Man From U.N.C.L.E. 05 - The Mad Scientist Affair

by John T. Philifrent

  “Ah now, I’ll believe that when I see it snowing straight up!”

  Her voice dwindled and Kuryakin squinted to see that they were now going through the motions of teeing up for the next hole. The Conway Club course lay like three sides of a box around the hill. The first nine holes took you three-quarters of the way around, and the last nine brought you back again. It was a design that suited him very well, and if there were a small germ of curiosity in his mind as to why the greens had not been laid out to go completely around the hill, he refused to let it bother him. He reached out to adjust the staff fractionally, and caught fragments of talk, mostly hers, all about Uncle Mike. He had been a hell-raiser in his young days, had heard bits and pieces about Thrush, had put them together to make a shrewd guess at the whole. He had told his niece all about it, and now she was telling Trilli.

  Listening, Kuryakin had to admit that she had most of her facts right. He was intrigued by the incongruity of it. Here against the green tranquility of this quiet flower-strewn landscape, with its pastoral beauty and purple distances, she spoke of a sinister world-wide organization, a nation without a home, a band of ruthless people whose only loyalty was to the Ultimate Computer, whose aim was to master the world. Using any technique that would work, no matter how evil, Thrush took over a city, a council, an industry, or some vital service, and used it as its pawn. She knew it all, and related it in cheerful detail, as if thoroughly approving. She even knew about the Supreme Council of Thrush.

  She went to some pains to make this clear.

  “I know Uncle Mike,” she declared. “I know him better than anybody does. He won’t sell his discovery, not to the big business you pretend to represent, not even to Thrush, which you do represent!”

  Trilli snorted. “It is become ridiculous. You insist I am Thrush, and then you say not even to Thrush will he sell! What, then, does Dr. O’Rourke want?”

  “He will contribute his genius in return for a full membership on the Supreme Council,” she said with flat conviction. “You’ll remember, he’s King Mike in these parts, and he’s not one to give up power easily.”

  Kuryakin chuckled to himself. Trilli was in a spot now. Although he had status within Thrush he was very far from being that important. He was just a hireling, a field man. The Italian recovered his voice with an effort.

  “You really think I am in a position to offer this?”

  “Not you!” She was cheerful. “But you can take the message back. And you can now meet Uncle Mike, seeing you’ve at least admitted you are Thrush!”

  Kuryakin lost his grin swiftly as he felt an urgent tingle from that sixth sense any agent must have if he is to survive long. Squinting urgently over his shoulder, he saw two men halfway up the right-hand slope of the hillside, one peering at him through binoculars. One glance was enough to identify Schichi and Foden, enough to force immediate decisions. There was no sense in standing his ground and hoping to play innocent with those two. Kuryakin moved with deliberate speed. Rapid touches folded the dish and microphone into compactness and into the shoulder-pack. A wriggle got him into his jacket and the pack on his back.

  A quick glance as he yanked the staff out of the turf showed his estimate to be accurate. Schichi and Foden were moving now, coming towards him fast. They were hailing the two players over there, alerting them. A discreet withdrawal seemed best.

  Kuryakin went up the hill swiftly, calculating the odds. If he could get over the crest, down the other side, and into the wilderness of bush and scrub, he could lose them easily. They might shoot. He didn’t think they would, but there was an uncomfortable itch between his shoulder-blades as he scrambled up the slope as fast as he could go.

  He lost his footing for a gasping moment and tripped, going down on one knee by a wiry bush. In that same second the air where his head would have been was ripped by the violent passage of something that hurled on to smack into the grassy bank a yard ahead. Kuryakin marked it, noting the absence of any sound of a shot. His left hand dug out the projectile as he rushed past and scrambled on up. His fingers told him what it was even before he managed to snatch a glance at it. A golfball. Judging by the way in which it had gouged into the ground, it had come from a powerful catapult or something similar. That would be Foden. Ingenious fellow, Foden. Kuryakin’s habitually serious expression hardened as he appreciated the thinking. A man shot dead is an awkwardness, something to invite curiosity, but who would think it anything more than a sad accident that a man should be struck and killed with a golf ball, here right beside a golf course?

