"I don't know." Solo stared into the fire. "Mabel, something is wrong—and has been for the past hour or so."
Mabel laughed, watching him pour steaming black coffee into tin cups. "It's just your nerves."
He shrugged. "Maybe."
She laughed louder. "Do your corns ache when it rains, Solo?"
He stared at her, frowning. From his vest pocket he removed a small aspirin-sized tin box. He opened it, took out two small purple capsules.
"What's that, Solo?"
He offered her one of the capsules. "It's an antidotes for nerve gas."
"Nerve gas?"
"We may walk into it at any minute, Mabel. Maybe we have already."
She shook her head.
He shrugged, said nothing. She refused to take the capsule. He closed his fist, holding it.
She watched him take a purple capsule, wash it down with the coffee.
"It isn't that I'm not grateful," she said, "but I don't believe we're going to find anything like that up here."
"I hope you're right." Suddenly Solo stiffened.
Mabel stared at him. "What's the matter now?"
Solo came upward slightly, staring past her. "Didn't you hear that?"
She jerked her head around. "I didn't hear anything."
"There it is again," Solo said.
While Mabel was turned, staring across her shoulder, he reached out, opened his fist and dropped the purple capsule into her tin coffee cup.
She turned back, frowning. "You're cracking up, Solo. I didn't hear anything."
Solo sighed and shrugged. He sat back, relaxed, watching her drink down her coffee.
FOUR
"How much further are we climbing before we make camp?" Mabel asked an hour later as they rode falteringly upward.
Solo check the sun.
"Not much longer," he said. "No sense taking a chance riding. A horse can break a leg."
"You worry like a mother hen," Mabel taunted. She prodded her horse, riding suddenly swiftly ahead.
She screamed, throwing her arms up before her face. She twisted, falling from the saddle.
Solo urged his mount forward, but it was as if he rode into an invisible wall. Something struck him and he was driven from his saddle.
Solo went sprawling outward, face first. It was not as though he fell, rather as if he were being thrust downward with terrible force by unseen hands.
The two horses reared, squealing. They tried to run forward, but their way was blocked by this invisible wall. But when they wheeled about, in panic, they were unable to run downhill, either.
Solo struck the ground hard. He felt the savage bite of lava spikes. He rolled along the shale shelf, trying to set himself. He was helpless.
He turned, seeing Mabel huddled on rock outcroppings.
"Mabel!"
He yelled her name again, but she did not answer. She didn't move. He lifted himself slowly to his hands and knees, feeling as if he were fighting incredible downward thrust. He fought against this pressure, lunging upward.
He cried out in agony.
It was as if his head struck solid stone. He shuddered, staggering to his knees, rolled helplessly over upon his back.
For one more moment the mountain side skidded around him, the boulders and the clouds changing places, like skittering bats.
He fought against the darkness that blacked out everything. He pushed upward, but could not rise. But this time when he fell, he went plunging downward into darkness where he was conscious of nothing, not even the pain.
Solo had no idea how long he was unconscious.
He forced his eyes open, conscious of the lancing pain, the throbbing in his temples. It was deep dusk, almost full dark, or else an impairment of vision laid an occluding fog on everything.
He tilted his head, saw that Mabel had not stirred. The horses had fallen, and they lay still on the rocks.
He moved his eyes, searching. Nothing appeared to have altered. The incredible emptiness reached outward in every direction. Ghost Riders, he thought. He tried to drive the mindless idea from his brain. He could not do it. He was convinced that he was surrounded by menacing beings, yet he could not see them. They threw him on the ground, and they held him helplessly when he attempted to rise.
He struggled again to get to his knees, but though there were no ties on him, no ropes, or chains, it was as if he were bound.
The nerve gas.
Stunned, Solo lay helplessly on his back, staring at the darkening sky. He and Mabel had ridden into an invisible wall—odorless, colorless nerve gas, clouds and banks of it. Both Pete and Marty must have ridden up the mountains to this place. This gas was what the two cowpokes had inhaled—the fatal fumes.
