by Peter Leslie
"And if, say, a red badge does try and make the second floor...?"
"Once it passes the marker beam defining the limits of Red Badge territory, winking alarm lights flash on every desk in the building, bells ring, steel doors drop from the ceilings and seal off the section housing the intruder. It's quite a performance."
"Sounds pretty watertight, in every sense of the word! These badges are worn by everyone?"
"Everyone. Personnel and visitors alike." Waverly indicated the white shields ornamenting his own and Kuryakin's lapels. Above his head, the glass bulb set high on the panelled wall began to pulse green.
"What is it, Miss Riefenstahl?" Waverly called crossly, pressing the desk button. "I particularly asked not to be disturbed."
"I am very sorry to interrupt, sir, but the precinct house people are calling Lieutenant Trevitt. They said to say it was very urgent."
"Oh, I see. I'm sorry.... Lieutenant, would you care to take it at my desk?... The white telephone, please. Miss Riefenstahl."
As Trevitt began to speak, Waverly moved round and dropped into a chair next to Illya. "All this... fuss... made me forget your own assignment," he murmured. "Is there anything to report?"
"Yes, indeed," Kuryakin replied. "Leonardo's come up with something far better than I had hoped for. He's got the list!"
"He made it! Splendid fellow!... Not a list detailing every Thrush satrap in Europe, I suppose? That would be too much to hope for."
"I'm afraid so, sir. No such list exists anyway, he tells me. One would have to be compiled specially from masses of other material, and he simply didn't have the time. What he did find was a complete list of every company and organization in Western Europe that was destined to become a Thrush satrap—a blueprint of their advance plans in that particular theatre of operations. With this information, we can alert managements and the security organizations of the various countries, blocking the Thrush infiltration and takeover technique before it starts. It'll put back their European expansion schedule by two or three years."
"But that's excellent, excellent!" Waverly enthused. "Leonardo is to be complimented... Er, you are sure the list is authentic?"
"Absolutely. He got it from the private safe of the Supreme Council member for Southern Europe."
"Do they know we have it?"
"Leonardo thought not. He cracked the safe, took out the list and photographed it, and put it all back again and locked up while the man was having dinner."
"Good. When do we get the photographs?"
"I'm not sure, sir. Leonardo's daily transmission was fading and he went off the air just as he was about to tell me. I'm waiting for his normal routine report this evening to find out."
"No doubt we shall receive them through the usual channels either tomorrow or the day after. Microdot, are they?"
"No, sir. He was using a new technique. He was..." Kuryakin's voice tailed off as Trevitt put the receiver back on its cradle. The policeman's face was white.
"You're right about them being ruthless," he said tightly. "That was my Captain. Our woman witness... she was sitting having a cup of coffee with the boys in the squad room. They got her—in there! Some guy on the roof of an apartment house right across the street. They think he must have had an express rifle. Drilled her through the head—a downward deflection of nearly forty degrees... and the slug had to pass through double-glazed windows with bars over them!" He shook his head in disbelief. "She died instantly."
There was a grim silence. Waverly scraped another match to life, tossed the empty book into the wastepaper basket, held the match in mid-air for a moment and then, finding that there was no pipe for it to ignite, dropped it into the ashtray. "One damned thing after another," he said. "So, since neither Del Florio nor his assistant can tell us anything, we're back where we started: without a single lead to follow."
"Not quite, sir. The car—or one just like it—has been traced. A pale grey Plymouth has been found abandoned on the perimeter of a private airfield just outside Johnstown, in upper New York state. The lab boys are still working on it, but they've already found a special compartment between the back seat and the trunk in which they think your man must have been hidden while he was ferried up there."
"We shall just have to wait and see what else they can tell us, then," Waverly said. "But at least we can be fairly certain of one thing."
"What's that?" Kuryakin and the policeman asked together.
