by Unknown
There was no answer, and suddenly, there was a great puff of smoke directly in front of him.
A man appeared standing where the smoke blew away. A tiny man with a sardonic face that was all black eyebrows and sharp nose. A man almost a midget, but with a large head of satanic cast. The man laughed.
"Ah, Mr. Kuryakin, I think. We expected U.N.C.L.E. to send someone," the tiny man said.
Illya knew at once that this was Morlock the Great.
Morlock The Great laughed again. "Our man missed you in New York, but we have you now. Very foolish to use that password Morgan gave you."
"I found you with it," Illya said drily. His voice was cool, calm, but his mind raced. Where was Napoleon?
"True, and that you may well regret," Morlock said. "You will also regret coming alone. Strange. I was sure Mr. Solo would be with you."
Illya watched the tiny man. They did not have Solo? The words sounded true. The Cult did not have Napoleon? Then who did? Morlock The Great gave him no more chance to think.
The tiny magician seemed to wave his hand. A cloud rolled over Illya's mind. He felt himself stiffening, losing consciousness. Where was Napoleon?
THREE
NAPOLEON SOLO had waited under the lamppost, feigning drunkenness, and watched Illya enter The End of the World. Alert, ready to give the warning if anyone suspicious entered. No one did.
Some time passed. The night was cold and wet under the feeble street lamp, and Solo stamped his feet, sang to convince anyone who watched that he was indeed drunk. He received Illya's first message, and become even more alert. Illya had spotted two possible suspects.
Solo was so busy watching the door and the street that he did not see them come from a building behind him until they were on him. The cold muzzle of a pistol was pressed into his back. An only too familiar voice hissed in his ear.
"Really, Napoleon, that beard!"
Maxine Trent!
"And those awful clothes and thick beard," the Thrush agent purred. "What have they done to you? Why, I hardly get a twinge of desire when I see you like this."
"Good evening, Maxine," Solo said. "Should I say it is a pleasant surprise?"
His alert eyes took in the situation at a glance. Maxine stood behind him, but she held no gun. Another Thrush agent held the gun in his back. There were two other Thrush men, armed and watching him closely.
"It's always pleasant, Napoleon. This time especially. I don't have to kill you," Maxine said sweetly.
"I'm relieved," Solo said.
He turned and smiled at the beautiful Thrush agent he knew so well. Her violet eyes were so deceptively alluring. Her long, soft hair was black now—it could be red, or blonde, or any color she chose for any job. Solo ran her through his mind like a card through a computer. Age twenty-five; all the right measurements; runner-up for Miss America one year; daughter of industrialist Clark Trent. One of the best, most skillful of Thrush agents. A tall, lovely, deadly woman.
"To what do I owe my good fortune?" Solo said.
"I need you," Maxine said. "I want to know all you know about Morlock The Great and the Cult."
"So you're working with him?" Napoleon said. "That makes him a little more dangerous."
Maxine smiled. "Why, thank you, Napoleon. I take that as a compliment. Thrush will be pleased. Now, tell me—"
The beautiful Thrush agent stopped. Her violet eyes were looking across the street. Solo whirled. The door of The End of the World had opened. Two shaggy men stepped out.
"Well—" Solo began.
He got no farther. As he turned back to Maxine, the tall woman reached out and touched his neck with her hand. She was smiling. Solo felt the tiny pin prick, and knew no more.
* * *
ILLYA opened his eyes. There was no light. He moved and found that he was lying on a damp stone floor. He flexed his arms and his hands. He was not tied up. He felt his face—his disguise was gone.
He sat up and looked around. His eyes, as they grew accustomed to the dark, saw the confines of his prison. Four stone walls, no windows, perhaps ten square feet of floor space. A table and a chair. Nothing else.
And not a sound. He listened. The stone room was quieter than a tomb. No sound at all.
He looked at his watch. Strangely, they had left him all his clothes, his jewelry and hidden weapons. His U.N.C.L.E. Special, and his knife, were gone. Also his eye patch and false mustache. His watch showed that no more than half an hour had passed since he had left The End of the World. Then he had to be still somewhere in London.