It had left them confused, dazed. In the case of Marty, victim of hallucinations—he had died believing he spent three days on a prolonged drunk in the bar at Cripple Bend.
Solo struggled against the invisible bonds immobilizing him.
He stared, eyes wide, trying to find some clouding of that gas. There was nothing visible, but it was there.
If those two cowpunchers had ridden into this bank of nerve gas it had to be piped from some underground storage tanks. And these had to be somewhere nearby—a cave, a well, an abandoned shaft. Something! The answer was that simple, if only he could find it.
Sweating, Solo fought to push himself upward. If he uncovered the cave or shaft from which the gas emanated, he'd have taken a giant step toward answering the riddle of those missing cattle, perhaps a step toward finding those vanished trains and Illya Kuryakin.
He lay, sweating, and his mind raced, though his body was immobile.
Hallucination.
This was the answer. He saw clearly now how this nerve gas had made it possible to move one thousand head of cattle as if they vanished without leaving a trace. No traces would be seen by men who were brainwashed.
Those two cowpunchers had believed anything suggested to them, while they lay unconscious from the first effects of the gas. Suggestion! While they were unconscious, Marty had believed that he'd grown disgusted with tracking and spent three days drinking in Cripple Bend. Pete believed he had fallen from his horse and had lain unconscious.
This meant there was not only strong currents of nerve gas from storage tanks up here, there were men, hidden like vultures—not ghosts, or ghost riders, but men executing some plan of unspeakable evil.
Had those men been here while he lay unconscious? What suggestions had been planted in his mind—and Mabel's?
Would he be able to think clearly because he had taken a nerve gas antidote? Or would he see what some unseen men had suggested he would see once he could move and walk again?
He pushed up to his knees, and then stopped, shaking his head incredulously.
At first, Solo was afraid to believe his eyes, fearful suddenly that he was experiencing visions as after effects of the nerve gas.
A ninety-foot slate wall in the face of the mountain near them moved slowly like a sliding panel.
Shaking his head, Solo remained on his knees, staring. The opening in the mountain was hangar-sized, and the lighted cavern beyond it was huge, shadowed—a place to swallow a thousand cattle easily.
His heart battered at this rib cage. Whether he lived to tell it or not, he'd solved the riddle of how those cattle had vanished and why the searchers found no traces left behind them.
A dozen men rushed through the opening in the side of the mountain.
They took a few steps, then slowed, paused, stopped for an instant.
Watching them, Solo wondered if they'd banged into the invisible wall of gas.
They inched forward, and he saw they were almost bat blind in the natural light of the outside world!
They chattered at each other. Solo could not understand what they said, only that they seemed to be encouraging their fellows to move forward in this strange environment.
Unsure whether they were real or hallucination, Solo watched them move toward him.
All wore identical dun colored coveralls, tightly zipped to their throats. Their heads and faces were encased in plastic masks, transparent and worn over heavy rimmed glasses and inhalers covering their noses and mouths. Narrow slits across their lenses kept out as much painful surface glare as possible.
Still they were almost blinded in the lowering darkness of the mountainside.
They faltered painfully forward, almost like men on tightropes, feeling their way.
They surrounded Solo and Mabel on the rock shelf.
One of the men said, "Drag those horses inside the cavern—we're to leave no traces of these people."
A group of the men turned their attention to the horses, and the animals were carted on small wheeled flat cars through the doors.
Solo was lifted, placed on a canvas stretcher. He lay still, keeping his eyes barely opened as he was borne across the lava beds toward the cavern.
He saw that two of the men bore Mabel on a litter beside his.
Eyes almost closed, Solo stared at Mabel's face. She appeared to be unconscious. She had not moved since she'd fallen from her horse. He watched her, puzzled.
When they had been moved inside the cavern, the slate walls were closed, sliding back into place.
