He shouldered up with the experts and listened to the talk about safety features and sodium problems. Listening to the terms 'rapid reassembly of the core' and 'superprompt critical power excursion', he knew they meant fuel melting and a potential nuclear bomb and felt angry. He and his colleagues risked their lives to prevent disasters by hostile forces that in many respects couldn't begin to approach the disaster his own government, in conjunction with some power company, had decided to inflict on an unsuspecting populace. Solo clenched his teeth, choking back fury, and listened while his partner—his partner!—as cool and unconcerned as if they were in a soap factory, traced diagrams with his fingers and asked reasonable questions in a pleasant tone of voice.

  They went over the safety features, particularly in regard to the sodium coolant, which Napoleon knew Illya hoped to use as the catalyst for an explosion. The Fermi engineers were completely forthcoming. There had been bad check valves in the sodium pumps that had been replaced with a new design, to keep the pumps from jamming as they had in prior tests. There were auxiliary battery-powered pony motors that would kick in to pump the sodium if the electrically powered motors failed. There were unexpected and unexplained cloggings of the nozzles in the fuel subassemblies through which the sodium flowed to cool the fuel pins. There were sudden, unexpected increases in reactivity—power surges—that could escalate to a superprompt critical situation if the sodium coolant started boiling and the fuel melted as a result. If the fuel melted and mixed with the sodium coolant, the result could be a sodium vapor explosion that could be more violent than a nuclear burst.

  Kuryakin listened politely to the discussions of fuel accidents, trying to hide his impatience as he carefully steered the discussion back to the sodium coolant. The reactor he would be dealing with was still unfueled. He needed to arrange for a spectacular credible accident, hopefully one that would allow himself and his colleagues to escape while still 'dissembling the machine'. But he did not need to worry about fuel implications. He followed the path of the sodium, both on the plans and through the plant, from its journey inside the fuel subassemblies inside the reactor, through pipes to the steam generator building. There the sodium, in closed piping, boiled the surrounding water and created steam.

  An accident here could cause thirty thousand gallons of sodium to explode and flash into fire on contact with the water. A burst safety valve, a faulty relief vent, or a crack in a pipe weld would get them the explosion and fire. A few carefully placed and timed explosive devices, simulating any or all of the above, could get them that as well as time to extricate themselves from the conflagration. He just needed the plans and the access. They, and the Soviets, would provide the rest.

  As they walked through the plant, Kuryakin memorized the design and identified potential weaknesses to exploit. He felt comfortable with his understanding of the technology and reassured that he had a reasonable opportunity for success.

  Even as Kuryakin relaxed, Solo became more uneasy. They left Lagoona Beach for the remote wastes of Idaho Flats and studied the experimental reactors there. Most of them were tiny, some with cores no bigger than an orange crate. Solo found the barrenness of the surroundings and the crudeness of the reactors depressing. They looked over plans and toured the sites. Kuryakin, sitting in the operator's seat, played with the tiny reactors, raising the control rods, watching the increases in reactivity and temperature, lowering the control rods, shutting the reactors down. As if they were toys. Prohibitively expensive, unusually dangerous toys.

  Napoleon knew Illya had to familiarize himself with them; Antipov undoubtedly had worked with similar ones and all the physics degrees in the world wouldn't help Kuryakin when he was confronted with an actual control panel, or had to convincingly make his way around a plant. But, necessary as it was, the incomprehensible jargon gave Solo a headache and he didn't care for being regulated, by lack of understanding if nothing else, back with the rest of the CIA agents.

  The Chief Enforcement Agent was glad when they finally headed back to New York.

  ***

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

  Waverly did not deign to notice his medical chief's entrance into his office. After a moment, Lawrence slouched down into one of the chairs around the circular table. At this unprecedented taking of liberties, Waverly did look up, frowning.

  "I'm a shrink, remember, Alexander? Your agents may stand quaking before you when you play these power games, but I'm immune."

  "Indeed. You are also interrupting my work. I did not send for you." Waverly returned to his folders, tacitly dismissing his head physician.

