To their amazement only three men guarded the armoury and they were to busy playing cards and laughing to notice two men drop from the ceiling. By the time they noticed it was too late, Kuryakin’s gun spoke even as he swung from the rope and Landa’s finished the last man.
    As they clipped on as much weaponry as they could handle one lone THRUSH agent entered the room and his gun fired as a dying reply to Kuryakin’s gun.
    "Illya! I’ve been hit!"
    He was at his side in an instant and a faint grin spread across his face.
    "Good," he said.
    "Good? I don’t believe it, they all said you were hard but I thought…"
    "I should have known about the other man, you don’t have three to play cards. So this my fault but good you felt it." He pointed to the dead guards, "They didn’t feel anything."
    "I see what you mean. Hey! Not even a trained agent and I get shot!" he said almost triumphantly.
    "It's only removed the skin fortunately. Come on, my wounded bug, we have with work to do."
    "At least I’m a two legged bug," he said pointing at Kuryakin as he limped towards the dangling rope.

He had disagreed with Waverly’s tactics before but this time they left him angry and disillusioned. The stinging pain in his wrists and Jackson’s admittance of treachery worsened this resentment.
    "I gamble, but this? The whole base is at risk because we are betting on one man getting through. I know we are expendable but he is going to be cut to bits."
    "Two men in armoury!" shouted one of the THRUSH men.
    "Kuryakin," snarled Jackson. "I told you we should have killed him! So clever, Waverly, you and your double bluffs, so very clever." As the order was given to invade the armoury with every available man Solo frowned and pulled harder against the ropes.
    "Two men, we have two men out there?"
    "No, Mr Solo, we have a hundred."
    Finally the lines vanished from his face and his hazel eyes sparkled. All this time he had been kept in the dark for a reason. Simply, his job had been to reassure Jackson that U.N.C.L.E. was conquerable and entice him into the spider’s web. Waverly had constantly sent him back to the same base looking for a formula that would undoubtedly be kept in THRUSH central, deliberately causing him to fail his mission. All secret U.N.C.L.E. files would have been moved to London or Hong Kong as a precaution against failure. Every day for the last month Waverly had insisted on the hundred best agents performing needless paperwork in one of the large briefing rooms. Kuryakin’s job was to free them, that was all.
    "Who’s the other man?" Solo whispered as a confused THRUSH agent called in that the armoury was locked and empty apart from four dead men.
    "A young man who is going up the ladder faster than any other agent. By the time he’s finished he will be equal in security status to you, Mr Solo."
    "Landa? I thought he was wanted..."
    "By Thrush, yes, he took photographs of Jackson's treachery and proved to us all that Kuryakin was betrayed."

"That’s the plan. You have ten minutes to get to the briefing hall. I will take the same time to get back to the Blinker. Let’s say five minutes to get back to the armoury and five to arm the men… Ok, in exactly thirty minutes from the go, I take out the Blinker and your team can start cleaning up."
    "My team, Sir?"
    "My partner for today, our mission and your team. The instant I take out the Blinker every door should be back to normal. You clear from your end while I get Solo back into action, he’s been resting far to long."
    Adrenalin began to run quickly through his veins and he leaned heavily against the wall to ward off the dizziness.
    "Look and destroy."
    "Sir?"
    "You can’t take one hundred men up into the tunnels, you must use the keypads. You are now a fully qualified section two agent with a level one security. Under the floor near each door is a keypad. Type in the seven numbers and, magic, the door opens."
    Landa took the small scrap of paper and tried to stop his hand shaking. The adrenaline rush had vanished to be replaced by a deep fear of failure, the first dread was forgetting the numbers.
    "Go!"

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