“Sort of a change for us to have distinguished company here,” he said. “Sorry the imperial suite isn’t available right now.”
Solo smiled equably. “It’s not worth the trouble. I’m not staying.”
“That’s right—I heard we’re going to have to let you out.”
“With my property, trust?”
“The trick gun, you mean? I have it right here.” The officer produced it, passed it butt-first through the bars. “Kinda cute, but personally I prefer the Magnum. You hit a man, he stays hit, know what I mean? A man’s gun.”
Solo hefted the weapon, smiled again. “Empty, naturally.”
“Just one of those things,” the officer apologized. “Routine. You know? Wouldn’t want you to get ambitious or anything. No hard feelings, naturally. Like a cup of coffee?”
“That’s a kind thought. Thank you.” He watched the solicitous one tread away whistling, felt for the spare cartridge he had managed to sneak, and held it in his fingers thoughtfully. Load up? Hardly. He wouldn’t want to shoot the man without extreme provocation, and you can’t properly threaten a man with a gun that he believes to be empty. On an impulse he hurriedly unscrewed the capsule-end and secreted it between two fingers, then moved to sit on his bunk. The jailer came back with a jug and two paper cups, dragged out a key-ring and unlocked the door, pushing it open.
“I’ll join you,” he suggested amiably. “Easier than passing the things through the bars, and you’re not going to try any rough stuff, are you?”
Solo grinned and moved to the far end of the bunk to give safe room. “I’d be a fool to try rough tactics with you,” he murmured. “You’d probably tear my arm off and beat my head with it and never turn a hair. What do we talk about?”
“Tricks of the trade,” the officer suggested, pouring a cup and passing it with a long arm. “I bet you know a few, hey?”
“Some.” Solo nodded. “Of course we’re pretty helpless without the technology. The trick gadgets. You know? A gun without slugs isn’t much use, is it? But there are other ways.” He held the cup delicately, watching the other man pour his own. “For instance there’s this. I could make a jerk, a gesture of some kind, a gasp—and point—and say, ‘Hey! Look there!’—” The man’s head moved instinctively, and Solo darted his empty hand at that cup, snatching it away as the officer swung swiftly back again. “And that would give me just enough time to slip something into your drink. Not that I’d really do it, of course; that was just an instance.”
“Yeah.” The jailer eyed his cup dubiously. “Just an instance. You wouldn’t try anything funny on me, would you?” Solo pretended to sip at his cup, watching intently, seeing the doubt grow and spread and become certainty. “Just a minute there. Maybe you wouldn’t try to slug me with dope, but I’m not so sure! Here, you drink it! I’ll have that one!”
Solo frowned protestingly. “Oh come on, you don’t really believe I’d—?”
“You have mine!” the officer insisted, suddenly harsh. “And I’ll take yours. Come on!”
Solo shrugged ruefully and accepted the exchange, but carefully held the new cup away from his mouth. The jailer glowered, took a healthy sip from his cup and swallowed, savoring the taste, his eyes hard on Solo.
“This is good coffee, mister. Go ahead and drink. I want to see you. Go on!” He finished his own cup, crumpled it in his hand and leaned belligerently forward. “What’s ’a matter? Lost your thirst? Cute tricks backfired on you again?” He glared at Solo, waiting. Ten seconds later the answer didn’t interest him at all. Solo was just in time to catch him from rolling off the bunk onto the floor of the cell. He snored peacefully as he lost his uniform tunic.
“Comes of having a nasty suspicious mind,” Solo murmured. “You’re a bit too old to learn new tricks, friend.” Ten minutes later, having plodded placidly past the desk-sergeant in his borrowed clothes—at this hour no one was paying very much attention anyway—he discarded the tunic in a conveniently dark doorway and went on his way.
Twenty minutes later Miss Sarah O’Rourke awoke from an exciting dream to the more exciting but frighteningly realistic sensation of a firm hand over her mouth. A familiar voice murmured, “This is another way of rendering someone speechless. Shall we agree not to scream for a bit?” She gathered her wits, nodded, and the hand went away. In the gloom she recognized Napoleon Solo sitting on the edge of her bed.