Picking up the pipe from the desk, the lean, grey man with the tired face ticked off points against his fingers with the stem. "One, no ransom demand has arrived. Two, Mr. Solo appears to have been removed by aircraft, which presupposes both a big deal and a long-term one. Three, since he was not on assignment, it seems unlikely, as we have said, that he was—er—snatched either to prevent him completing something or to force information on a specific mission from him. Because, four, adversaries well enough informed to have planned the kidnap, and to have removed the witnesses in the way they did, would certainly know also where Mr. Solo had been and why... which is to say they must have known he was not on assignment."
Waverly paused and reversed the pipe, clicking the stem into place between his teeth. "It seems, in fact," he continued slowly, "as though Mr. Solo has been abducted at this particular time precisely because he is not engaged on a mission. And you can make of that what you like... Could either of you gentlemen oblige me with a light, please?"
CHAPTER FOUR
The Velvet Glove Approach
It was the only possible answer, Napoleon Solo thought. He must have been kidnapped on his way back from that dreary conference, in the way that he had been, precisely because he wasn't on assignment. But why? What were his captors hoping to get out of it? What was the point?... And what kind of captivity was this, anyway?
For the hundredth time, he shook his head in puzzlement. His reasoning had followed exactly the same line as Waverly's, and he had arrived at the same conclusion. Solo, however, had a lot more facts and impressions to go on—even though they didn't take him any nearer the solution of the mystery. He remembered clearly the stupefaction with which he had heard the unexpected hiss of escaping gas; he recalled the mortification he had felt when his drugged muscles refused to obey the commands of his brain, the widening highlight on somebody's shoe. But after that there was a timeless period of blankness broken only by sensations of movement, of being bounced about on a hard floor in a confined space, of being lifted, of the assault of pressure on the eardrums. Once, he had a confused idea that he had been woken from a deep sleep in an aeroplane in the middle of the night. There had been a roaring all around him and the sense of floating in a void. Then cold fingers had pulled up a fold of skin on his arm and there had been a stinging sensation before he fell asleep again. He could see the mark of the hypodermic now, just in the bend of the elbow, and the joint was still sore. After that, he remembered nothing at all until his awakening in this house, in this room, in this bed.
Since his initial return to consciousness, though, there was a host of impressions to sift in his mind. He had sat up in the unfamiliar room, hearing nothing but the slow pounding of blood through his own veins. He was wearing striped pajamas in green and brown and purple. There were silk sheets on the bed and the room was floored with parquet surrounded by walls covered in damask. On one of the petit-point chairs, his clothes were neatly laid out. It looked like the bridal suite of a very expensive Victorian hotel, or the guest room of an oil man's Park Avenue house.
Solo had swung his feet to the floor and attempted to stand up. Apart from an odd giddiness, there seemed to be nothing wrong with him.
Experimentally, he trod the Bokhara rugs to the window embrasure. A tug at the broad, tasselled cord hanging to one side had soundlessly drawn back the midnight-blue velvet drapes. Outside it had been daylight, with sunshine splashing the shadows of a row of poplars across a lawn down below. Solo had tried the bedroom door. Astonishingly, it had been unlocked. Outside was a wide, carpete
d passage leading to a gallery encircling a huge hall.
Hastily drawing on his clothes, he had tiptoed out and down the shallow staircase to the floor below. Once he had walked a few paces, the giddiness had disappeared. Through double doors at the far end of the hall, he could see formal gardens stretching away towards a copse.
He had seen nobody and heard nothing. Feeling like a man in a dream, he had walked out through the doors on to a flagged terrace.
The place was enormous. A rambling two-storied house covered with creeper; stables and coach-houses; a servants' wing with kitchen gardens attached; rose gardens, sunken gardens, topiaries. Beyond one lawn fringed with cedar trees he came to a sweep of parkland. At the far side of this was a high wall marking the boundary of the property. And about ten yards inside the wall was a six-foot wire fence beaded here and there with green glass insulators.
Between the fence and the wall the ground had been cleared and two giant dogs—Doberman Pinschers, Solo thought—halted their promenade to stare coldly at him with huge yellow eyes.
