16 - The Splintered Sunglasses Affair

by Peter Leslie

  Both Carlsen and the girl were well-read and well informed, and such was the quality of their argument and their charm that Solo had constantly to keep reminding himself of his predicament. Even so, he found himself drawn willy-nilly into a spirited defense of the Stanislavsky school of acting and was despite himself enjoying an urbane attempt to demolish Carlsen's theory in favor of Brecht, when the girl took his arm and led the way to the dining room.

  Feeling self-conscious and slightly ridiculous, like a man who finds himself on stage during the second act of a drawing-room comedy, Solo moved with her.

  The meal was excellent: avocado with a vinaigrette sauce, an exquisite truite aux feuilles vertes served with a delicate Tokay d'Alsace. Tournedos Rossini that melted in the mouth, and a Chambolle Musigny that turned out to be one of the noblest Burgundies that Solo had ever tasted.

  He was poring over an unusually wide selection of cheeses offered on a board by the manservant when Carlsen said casually: "I suppose you find in your work, Mr. Solo, that more than half your assignments devolve upon thwarting some villainy or other perpetrated by this Thrush organization. Do you find this involutary—er—specialization makes you stale for any other work you do?"

  The agent finished transferring a segment of Chalaronne to his plate on the double prongs of the cheese knife before he replied. Although the question had taken him completely by surprise, his hand neither faltered nor altered the speed of its movements. It was an awkward query, nevertheless; without knowing who or what his captor was, he was unwilling to give it a straight answer, yet he could hardly be so childish as to brush it off with a Secretary of State's "No comment". That would be to impute to himself an importance in the Command which he had no wish to claim... especially now!

  In the event, he smiled, looked up at his host, and said mildly, "A trained officer of any kind of enforcement agency—whether it's police, army, intelligence or whatever—learns to regard every assignment as though it were his first. Each one is completely fresh. And I don't know where you get your figures from—but I could hardly confirm your fifty-percent-plus estimate, you know!"

  Carlsen was smiling broadly. "Or deny?" he said mischievously.

  Solo nodded. "Or deny," he agreed.

  "Oh, come now, Mr. Solo! In my business," the other said—as an oil king might say to a movie tycoon—"in my business one is bound to run up against a lot of facts and figures concerning Thrush. Were it otherwise, it would be unnatural... like being in the motor racing game without having heard of Ferrari!"

  "And just what is your business, Mr.—er—Carlsen?"

  "We are both adults, Mr. Solo. I see no point in elaborate fencing. It bores and disgusts me. And in any case it is obvious that I operate on the wrong side of the law. As to a precise description... what would you say, my dear?"

  "I should say that you were in the transport business," Lala Eriksson replied.

  Carlsen was delighted. "That's it! That's exactly it," he chuckled. "I am in the transport business... the transportation of items of value, shall we say, from one locality to another!"

  "That could cover safe-breaking, bank robbery, kidnapping, espionage, smuggling, drugs or the white slave traffic," Solo said.

  "So it could, Mr. Solo. So it could. Do you find that Thrush keep abreast of the remarkable advances in communications we see today? Would you say their telecommunications set-up, for instance, compares with yours, or with that of the United Nations or the MVD?"

  The agent spread butter on a Bath Oliver biscuit. "A man of your intelligence can hardly expect a specific answer to that," he said.

  Carlsen immediately channelled the subject deftly in another direction. "It's always a moot point, of course," he said, "whether the initial advantage the lawbreaker has... attacker's advantage of surprise... is balanced by the cohesion of the forces arrayed against him. Even if an evil organization like Thrush used satellite techniques for some really grand-scale project, I have a suspicion that the forces of law and order would close ranks so firmly as to make their own systems work better."

  "Yes, but you talk of law and order and of evil," the girl interrupted, "as though they were finite qualities and not just subjective labels that people tie on as it suits them "

  "I know what you're going to say, Lala," Carlsen in his turn cut in. "And it's perfectly true what Orwell said in that Horizon piece all those years ago Did you ever see it, Mr. Solo? It was called Raffles and Miss Blandish and Orwell pointed out that a thriller in which all the characters were evil was pointless: it lost its punch unless there were also good characters. To be used, you see, as a yardstick against which the bad were measured. Devil worshippers are religious men; they cannot be atheists—because to acknowledge the existence of the Devil automatically implies the existence of a God against whom he works "

  And the question of Solo's métier was not raised again until the following day. They had coffee and brandy and talked about the harnessing of the tides for the provision of electricity. Then they went to bed and in the morning Solo and the girl went twice around an 18-hole pitch-and-putt course laid out in the grounds. Carlsen did not appear until lunchtime, but they were never out of sight of one or more of the armed guards, Solo noticed.

  During the meal—pesto followed by a chicken soufflé—they talked of automation and the need to educate people to use the extra leisure it would bring. Carlsen had sent away the light Chianti with which they had washed down the pasta and its fragrant green sauce, and was busy opening a bottle of Corton Charlemagne. "Oddly enough," he said with a sidelong glance at Solo, "that brings me back to Thrush. My agents tell me that they work from what they call the Ultimate Computer. Have you ever heard of that?"

