The danger was real. Waverly saw a world poised on the knife edge of nuclear war, on one side a young country, ruled by a younger leader, blinded by the optimism such inexperience feeds. Against them, an ancient country, ruled by corruption, treachery and pessimism. With U.N.C.L.E. perched anxiously to one side, trying to maintain the balance of power. The balance of peace.

  Sometimes the things one was called to do in the pursuit of peace were less than noble.

  Waverly went back to the report and studied it again. He didn't like the implications, either for world peace, or for his agency, if U.N.C.L.E. were forced to step in and intervene.

  A difficult decision, this. Not one he could make lightly. If U.N.C.L.E. did act and it's actions were discovered, he might have struck a blow for world peace at the cost of his agency. On the other hand, if he let this prospect for nuclear proliferation go unchecked, both U.N.C.L.E. and the world as he knew it might cease to exist.

  He would have to move carefully, to ensure he achieved his aims without compromising the effectiveness of his organization.

  And the time was, as usual, limited. The report had been in yesterday afternoon's courier packet. The crisis was now several days old. He might be required to act at any time and he needed more current information.

  After a moment's pause, he picked up the phone.

  Then he absently reached for his pipe again. Belatedly remembering his promise, he swore a soft oath.

  Then he struck the match.

  By the time the call went through, he had the pipe drawing well.

  ***

  U.N.C.L.E. Safe House Complex

  Washington D.C.

  The night was sultry, the humid air pressing down on the heated earth, the stars shining only dimly through the surrounding haze. The atmosphere might have been oppressive, but Norman Graham, chief administrator for Washington, D.C. U.N.C.L.E. was in another environment entirely, swimming in his outdoor pool at least a foot below the oven-like air.

  Trish Graham stood in the light spilling out from the open doorway, waiting for her husband's head to rise above the water. After a few moments of batting at the moths flying around her, she closed the french doors and crossed to the end of the pool. The fact that she was keeping the head of U.N.C.L.E. North America waiting didn't concern her. One of the few people who wasn't unduly impressed with Waverly, she felt a few moments spent cooling his heels would do the man nothing but good.

  Norm approached her, swimming soundlessly toward the floodlights and as he reached out to push himself into a turn she crouched down and touched him lightly on the shoulder.

  And suffered through an explosion of water.

  After turning a complete, although inadvertent, somersault in the water, Norm stood up, shaking drops of water from his hair and sending them flying, like sparkling diamonds, through the air.

  "Goodness, Norm. Was that really necessary?" Trish rose, swatting ineffectually at the soaked linen of her skirt.

  "No," Norm lowered his arms and relaxed from his defensive stance, pushing his soaked bangs out of his eyes. "How often do I have to prove this, honey. Never sneak up —"

  "On an enforcement agent. Yes, darling, I know. And when I forget, you prove it to me all over again. I'm sorry I startled you."

  "Likewise," Norm grinned. "But I'm not sorry for the company. Kids asleep? You could join me. And since I soaked you anyway—"

  Trish backed away from his wet hand. "No, thank you."

  "A spot of skinny dipping? A moonlight swim?" Norm grinned mischievously and advanced on her through the water, putting wet fingertips on the tiles at the edge of the pool, preparing to hoist himself up.

  "Alexander is on the telephone," Trish said, backing away to a safe distance.

  "Oh, damn," Norm lost the smile. "Are you sure he has the right number? The one for the White House is only a few digits off."

  "He wants you, darling," Trish said sweetly, "his ex-enforcement agent. The one always ready for action."

  "Not this kind of action," Norm grumbled, grabbing a towel from a lounge chair and heading toward the house. "I had in mind a completely different kind of action."

  Trish sat down on the lounge chair and studied the ripples on the water shining in the floodlights. "Skinny dipping," she said thoughtfully.

  Then a mosquito took a direct hit on her upper arm and she rose quickly, tugging at her wet skirt and followed her husband into the cool, dry, civilized house. Alexander wouldn't keep Norm on the phone all night.