Nearer to the electrified fence, he had come abruptly upon a man in a sharp brown suit and pointed shoes leaning against the bole of a tree. There was a matchstick between his teeth and cradled negligently in his arms was the unmistakable outline of a Belgian FN machine pistol.
"Good afternoon," the agent said. "My name is Solo. I appear to be your prisoner. Could I perhaps know why?"
The gunman shifted the weapon to a more comfortable position in the crook of his right arm, removed the match with his other hand, and spat. He neither looked at Solo nor replied to his question.
The man from U.N.C.L.E. tried again. "Look," he said "Obviously I'm not going to try and make a break for it—not with a fence that's electrified, killer dogs on patrol, and a professional torpedo about a foot away! You lose nothing by just talking... or if you won't talk, maybe you could tell me when will somebody show up who can talk?"
The expressionless eyes had swept incuriously over him, but again the guard said nothing and finally had resumed the contemplation of the middle distance that Solo had interrupted. The agent had shrugged and turned back towards the house. Making a wide circle round the place, he had caught sight of several pairs of dogs between the fence and the wall. Also, he had come across three other men similarly armed. But they would not talk either.
Now, upstairs in the bedroom again, he pondered the situation. He had been kidnapped in a quick and exceedingly well-planned raid. He had been brought to this place—and obviously whoever had arranged the visit meant to keep him there. For he was under no illusions that despite the unlocked bedroom door, the lack of direct surveillance, the relaxed atmosphere of monied ease which pervaded the property, any attempt to escape would mean his death as surely as if he had stepped into a bath holding an electric fire. The dogs, the fence, the gunmen, all proved that; despite the fact that he was apparently free to come and go as he pleased within the grounds. And they proved, too, that whoever arranged this was a very big-time operator indeed....
The only thing was why should such a person want him here? No doubt he would find out soon enough, when the crunch came. For this was a prison even though it had no bars. In the meantime—where was the place?
Once more he looked out of the window. The sun was sinking. Beyond the wall, lush, silvery meadows stretched into a distance barred at intervals with ranked hedgerows and trees. Here and there in the hollows, he could see patches of osiers, and there were two farms, groups of long, low buildings in mellow, rose-colored brick surrounded by poplars. Far away, a range of hills smudged an uneven line against the pale sky.
It was a scene familiar and yet somehow entirely alien.
Where could they have brought him? Solo thought again. Presumably, if they had really flown, it must be some distance from New York. Could it be Vermont? Southern Ohio? Wisconsin?
He shook his head. It could have been, but somehow he was sure it wasn't. Yet it was certainly not a landscape from the West Coast or even the South. He gazed out over the pastoral scene yet again, seeking some clue among the trees which drowsed in the approaching dusk.
"Do you prefer places to people, Mr. Solo?" a voice asked softly behind him.
Solo swung round. The girl was leaning against the wall just inside the bedroom door. She was wearing jodhpurs and a blazing yellow shirt. Beneath jet black hair, the even tan of her face glowed against the crimson damask. Her lips were full and sensuous, and the figure swelling from below the open neck of her shirt was as ripe as a cherry.
The agent smiled. "I'm afraid you have the advantage of me," he said.
"Eriksson, Lala Eriksson," the girl replied. "I hope you are comfortable. Please consider yourself perfectly free to come and go as you like within the house and grounds—though perhaps I should say there are... reasons... why a perfect guest should not decide to stray beyond the boundaries of his host's—er—hospitality."
"I have seen the dogs and the fence and the professional killers."
"So. You have already been out. Good. You will perhaps then—"
"What I want to know is why I'm here," Solo interrupted brusquely.
Lala Eriksson was carrying a plaited leather riding crop. She tapped it impatiently against the whipcord curve of her calf.
"All in good time, Mr. Solo," she said. "All in good time. In the meantime, I am sure you must agree that your confinement is hardly... oppressive. So far as motives and reasons go, no doubt Mr. Carlsen will enlighten you in due course."
"Mr. Carlsen?"
"Your host. He will be back later. Unfortunately, he had to go into the city ."