  Panting, he tossed the ball away and went on. The hilltop was close now. At his back he heard shouts. Halting at the crest, he weighed the prospect swiftly and shrugged off his pack. The way down was steep, but thick with heather. He dropped the pack between his feet, stood across it, gripped the straps, and gave a strangled groan as something hit him a hammer-blow in the small of his back. Foden again, a damned good shot. Grinding his teeth against the kidney-ache, he squatted on his pack and shoved off, and down, toboganning over the springy heather at a furiously jolting rate. It wasn’t the smoothest ride in the world, but it was easily ten times as fast as anyone might follow on foot. Using his staff like an oar, and his heels desperately, he snatched a backward glance and saw all four of them appear on the crest up there. He hit a bump and flew a short distance, landing with a bone-jarring jolt. Another snatched glance back. No sign of pursuit yet. He was going to make it.

  The bottom came rapidly nearer. He steered valiantly, bouncing and bumping, seeking ahead for the best place to halt, trying to evade the bigger hummocks. Ahead he saw a shallow gully, and aimed for it. Beyond that was a very smooth and inviting open green space. Thrusting savagely, he shot towards it, his knees up, his whole body braced for the jar of stopping. There came one of those moments when time seems to stop and hold its breath. He saw the edge ahead, that he was going to shoot out and drop like a ski-jumper, that the drop would be about ten or twelve feet onto that smooth green. But there was something ominously suspicious about that smoothness, greenness, softness. With one last breathless bump he was in mid-air and falling. And, with a supreme effort of will to overcome his natural instinct to drop feet first and cushion his impact, he twisted and writhed, turned in mid-air and spreadeagled himself to fall flat on his back. Flat—with a great slap and splurge—into slimy green ooze!

  A bog. Had he been wrong in his snap judgment, had it been turf, the shock would have broken his back. Inside he was knocked breathless but otherwise unhurt. He lay still for a long moment. Some freak of accoustics brought him, faintly, the voices from up there.

  Trilli snapped, “If you are very quick and go around, you will—”

  “There’s no need of that,” Bridget O’Rourke interrupted calmly. “Whoever he is, he won’t trouble us again. Never a one has come back up out of Kevin’s Hole that I ever heard of!” There came a moment of mumbling and then her voice again, still cheery. “Try it for yourself, and see. Slap one of your golf balls down on that green there, and see what happens to it!”

  Seconds later there came a hiss, a smack, and the splatter of flying mud on his face as the ball impacted a yard from his head. More muttering, going away, and then silence. The ooze was up to his ears and in his hair. It felt cold and wet all along his back and legs. They were right to be confident. He felt himself sinking by gradual inches.

  Panic screamed at the back of his mind, to be met and hurled back by cold determination, savage common sense, and a frantic survey of the enormous fund of out-of-the-way information he had gathered in the course of an arduous life. He separated fact from fantasy with urgent efficiency. Bog, marsh, quagmire, quicksand—none of these can actually “suck” anything down, despite all legends, for the simple scientific reason that it is impossible to exert a downward suction on the free surface of any fluid. The entrapment action is simply that of a solid body resting on a fluidized bed exerting all its weight on a small area and thus displacing the less-solid support.<
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  Had he landed feet-first, or had he tried to stand and struggle—as almost everyone does—he would have gone under in seconds. As he was now, with his weight dispersed over a large area, he was sinking very slowly. But still sinking. The train of thought raced through his mind as he swiveled his eyes to study the situation without moving himself any more than he could help. The outlook was bleak. His ski-jump drop had deposited him virtually into the center of the morass. In all directions but one he was some twelve to fourteen feet away from the first straggle of bushes that marked firmer footing. It is just possible to swim in mud, but progress is painfully slow and eats up enormous amounts of energy. He surveyed the one spot that was closer, the edge over which he had slid. Horizontally, it was no more than six feet away, but the surface was sheer smooth rock, standing straight up some eight or nine feet before it offered a ledge to grab at. The ooze crept to the corners of his mouth as he studied that rock-face. In his outflung right hand he still held his staff; the other hand gripped the straps of his pack. He had no more time to waste in calculation.