  ***

  CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  Thirty-six hours later, well after midnight, two men sat surrounded by a sea of folders. The roar of a jet from Dulles airport rumbled through the windows. "Did you call MI-6?"

  "Yeah. Guess who the Brits recommended?"

  Baker groaned. "No."

  "He worked with them recently on a case. Not to mention that they knew him from Cambridge. I wish the GRU had taken the little bastard out when they had the chance."

  "Jesus, Don."

  "I still say he's a mole. Maybe not the mole, but a mole, anyway. Or a sleeper."

  "That case is closed. No use stirring it up now."

  "So whom do we have?"

  Baker sighed, comparing their small list of 'possibles' to the folders flooding their offices. "Chirkov is the closest fit. Agent, physicist, speaks Russian, blue eyes. He's even blond."

  "Hell, he's forty-two. He might pass for the father, not the son. And he's a lousy agent. He trips over his feet in the labs. He's got no mechanical skills. He's a scientist, not a field operative. I'll bet he panics when the copier jams. No way could he pull off a field assignment like this."

  "Markowitz is our best physicist and he's worked undercover in the Soviet Union."

  "With those dark eyes and that Mediterranean skin? Besides he's thirty-eight and 5' 11"."

  "Andrews of the FBI."

  "He has a physics background, blue eyes, slight build and he's just thirty. That's close to our physical type. Shit, we can dye and straighten his hair. But he's still two inches too tall and his Russian is lousy. He's never even been in the Soviet Union. And he's a cop, not an agent. Can he handle this kind of assignment?"

  "Hypnotutoring. And special shoes," Baker suggested dead pan, obviously joking.

  "What about the Navy—we've got dozens of young guys in nuclear subs—they have some physics background, military training; they'd be close to our target age..."

  "I asked...requested they do a personnel search for someone with blue eyes, our physical type, and some Russian background. They laughed and asked me if I thought they'd let anyone even remotely Russian near those subs. Then they told me it would take a week to just do a personnel search. Let's face it, Don. We have physicists. We have Sovietologists. We have doubles for this boy and we have agents. None of them is a viable match. Every one is a stretch. Except Kuryakin."

  "We should have taken that bastard out when we had the chance."

  "We don't have much time to get an agent briefed, prepped and in the field. We know the KGB have taken the bait. They made the contact with our sources and they're pretending to negotiate while trying to pinpoint Antipov's location. We can't stall them for long. Now we can spend our days wading through more personnel files, increase the Soviet's suspicions with a delay, and find some poor second, or we can go with the obvious choice."

  "Waverly could refuse to lend him."

  "Are you kidding? Pass up a chance to get the CIA in his debt? That old fox will string us out but good. Why do you think the old man said no?"

  "The chief may still say no."

  "He won't like it, but he'll do it to take out that reactor."

  "But Kuryakin?"

  Baker frowned and picked up another file, riffling through it. "He's been cleared. Christ, Don, we've followed the guy since he got here. He goes to U.N.C.L.E. HQ. He goes to class, the libraries and home. Once in awhile he goes out with a girl, but always with his partner. The most incriminating thing he's done in New York is visit jazz clubs where he talks to no one and nurses one glass of vodka. On every single courier run into Washington, he's flown into Dulles, dropped off all his packages as regular as Santa Claus, and headed straight for the U.N.C.L.E. Safe House for the weekend."

  "Safe House." Johnson sneered. "Nothing but another damned U.N.C.L.E. installation we can't infiltrate. But I guess there's no place safer than under the thumb of the head of U.N.C.L.E., Washington. Norman Graham keeps tight tabs on Waverly's Russian, that's for sure."

  "He has since Kuryakin's defection," Baker added. "And the pattern hasn't changed according to these reports. On the Monday courier run back to New York, Kuryakin always comes to Langley first thing. He picks up our bundle and heads out the front door while our tail heads out the back. Christ, he knows all our local men as well as they know him. He makes his run to the FBI, the Pentagon, the White House—he never even bothers to shed our tail anymore if he recognizes him—they might as well take the same cab to Dulles, save the taxpayers some money, and share the same row on the NY shuttle. Maybe they could help each other with the Post's crossword puzzle, add some interest to the trip. Our local boys all say the same thing—we must have better things for them to do on the weekend than trail Kuryakin while he takes Graham's eight-year-old kid to the comic-book store, or—and this is the really exciting stuff—buys himself a new book or jazz record."

