"They didn't see us — I think the fight may hold their attention."
Illya nodded. "They're looking for Harry."
"So are we. But —"
Harry, his shirt torn and his nose bleeding, staggered out of the mob and fell over a chair to land across the upper edge of the toppled table which concealed them; he hit hard and slid to the floor. Still conscious but obviously dazed he opened his eyes and stared directly into the face of Napoleon Solo a foot from his own.
Slowly his expression changed and he started to shake his head. "No," he said under his breath. "Solo. No. I'm..." He shook his head harder and managed to get his palms against the floor and brace himself. "No!" he said vehemently. "No! No! No!"
Napoleon grabbed for him a moment too late. Harry was on his feet, unsteadily, and heading for the kitchen exit with the beginnings of hysteria in the incoherent cry which trailed raggedly behind him.
Illya's eyes were elsewhere, peeking around the other corner of the table towards the center of action. At. the. moment the two Thrush seemed to care little for anything but their own immediate survival; Bruno had been foolish enough to pull a gun and had had it taken away from him unceremoniously by a shirtless and tattooed weapons collector who then proceeded to teach him a few things.
The red-headed Falstaff was equally involved, but doing better. Neither seemed to be concentrating on the kitchen exit or to be at all aware of Harry's precipitous departure.
Fortunately someone else was.
"We've gotta get Harry!" said Napoleon, grabbing Illya's arm. "I think his head glue is softening."
"Huh?" asked Illya perceptively.
"Harry! I think he recognised me, and he didn't look at all well, even apart from all the blood."
"Where'd he go?"
"Kitchen." Napoleon took off, running in a crouch for several feet, . hugging the sparse concealment of scattered furniture until he picked up his stride into a sprint for the back door. Illya was close behind him.
"Hoy, Thing!" somebody yelled. "There go the two guys from the stage!"
. Illya ducked through the door last. Steel tables and racks gleamed in the steamy deserted kitchen, and Napoleon was already out into the alley.
The swinging door slammed open behind him and a voice roared, "Hey, Blondie — I wanna talk to you!"
An instant later something bit into his ankles and tangled them, and he stumbled, catching himself on the edge of a counter — a bike chain had tripped him, slung along the floor like a bola. He clawed it free and flung it back at the grinning unshaven face of its owner.
Thing caught it across a raised forearm, though the sharp links drew blood where they slashed the hairy muscle. He staggered back a step to an aluminum sink bolted to the wall behind him, as Illya gathered himself for a rush. Feeling cold metal under his hands, the biker turned and gripped the . rolled metal edges. He flexed his knees and tendons stood out like granite ridges until a terrible creak and tearing sound gave Illya a momentary impression his bones were snapping under the strain — then there was a roar and a white fountain of water from the ruptured plumbing in the wall as snapped pipes belched hot and cold. Swinging the metal sink like a hollow boulder, he pivoted and flung it at Illya.
The Russian watched his timing and leaped out of its path an instant before it struck a steel table, with a noise like all the garbage cans in the world being emptied at dawn. A two-foot frying pan hung polished on a hook close to the business end of Illya's arm; it described a short arc terminating in a musical but unresonant sound before the sink had stopped rolling, and Thing starred at him until Illya began to wonder if he was going to have to hit him again before he would fall. Then the stare began to go out of focus, and he gave an oddly gentle sigh as he teetered and went down like a felled tree.
Outside, Solo braced Harry up against a brick wall and waved the silver communicator before his face. "Basingstoke, Harry. Basingstoke! Come on, Basingstoke!"
It seemed to be helping— he'd stopped struggling so hard, but he was half-sobbing incoherently as he stared at the communicator. "Harry, don't worry. You'll, be okay with us," Solo said soothingly as he relaxed his grip a bit at a time. "Harry, we're going to take you out of here and home again. You've got something you were going to leave inside there, and you know I'm supposed to get it. You can give it to me now — it'll be okay." Harry wasn't sure. He looked at Napoleon, and shook his head slowly — not refusing the request so much as willing himself to reject Solo's presence entirely. "It's... it's... my pocket..." He gestured weakly and leaned against the wall.
A flock of sirens faded up in the near distance, heading for the front door of Casa del Gato as Illya pushed the back door closed and propped a garbage can against it. "Let's get him to the car. Harry, you're going to be all right."
For some reason Harry started to giggle hysterically at this. He laughed and sobbed quietly halfway back to the office, then went to sleep before they arrived. Dr. Grayson was waiting for them, and she took him away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"SYNLOC / TESTOK"
"0."
"T, after."
"H, after that."
Downstairs intellectual excitement raged in a quiet room as twenty expert cyberneticists and qualified kibitzers stood around their very own almost-working Thrush satellite terminal; up on the sunroof Napoleon and Illya, who had been ordered to go somewhere else and relax, reclined, tense, on deck chairs and played endless games of SuperGhosts, having found themselves unable to muster the concentration required to sustain play in Botticelli — in the first half-hour each of them in turn had forgotten the character he'd picked.
