“Take off!” Kuryakin panted. “I have no idea what the effective range of a shotgun is, and I’d rather not find out.”

Solo put his foot to the floor and the truck leaped away. Diminishing in the distance he could still hear the running battle of the mysterious armed men from nowhere. He scowled to himself.

“Where did the army come from?” he demanded. “What did we run into, a private war?”

“Fireworks,” Kuryakin explained laconically. “Just a lot of big firecrackers—I scattered a few handfuls here and there.”

Solo grinned. “That’s fine, but they won’t be fooled for long. They’ll be after us.”

“If they do, it will be on foot.” Kuryakin twisted his wrist to study his watch. He seemed to be counting to himself. Then he nodded, and the dark night at their back gave forth a brilliant red-white flare and then a sullen echoing boom. “A limpet bomb,” he said. “I stuck it under their hood while they were listening to the fireworks.”

Solo grinned and eased his foot from the gas pedal. Sarah stirred.

“I’ve really torn it up this time.”

“What did you do?” Kuryakin asked curiously.

“Oh, nothing much,” she said, with studied casualness. “I’ve only said out loud in the presence of a witness that I intend to marry Mr. Solo here.”

“So?” Solo demanded, feeling uneasy.

“We’re very old-fashioned about such things in this country. I’m as good as compromised now, unless we go through with it.”

“Getting married, you mean? Now wait! Whoa! Hold on there!” Solo made instant protest. “You can’t do that to me!”

“I’m not so sure,” Kuryakin murmured contemplatively. “You could be in bad trouble here. I’m not absolutely certain about the law, but I have heard rumors about it. But I don’t see what you have to worry about. I’m sure you will both be very happy.”

“This is crazy!” Solo said. “One witness, and that was a man with a shotgun pointed at me! They can’t make that stick. I’ll claim it was under duress. In any case, I denied it. I said it was all a pack of lies. Didn’t I?” He appealed to Sarah, who returned him a hurt blue-eyed stare.

“Don’t you want to marry me, Napoleon?”

Silence grew and thickened in the crowded cab as he reconsidered his position. Then she could hold her composure no longer and exploded into helpless giggles. He stared, then glared, then looked across her shaking head to where Illya was grinning broadly.

“Two of a kind,” he growled. “I ought to toss the pair of you out and let you walk!”

They weren’t a bit impressed. “Speaking of electronics,” Illya murmured, “what do you think of this?” He produced his miniature transceiver to show her. She handled it with professional admiration and was about to comment when the instrument let out a two-tone bleat that was echoed from Solos pocket. Kuryakin grabbed it back, but Solo had his out and was thumbing the button.

“Solo here. What?”

“Shamrock to Volga. How are the drains now?”

Solo stared at the thing, but Kuryakin grinned and said, “Volga to Shamrock. Drains now clear. Some slight obstructions removed, a few interesting developments to follow up.” Solo nodded, catching on. This was the Limerick office.

The small voice came back promptly. “Cancel developments; stand by for relay from Greatuncle!” The two men tensed, waiting, guessing what was to come. A click, and then Waverly himself.

“Mr. Solo, can you hear me? And Mr. Kuryakin, are you there?”

“Both here, sir, loud and clear. Co ahead.” Solo frowned across at his tow-headed colleague. This had to be something big, to bring the old man out of his lair.

“Good. I am speaking to you from a private charter aircraft; we will land at Shannon within the half-hour. It is first-priority urgent that you meet me there. Well?”

“We’ll be there!” Solo said crisply, and heard the click of the channel closure. He put his foot down hard on the gas, and exchanged grim glances with Kuryakin as the pickup howled into furious speed. “The old man sounds worried, and all on account of O’Brien’s Beautiful Beer!”

“I think not,” Kuryakin said quietly. “This will be the second molecule. Meanwhile, what are we to do with you? This party looks as if it is going to get rough.”