  "I'd like those agents' names," Johnson said sourly. "Attitudes like that breed carelessness."

  "It's been over four years. If Kuryakin was a careless mole, he'd have been caught. If he is a sleeper, he rivals Rip Van Winkle. If he's a double agent, he's better than our best. We've got nothing on him. And Waverly is no fool—not only must he believe the Russian is clean, but he's got that boy under his thumb but good. Shipped him off to Graham the minute he got here. The kid never strays an inch. He either likes family life, or he's been told to like it, because when he's here he plays the dutiful son routine with a vengeance. Hangs out with the Graham kids as innocent as if he was never an eliminator for the GRU. Our agents groan when he's assigned to them, they say he has the most boring life of anyone they've tailed."

  "You can't tell me that isn't an act."

  "Would Waverly risk U.N.C.L.E. and his own reputation, on the coercion of one agent? I don't buy it. All that old world charm aside, Waverly is a ruthless bastard when the situation requires it. Christ, he'd have Kuryakin taken out himself if he thought the Russian was a threat—and it's not as if he doesn't have the means to do it. In the absence of any evidence, that leaves me to conclude Kuryakin is exactly the honest little defector—"

  "That's a contradiction in terms."

  "—that Waverly claims him to be. And if he is, then we can use him."

  "The old man isn't going to like it. Sending a defector back into the Soviet Union?"

  "What better way to prove the Russian really defected, than to send him to do a job against his own country? Anyway, U.N.C.L.E has sent him there several times. The CIA has invested enough resources following Waverly's Russian that it's time we got our own payback. Why shouldn't we get to use him, too?"

  "You really think he's safe?"

  "If he isn't, then it's better we find out now. And if the Soviets discover the switch, they'll execute him anyway. That's a pretty strong motivation to do the job. At least we won't lose one of our own. It won't be an American taking out that plant, it will be a Soviet."

  "He's an American citizen now."

  "He's a defector. A spy. A former KGB agent who turned on them. If he's uncovered they'll hush it up, probably kill him quickly for fear of word getting out. They know he works for U.N.C.L.E.; it will be Waverly's group that takes the heat, if he gets caught. The CIA will never be implicated. All in all, it's not a bad solution."

  "The old man still won't like it."

  "What can he do? We'll show him the other candidates if he kicks—he's savvy enough to realize our choices are limited. It may choke him, but in some respects it works out for us. I don't know about you, but I plan to leverage this into getting more of a personnel budget. I don't like going to U.N.C.L.E. any more than any one else."

  "A bigger personnel budget..." Johnson blinked thoughtfully. "You know, that's not a bad idea."

  "Who's going to tell him?"

  "Toss a coin?"

  Baker lost.

  Chapter Two: Setup

  U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, New York City

  The man seated next to Waverly at the round conference table was intimately acquainted with one of the two agents who entered Waverly's office.

  Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin's face was impassive as Waverly greeted his two top enforcement agents, although he spared a brief glance at his boss before sitting down and staring blankly before him at nothing. His partner, however, reacted with a scowl at the sight of Waverly's visitor.

  Peter Baker was the CIA's top intelligence officer responsible for Soviet Counterintelligence. He had been one of the agents responsible for investigating and dissecting every facet of Kuryakin's prior life since his defection from the Soviet Union. Now that his partner had been given U.S. citizenship, by no less than a special act of Congress initiated by the Senator from New York, Solo had thought the CIA had backed off, dropping their constant surveillance of Kuryakin. Certainly they hadn't arranged for any more private interrogation parties, complete with lie detectors, for his partner's entertainment—at least not that Solo had heard. But why was the CIA here now?