“How did you get here?”
“Skip the trivia and listen. Have you gathered by now that someone wanted to stop Amazov from talking to you too long? All right, now what did he say?”
“Not very much, at all. He had it in his head that my molecular diagrams were all wrong. And that’s silly, for didn’t I draw them myself?”
“But somebody altered them before you had the copies run off. I’ve had your paper checked, and it is nonsense. That’s for sure. So it follows that there is something very important about those diagrams. You’re sure you don’t know anything about the effects?”
“Nothing at all. What’s all this about, anyway?”
“I don’t know it all, only this—that you have some dangerous knowledge tucked away in that pretty head of yours, and certain parties are keen to see that it doesn’t leak out. There’s a chance they might try to silence you again, more permanently this time.”
“Are you deliberately trying to give me the cold shivers?”
“I am. And I hope I’m succeeding. The people I have in mind are good people to be scared of, believe me.” He sat back and eyed her thoughtfully. As she sat up in bed in a white linen nightdress she looked very lovely—and extremely vulnerable. He got out his wallet, extracted a card, handed it to her, and she made a giggle that was just short of hysteria.
“This is a crazy time to start being formal, isn’t it?”
“No formality about it. That card is bugged. See that you keep it safe and handy. If at any time between now and when you board your plane you are in any danger, or distress of any kind, you take that card and fold it, just once, down the middle.” He made a gesture to explain. “That will trigger a signal that I will be able to detect and follow. An alarm. All right?”
“Holy Mother!” She stared at the pasteboard in her fingers. “I believe you mean it!” He stood up from the bed and smiled grimly.
“I do. Don’t forget now, Keep it handy. See you on the plane tomorrow—I hope!”
“You’re coming along too?”
“You bet. You don’t think I’d let a gorgeous creature like you get away from me as easily as that, do you?”
The new day was just half an hour old as he entered The Masked Club on the ground floor of the old whitestone, and from there made his way into the headquarters of his arduous profession. A glance at the pinlighted “state” board told him Waverly was still awake and in business. He shook his head at it. That old man seemed able to get by with little or no sleep and could always be counted on to be handy when things were happening. Solo made his way swiftly to the lead-lined office that was Waverly’s own, the only room in that steel-walled maze that boasted a window. Perhaps, he thought, he could surprise the old man yet.
But Waverly merely looked up at him from beneath his shaggy gray eyebrows and murmured, “I had expected you ten minutes ago. I suppose it is difficult to get a cab at this hour. I’ve been studying the latest reports on those papers. You were quite right—they have been tampered with.”
Solo sighed. “And the original version?”
“Something quite new, according to our experts. They are running a set of computer simulations at this moment to try and estimate the possible effects. It will take time, and will be only a guess, at that. We won’t know for sure until we’ve tried the stuff on a human volunteer.”
“Try me,” Solo said instantly. “After all, I did make a bit of a hash—”
“Don’t be silly, Mr. Solo. I can’t afford to expend you as a guinea-pig. You’re much too valuable to be wasted in that manner. In any case, you have problem
s of your own, if you’re to catch that flight tomorrow.”
Solo shrugged and went away thoughtfully. As he busied himself with the minor things, such as loading up his pistol and setting up an electronic ear that would listen out for a cry for help from Sarah, he mused about this other, less spectacular side of U.N.C.L.E., the nameless and unsung toilers who took the calculated and cold-blooded chances in the obscurity of the back room. That was one aspect he didn’t care to think about too often. Soon somebody would try a measured dose of Uncle Mike’s new synthetic molecule, and would sit and wait while others watched him with clinical detachment. All would wonder and be on the alert to observe and study whatever new hellishness was due to be let loose on a long-suffering world. And, if that unnamed hero were very lucky, he would survive to write up his notes. And that was all in a day’s work.