  Taking a good deep breath, he nerved himself, rolled over to his right towards the rock, swinging the pack over, slapping it into the mud, squirming his chest onto it, using its temporary buoyancy to gain him a thrust forward and his face clear of the stinking slime. Now he could almost have reached to touch the rock-face with his fingers, but he had sacrificed his reserve of buoyancy; he was wet all over and sinking fast. There was no time to waste. Up went his head and shoulders and down went the rest of him deep into the mire. With only seconds to spare he worked frantically at his staff, which was no ordinary shaft of wood, but a strong telescopic pole, highly useful as an extensible aerial, or a weapon, or, as now, to be stretched out and hooked onto a wall, a fence—or a rocky ledge.

  He freed and locked the hook with savage speed, slid out the extensions, hearing them click into place, and the slime was at his chin now. Bearing down with his left arm, he strained up with the right, straight up, snagged the hook and pulled hard. Small stones and soil came away and rained down onto his face as the hook broke free. With the stinking slime at his lip and numbing cold soaking his body he made one more frantic lunge and catch, the glittering hook passing over the ledge.

  And it held! He dragged on it steady but hard, tensely, getting all his weight onto it by cautious degrees. Then he took hold with his other hand, got a savage grip—and heaved! The sweat sprang out on his face as the bog clung, reluctant to release its prey. He heaved again, shoulder-muscles tearing under the strain. And again, and the slime fell back to his shoulders. With shivering care he walked his grip up the rod and heaved again, and again, until his waist and then his hips came free of the ooze.

  His hands, arms and shoulders burned like fire. He missed a grip and hung for an agonized moment by one slipping hand until he could get it back again. The chill flame of determination drove him to fight one hand over the other and go on, and up, until there was stone under his fingers. Then an elbow. And then a space to get his knee on. And then he fell flat and breathless on his face in the heather and lay still.

  In a while he was able to sit up. A while longer and he could stand, and begin wearily to make his way down and around the death-trap green, through the wild country beyond, and eventually back to his lodgings. Most of the green sludge had dried and flaked away but he was still in a dreadful state, enough to make his landlady throw up her hands in dismay at the sight of him.

  “Fell into a bit of bog, did you?” she cried, as he told her a revised version of the truth. “You’re very fortunate to be alive to tell it. You’ll be wanting a bath to get off the mud, and let me have those things of yours till I see whether I can get them cleaned up a bit for ye.” Which suited him very well, for there are few places more private than a bathroom, and he had urgent need to discuss certain things with someone. Luxuriating in hot water and vapor, he put a call through to his Limerick contact.

  “I’m going to need one or two things,” he said. “It seems they want to play this the hard way.” Arid he winced as muscles protested in the small of his back. That golf ball had hurt!

  The Limerick office promised cooperation and also had a little news for him: “U.N.C.L.E. One has some first-run results on one of the O’Rourke molecules. Similar to serotonin, same type of thing, very probably a hallucinogen, but they’re not sure about the full effects yet.”

  “That’s not surprising. That kind of test could take weeks. I might get results faster by taking a private look at the laboratory in the castle. I will want a rundown on the modifications Dr. O’Rourke has had installed, and an interior plan. Also—”

  He specified his needs closely. He had had plenty of time to figure them out while trudging back from Kevin’s Hole.

  An ill-assorted foursome climbed out of Trilli’s hired Daimler as Foden drew it to a halt within the forecourt of Cooraclare Castle. The three from Thrush had little interest in its architecture or authenticity. They were more concerned with its potential as a fortress, noting that the walls were massive, the windows small and strong, and that there was a man up there by the crenelations watching their every move.

  “’Tis only a small castle,” said Bridget airily, watching their eyes and accurately gauging their thoughts.

  “Uncle Mike had it renovated and modernized, but it’s just as strong as ever it was. I think we’ll find him in the receiving room.” She led them through a great arched doorway and into a vast stone-floored hall with a grand double staircase at the far end. A large man in dark livery stood at the top of those stairs, a shotgun casually under his arm. The receiving room lay off the hall to the right and was noteworthy for being hung with many oil-paintings, every one of which bore a striking family resemblance to the sharp-eyed old man who sat now at the far end of a long table that filled most of the center of the floor. He rose to his feet as they entered.

