Solo stiffened, watching him. It was Lester, all right, except that he moved in the strange manner of a sleepwalker. He was correctly attired, his head tilted in that old way he had, but his eyes were disturbingly empty.
Until this moment, Solo had not seen how completely it was as Dr. Maunchaun said: Only Lester Caillou's mind had been kidnapped.
"Stand there, Lester," Maunchaun said. He inclined his narrow head toward where the fake Caillou stood, identically dressed as the banker was.
Caillou smiled faintly, nodded. He walked to where the ringer stood, paused beside him, watching Maunchaun with a dog-like obedience in his face.
Solo shivered.
"Some of your detractors feel you have made a gross error in forcing gold payments from free world nations, Lester," Dr. Maunchaun said in that level tone which seemed attuned especially for Caillou's hearing.
Caillou gave them a faint superior smile and engaged in an obscure soliloquy on the reasons why only gold could be accepted at the present, despite growing panic in the free world countries. It was his first duty to protect the interests of the international trade organizations against the spiraling inflation, the worth of paper currency— Solo didn't even bother to listen.
He was certain that leading financial experts had little argument that was persuasive against Caillou. Maunchaun was not only a brilliant psychiatrist, he was the outstanding financial expert of the far east.
He knew how to make even outrageous falsity sound logical.
He was speaking now through Caillou's brainwashed mind.
Solo said with a certainty he did not feel, "The least whisper of what you have done to this man—"
"Yes. The least whisper," Maunchaun agreed. "But who is to broadcast that whisper? You, Mr. Solo? Your accomplice in international capitalist crimes Kuryakin there? Perhaps our old friend Lester Caillou?"
Solo flinched, did not attempt to answer.
Maunchaun indulged a small smile. "Caillou will continue to speak and perform in rote, what ever I tell him to do, as long as I will it. This is deeper than hypnosis, Solo. Deeper than any waking-sleep you can understand. A drug-induced hypnosis. There are secrets of my poor land, Solo, older than your crude civilization—"
Maunchaun stopped speaking, as if bored with the mentalities of his auditors. He clapped his thin hands and the real Lester Caillou was led away.
Maunchaun watched his odd, somnambulistic gait until the door closed. Then he brought his chilled smile back to Solo and Illya.
"And now what shall we do about you gentlemen?"
"I don't know," Solo said. "But I suggest you do it quickly."
Maunchaun waved his hand. "Don't make threats, Solo. Do you mean that if United Network Command doesn't hear regularly from you and Kuryakin, other agents will doom us?"
Solo shrugged. "That's part of
"I assure you I've handled this contingency. Your reports are regularly going into your headquarters in New York––glowing lies about your progress, which I can assure you our old friend Alexander Waverly receives with relish."
Maunchaun pressed another button. Albert and three armed guards entered. "Since we cannot afford to kill them at the moment, I believe an hour in the sound chamber will teach them the error of attempting to cross me with such childish toys as bleep-signals."
Solo and Illya were marched along the corridor, past rooms converted into chemistry labs. They were shoved into a metal lined chamber twenty feet long, but less than nine feet wide.
The metal was cool to the touch. The room was bare of any furnishings. They found that the metal was perforated from floor through ceiling. Faint sound began to flare through the tiny perforations, already higher than a whistle, and steadily increasing in intensity and rising in decibels.
Solo sagged first. The sounds penetrating his ears were like lances. But when he toppled against the wall, the sound on this side increased unbearably.
It was no better in the center of the area. As they moved from the wall, sound intensity increased, stalking them.
It was like some brain-smashing force, relentless, without pity.
Suddenly the sounds ceased, but the silence was unbearable. Solo felt as if his head were expanding, as though his brain would burst.
Illya sank to his knees, but then the sounds started again. They came upward through the perforated flooring. At first they were welcome, now that their force seemed to press inward upon their brains.