"What city?"
The girl smiled. "The nearest city," she said. "Perhaps Mr. Carlsen will be able to explain more than I can. For the moment, I am sure he would wish me to emphasize that the main reason you are here is because we want to enjoy your company and your conversation."
"If Carlsen were here," Solo said grimly, "there's a couple of words—just two—which express completely my reactions to that remark!"
The girl laughed aloud. "It should be a stimulating evening," she said, "for all three of us."
"How do you fit in? Are you a stimulator, too?—or do you just look after the prisoners?"
"Something of each, perhaps," Lala Eriksson said. "And in the latter role, I must warn you of one thing: you will find all manner of things about the house that could conceivably be used as weapons. Cutlery, golf clubs, tyre levers, billiard cues, wrenches, even African spears (though not firearms) in the gunroom. I need hardly add that they have been left freely about simply because Mr. Carlsen is absolutely certain—and I do mean certain—that there would be no point in anyone trying to use them. The guards are everywhere and they never miss."
"I'm more interested in knowing where I am and why I'm here."
Once again the girl smiled. "Dinner is at eight-thirty," she said. "We usually take a cocktail at eight, in the library, and we should be happy if you would join us. You'll find the door at the inner end of the hall, below the gallery. If there is anything you want before then, just ring."
She raised the riding crop in a mock salute and left him.
Solo's pockets had been completely emptied, but in the bathroom adjoining his own room he found toilet things laid out and a white silk shirt with a selection of ties on the bed. A dark suit that fitted him tolerably well was hanging in the closet. He shaved, showered and dressed. At ten past eights he went downstairs.
The library was immense: three walls of shelves filled with books from floor to ceiling, the fourth wall a network of carved panelling surrounding a recessed cheminee housing a log fire. The books looked as though they had all been read.
Lala was standing at a rosewood table beneath the central chandelier. Beside her, glass in hand, was a wide, bulky man who looked like Orson Welles on an off day. "Mr. Solo!" he exclaimed, moving forward with surprising grace. "One does so apologize for the—ah—unconventional form your invitation took. But it is nice t
o see you perpendicular at last."
"Let us praise while we can the vertical man," Solo quoted with a crooked smile, "so soon to become the horizontal out..."
"Ah, now—you mustn't feel like that. One admits a certain—ah—theatricality about the means one employed to get you here, about the machinery of seeing that you stay. But then, that's inseparable from having guests who may wish to leave before one is oneself tired of their company, don't you feel?" The voice was firm and yet mellifluous, the perfect complement to the lithe way in which the big man moved.
"The only thing I feel, Mr.... Carlsen?... is curiosity," Solo replied. "Curiosity about the real reason for my presence here. Curiosity about the great pains taken to achieve this—er—visit. Forgive my ignorance and boorishness, but, again... why?"
"We wanted to talk to you, Mr. Solo. That's all. It really is."
The girl was standing beside them. She was wearing a cocktail dress in vivid crimson velvet. From overhead, the light sculptured the soft flesh of her shoulders and hollowed with shadow the slopes of her bosom. "What will you take, Mr, Solo?" she asked. "A dry Martini? Whisky? A vermouth?"
"I'll take a Campari and soda, if you have one," the agent said.
Lala moved across to the wall, dark stockings on her legs gleaming, and tugged at an old fashioned bell-pull. A moment later, a saturnine manservant appeared in the doorway. Behind him, Solo saw the shape of one of the gunmen in the shadows below the staircase.
"Campari and soda for Mr. Solo," the girl said. "And two more whisky sours for Mr. Carlsen and me."
While they waited for dinner, both Carlsen and the girl kept the conversation general. They talked about the New York theatre, about West Coast jazz, about European sports cars, about national rivalries in the Middle East. And as it suited the agent to play a waiting game and see what transpired, and neither of his "hosts" said anything in the slightest degree bearing upon the fact that he was a kidnapped prisoner, the talk remained on this rarefied if artificial level until the manservant reappeared to announce that dinner was served.