  Solo numbered among his friends a few CIA agents, Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott among them. They had, in fact, recently helped rescue his partner and himself from the situation in Los Angeles. But neither Kelly nor Scotty was in the Soviet-Russia or Counterintelligence Divisions, those areas that had repeatedly grilled his partner over the years since his defection. Solo had little use for those departments, or for the Cold-War paranoia that afflicted that agency. Perhaps, his dual Canadian-American citizenship made him see things on a more global perspective. Or perhaps his perspective was narrowed from having a defector for a partner. Regardless, he had few warm feelings for the CIA.

  Waverly began with little preamble. "You both know Mr. Baker, gentlemen. He is here to discuss the details of a case which may require some joint cooperation between our two agencies."

  U.N.C.L.E. and the CIA working together on a case? Solo thought skeptically. That will be a first.

  Baker darkened the lights and brought up an image on the screen. "This man's name is Alexi Stephanovitch Antipov. He's a Soviet physicist, working on the latest version of their liquid metal fast breeder nuclear reactor. His son was also a gifted physicist."

  "His son?" Solo glanced at Baker and back at the display skeptically. "He's rather young to have a physicist for a son. And I presume that since you're speaking in the past tense, the son is dead."

  "Correct. The boy died earlier this week, although the Soviets aren't yet aware of that fact. He wasn't quite eighteen. As for his age, your partner wasn't much older when he had taken most of the course work for his Ph.D. in quantum mechanics."

  Solo grimaced and Kuryakin shifted infinitesimally in his seat.

  "But you are correct on one point," Baker continued. "This boy was something of an idiot savant, gifted in nuclear physics, but less mature in other areas, at least from what we can ascertain. The Soviets used that immaturity to control him, but he surprised them. He was dissatisfied with the safety backups on the breeder that were designed by the mechanical engineers and refused to work on the project unless they were corrected. Idealistic, but stupid, especially for a Soviet citizen."

  Solo glanced at his partner, but although Kuryakin's eyes narrowed a bit at that dig, he let it pass. He had probably heard far worse in his various interrogation sessions. Solo cleared his throat. "I'm afraid I'm not up on my nuclear physics. Perhaps someone could explain what a breeder reactor is."

  There was a brief silence around the conference table until Waverly prompted, "Mr. Kuryakin, you are best qualified to enlighten Mr. Solo."

  Kuryakin sighed softly, but complied. "Simply put, a breeder reactor produces more plutonium from uranium than it consumes in the fission process. It is an ideal reactor if one requires high grade plutonium for weapons production. But the engineering requirements are more stringent. There are very few in existence, most small-scale experimental reactors, used for weapons production, or experimentation, rather than utility power." He hesitated, then added, "There is one being developed for utility power purposes here in this country, but its testing is still in progress."

  Solo glanced around the table, noting a slight frown had creased the CIA agent's brow at Kuryakin's knowledge of the American reactor, but no one added anything further. Kuryakin, apparently regretting his last admission, had clammed up again. "And this reactor is different? Is it the first Soviet breeder?" Solo asked.

  Peter Baker responded. "Certainly not, but it is the first of this design and this power level. Your Mr. Kuryakin is correct," again there was a slight shift in the CIA agent's tone that indicated he had made note of that knowledge, "that most of the 'fast breeders' were designed for experimental, military purposes, of small power. This reactor is designed, ostensibly, for utility power purposes and is of a power level unprecedented in either Soviet or presently operating American breeders. Of course, the level of plutonium production would be equally unprecedented, particularly if these reactors proliferate throughout the Soviet Union as major sources of utility power."

  "And the boy discovered a design problem and refused to work on the project?"

  "Exactly. They reacted in a typical Soviet fashion, apparently with threats against himself and his father, if he continued to refuse."

  Kuryakin shifted uncomfortably again and Waverly frowned, while the CIA agent seemed oblivious to the atmosphere his statements were creating.

  "The boy, however, had access to the outside world via a crude computer network of physicists. He smuggled a coded message out asking to defect, along with his father, before his computer access was detected and cut off."