  Michael O’Rourke had been a big and powerful man in his prime. He was gaunt now but still an imposing six foot three, with a gleam in his eye and his white hair and beard giving him something of the air of an Old Testament prophet.

  “And who might it be who seeks the honor of approaching King Michael in the heart of his own little kingdom?” he demanded, with a smile that was no more than a showing of his white teeth.

  “This is the one you’ve been waiting for, Uncle Mike” Bridget gestured to Trilli, who moved a hesitant step and stopped. “He didn’t want to admit it at all, but he’s Thrush all right. Dr. Vittorio Trilli, of Genoa. And that’s Angelo Schichi—Karl Foden. Just friends.”

  “I have not said I am Thrush!” Trilli denied sharply. The old man’s smile grew into a leer. “You’ve been in the district a week or two, mister. You’ve been asking a lot of interesting questions about meself, and O’Brien’s Beers, and such like. You have a couple of bully boys with you for bodyguard.” Bridget moved steadily forward as he was talking, to pass the length of the table and stand by his side.

  “Trilli, that’s your name, and you’re a chemist. A good one, too. At least, you were, until you were killed in a peculiar accident about four years ago. That’s strange now, isn’t it? But it fits the Thrush pattern. When they want a man badly, they arrange for him to ‘die,’ and then they have him, you see, body and soul. You’re in the crunch, Mr. Trilli. Either you are a Thrush agent, or you’re an imposter, take your pick!”

  “You are very well informed,” Trilli muttered, no longer rabbity-looking. “If this is some kind of trap—a clumsy one—” And there was an evil-looking pistol in his hand all at once. Simultaneously Foden and Schichi stepped away, and they held guns too. All three stared steadily at O’Rourke. The old man’s caprine beard twitched, but his eyes were like spears and his smile satanic.

  “The spirits of me ancestors are watching ye,” he said, very softly; and Trilli glanced aside…and stiffened. Six of the oil-paintings had slid aside. In the dark cavities revealed, three on each side, stood men, large and ruddy-faced and ready, each wi
th a shotgun leveled. “A scatter-gun makes an awful bad mess at this range,” the old man pointed out. “Ye said I’m well-informed, and so I am. I remind ye, I’m King in these parts. I’m well-served. But I’m a fair man, and I’m satisfied that you are what I think you are. I’m ready to talk a bit of business with you, if you’ll put away the toys and be easy.” Trilli shifted his gaze slowly. from one pair of barrels to another, and then shrugged in defeat, slipping his pistol out of sight again.

  “Very well, we don’t play games any more. We talk business.”

  “That’s fine. Bridget me dear, will you bring the bottle and glasses? There’ll be high tea in a while. I make you welcome, good people, so long as you remember that I’ve a lot more handy buckoes like these scattered about the place. At one word from me they’d tear ye limb from limb and serve ye up as Mulligan, so they would. ’Tis a grand thing to be an absolute monarch.”

  O’Rourke seated himself again and waved Trilli and his henchmen to come forward and take seats on either side of him. Bridget produced the bottle and glasses. The old man reached into his corduroy smoking-jacket to produce a visiting card for Trilli. “A token of goodwill,” he smiled. “There’s not many that has King Michael’s personal card, believe me.” Trilli scowled, put the thing away in his breast pocket. In the thick silence they heard a clock, close by, chime out the half-hour.

  “Unless something’s happened to her,” Bridget declared, “Sarah should be home soon.”

  “She will, she will. Sarah’s a reliable girl.”

  “Your other niece?” Trilli wondered. “The one you sent to the convention in New York to talk? Wasn’t that foolish, giving away freely what you are trying to sell to me for a great price?”

  The old man shook his head pityingly. “When I’m on the Supreme Council I’ll try to remember never to give you a job calling for intelligence. Think, man! D’ye think anybody will pay attention to anything announced freely and in public? Of course they won’t. That’s why I did it. And what did I give away, at all? Only the information that I know how to manufacture a new synthetic! That’s all. Not how to make it, but that I know how to do it. And I do!”