  "I have heard the phrase used," Solo said guardedly. "Apparently it's the computer to end all computers.... One hears that it directs every major operation they handle. They feed in all the relevant data, and the computer comes up with the required plan of action."

  "Really?"

  "Right down to the smallest detail, they say—including the particular operatives to be briefed and the exact course of action each must follow!"

  "In view of their record of successes over the past few years, one can only suggest that such a computer, if it existed, should be re-programmed," Solo said drily.

  Lala Eriksson laughed. "You can hardly expect a computer—even if it's ultimate!—to take into account the vagaries of people like you!" she said.

  And later, after Carlsen had excused himself on the plea that he had work to do in his study, and they were sitting on chintz-covered chairs over coffee in the drawing room, she came back to the subject. "Leaving aside the efficiency of the plans it makes," she said, "don't you think the use of a highly sophisticated computer like that would in fact delay an operation, once you had operatives in the field reporting in?"

  "I don't quite see why," Solo said.

  "Well, because any reasonable plan would have to be constantly amended—every report from the field would materially alter the overall situation, and would have to be taken into account before the next stage of the plan was evolved."

  "So?"

  "So although a computer decides quickly, in a fraction of a second, I imagine the time taken to prepare it for that decision—making ready the data cards, programming, feeding in, and so on—could easily negate the advantage given by its operating time. After all, top men can decide quickly, too. That's why they are top men. And all they have to deal with is a telephone call, or a written message, or something equally immediate."

  "Possibly."

  "In other words," the girl said, "I'm not at all sure that they wouldn't be better off using the old fashioned human-error methods—at least as far as the time element goes."

  Solo decided to hold out a carrot. "You're leaving out the quality of the relative plans, the computer and the human," he said. "But in any case, we live in a technical age, don't forget. It's not always simply a case of an agent telephoning in, is it?"

  She to
ok him up on it immediately. "You mean the more sophisticated methods of communication—microdot pictures, codes, scrambled radio messages, holograms, unusual frequencies used on broadcasts to activate the keys of telex machines—all these would take just as much time as programming a computer?"

  "Exactly."

  "Yes... I suppose a big organization like these Thrush people would simply have to keep abreast of the latest developments to stay in business, wouldn't they?"

  "Would they?"

  "Of course they would! But you know—what do they use in the way of communication? Clandestine communication, I mean. What do you use, Mr. Solo?"

  "I send my headquarters a postcard," Solo said.

  Lala Eriksson laughed. "You probably do, at that!" she said. "Will you have another cup of coffee?"

  And later in his own room, after they had walked around the flower gardens and he had pretended he had a headache as a means of gaining solitude, Solo went over the conversation—and the others they had had—very carefully in his own mind. It was puzzling enough to have been kidnapped between assignments and taken to some country retreat apparently far from New York; it was doubly surprising, after this coup, to find himself a very free prisoner being wined and dined and indulged in intellectual conversation. But the most astonishing thing of all was the reaction of his hosts at his response, or lack of it, to the occasional loaded question they carefully introduced into all this good living! They had said they wanted to talk to him... that was all. And indeed this seemed up to a point to be true. And the subject, disguise it as they would, was obviously enough something to do with communications, either Thrush's or those of U.N.C.L.E. And yet each time Solo blocked or ignored the question—as he invariably did—they dropped the subject with perfect good humor and never returned to it! This seemed to him an odd reaction for people who had gone to such immense pains to abduct him....

  In fact, so far as he could see, there was only one explanation which fitted all the disparate aspects of the case. And if he was right... then he was in big trouble! First, though, he would have to check; he would float out a decoy during dinner, and see if it was taken.

  His opportunity came half way through the meal. Faute de Grives, Quenelles de Brocket and roast duck had all gone their splendid way, and Carlsen had adroitly—oh, very adroitly!—led the conversation from the population explosion, through the coming world food shortage and modern dietetics, to famine and natural catastrophe generally. And from there it was an easy step to measures designed to combat such things... and thus again to communications.

  Solo smiled inwardly. "In such universal cases," he said, "I mean where there's no question of wrongdoing or people on the run, I see nothing wrong with the good old systems of telephone, cable or radio."

  "Oh, but my dear fellow, just think!" Carlsen said. "What about an outbreak of bubonic plague, lethal fallout, the news that a country's water supply had become contaminated, anything that could cause panic? Surely news of such things must be transmitted in some form which hides its meaning from the casual eye? Otherwise a single unauthorized look could lead to riots!"

  "As you were saying yesterday, there are codes, photographic—"

  "No," Carlsen interrupted, "but suppose you had discovered that, for the sake of example, an unknown virus was threatening the year's rice crop in India, and that a neighboring country was going to exploit this. You'd want to give all the details to UNRWA or some other United Nations agency... you'd have to let them have all the data and decide for themselves if your theory was correct. And yet nobody must see your dispatches in case you were wrong—or in case it caused panic."

  "Yes, well—the first thing to do would be—"

  "You'd have to send graphs, tables, photographs of the affected plants, all sorts of things in addition to your written report. How would you do it?"

