container in each of the nineteen remaining cigarettes.

Waverly swept cellophane, paper and tobacco into a wastebasket. He took one of the metal containers between first finger and thumb and held it up.

“These,” he said soberly, “are what Norah Bland died for. You cannot be aware of it, Mr.—er, Stanning—but by completing her mission you have done an incalculable service not only to your country but to the world. I am afraid my inadequate thanks are all you will get for it. When you leave this room you must put the matter out of your mind and never speak of it again.

“And now”—he stood up—“transportation is waiting to take you back to Denmark. You will be in Copenhagen in good time to catch the S.A.S. flight to London on which you booked.”