The Ugly Man Affair
Page 11
“Have you seen her today?” Illya asked.
“I was at the hospital an hour ago. That file our doctors dug out of the cabinets behind the wall in Beladrac’s villa was all they needed. The formula for the THRUSH serum was in the file. A combination of anti-hydrobrionic drugs and fresh human plasma are going to make Elisabeth good as new. It’ll take some time, of course.
“But the same treatment can be given to the rest of our people, and eventually all the serum will be gotten out of their systems. Digging out the ones THRUSH already treated is going to take some detective work, but Mr. Waverly feels confident that it can be done. Especially now that we know both the symptoms and how to counter-act them.”
Just at that moment, there was a commotion in the Penti lobby. Out past the glass doors of the lounge, delegates from the Mid-Eastern Peace Conference could be seen breaking up their session for the day. Solo and Illya swung round on their stools to watch.
Men in white bournouses walked and talked amiably with their conventionally dressed opposite numbers from the other country. A few on both sides even smiled.
“We should be thankful,” said Illya, “that Mr. Waverly had duplicates of all of Elisabeth’s evidence and was willing to bring it over himself and present it.”
Solo merely nodded. His eyes were grave as he thought of what might have happened, had not Waverly himself lent his authority to the evidence from the podium, and convinced the delegates that THRUSH was indeed back of the terroristic incidents that had nearly provoked war.
“Where is the old war horse, by the way?” Illya asked.
“I don’t know. Still in the hall with some of the delegates, I suppose. He said he’d join us here.”
“Elisabeth’s travel case with the original evidence ever turn up?” Illya asked.
“No. Beladrac must have destroyed it.”
Mr. Alexander Waverly came into sight in the lobby, appearing to hold a conversation with his right hand. He entered the lounge. Waverly had been speaking into his own pocket communicator, which he now replaced in his breast pocket. He dry-washed his hands cheerfully as he moved up to join them.
“Mr. Solo, Mr. Kuryakin---I wish we had time for a small libation together. Unfortunately we don’t. Are your bags packed?”
Illya goggled. “Bags? Napoleon said he talked you into a short holiday---“
“Yes, but I just got wind of an urgent matter requiring our immediate presence in New York. I have reservations for us on the two-thirty Air Roma jet to Kennedy International.”
“But sir,” Solo protested, “Elisabeth is---“
“---coming along nicely,” Mr. Waverly concluded. “I saw her myself this morning. I’m afraid, Mr. Solo, that you will have to wait to renew your---ah---friendship.”
Solo scowled. “That’s how she got tangled up with Beladrac in the first place, because I was so busy I never had time---“
“Tut-tut, Mr. Solo,” said Waverly in mild reproof.
“It certainly is a shame, Napoleon,” Illya wore a wicked grin. “You won’t get to hang round and hold Elisabeth’s hand.”
“And you’re glad,” Solo said. “What have you got against romance?”
“Why, nothing,” said Illya Kuryakin. “That is, I wouldn’t have, if one of the girls ever fell for me. As it is, I call it the proverbial poetic justice.”
“I call it unreasonable slavery and servitude,” muttered Napoleon Solo.
“I call it working for U.N.C.L.E.,” said Mr. Alexander Waverly, unperturbed. “Shall we go, gentlemen?”