But there was no sound at all. The entire life of the great city gave no hint of existing somewhere beyond the stone walls. He felt no drafts, no current of air. Nothing on the surface could be this silent. He was underground—in a stone room far under the earth.
Somewhere deep under the heart of London the morlocks must have headquarters, their real headquarters. The shaggy, limping creatures lurking in hidden passages under the earth and—. And Illya stopped. If there had been any light his eyes would have brightened.
He had it! Morlocks! The Things To Come Brotherhood! What had Taylor, the CID Inspector, said? They believe they will survive! Of course, H. G. Wells and his Time Machine! They had mixed two of H. G. Wells's stories. The morlocks appeared in The Time Machine. Things To Come was another book. And yet, both books were much the same—they presented what Wells thought the future would be like!
A world destroyed—and the morlocks survived! More than that, the morlocks ruled the future! A mutant race of shaggy-haired, half-crippled men who lived on, and controlled, their more fortunate-looking fellow humans. This Cult had merely taken the deformed and cast-out, the survivors of mental wards, and told them they would, indeed, survive and inherit the earth!
Ridiculous, half-insane; yet what else was any Cult? Cults grew because some people, some groups, had to have a dream to believe, no matter how crazy it was. What better dream than to believe that you will inherit the earth, and are, therefore, really better than all the normal, healthy, handsome people?
But what were they up to now? Harmless, Taylor had said. Perhaps they may have been once, but now—
Illya jerked from his reverie. There had been a sound, a noise. Even as he watched, a section of the wall opened and a figure entered.
Two figures.
A shaft of light from outside fell on Illya, revealing him, but also revealing the two figures.
They were more grotesque than any he had seen before.
One was a heavy, ape-like figure with its face barely visible beneath the shaggy shock of white-dyed hair.
The second was a thin, hunchbacked figure that shuffled behind the first, its face also invisible under the shaggy hair. This second figure carried a long club. Both morlocks moved to stand over Illya. The agent tensed to attack. There were only two. But he never moved.
Even as he prepared, the hunchback raised his club and smashed it down on the head of his companion.
* * *
NAPOLEON SOLO heard the water and felt the motion of the barge under him. He was pinioned securely to the chair. The two Thrush agents were preparing their instruments. Maxine grinned at Solo
"Come now, Napoleon dear. Don't make me resort to such old fashioned methods."
"Believe me, all I want to know what you in U.N.C.L.E. have learned about Morlock The Great, the Cult, and how they make people fight when there is nothing to fight."
"I'll bet you would," Solo said.
"I have orders to let you go if you co-operate. You know how unprecedented that would be. Really, Napoleon, all we want this time is some information."
"That's all? You ask so little, Maxine," Solo said.
"Please, Napoleon, I have a few scores to settle, but I'm willing to forget if you would just—"
Maxine stopped. Solo, tied securely, could not see what she was looking at, but she was looking at something o someone over his shoulder. She nodded quickly, and stepped past Solo out of his sight. The agent was not
worried about Maxine; he was still watching the two Thrush men preparing their tortures for him.
He saw that they had their backs to him. He listened. He could hear no one behind him. He began to work on his bonds. They were secure. And the thorough Thrush people had taken all the secret weapons they could find. But they had not taken everything.
At that moment Maxine Trent returned. The beautiful Thrush agent smiled down at him.
"I have to go, Napoleon. I will leave you in the capable hands of Walter and Bruno there. Remember, they have instructions to let you go once you have talked fully."
With that, Maxine turned on her heel, spoke low and sharp to the two torturers, Walter and Bruno, and walked quickly from the cabin of the barge. Moments later, Solo heard a motor boat roar away.
Silence descended on the barge. He listened, but he could hear no other sound of life but the lapping water. He heard the water and the metallic sounds of Walter and Bruno preparing for his torture. Then all sound stopped but the water.
Walter and Bruno turned to look at him. Both of them smiled. Solo did not have to ask. He could see that Walter and Bruno were going to enjoy their work on him.