The intensity increased, going beyond the range they could endure. It was like physical blows slapping them about. They ran from one end of the room to the other, unable to escape the unwavering intensity of the sound waves.
They pressed their arms like shields against their heads, but the sounds would have penetrated steel.
Then silence again. They screamed against the pressures and expanding agonies of the silence. They almost welcomed the increase of the sound waves.
Neither was conscious at the end of the hour.
THREE
ILLYA REGAINED consciousness first. He pressed his palms against the throb in his temples. It was a headache beyond description—no hangover could ever approach it. But when his hands touched the sides of his head, he screamed. His head was too sore to touch.
Yvonne was kneeling over him, her face constricted with pity.
"Oh, you poor dears," she whispered. "What have they done to you?"
She extended her hand toward his face. Illya rolled away from it, crying out in panic. "Just don't touch me."
Movement jarred him until he wavered a moment on the brink of unconsciousness. But he did not pass out again. That would have been too easy.
After a long time, Solo stirred. He sat up, his head bent forward loosely on his neck. As Illya had been, Napoleon was unable to touch his temples or his cheeks. He throbbed with pain from his neck up.
He lay still a long time.
"Drug-induced hypnosis," he whispered. "Brainwash. So that's how he controls Caillou."
Illya stared at the distant gray ceiling of the dungeon. "And there's nothing we can do to help him—or the people who are going to be ruined in this game of money manipulation."
Solo did not speak for a long time. Illya thought maybe he had fainted, but it was too terrible an effort to turn his head to see. When he moved even the slightest, he felt as if his brain rattled inside his agonized skull.
The dungeon door squealed open. Biting his mouth, Illya managed to keep from screaming against the rusty sounds.
Marie entered, accompanied by Albert and an armed guard. They came into Illya's line of vision, or he would not have seen them. They wavered before him in some kind of red haze.
"You. Yvonne," Marie said. "Let's go."
Yvonne cried out, protesting. She caught Illya's hand, pleadingly.
Illya winced in agony. "I'm sorry we got you in this, Yvonne," he whispered.
She pressed his hand.
"It's not your fault," she said. "You are very brave, very good. Both of you. You have done all you could."
"Not quite," Illya whispered grimly between his teeth.
He lay there helplessly and watched them lead Yvonne away. For a long time strange sounds drifted into the dungeon through the high window, even through the walls. He tried to think his way out, but thinking was as painful as a physical touch inside his mind, and finally he sank into a troubled sleep.
Illya awakened in the deepest darkness, feeling as if he were b ing battered by an earth tremor. For some moments he did not know where he was. Then he felt the rough texture of the dungeon floor, the late night chill, the touch of Solo's hand on his shoulder, shaking him.
"What's the matter?" Illya said. His head hurt less intensely now, though he was painfully aware of movement.
"I've figured it out," Solo said.
"You figured what out?"
"The one weakness in Maunchaun's scheme."
"You mean there is one?" Illya's tone doubted it.
"There is one. Drug-i
nduced hypnosis. That's why they had to find Caillou's precise double—that's why they had to bring in a ringer. That's why everything has to go on exact schedule."
"Maybe it's just my headache, but you've lost me somewhere."
"No. Don't you see? There are no ill after-effects of ordinary hypnosis. It can even be benefiting. But drug-induced. That's the key. Lester Caillou had to be prepared for this drug-induced hypnosis. He had to be destroyed."
"You mean this drug is killing him?" Illya sat up, headache forgotten.
"That's right. They can induce hypnosis, or anything else they want with it, but enough of it is fatal. Nobody knows that better than Maunchaun. They can control Caillou just so long—so many weeks, or days, or hours. I don't know that. But you can bet Maunchaun has it figured to the minute. Everything has got to go right for him until the moment that Caillou falls dead from the effects of that poppy-seed drug—or Maunchaun is lost."
"Looks like he's got nothing to worry about," Illya said emptily.
