The Final Affair

and initiative of their leaders. We have adequate evidence of most of the criminal activities of Thrush, hopefully sufficient to Bring specific indictments against most of the Satraps and some of their staffs; it will be presented to whatever authorities have jurisdiction.'

'There are some known Thrush operations which show no criminal taint, and it is not a crime to belong to Thrush – merely highly questionable. We can only watch their future activities with the controlling mind behind them gone.'

'There will be no lack of work for us in the next few years, gentlemen – every surviving Satrap will see himself the Man of the Hour, inspired to weld the shattered segments into a new whole with himself at the head. This will inevitably lead to differences of opinion, and likely gang guerilla warfare in a few thousand locations, as well as independent operations on somewhat smaller scales than before.'

'But without Central, all intercommunication and co-ordination among them will be gone,' said Napoleon, awed.

'Not all,' said Illya. 'They can still use public telephone circuits and amateur radio. But it won't quite have that old – what's the word, Meyer?'

'Zip.'

'Thank you. Zip.'

'Of course, we will have the advantage of knowing where everyone is, what they have, can do and have done, which will be of inestimable advantage.'

'We knew all that about Baldwin and it never helped,' said Napoleon.

'By the way,' asked Illya, 'have you been able to place anything against Baldwin? Indictments? Evidence?'

'Ah… Hmm. I confidently expect to bring some kind of charges against him, though at present I'm afraid I can't tell what. After all, we have sifted barely three percent of the data that's been fed us so far.'

'I put a flag on Baldwin's name,' said Napoleon. 'If anything comes through with him on it I get a copy. He's done a lot of research for them, all laboratory stuff with legally obtained materials (as far as we can tell) and unspecified results; they pay him a lot of royalties for unspecified uses of his patents; he socializes with many of their top brass. He walks like a Thrush, he has feathers like a Thrush, he chirps like a Thrush and he runs around a lot with Thrush -'

'Besides,' said Illya, 'he told us he was Thrush. And why should he lie?'

' – But we cannot connect him in any way with any illegal activity.'

'Yet,' said Mr. Waverly.

The August afternoon sun shone hot on irrigated trees and rococo concrete buildings, on bushes, baseball diamond and bandshell. The wheezing music of a carrousel wafted on the warm breeze; kids ran and shouted, or stretched on – tiptoe to reach a waterfountain. There was a scent of carmelcorn and of flowers, with an occasional whiff from the zoo just over the hill.

Among a variety of motley groups wandering down the long empty street between shuttered and padlocked exhibition buildings strolled three assorted couples, carrying, respectively, a large briefcase, a large camera bag, and a large leather purse. Most of the members of this unnoticed group wore dark glasses,, and two of the men wore caps with bills which shaded their faces perhaps- a little more than necessary.

The boarded windows and untracked portico of the chipped plaster facade they passed bespoke seasons without tenants. Behind those blank walls waited a staff of 47 and several millions of dollars worth of hardware, protected by one of the best portable security systems in the world, They waited, ready to be called to duty in a couple of weeks or on sixty seconds notice, but not quite ready to be subject to an attack themselves, feeling as secure as they had almost every right to feel.

Napoleon Solo could have known the name, rank and personal history of every one of the 47, had he cared to memorize that list he did know the entrance code, the block diagram of the air- conditioning system, the master alarm net and cross-check plan, and where the washrooms were.

Since Joan was still restricted in San Francisco, Napoleon was accompanied by Linda Brunelle, a healthy blonde from the Los Angeles office; Illya had been assigned a lean brunette named Terri Travener. Mr. Gold had brought Miss Klingstein with him, as well as a satchel stuffed with data sheets which held the keys to the Ultimate Computer itself, scrawled in illegible pencil. Between them they expected to be able to operate at least as much of the hardware as necessary.

Illya carried a photographer's gadget bag, containing his electronic sensors, assorted cables, and two candy bars. Brandy slung a leather tote bag which held three cannisters of Paralane-Alpha.

'It struck me,' said Napoleon as they wandered with the citizenry through the park past their target, 'that one of our problems in dealing with Thrush was that they always took the initiative, and they knew how to apply that minimum of force in just the right place before you knew it and be finished before you could quite react. And it occurred to me -'

'That we were doing the same thing to them only more so and first?' said Illiya. 'I'm sorry Napoleon. If I'd thought you'd missed that I would have pointed it out to you days ago.'

'You didn't know days ago,' said Napoleon reasonably. 'Smart-alec Russian. I'll bet you didn't think of it until just now.'

'I'm insulted.'

'Good. Anyway, I just thought I'd mention the point. Isn't this our corner?'

Gold and Miss Klingstein stopped to admire the view west towards the bay while Napoleon and Illya, with their aides, walked idly around the end of the building onto a gravel path. They found a wood-and-stucco utility locker on the back wall behind a clump of eucalyptus; Illya's key fit the padlock and a quick look verified a network of wires, all tagged with numbers. Then as he consulted a list and Terri commenced unpacking the kit, Napoleon worked his way along the wall, Brandy behind him, feet crunching quietly on the fragrant leaves.

There was his air intake, louvered and screened, eight feet above the ground. He could just barely reach it, he found, and it would be simple to hang the cannisters to the screen. He left Brandy there arming the gas cylinders, and padded back to Illya.

'How are we doing?' he asked.

'As well as can reasonably be expected,' said his partner. 'My jumpers are ready to cut in and we have about four minutes to go.'

'About? Have you checked with Darjeeling?'

'I was just about to. Would you?'

Napoleon's communicator was assembled in his hand, and he asked, 'Open Channel S, please.'

A guarded voice answered interrogatively, and Napoleon said, 'It's us. We seem to have about three and a half minutes to zero. How's by you?'

'Much the same. Is all well where you are?'

'So far. We'll launch the first phase exactly one minute before the hour.'

'The hour? Oh, sorry. We're in a half-hour difference zone. It's just coming up on 0:27.'

'Okay, that matches our 14:57, Coming up on the minute – four, three, two, one, mark!'

'Two seconds error; not enough to worry about. Five seconds would be close enough provided you went first. I will initiate my phase, then, fifteen seconds after you release your gas.'

'Make it thirty seconds,' said Illya. 'It'll take the gas most of a minute to move through the system into their quarters. That gives your target a minute or so to notice you're coming and push the panic button, so the dump should come just about the time everyone here is dozing off.'

'Check,' said Castora. 'Standing by,'

'Two minutes,' said Illya as Napoleon returned to where Brandy had prepared and armed all three charges.

With thirty seconds to go he started all three timers and stretched to hang the cylinders, one at a time, on the grating over the mouth of the air intake. Then he looked up at them expectantly as the final seconds ticked away.

They burst with a rush, and Illya dropped the microswitches of his jumper unit.

Faintly through his communicator he heard the cry of 'GO!' from ten thousand miles away. The warm California breeze rustled in undisturbed tranquility as three cannisters poured pale vapor into the