Su Yan lifted Illya, placed him in a chair, secured his hands behind him and left him there, unconscious.

“I’m afraid we have bad news for you, Solo,” Su Yan said. “We have reached the decision that you are expendable—ahead of the operation. We need only the voice of one of you, and we have determined that Kuryakin, despite his tendency to reckless acts, will be the easiest to control. I hope you will believe me when I tell you how sorry I am that I won’t be seeing you again.”

Solo did not speak, watching him.

Su Yan caught Barbry by the arm, leading her toward one of the cylinders lined on the far wall. Watching them, Solo saw how the nerve gas had been pumped to him through a small rubber tubing that ran along the baseboard to the fireplace.

“A nerve gas here that should interest you, Solo,” Su Yan said. He paused when the lights dimmed again. “Developed by our own scientists and chemists. The effect is much like that of hypnosis. The subject remains in a waking-sleep state, as in hypnosis. As in hypnosis she is not aware of what she is doing while she is under its effects. And unlike hypnosis, the so-called moral censor is not at work. The subject follows only those orders given her while she is going under—and there is not the danger of morals or conscience as a deterrent. She is literally unable to do anything except follow those orders. I’m sure this is going to prove most interesting to you.”

The lights dimmed again and Su Yan hurried himself slightly. When Barbry opposed him, trying to break free, he drew his arm back and almost struck her. At the last moment he controlled his rage. Instead of hitting her, he simply stared down at her and spoke no more than three or four whispered words. Barbry no longer offered any resistance.

He sat her down in a chair beside one of the cylinders. He placed a rubber cup firmly over her mouth and nose, holding it in place. He turned the valve on the cylinder. There was a whisper of sound, the sibilant hiss of gas.

Solo strained to move his body, but found himself still in that state of physical paralysis. He saw that Su Yan was not using this same gas on Barbry.

His low voice struck at Barbry. “I am going to leave a knife with you, Barbry. Do you understand?”

Solo saw that the girl’s eyes were open. There was no longer any terror in them. Her blinking seemed to indicate to Su Yan that she still heard him, still understood him. He glanced at the needle on the cylinder gauge.

Satisfied that the flow of gas was slow, steady, adequate, Su Yan spoke again: “When I am out of the room, Barbry, you will kill Napoleon Solo there on the floor. You will strike between the shoulder blades. Once. Twice. Three times. You will make certain he is dead before you use the knife on yourself. You will drive the knife upward through your solar plexus into your heart.” Solo, in horror, heard Su Yan calmly repeat these instructions in that same unemotional tone. He could see Barbry’s face, and he saw there was no recoiling, no revulsion in her eyes. He could not tell if she understood Su Yan, but the thin, tall man appeared satisfied. He reached over and turned off the valve; the whispering hiss of gas ceased.

He stood another moment with the rubber cup in place over Barbry’s nose and mouth. Then he set the cup in its holder. He drew a glitteringly sharp knife from his inner jacket pocket He placed it firmly in Barbry’s grasp, folding her fingers over the handle, pressing them closed, watching her narrowly as he worked.

Su Yan stepped back and Barbry sat there, staring straight ahead, the knife clasped firmly in her fist.

Su Yan watched her a moment and then nodded, apparently satisfied. The building lights dimmed again.

He turned, moving toward the door, paused, glancing at Solo on the floor.

“Goodbye, Mr. Solo.” Su Yan stared at him. If it will comfort you, I can assure you that you and Esther Kappmyer will be found dead in your room at the St. Francis Hotel.”

“Somehow there’s no comforting thought there,” Solo said.

“When it happens,” Su Yan said, “Washington, D.C. will be only atomic rubble, and World War III will be under way.”

“Too bad you haven’t reason enough left to see what will happen when hydrogen bombs are used.”

Su Yan had turned toward the door; now he heeled around angrily.

“We can build well on the ruin of this world—and small loss. Other civilizations have grown out of the rubble of those before them.”

“If you say so.”

“Don’t fight it so,” Su Yan said with a chilled smile. “You have the comforting thought that you gave your life in an heroic effort to avert what you see as a catastrophe.’

Now Solo laughed. “I wonder what comforting thought you will find, Su Yan, when you finally realize that the catastrophe is more immense than your imagination can contain—when there is nothing left for you to rule? I’ve always wondered what thoughts are comforting to an international fink.”

Su Yan gripped the door until his knuckles whitened. Obviously he fought a battle against his fiery desire to stride back across the room and finish off Solo.

Whatever he might have done, the thought was wiped away as the lights dimmed one more time. He glanced, as if for the final check, at Solo helpless on the floor, at Illya bound and unconscious in a straight chair, and Barbry seated with that gleaming six-inch knife gripped tightly in her fist.

This still-life pleased him entirely, and he gave a small nod of satisfaction before he stepped through the door and closed it behind him.

The thundering of noises rumbled through the air ducts under the ceiling of the room: Forcing himself to keep his gaze away from Barbry and the knife in her hand, Solo concentrated on the cabinets along the far walls, seeing weaponry, masks and ammunition as well as cylinders of several types of gasses. Every attack weapon he would need to stop DeVry and Su Yan—only feet away from him, and yet they might as well have been on the dark side of the moon.

Barbry stirred, and Solo jerked his eyes back to her. The chair scraped as she stood up.

He said, keeping his voice level, unemotional, “Don’t move, Barbry. Stay where you are.”

She stood up slowly, her gaze fixed on his vulnerable back. She stared at him, but he knew that she had not heard a word he had said. She was conditioned against any thought except that of murder and suicide implanted in her mind by Samuel Su Yan.

V

FOLLOWED BY two guards, Su Yan strode along the corridor to the elevator marked Private. He stepped into it and, with his guards, slipped quickly down into the white-walled laboratory where the atomic device had been assembled and was now being loaded for the upward ride to the field where it would be placed in the bomb-bay of the sleek silver fan-jet.

As Su Yan left the elevator, he saw only one man in the metallically lighted area who seemed relaxed. This was Colonel Baker, the renegade pilot who had hired out to make delivery, as specified, of one atomic device. Su Yan stared at the man; he lounged, drinking a beer, while his payload was being painstakingly carted via narrow rail over the seventy or eighty feet of floor space to the specially rigged open elevator.

Su Yan wondered if the arrogant adventurer had looked beyond that moment when he would dump his atomic payload as contracted.

Su Yan’s mouth twisted. There was not the least doubt in his mind that Colonel Baker would make the delivery. It was more than the flat fee of one million dollars that was to be paid before the plane took off this morning. It was the challenge that would carry Baker through that strike. The tougher the going got for him at the zero-hour, the greater would be the flier’s determination and pleasure in making the strike.

Still, Su Yan wondered what sort of irresponsible man the colonel had to be to miss the most important aspect of the whole matter. He was going to have a million dollars—but where was he going to spend it? Perhaps he had thought of that, and maybe the promise of one more war fought in the air had outweighed all other considerations for him. No one would ever know what he was thinking as he stood, richly tailored, immaculate, and still slightly hung over, awaiting the fateful loading of his biggest payload.