  "No, I came on my own. I understand you're sending Solo into the field with Kuryakin."

  That did bring Waverly's head up. He stared at Lawrence for several moments. "As they are field partners, that should not be a surprise to anyone."

  "It surprises me. I thought this was a CIA operation."

  "You thought correctly."

  "Well, what exactly is Solo's role?"

  "I fail to see why that is any concern of yours, Doctor Lawrence."

  Lawrence leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers and frowning slightly. Waverly's formal tone and use of his title was a clear indication of his displeasure, but Lawrence expected it. They clashed often, but never more so then over Waverly's Soviet acquisition. In part, Lawrence knew it was something of a knee-jerk reaction on his superior's part. The U.N.C.L.E. chief had fought almost overwhelming odds to get Kuryakin into the Network as a Section Two agent. Any criticism of the Soviet agent, or aspersions against his competence or allegience always raised Waverly's ire. "Come on, Alexander. We both know Solo is a virtual liability on this operation. His Russian is poor—and I'm not talking about Illya," he said with a smile. "He knows nothing about nuclear physics or power plants. His technical skills are indifferent. He has no official role in the logistics of the operation. As for tactical skills—we both know they can't shoot their way out of the Soviet Union—their only hope lies in being undetected. So why are you sending Solo? He doesn't have the slightest purpose in being there."

  "Are you now trying to dictate field assignments?" Waverly asked frostily, closing one folder and opening another.

  "So I stepped on your turf earlier, with Kuryakin. Admit it, I had some valid points."

  "I admit nothing. And as I have said before, you are interrupting my work. If you are quite finished—"

  "Not yet. There's only one reason why you'd send Solo. You don't trust our Langley friends, do you?"

  "You are dismissed."

  Lawrence sighed. "I will concede that I was a bit out-of-line. It's your organization, Alexander and your call. But you can't hire me to do a job and not listen to what I have to say. We need to work together."

  Waverly said nothing, his face impassive.

  The physician returned the stare, the two of them locked in a silent contest. Lawrence sighed in frustration. "All right. I'll give you Kuryakin. I won't pull him. If his tests on return from this mission are comparable to what he's been running all along. Satisfied?"

  "For the present," Waverly said, scarcely mollified. "You may go, Doctor."

  "Not just yet. Back to the only scenario that makes sense: You don't trust our friends at Langley with your agent. So you send his partner, whom you've chewed out numerous times for retrieving him in difficult circumstances against your orders, knowing said partner will go out of his way to bring him back."

  Waverly sighed. "Very well. You are correct. Mr. Solo's primary task is to see that Mr. Kuryakin returns without undue incident—a situation this organization can ill afford."

  "Is it U.N.C.L.E. you're worried about the CIA framing, or just Kuryakin?"

  "It scarcely matters. If Mr. Kuryakin is detected, the situation will be disastrous for both this organization and our agent."

  "Kuryakin will be shot as a traitor; U.N.C.L.E. will lose face in the world community and its relationship with the CIA will be seriously damaged."

  "Precisely. Sending Mr. Solo is minimal insurance against that."

  "Does he know that's his mission?"

  Waverly looked astonished. "Of course."

  "Solo is going to have trouble functioning in the role you've given him. After being Chief Enforcement Agent for what—three years?—he's going to be little more than a bit player in this assignment."

  "I trust Mr. Solo will manage," the head of U.N.C.L.E. North America said acerbically. "Good for his ego, to be superfluous once in awhile."

  "I don't think Napoleon will agree, but you're probably right. And you are right to send him, Alexander. If something does happen to Kuryakin on this mission and he doesn't come back—well, Solo's relationship with the CIA—as Chief Enforcement Agent, as well as your successor—will be seriously impaired unless he's sure in his own mind that the CIA didn't frame his partner and that everything possible was done to retrieve him."

  "My thoughts exactly. I cannot afford not to send Mr. Solo."

  "Well, you might have shared that with me, instead of making me puzzle it all out on my own."

  "To what purpose?"