At a double-timed pace, once they were inside the artificially lighted cavern, the men carried the two litters to an elevator set in an inner wall. This lift was huge, large enough to handle trucks, train cars, even transport planes.
Solo scowled, understanding suddenly how a great many unexplained disappearances—of people, planes, material—had been accomplished over the past years.
Winches, cables, ratchets wailed, protesting, as the lift was activated, plummeting breathtakingly downward toward the core of the earth.
Lying on the litter, Solo tried to reckon the depth of the descent, but it was impossible. One mile? Two? Three? He could not say.
The rounded, dun-clad men removed their masks, stood at attention. Solo realized they stared at him and he lay still, seeing that they might kill him if they found that he was conscious.
Just when Solo decided the elevator would never stop its plunging toward the center of the earth, it slammed to a soul-shaking stop.
One of the men shouted, "All right. Quickly. Get them out of here!"
"To the chamber of zombies?" one of the men at the litters asked.
"Of course," the group leader answered. "Where else? The master will send for them if he wants to see them."
The elevator doors parted, sliding back smoothly. Solo was impressed by the smooth operation, and he wondered if there was perhaps some more sophisticated power than electricity generated above ground?
The litter men took up the two stretchers, running in that odd, double-time gait.
In stunned amazement, Solo saw they'd emerged into a huge underground metropolis, miles below the earth's surface!
The sprawling city's main arteries, Solo saw, were not paved streets, but instead were gleaming rails of tracks, laced out in every direction. Trains thundered along them, coming and going through a labyrinth of hundred-foot tunnels, larger than anything Solo had encountered in the world famed caverns he'd visited.
There were no buildings as such along these caverns, and milk-white fluorescent tubings stretched throughout the length of every tunnel.
Caves had been gouged as houses in the tunnel walls, and each of these were constantly illumined by these lighting tubes in unbroken links.
A door in a stone wall slid open. The litter bearers carried the two stretchers inside the chamber the size of Grand Central Station, and like it, built on many levels.
The huge central room where Mabel and Solo were placed on their litters was crowded with humanity.
The men set the litters down, went out of the door, which closed silently.
Solo sat up, looked around in this chamber continuously illumined by the tubing of lights.
Hundreds of people crouched on the stone flooring. There were more of them on the several levels that opened out above this main floor. These people neither moved nor spoke.
Gradually Solo became aware of a steady buzzing sound. It seemed to have begun when he entered the chamber of zombies, and it neither grew louder nor diminished.
He could not find the cause of the sound, or its source.
He saw that these people were, like Mabel and him, recent underworld arrivals. Were these human beings part of those thousands who had vanished from home, jobs, friends—without a trace?
The incessant buzzing continued.
Solo glanced at Mabel. She appeared to be sleeping deeply. She remained unmoving.
The buzzing increased, tormenting him. He stood up and looked around. No one else seemed aware of this steady clatter. He moved slowly, trying to locate the source of the sound.
No matter where he walked in the huge chamber, the sound remained constant, unchanging.
He stopped, suddenly realizing what the sound was, where it was coming from.
He shoved his hand into his jacket pocket, brought out a small pen-sized receiver. The bleeps were louder now, they came from his signal receiver—a wave-length set up to pick out the bleeps sent from a lapel-set worn by Illya Kuryakin!
Solo broke into a smile. Illya was somewhere inside this chamber of zombies! He'd found Illya!
He turned all the way around searching for Illya among the unmoving humanity.
He turned the receiver slowly until the volume of bleeps increased, giving him direction. He ran through the aisles of immobile human beings.
He saw a stout, graying man sprawled on a couch, and he paused, recognizing the billionaire philanthropist, Harrison Howell. He'd seen that face often enough recently on identification screens at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters.
He gazed at the staring man a second, but did not stop. It was enough for the moment that he'd located Howell.
He found Illya crouched, vacant-eyed, against a wall.
Solo said, "Illya?"
Kuryakin remained unmoving, staring straight ahead.