The exercise had its points. Reflections like this were what a field agent needed to inspire him to try his damnedest not to waste that sacrifice. Solo applied his mind to devising some way of getting himself on that plane all in one piece. “They” would want Sarah safely back home. “They” would believe Napoleon Solo still safely in jail, and the police would not be in a hurry to advertise otherwise. With those two cards, plus an aesthetic liking for simplicity, he had his plans made before he drifted off to sleep.
His sleep was brief. He was up and away from U.N.C.L.E. headquarters long before anyone would have expected, long before certain observers took up their posts. They saw, as they were intended to see, a man leaving, carrying a small case, a man who neither advertised his presence nor did anything to conceal it. Even the uniformed observer would have guessed, by the appearance, that here was someone of reasonable importance departing on a mission of some worthy nature. The agent was one Jerry Willmott, and his ability to look like a dignified minor official was not the least of his many attributes. Keen eyes monitored his sedate procession by taxi from U.N.C.L.E. headquarters to Kennedy International Airport. Brisk instructions passed. Purposeful men began to close in. The lineup for the Customs check became slightly agitated.
Miss Sarah O’Rourke, in good time and safely through, spent anxious moments scanning the shifting crowd in the hope of seeing a familiar face, until her attention, like everyone else’s, was drawn to the scuffle at the counter. Willmott protested, sternly and with dignity. Several men, he claimed, had jostled him. One had knocked his case from his hand to the ground, whereupon it had mysteriously burst open. The officials, suspicious, listened with patent disbelief. They inspected the baggage, and then his person, carefully. They heard his disclaimer that those wrist-watches, and that whisky—actually in his pocket—were his own. Planted, of course, he said. They’d heard it all many times before. They invited him inside. But then Willmott changed his tune to a slightly different key.
“You’ll notice,” he pointed out silkily, “that I’m wearing gloves. If we could now have a fingerprint check on all those articles you’ve discovered and that I’m supposed to be trying to smuggle—and then compare the prints with those of certain parties I can point out from here?”
Sarah watched the scuffle as various people attempted to depart, and airport police attempted just as urgently to dissuade them, and sighed to herself. New York, she thought, was far too exciting a place to stay in for very long. In that respect, she was glad to be going home. But she felt disappointed, all the same. That nice Mr. Solo had said—And she started as a deferential voice intruded on her distress.
“We should be getting along to the plane, Miss. It will go soon. It will not wait for the crooked ones. Permit me to carry your bag, yes?”
The speaker was slim, not too tall, obviously trying to be friendly. By the sound of his clipped English, and to judge by his brief black moustache, neatly pointed beard and brilliant smile, he was Italian. Shielded by darkened glasses, his eyes seemed honest enough. “You’re very kind,” she said. “I had hoped to meet somebody, but I suppose you’re right; they won’t keep the plane waiting, will they?”
It wasn’t until her strange companion had gallantly escorted her all the way to her seat and stowed her personal baggage in the rack over her head that she realized she didn’t know his name. In response to her question he smiled his brilliant smile, sat himself in the seat by her side and said:
“Not yet. Not while we are still on the ground, eh? Once we are on the way, it will be different.”
They didn’t have long to wait. Doors slammed, the engines picked up power, and there came the familiar warning, “Fasten your seat-belts, please!” Sarah gave up her last lingering hope that Napoleon Solo would somehow make a dramatic appearance, and determined to forget all about him. She turned to see her companion in the act of peeling off his pointed beard with every evidence of relief.
“You didn’t really think I’d let you get away, did you?” he chuckled.
“Mr. Solo! But why—?”
“The opposition were on the lookout for somebody. So we put somebody there for them to see, and deal with—while I slipped by in the confusion.”
“That poor man at the Customs!”
“Jerry will know exactly what to do. Right now, three or four Thrush agents are having to explain how their fingerprints come to be all over the contraband he was supposed to be carrying. Do them all the good in the world.” Solo took a moment to glance round the seated passengers, and his smile was a shade harder as he brought it back to her. “Let us not start counting any premature chickens, however. They were smart enough to plant two more on this flight. Easy now; they won’t start anything while we’re in the air. They want you home safe and sound. It’s me they’ll try to get playful with, and they won’t try that until we’re at the other end.”