  Lawrence snorted and rose to his feet. "Reprimand noted. I'll try to state my concerns regarding your agents a little more tactfully."

  "That would be wise. If you wish me to believe you know your own profession."

  "Ouch. I think I'll leave while I still have a little skin to my back. Afternoon, Alexander."

  Waverly waited until the doors closed behind his head physician before breathing a satisfied sigh.

  ***

  CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  Several meetings and several crash sessions in Russian later, Solo found himself hating this assignment even more than when he'd first stood in the Section Two agent's office and stated that opinion. He'd have liked to talk to Kuryakin about it, but though Illya was at Langley, he was otherwise occupied. Not to mention being almost unrecognizable, although not from a physical standpoint. His partner's abrupt change of hats from agent to physicist disconcerted the CEA. Though Kuryakin had started in U.N.C.L.E.'s labs, Solo had scarcely known him there. He thought of Kuryakin as an enforcement agent. Though younger and slighter than most, Kuryakin had a dangerous air about him, on assignment or around U.N.C.L.E. HQ, that caused others to regard him with justified wariness. Solo didn't recognize and didn't particularly care to see Illya fall back into his mild-mannered, slightly eccentric scientist's persona. He found it one more reason to dislike this assignment.

  Kuryakin had spent the last two days in one of the larger conference rooms, surrounded by plans of various breeder reactors, and deep in technical discussions Solo couldn't follow with physicists who regarded Solo and the CIA agents, when they noticed them, as sharing the same intellectual plateau as traffic cops. Solo didn't appreciate being sneered at by people who couldn't even speak English properly, when they spoke understandably at all.

  The CIA had gathered experts to speculate on the possible configuration of the Soviet reactor and familiarize Kuryakin with what they thought he might find. Many of the experts had been immigrants themselves, some brought for the Manhattan Project, and the babble of languages and broken English was as thick as the formulae scrawled on the whiteboards. Kuryakin was interested to the point of forgetting his usual reserve, swept up in what amounted to a nuclear physicists' equivalent of a 'jam' session. Arguments raged hot and heavy between 'pro' and 'anti' breeder reactor sides. No less than Hans Bethe, the Nobel Laureate and Cornell physicist, was presiding, along with Walter Cisler's group from the Fermi Reactor in Detroit, and representatives from the Advisory Committee to the AEC on Reactor Safeguards.

  Illya seemed perfectly at ease in this high-powered 'study group'. Napoleon frowned at seeing yet another side of his multifaceted partner and wondered. Was Illya really content with his switch from the labs to Section Two enforcement? Weren't his skills with a gun and in hand-to-hand of less importance— and more easily replaced—than this ability to walk into a room and hold his own with some of the top nuclear physicists in the world? Especially when he usually spent his days alternating between being shot at and writing up reports about being shot at? Would this experience—this glimpse of what he could have—make him reconsider? Waverly had warned him to bring Kuryakin back. But Solo began to wonder if he had to worry about more than bringing Illya back from Russia.

  Kuryakin was alone in the conference room as Solo and Baker entered. The physicists had all departed, leaving behind the debris of their passage—scribbled, half-erased formulae and diagrams on the walls, on scraps of paper, and even on napkins by the ravaged coffee service. Half-empty cups of coffee and tumbled files, AEC reports and textbooks littered the table. The slight Russian sat studying a sheaf of notes and papers, the dimmed lighting making a halo of his hair. He didn't look up as the two agents entered and Solo felt a touch of worry at this lapse. Time to switch hats back from physicist to agent, Illya. God, how I hate this game sometimes.

  "Hey, partner. How goes the neutrons?"

  Kuryakin looked up from his notes abstractedly, started to smile at Solo, and then the smile froze as he noticed the CIA agent, his face sliding into the blank emotionless mask that was as much a part of his professional wardrobe as his Walther. "They go well. I have studied the designs of every existing liquid metal fast breeder reactor. Even if it proves impossible to get copies out of the actual reactor plans, I should be able to identify and document any deviations of interest. Between the plant tours and the last two days of study, I believe I can impersonate Antipov's knowledge. And I have several possible locations pinpointed for the potential sodium explosion."