"N on the front, just to be different."
Illya tapped his fingers lightly on the arm of his chair. "That gives me N-O-T-H, which looks like nothing, if you'll pardon my saying so. Put a P in front."
Napoleon opened his eyes. "Pnoth?" he said. "Wasn't he the ancient Egyptian god of hubcaps or something like that?"
"That would be a proper name. P-N-O-T-H to you."
"Same to you, fella. Are you bluffing again?"
"No, I just enjoy English orthography."
Solo sighed and leaned back. "I'll challenge anyway. I can't top that."
"I could have given you y-P-N-O-T-H, for that matter, if I could add two letters. Hypnotherapy"
"I thought we'd agreed not to mention that."
"You spelled half of it."
"Uh — forty percent. And I didn't know what I was spelling at the time. Do you think that set of phoney memories Dr. Grayson set up for Harry will really satisfy Thrush?"
"If it satisfies Harry, it'll satisfy Thrush. But I'm not sure how satisfied Harry will be."
"I got the impression he isn't going to want to think about it much."
"No. Dr. Grayson planted blocks and suppressions all around it."
"The same kind of suppressions you'd have to pay a shrink seventy- five dollars an hour to dig out?"
"Identical, but artificial rather than natural."
"It doesn't sound healthy."
"It isn't," said Illya. "But when that sort of thing occurs naturally, it's in response to something in the environment — like a scab forming over a wound, or your white-cell count multiplying against an infection. The difference is that it doesn't go away. It's a learned reaction pattern to something. And in Dr. Grayson's technique, since she knows exactly where all his buttons are, she "will theoretically be able to take them all out again when he no longer needs them, and leave not a wraith behind."
"Theoretically. He didn't seem very sharp when we put him on the bus for home at 4:30 this morning."
"A few hours' sleep will do him all the good in the world."
"I wouldn't mind some myself. I've been a busy boy. You don't suppose —" He answered the intercom in the middle of its first beep. "Solo here. Are you open to the public yet?"
He covered the mouthpiece and said, "They've got it going. It's not ready for general exhibit, but we're invited to a demonstra
tion of the progress they've made in the last twelve hours. Downstairs, right now."
Illya was at the elevator and signalling for a car as his partner said, "Thanks, we'll be right down," and hung up. The doors opened; Illya stepped in just ahead of him and punched the bottom button.
Downstairs nearly everybody in the world who knew about the kidnapped terminal stood in professional silence around the small room watching an operator test the keyboard. Neat green block letters glowed on the screen as Napoleon and Illya entered quietly and stood next to Mr. Simpson.
After a few seconds Napoleon whispered, "On behalf of everyone who doesn't know, what's going on?"
"They've achieved re-synchronisation, and they're working on Net Reconciliation at the moment." Mr. Simpson indicated a slender young man with curly black sideburns and quick nervous movements, standing uneasily behind the operator. "Mr. Gold is our chief systems programmer directing this operation. He'll handle the terminal himself once NetRec is verified, which should be shortly."
Napoleon peered at two six-letter groups on the screen. "And what does that mean?"
"SYNLOC / TESTOK means that synchronisation has been locked and will be maintained continuously until the unit is unplugged; and that the unit is ready to be tested without any danger from the integral destruct mechanisms. There wasn't anyway, since we disconnected them, of course."
Mr. Gold looked up, recognised them and came over. "Hi there," he said. "Thanks for all this — looks like it'll be worth it. Did anybody tell you what we're going to be doing?"
"Only vaguely," said Illya.
"Once we get all the access lines straightened out, I have to try and convince UlComp that this unit is supposed to be undergoing certain modifications in its top secret data access channel, and so naturally we have to keep testing this facility. For the same reason, we can put in an order that any faulty signals coming from this unit are to be reported only to this unit instead of setting off all sorts of alarms."
"That seems perfectly reasonable," said Napoleon.
"It's stupid," said Mr. Gold. "I could've written them a system that would have prevented this — at the very least they should have a human guard to clear top secret access."
"Overconfidence," said Illya.
"Overcomputerization," said Mr. Simpson.
"Mr. Gold, it's ready for you now," said the operator, looking back over her shoulder and starting up from the chair. The screen now showed an additional legend:
ULCOMP NETREC had a line to itself and below it, in case there was any doubt, green glowing block capitals said UNIT CLEAR.
"Thank you, Miss Klingstein." He held the chair as she rose, and then took her place. He drew a pad of data sheets from a thin folder and opened it to the first page of illegible pencil notes, then laid it on the desk beside the keyboard, flexed his fingers and wiped his palms on his shirt, then glanced up at Mr. Simpson and grinned quickly before starting to tap out a series of meaningless numbers and letters. The screen reacted with gibberish of its own.