“I’m coming!” Sarah declared, very firmly. “I’m not frightened any more. And if it’s something to do with Uncle Mike, then I’m involved. What did you mean about the second molecule? The ferment?”

“Yes. How much of it has been made, do you know?”

“About a hundredweight, I think. It’s a fine white powder—looks like starch. The last I saw, it was being put away into plastic canisters, big ones, bright yellow and with an insert in one end. Three of them.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.” Kuryakin shook his head sadly, and Solo scowled at him.

“What’s on your mind, Illya?”

“Better wait and see what Mr. Waverly has to say.” They raced on through the quiet night, speeding against the ticking hand of time while all around them Ireland slept peacefully in an old-world loveliness of fuchsia hedges and green rolling grasslands, blissfully unaware of the dark seethings of dread that were threatening to plague it.

FOUR

“I’m Afraid the Birds Have Flown.”

ALEXANDER WAVERLY held court in a small office the airport officials had set aside for his use. His craggy face more worried than usual, an unlit pipe clutched uneasily in his hand, he surveyed the intent faces that waited on his words. The small room was crowded. As the weary three entered, Solo saw and exchanged nods of recognition with several familiar faces. Enforcement men, and good ones, too. U.N.C.L.E. was showing its muscles. He introduced Sarah, and prepared to listen.

“I’ll give you the heart of the matter in very simple words, gentlemen,” Waverly said. “Dr. Michael O’Rourke has got to be stopped, no matter what the cost. I’d prefer that we get him alive, of course, but if that’s not possible—” He let the sentence hang, leaving them to draw the implications. His eyes sought out Sarah, peering at her from under shaggy brows. “This could be unpleasant for you, my dear. If you’d rather not listen—?”

“I want to hear it all,” she declared. “I’ve nothing to thank Uncle Mike for now. Didn’t he try to put me away, and would have killed me as well, if it hadn’t been for Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin here? Speak up—say what you have to!”

“Very well. Our technicians have worked out most of the implications of the O’Rourke synthetics. In one form it is a drug which enhances indiscretion and recklessness, depresses caution, and would be exceedingly dangerous if let loose on an unsuspecting population.”

“We’ve gathered that much,” Solo offered. “We’ve had some.” He went on to tell, briefly, what they had done and experienced. “So we were able to stop the shipment,” he concluded. “Now we have time to alert the authorities and have 3-B cans condemned outright. That’s a job for the revenue men.”

Waverly nodded. “Yes. Well done. That will be taken care of. But our present and highly urgent business is to deal with the second form of the synthetic, before it is too late.”

“I don’t quite see the danger, sir,” Kuryakin interrupted gently. “I’ve seen the formula and read an account of its properties. It’s a ferment, a very fast one, increasing in volume extremely rapidly. And it’s hydrophilous—that is to say, it absorbs water at a furious rate. But—”

“Salt water, Mr. Kuryakin. Sea water!” Waverly’s quiet correction was like a series of ice-pellets into the thick silence. Kuryakin sighed, and then nodded in sudden understanding. For the rest, Waverly went on to explain.

“We tried a few milligrams in a large tank of salt water. Within minutes the whole was a fermenting mass, which stopped only because it had used up all the water. And the reaction ends by transforming into a thick jelly-like stuff that is rigid enough to be cut with a knife. The volumetric increase is simply enormous. The simple facts are these. Anyone sufficiently familiar with the prevailing tides in this geographical area would have no difficulty whatever in scattering quantities of this stuff—it wouldn’t take very much—and thereby blanketing the entire Irish sea, the west coast of England, the English Channel, large reaches of the French coast, and subsequently the North Sea, with this terrible ferment. I don’t think I need to spell it out beyond that, do I? Think of the paralysis to shipping, the choked rivers. Power stations would be put out of action, water supplies fouled and cut off. Fish would die by the million from lack of oxygen. And it wouldn’t take much of the stuff.” He paused to study the strained faces watching him, then added, “We did some rough calculations. All that I have described, and more, could be done with no more than a hundred pounds of the synthetic!”