FOUR
ILLYA FOLLOWED the limping hunchback down dark corridors and through many narrow stone rooms. His keen eyes studied the walls and corridors. The corridors were no longer of damp stone, they were concrete—thick new concrete. He saw air vents high in the walls.
At last they reached a small room far from the stone prison he had been kept in. This room had no entrance and was piled to the ceiling with cans of food. Or, to be exact, the room had an entrance, a door, but that was not the way the hunchback led Illya into the room. They entered through a large hole left when the hunchback removed a loose stone in the corridor.
The hunchback replaced the stone and turned to smile at Illya.
"We will be safe here for a time. That door is locked on the outside. Only the inner council members have keys."
"That loose stone?" Illya said.
"Only I know about that. I had repaired it for myself in case I was discovered."
Illya looked at the crippled man. Now, smiling, and with the thick hair pulled back from his face, Illya could see that the hunchback was relatively young, not at all bad looking.
Under the hair was a gentle, intelligent face.
"You wrote that note to Interpol?" Illya said. "About the firing at shadows?"
The morlock nodded."Yes, I wrote it. My name is Paul, Paul Dabori. I joined them when I felt I must have some friends, but now I know there is something wrong. They must be stopped. You are from Interpol?"
"No, from U.N.C.L.E.," Illya said.
"Ah, I have heard of U.N.C.L.E.," Dabori said. "That is better."
Far off, suddenly, there was a sound of gongs. Loud, frantic ringing of gongs. Illya stood alert in the dark of the hidden storeroom. Paul Dabori nodded. The hunchback seemed disturbed.
"They have discovered your escape. I killed the other guard, but they are not all fools. They will guess that I have helped you. We will not be safe here much longer."
"Why must they be stopped?" Illya said.
"I will tell you, but first we must escape." Dabori said.
"How?"
"I have a way. This was an ancient cellar. It connects to the sewers. That is our only way out, the sewers down to the river."
"All right. Let's go now," Illya said.
Dabori shook his head. "No, I know how they will search. We must wait until they are almost here; then we can pass them and reach the sewers. You see, we must go through some of the new corridors to reach the old sewers."
In the dark Illya sat with the hunchback. The two men listened to the incessant clangor of the gongs, the distant sounds of voices and running feet. Illya stood up to inspect the room. He saw that the cans were filled with basic foods: meats, vegetables, butter, sugar. All in cans.
And there were large cans of plain water. Puzzled, Illya continued his search.
There was medicine, and surgical supplies, and some large cylindrical objects that Illya recognized as air filters. Then he touched the walls. The walls were not stone on the inside.
The walls were lead!
"Yes," Dabori said behind him. "The walls are lead-lined. The new concrete is twelve feet thick. There is food and water for a hundred men for six months. The new parts are all sealed into a unit; the air is filtered through many filters. There is even oxygen in case the vents must be closed for a time."
Illya touched the lead walls again. Then he slowly turned to look at Dabori.
The hunchback, even in the dim interior of the hidden storeroom, was grim.
"An atom bomb shelter," Illya said. "A secret, and very bell built atom bomb shelter!"
"Yes," Dabori said. It is part of the plan. There are many such shelters in the world now, all the plan of Morlock The Great. That is why I had to tell—"
Dabori stopped, held up his small hand. Illya froze. Just outside the room he heard voices and footsteps. Someone tried the door. Outside men stood around the door. Illya took hold of his small, cuff-link gas bombs, and waited.
* * *
WALTER and Bruno bent to take off Solo's shoes. They both bent down, eager to get to work. Solo waited until their faces were both close to him near his feet. Then, with a powerful effort, he lifted his entire body, and the chair itself, a few inches off the floor in a jump, and came down on the heel of his left shoe.
The two Thrush men, intent on the anticipation of torturing Solo, failed to react for a split second. It was enough. As Solo made is jump and came down, they reacted and hurled themselves backwards. They were too late.
A spurt of reddish gas burst from the capsule hidden in Solo's heel. The gas quickly expanded flush into their faces. They gasped once each.