Mr. Gold studied it for several seconds, and nodded. There wasn't a sound in the room above the soft endless rush of the air conditioner and the subliminal hum of cooling fans in the equipment rack. He spent another second studying his notes and nodded again, then blanked the screen and typed something else.
"How long does this go on?" Napoleon whispered to Mr. Simpson, who shrugged.
"A day," he said. "A week."
A month, a year?" Illya quoted under his breath.
"I hope not."
"But we aren't likely to see anything more exciting if we stick around now."
"Not unless we overlooked an infernal device and the terminal blows up."
Napoleon looked at his partner. "It's not the sort of thing I'd care to wait for." Illya nodded, and glanced inquiringly towards the door.
Outside the Russian said, "I should have realised it would take some time to actually get into it. After all, stupid as the Ultimate Computer basically is, you could hardly expect to walk up to it and say, 'Good afternoon, I'm the new janitor — would you tell me where the top secret files are kept and let me clean them out?' It takes a certain amount of lock-picking, even if you can convince anyone who finds you that you are a janitor, and just by being a janitor the alarm systems ignore you while you're picking the lock."
"Because they have such a great alarm system, they use cheap locks," Napoleon suggested.
"That's a good analogy. Offer it to Mr. Gold when he comes back to earth."
"Okay. Which leaves us with one problem: while half the technicians in the United Network Command are taking apart the gamma laser we brought them and the other half are invading the nervous system of Thrush through a door we brought them with a key we brought them — what do we. do to keep busy in the next day, or week, or month or however long it will be until something definite happens? You're a nice guy, Illya, but if I have to spend another three days sitting around looking at you I'm going to start climbing walls. If I could just get out and wander around San Francisco for six hours a day I'd be happy — but here we are, under effective house arrest except for special occasions because nobody's supposed to have any idea anything's happening."
"Napoleon, I'm quite surprised at you. Weren't you and that Korean code clerk rather a pair? And what about Jennifer, down in Translations?"
"Kim was new here and hadn't heard, and Jennifer was just curious because she'd heard so much."
"Heard?"
"It's been — what? Four or five years? since that DAGGER Affair, but every now and then somebody remembers to tell all the new girls about what happened to us. And after that they tend to giggle at me."
"Well, Napoleon, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it. Have you thought of talking Mr. Waverly into allowing you a few hours a day outside on your own? If you went between, say, ten in the evening and four in the morning — and maybe a false moustache and glasses would help..."
They stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind them.
Napoleon was allowed his first liberty that evening, checked in nearly an hour late, and slept like a boulder until noon. Illya had taped a note on his mirror inviting him downstairs to the terminal test area, but he picked up his extension and called instead. In a few seconds the Russian answered.
"What's going on?" Napoleon asked. "Are they into anything?"
"A lot of confidential bookkeeping records which will probably prove very interesting once they're analysed; they'll all be copied out onto our own tapes while Mr, Gold goes on investigating through another channel. It's like drilling holes in a wine keg."
"I should think the guard would get suspicious if the janitor was drilling holes in the wine kegs when he's supposed to be cleaning out the top secret files."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Never mind. I just got up. Is there anything going on down there interesting, educational or comprehensible?"
"Not, really. I just find the atmosphere intellectually stimulating. Why don't you go back to sleep?"
"Because I'm up and hungry. When your massive intellect has sated itself, bring your body up to the Commissary and join me in a plate of steak and eggs."
."That sounds messy. Fifteen minutes?"
"Closer to five."
"See you there."
Little Sirrocco called on an emergency line about seven that evening. Worried about Harry after his misadventure three days ago, she had telephoned his apartment and gotten no answer. On a hunch she'd phoned his landlady to ask if she'd seen him, and had been told that two friends of his had stopped by with his key, told her he'd been called out of town for a couple of days and had asked them to pick up a few things to send him.
"Do you think they've killed him?" she asked Mr. Waverly bluntly.
"Of course not," said Waverly, "They obviously do not intend to do anything violent to him - it would have been as easy to say he would be away two weeks or a month, and delay any suspicion by a much greater factor. Or simply a
rrange an accident. Most likely they want to talk to him uninterrupted — or it may even be that he has been called out of town for a few days. We shall check into this at once, Miss Sirrocco, and if he is in any danger of exposure you may be sure we will spare no effort to rescue him. More specifically, Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin will spare no effort."
"I don't know what I think about that. You'll call me if you find out anything,"
"Mr, Solo and Mr. Kuryakin may appear somewhat unconventional, Miss Sirrocco, but I assure you they are among my most competent and consistently successful agents.
"Well, somebody at the office told me about an affair here a few years ago..."
The Final Affair Page 7