Solo knelt before Illya.
From a small leather kit, Solo removed a syringe, yellow with nerve-gas antidote, and needle. He unbuttoned Illya's shirt, pushed it off his shoulder.
He plunged the needle into the soft flesh of Illya's upper arm.
Illya cried out, protesting. "That hurt!"
Illya stirred, pushing away from Solo and shrugging his shirt back into place.
Solo grinned, watching color return to Illya's cheeks.
"Illya," he said. "It's me, Solo. Can you hear me?"
Illya made an impatient gesture. "Why shouldn't I hear you? I see you. You're right in front of me. What's the matter with you anyhow, Napoleon?"
Suddenly Illya stopped talking as memory returned. He peered around them, his gaze touching at the slouched people in the huge, silent chamber.
Stunned, Illya shook his head. He looked ill. "How did we get in this place, Napoleon?"
Solo winced. He said, "Think, Illya. Try to clear your mind. Can't you remember?"
Illya scowled with the effort. But his eyes brightened and he nodded. "Yes, I remember now. The train. It went off the main line, Napoleon, to a spur-siding that led to an underground elevator. Unbelievable! Large enough to accommodate that huge streamliner. We plunged downward—I don't know how far. Then we stopped in this big, brilliantly lighted place. I think that's when the gas hit me. I remember trying to fight my way out, but I was helpless, paralyzed."
"Nerve gas," Solo said. "It's what they use on all their victims." He glanced about. "This place is probably under surveillance. For the time being, we better act like the rest of these people."
Illya shook his head.
"I've had enough of being a zombie," he said. "I've got a better idea. Let's get out of here."
Solo laughed suddenly, feeling better. He clapped Illya on the shoulder, nodding.
"I'll buy that, partner," he said.
Illya glanced around one more time, sh
uddering involuntarily.
"I've seen enough," he said. "Let's travel."
Solo nodded, leading the way between the rows of people crouched in staring silence.
"Here's a pretty big prize," he said across his shoulder to Illya. He paused beside the immobile philanthropist.
"Harrison Howell!" Illya said. "We better take him along."
Solo nodded, then bent closer, checked Howell's eyes, his pulse. "Better not try it. Not now. It's no good; he's under too deep, and I'm out of antidote."
Illya gazed into the unseeing eyes of the billionaire. "Sorry, fellow." He jerked his gaze up. "How do we get out of here? This is as depressing as a visit to my relatives."
Solo grinned. "Right. I've seen more animation at chess tourneys." He gestured across the wide cavern. "They brought me in through that door over there. Let's see if we can open it."
He ran ahead of Illya to the litter on which he'd been borne into this chamber. He drew up, frowning. Both litters were empty. Mabel Finnish was gone.
"What's wrong, Napoleon?" Illya said. "Lost something?"
Solo exhaled. "I hope so."
They drew up, staring helplessly at the single door in the chamber wall—it appeared to be solid rock in solid rock.
"Must be a button or lever somewhere," Solo said.
Illya was already running his hands along the door edges, the framing. He shook his head. "Nothing on our side, I'm afraid."
"But they did open this door from inside when they left me in here. Maybe a foot lever."
Illya stared about the stone floor, the rock wall. He shook his head. "I see nothing." He struck the door with the side of his fist in frustration.
Almost magically the door glided open. Illya's mouth parted in astonishment, but then closed again when he saw the three stout, dun-clad men and the guns in their arms.
Illya sighed, glance at Solo. "I wanted out, but this wasn't exactly the escape plan I had in mind."
FIVE
The armed men prodded Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo ahead of them along the narrow walkways that paralleled all the gleaming tracks through the labyrinth of tunnels.
Trains raced past, crowded with men and material. There was a furious sense of activity everywhere in the brilliantly illumined caverns.
One of the guards jabbed a gun into Illya's back. Illya and Solo paused. The guard did not speak but jerked his head along a smaller, white-tiled corridor.
The Ghost Riders Affair Page 4