Solo hurled himself over backward and as far as he could go. Even then he got a faint whiff of the gas before it dispersed in the air of the barge cabin.
The whiff made his head reel, made him fight for consciousness. Everything went black and green and red and he felt himself slipping away; then it was gone. He lay in a sharp draft of wind from under the door.
Quickly he crawled himself around on the floor, the chair still firmly tied to him. Walter and Bruno had taken the full dose straight into their faces before they had time to jump away. They both lay flat, eyes staring at nothing, barely breathing.
Solo had two hours.
In two hours they would revive—with headaches, but otherwise as good as ever. Before then, Solo had to be free. Where he lay, his eyes searched the barge cabin. What he wanted was on the leg of that very table where Walter and Bruno had prepared their instruments of torture—a small blowtorch with a thin jet of blue flame.
Painfully, Solo gathered his muscles and heaved himself to his knees. He swayed to his feet with another lunge upward, staggered, crouched over with the chair against his back and legs, knees bent where they were tied to the chair. But he did not fall, the training and balance of the trained athlete coming to his aid now.
Earlier, while they were overpowering him, he had cursed as his hand, rasping against a corner of the table, had grated on a rough, abrasive edge of the wood, which had in fact tore some skin from his hand. Solo stared down at the ragged fused bit of wood and metal. Solo grinned, the sweat running into his eyes. Then he lay down and went to work.
They had made one mistake in binding him. After looping the rope firmly around his legs, they had tied it off to the rear rung of the chair—as far from his hands and feet as they could get. Now that was going to free him. He extended his legs until the chair, where he lay on his side, rubbed against the roughened table leg, just under where it joined the upper surface of the table itself.
It was hard, back-breaking work, scraping the rope against the table. He was lying at an awkwardly cramped angle, so that the labor of rubbing his legs against the abrasive spot put a terrific strain on his lumbar muscles. Every ten minutes he had to rest, panting.
After what seemed like an eternity, he strained, almost without hope, and felt the torn rope part.
For a precious moment he fell back on the floor, hoarding and restoring his strength which had been so sorely spent. Then, not daring to rest longer, he went to work again.
Quickly now, his legs free, he stood up straight, the chair still tied only to his arms behind him. They had not been stupid enough to use only one rope. He looked at Walter and Bruno. The two Thrush men had not moved. Grinning to himself again, Solo repeated the operation, but much more easily this time.
With his legs free, he was able to maneuver his body to where the ropes on his hands and arms crossed the upper part of the table leg.
Three minutes later he was free, with nothing worse than two ugly scrapes on his hand.
He threw the chair away, and quickly felt the lining of his jacket. He found, and drew out, a tiny flat needlelike object. Then he found a flat, capsule-like object inside the thick cuff of his trousers. The capsule-like, flat cylinder was wrapped in a tiny net of cotton. He fitted the capsule into the miniature syringe, bent over Walter, and inserted the needle into the Thrush man's arm.
He squeezed the fat capsule.
Walter jerked, shuddered, his limbs moving in spasms. Then the Thrush man's eyes began to flutter. Suddenly they came open. But Walter was not awake, not really.
Solo bent close to the ear of the Thrush man. "Where did Maxine go? Agent Trent, where did she go and why? Answer!"
Walter's eyes blinked, his body jerked, his lips began to move. "Uh—No—I will not—" The Thrush man shuddered convulsively. "I—she went to—Morlock. The country house; Salisbury—you must capture him and make him—tell—"
Solo let the man fall back and threw away his now useless miniature syringe of powerful truthserum and stimulant. Moments later he was swimming in the icy water of the Thames. He reached the shore, a wide flat of mud at low tide, and climbed up the embankment. It took him five minutes to locate a telephone, and five more minutes to get the exact location of Morlock The Great's house near Salisbury.
"Can I help now, Solo?" Inspector Taylor asked from the far end of the line.
"Stay where you are," Solo said. "If Illya can't get to me, he'll probably contact you. Tell him where I've gone!"