  Solo nodded, absurdly reassured that Kuryakin had stayed so focused on his assignment. What did you expect? That he'd forget it all to play physicist with the boys? Illya's less distractable than you are on assignment. But then, he's never been tempted by my usual distractions. This is the first time he's had a serious temptation. "You're ready."

  "Yes."

  Baker had stopped in the doorway, studying the interaction between the two men. "Come along then, Mr. Kuryakin. I think it's time you met the contact team."

  "Oh, great," Solo muttered under his breath, as the CIA agent ushered the other agent out the door. "He's probably safer in the Soviet Union."

  Solo hung back while Kuryakin was introduced to the members of the team, watching their expressions as each of them sized up the young Russian. Kuryakin was at his professional best, his eyes and movements guarded. The team themselves were equally wary, but Solo noticed most thawed visibly when Kuryakin showed complete familiarity with the layout of the power plant, asked intelligent questions, and began to make suggestions about the placement of the agents near the coolant loops, where the heat was exchanged between the liquid sodium, water and the steam that would drive the turbines.

  Kuryakin looked startled as a conversation broke out in Russian between Markowitz and Hawkins. They asked him a question in Russian, received an answer in Kuryakin's careful English, and continued their discussion. As they slipped deeper into their technical conversation, Kuryakin followed them into the language.

  Solo had noticed this team had worked undercover together so frequently in the Soviet Union, they tended to slip into Russian, and the closer they got to deployment, the more they did so. The conversation descended into a babble of intermixed Russian and English that Solo followed with difficulty. But Illya had relaxed, accepting a cup of tea from one of the team members, his fingers tracing the plant diagrams as he explained something.

  Solo glanced over at Baker, who had, as usual, faded to a corner of the room where he sat evaluating the situation with his usual inscrutable silence. Solo looked back to the group, but he had lost the thread and with it the meaning of the conversation. His Russian was too flawed to follow the rapid, technical shorthand of the discussion. He frowned, focusing his concentration, latching on to a few American sounding words, and missed the swish of the opening door until he heard a gruff voice announce, "My God!"

  Illya froze at the whiteboard, his eyes narrowing at the newcomer approached him. Kuryakin held his ground but his shoulders tensed as the man took the Russian's chin in his hands. "I can hardly believe it. He looks just like Antipov."

  The Russian jerked backward slightly, removing his chin from the huge hand. In spite of massing not much more than half that of the huge intruder and lacking a good six inches on him in height, the U.N.C.L.E. agent equaled him in presence. His manner was as haughty as if the man had interrupted a classroom lesson. "Illya Kuryakin. And whom might you be?"

  "I know who you are." The man stepped back. "This might just work after all, Baker." He tossed a glance to the CIA chief and then looked back to Kuryakin. "Sam Nelson. Operations team leader. I'm the guy who's going to get you in and out of that plant."

  Illya's eyes narrowed and he scanned the room, dismissing the team members, searching for Solo. His eyes connected with his partner's briefly, before looking negligently back to the CIA agent. "I'll get myself in and out. But you and your team can help."

  Nelson snorted, reluctant admiration mingling with censure at the bravado. "I've read your file, Kuryakin. KGB, GRU, and MI-6. And now Number Two in U.N.C.L.E.'s North American enforcement section. Everyone's little golden boy, aren't you?" He ruffled the Russian's overlong fair hair in deliberate insult, his eyes pointedly raking Kuryakin's slight 5'8" frame. The expression on his face was now more a sneer than a smile. "From toe-shoes to Cambridge physics doctorates to U.N.C.L.E.'s assistant chief of enforcement. And now you've got the CIA running to you. I'll bet you think you're hot stuff."

  "Not as hot as plutonium," Kuryakin said grimly.

  Nelson's eyes met the Russian's even stare and nodded in acknowledgement of the job and the ending of any games. Solo realized the taunting had been a deliberate test of Kuryakin's professionalism. "Right. Let's get back to work. Markowitz showed you the layout?"