“You’re trying to scare me again!”
“Not for the world.” Solo smiled reassuringly. “I only want you to know it’s my neck they’re after, not yours. Isn’t that comforting to know?”
Sarah frowned dubiously.
TWO
“The Spirits of Me Ancestors Are Watching Ye.”
ILLYA NICKOVETCH KURYAKIN lay stretched out and soaking in sunshine on the heather-padded slope of a hillside, tinted glasses over his pale blue eyes and his straw-yellow thatch of hair hidden under a soft hat that was tilted to shade his face. He was untidy but comfortable in a faded check-shirt and battered old slacks. He looked half asleep. Close by his right elbow a stout staff stood erect, its lower end rammed firmly into the turf, a battered old tweed jacket apparently casually slung over its top to afford a measure of shade. The jacket adequately concealed a metal dish, at the focus of which hung a tiny but highly sensitive microphone. A thin wire crawled down the staff and fed into the canvas pack that was currently doing duty as a pillow. Within that pack the wire led into an amplifier. Another wire from the amplifier lay along the heather and stretched to Kuryakin’s right ear, and the tiny speaker hidden there. From time to time he might have been seen to reach out and touch the staff, to twist it minutely, just a fraction, in order to keep that snooping microphone accurately aimed at the two people down there.
They were almost a mile away. They were going through the motions of playing a round of golf over the Conway Club greens. They had the course to themselves, and thought they were secure from observation. Kuryakin could hear virtually every word they said, and found it most interesting.
In his brief term on the job he had accomplished much. U.N.C.L.E.’s man in Limerick had briefed him up to date. He had lodgings in Ennis to match his walking-tour guise. He had seen and identified Trilli and his two henchmen, Schichi and Foden, and had estimated them all accurately. Trilli might look like an inoffensive rabbit, but he was the real brain and as deadly as a snake. Schichi was big, burly, a typical Italian thug, handy with any kind of weapon but short on brains. Foden, now, was blond, Nordic, and smart. Also tough—he’d bear watching. He drove the hired Daimler that had brought Trilli to this unusual golf match. He and Schichi had been left to wait in the clubhouse while Trilli and his com
panion played.
It made sense, Kuryakin mused, awarding Trilli credit for using his head. If you want to meet and talk with someone in secret, avoid the dark corners, the deserted houses, the secret rooms or the concealing hedge. There you are just asking somebody to sneak up and listen in. Your best bet is to pick a place right out in the open, without cover, where you can see possible interference coming miles away and be warned. Trilli had chosen well. It wasn’t his fault that science had worked out a method of selecting sound vibrations over a long distance with all the accuracy of a telescope.
Kuryakin listened. What made this conversation particularly interesting was the fact that Trilli was doing his dickering with a woman!
She was too far away for Kuryakin to observe in detail. She wore a trim green cashmere sweater and short tweed skirt. He knew that she was Bridget O’Rourke. He also knew that she had a very pleasant voice, and by the skillful way she employed it that she was a very dangerous person indeed.
“I’m not blaming you for being careful,” she said. “If you want to insist that you’re just a representative of some big chemical combine in Europe—which you refuse to name—then that’s it and good luck to it. But if you stick with that then you’re stuck, you see? Because I’m telling you, straight out, that Uncle Mike positively will not deal with anything less than Thrush itself. That’s what he’s after, and that’s what he’s going to have. You see?”
This was the third time she had invited Trilli to confess his true colors, and Kuryakin grinned at the Italian’s reluctance to commit himself until he had something definite to go on.
“My dear young lady, always this talk about Thrush! I would prefer not to speak thus. First I wish to meet Dr. O’Rourke and discuss his new process. First I must know if it is any good. Then I talk business. But I do not buy a pig in a bag, you understand? This is not so unreasonable as all this wild talk about Thrush. I never heard of that before.”
Man From U.N.C.L.E. 05 - The Mad Scientist Affair Page 3