"He would have," Solo said. "If I could just get out of here. If could do nothing else, I could upset his schedule. I might even save Lester's life—"
"Or lose your own."
"We're expendable, Illya," Solo said. "I don't have to tell you that."
Illya tried to grin. "No. You don't. And I sort of wish you wouldn't keep reminding me."
"Death's been playing with me. It just missed me a few days ago in an Istanbul street. Maybe this time it won't miss. I hate to sit here waiting for it."
Illya sighed heavily. He crawled along the wall, and after a few moments returned with a small packet.
"Maybe I can help you," he whispered.
"What have you got?"
"Friction-bomb blasting pellets. THRUSH made. I took them off that pilot when we had to help him from the midget copter."
Solo laughed admiringly. "That's what they were looking for when they searched us up in Maunchaun's room?"
"I think so." Illya nodded. "I knew the TV cameras were on us when they threw us in here, so when I found that crevice in the wall, I sat there and hid my find."
Solo grinned warmly. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
Illya smiled. "I do. You'd sit here and nurse that king-sized headache."
Solo exhaled. "Let's go."
Illya nodded. "Which way?"
"Will one of those pellets take out that door?"
"Probably. But there are guns out there. If we timed it right, we could go out the window with a better chance."
"I'm with you."
Illya swung up on Solo's shoulders. They walked toward the high window. Illya drew back his arm and threw a friction bomb pellet at the window base.
He sprang from Solo's shoulders then and both retreated swiftly to the wall farthest from the window.
Everything happened with instant suddenness. The bomb exploded outward, carrying the bars of the window with it. While the explosive sound still reverberated inside their heads, they raced across the room.
They moved then with the grace and precision of circus acrobats. Illya flung himself against the wall beneath the window on his knee. Making stirrups of his hands, he waited until the toe of Solo shoe touched his palms. Then he sprang upward, levering Solo into the opening.
Shouts and footsteps rang in the corridors outside the dungeon. The chateau intercom crackled, and then Dr. Maunchaun's voice rattled through it.
Neither Solo nor Illya bothered to listen. They knew that they were on camera, but this no longer mattered.
Solo went all the way through the window. Then he turned, hooked his toe over the outer sill and sprawled inward, reaching out his arms as far as they would go.
Inside the dungeon, Illya stood on his toes, stretching his arms upward tautly.
Solo's hands struck hard against his, fingers clasped around his wrists. Then Illya scrambled upward, using his ties against the rough wall while Solo wriggled himself through the window, drawing Illya after him.
The chateau grounds were black in the dark hour before dawn. But as Illya and Solo sprang from the wall shrubbery dozens of flood lights erupted from everywhere, blasting the lawn with light.
They heard the dungeon door thrown open as Illya wriggled free. Men shouted from the yard, from parapets. Distantly dogs yowled. Somewhere in the darkness a gun fired. A man swore, and the shooting ceased.
Solo and Illya crouched in the concealment of the shrubbery. Solo pointed toward a car in the drive. "Run for it!"
He did not wait to see if Illya heard. Bent low, he sprinted to ward the drive. He took fifteen giant steps and then sprawled face down in the grass at the precise moment guns fired from the parapets.
He glanced over his shoulder, crawling frantically in the grass. Illya was not with him.
Gunfire sounded and bullets splatted into the sod around him. He had to keep moving.
Something flickered, and from the corner of his eye he saw Illya racing toward one of the red midget helicopters roosting on the lawn.
He came up on his knee, ran, fell forward, rolled over, came up to his feet and threw himself in against a Fiat as the rifles barked, snapping at his heels.
He rolled under the car, the gravel biting into him. Armed men ran from the house. He heard Illya yell, saw the men turn, racing toward the copters.
He reached up, opened the door on the side away from the house. He pulled himself up into the car, let the door close quietly.
There was no key in the switch. He was not disappointed or even delayed, because he had not expected one.