  "I see what you mean," Lala Eriksson said. "Pictures by radio or by wire can be intercepted; photographs, even microdot ones, can be developed; documents can be photostated. If there were other people equally interested in seeing your report—and you wished to prevent them—what would you do?" She looked at Solo.

  "Yes," Carlsen echoed. "What would you do, Mr. Solo? Use one of the satellites, make a hologram, scramble them with lasers? Do tell us."

  Solo decided to push out his decoy. "If there were other people after the information—who knew I had it—I'd be much more worried about them finding it out from me than from any messages I sent," he said. "After all, the advances made in stupefiants, subliminal narcotics and so-called truth drugs have been considerable, even in the past five years "

  Carlsen killed the subject stone dead. Interrupting Solo with a brusque apology, he summoned the manservant and kicked up a terrible fuss about a strawberry shortcake that was entirely blameless. And then, as soon as the man had removed it and gone to fetch something else, he plunged straight into an analysis of the servant problem before Solo could pick up the threads of his argument. But the agent didn't mind: the volte face had told him exactly what he wanted to know. By inference at least, his own deductions were confirmed.

  He knew, now, why he had been kidnapped between missions—and why his captors didn't mind whether he answered their questions or not. For all U.N.C.L.E. agents are subliminally conditioned if they are on assignment to resist brainwashing and vouchsafe certain prepared replies under hypnosis, truth drugs or even torture. The treatment, which involves deep hypnosis itself and is still very secret, is given immediately after the operative has been briefed. Broadly speaking, it implants into the subconscious a succession of conditioned reflexes to any questions concerning the mission which are posed when the conscious mind is withdrawn. Like all good lies, it keeps as near to the truth as possible—for it can never be calculated how much a hostile questioner already knows, and if he finds the subject confirms facts already in his possession, he will be all the more ready to believe the fantasy that follows! And it provides a reason for all an agent's actions that, despite the fact that it fits the facts, is very far from the true one! It is almost impossible adequately to pump an operative who has been treated in this way; even if, in the extremities of torture, the man wishes to talk, the conditioning will impose upon him the false rather than the true line. Solo had good cause to underwrite the system from his own experience. For it had once* been the means of saving his life.

  The only thing was... agents between missions were naturally enough not subjected to this treatment. And he was between missions.

  Or, to put it another way, he was independently of his own wishes wide open to any system of drugs—whether secretly administered in the excellent food and drink or openly and forcibly—that his captors cared to use!

  Now he realized why it didn't matter if he answered the questions or not; now he saw why Carlsen and the girl could be so casual about his replies: the repetitious queries about Thrush and U.N.C.L.E., the insistence on methods of communication, were simply to prepare the ground; to put these subjects in the forefront of his mind. The real questions would come later, when they had drugged him or hypnotized him at their leisure and his subconscious mind, unconditioned to resist, would be completely at their mercy...

  Whoever they were—and it was not beyond the bounds of possibility, despite their apparent interest from the outside, that they themselves belonged to Thrush—Carlsen and Lala Eriksson badly wanted some of the mass of secret information that was locked in Solo's mind. And they could not afford to allow the subject of drugs to raise itself, in case it should tip the agent off.

  Now that he had found out, he had to discover some way of foiling the guards, the electric fence and the dogs, so that he could escape before it was too late!

  *See The Diving Dames Affair

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Exit By Moonlight!

  So far as Napoleon Solo could see, the only possible time to try and escape from the house run by Carlsen and Lala Eriksson was at night. Certainly it was after dark that the guards would be at their
most alert, but it was equally true that nighttime gave him the only opportunity to approach unseen the boundary of the property. And in any case, time was precious: he had already been allowed nearly forty-eight hours of good living in which to become "acclimatized", softened up for the drug or hypnosis interrogation which must have been planned. Yet although his captors would freely accept this unproductive period in the interests of long-term success, their need for whatever information they wanted from him must be urgent. The organization of the kidnap showed that. So they would proceed to Stage Two at the earliest possible moment.

  In addition to which, people of their sophistication would not make the mistake of underrating Solo's intelligence. They would know quite well that his mind would be racing, racing all the time he was in captivity. He could only hope that they would assume he would want to stay as long as he could in order to find out as much as possible about them. But in any case their fear of what he might deduce would lend an added impetus to their desire to get on with their plan!

  Which was why he decided to make his attempt as soon as he had realized what he was up against—the very same night. There were very few preparations he could make. What there were, he went over again and again in his mind before he acted. The exit from the house he had decided to make via the roof: the doors and windows were certain to be guarded by some kind of electronic burglar alarm which would sound whether the person crossing the threshold were coming or going. And he had already marked down a likely trapdoor at the head of the stairs. For a successful essay at crossing the electrified fence, he would need a length of rope, and this he hoped to find in the garages. And finally, to keep the dogs quiet, he was relying—extraordinary though this seemed!—upon his own teeth! There was a shell cap crowning one of his molars, and this could be unscrewed to reveal a tiny cavity in which Solo carried two minute pellets of a quick-acting knockout drug.