Using a strip of metal, he reached under the dash, shorted the ignition, pressing the starter. The little car shook itself, coming alive.
Solo already had the car in gear before he pulled himself up under the steering wheel.
He saw men racing from the house. They fired with their small arms, the bullets shattering windows, embedding in the metal. The car lurched forward into the drive. He stepped down hard on the gas.
Other and larger cars were already in pursuit before he reached the opened gate and turned out on the highway, headed toward Paris.
He could hear the gunfire back there. But he felt empty, knowing they were no longer shooting at him. They were shooting at Illya. And he knew something else. Illya had run toward those parked copters in order to give him a chance of escape.
He glanced in the rear-view mirror. Other cars came racing out of the driveway. They skidded almost off the shoulders, righting them selves.
With a sense of frustration, Solo pressed the accelerator to the floor. Ahead he saw the faint lights of Paris.
He came around a wide curve, banking. Car horns blared and he skidded past a truck. His pursuers had to slow, and one of them went careening off the roadway.
Solo gripped the wheel, silently begging five more miles of speed from the Fiat.
Checking his rear-view mirror, he found the cars on his trail again.
He saw side roads whirled past on the wind in transit, knowing that he could lose the larger cars only by hitting these side roads.
It was too risky. He saw a truck pulling out of a cross-road ahead.
Timing it exactly, holding his breath, he whipped the little car to the left, directly in front of the horrified driver.
He pressed down on the gas going in front of the truck with only inches to spare.
As he'd hoped, the truck driver panicked, stalled the truck. When he looked back, a crowd was gathering in the avenue, but his pursuers were unable to get past.
By the time the truck was moved, he had gained a precious mile on the men back there. As he neared the market places of Paris, the traffic increased.
But they were back there. He whipped around a corner, climbed a steep, cobbled hill, plunged downward, horns yapping at him.
When he checked his mirror, the larger cars were still trailing him.
He jerked the car around a corner, slammed on the brakes. He was already out of it as it rolled to stop in a no-parking zon
e.
He ran across the walk, plunged into a kiosk, going downward, racing toward a slowing Metro on the underground tracks.
FOUR
ILLYA SAW he was not going to make it to the midget choppers.
Men with attack hounds came running from beyond the small helicopters in the early morning. Their shadows lunged in the flood lights, ravenous upon the grass.
Marksmen fired from the chateau parapets.
Illya hit the ground, rolling toward the sorry protection of a lilac bush. He lay a moment, panting like a fox. Sounds battered inside his skull. He heard the yowling of the dogs, the raging of men, the gunfire, the sound of cars coughing to life, racing on the drive.
He grinned faintly, knowing that Solo had made it that far at least.
He saw the dogs running toward him. They were still beyond the copters. Other men came from the driveway, and more from the veranda at the front of the chateau.
He made up his mind. The nearest protection was the window in the dungeon. He had accomplished most of his objective. He had caused enough diversion to enable Solo to get into a car and off the grounds.
He came lithely up to his knees. He faked toward the 'copters. When the gunmen wheeled their guns that way, he reversed himself; crouching low, he raced back to the shrubbery at the dungeon window.
He drew a long breath and at the last possible moment dove the remaining few feet into the shrubbery. He stuck his head into the blasted window space and almost bumped heads with a startled guard on a ladder inside the dungeon.
In an instinctive reflex action, Illya thrust out his hand in a stiff-arm motion, catching the man under the chin. He shoved as hard as he could.
He was already scrambling back into the shrubbery, scrambling through it along the wall.
The dogs were nearer; the shouting of the men sounded as if they were in the hedge growth with him. He freed a friction-bomb pellet, set himself and threw it with all his strength at the window. More stones shattered and sprayed in fragments.
For the space of three breaths, everything ceased on the yard.
Illya did not wait to enjoy his small victory. He crawled as fast as he could on all fours along the inside of the shrubbery.
The Brainwash Affair Page 6