Illya and Solo looked at each other with raised eyebrows.
Directly in front of them a pretty blonde sat behind a reception desk. As they entered she was joking with a young man in the white coat of a laboratory technician. She saw them, and quickly shooed the young man away and gave Illya and Solo a dazzling smile up to her.
"Yes, gentlemen. Can I help you?"
"Jones and Ivanov from the defense department," Solo said, using the same story he had used to get them past the gate.
"Mr. Jones and Mr. Ivanov, of course," the girl said as if she knew their famous names by heart. She was every inch the beautiful receptionist. "May I ask who you wish to see?"
"You work late," Illya said, as he looked around at the activity along all the corridors.
"Two shifts," the girl said brightly. "You gentlemen should know that, defense contracts and all."
"Very good," Solo said.
"We try to keep production going," the receptionist said. "Now who did you say you wanted to see?"
"Mr. Rand," Illya said.
"Do you have an appointment? It's rather late for Mr. Rand."
"No, we have no appointment," Illya said.
"You might say this is a surprise visit," Solo said.
The blonde became frosty. "I see. Well, I'm sure that Mr. Rand has nothing to hide about our work for you. I'll see if he's in his office.
The blonde manipulated some keys on an intercom system and whispered low into a speaker, her eyes still on them and hostile. Both agents smiled at her, and Illya pretended to look around with a critical expression. When the girl looked away to listen more carefully to her intercom, Illya touched Solo.
"Security isn't very tight, Napoleon."
"No. It looks like anyone can just walk in," Solo agreed.
"Could it be a wild goose chase?"
"Maybe. But where is Danton?" Before Illya Kuryakin could answer this, the blonde receptionist turned to them again, all smiles now.
"Mr. Rand will see you. Straight down the center corridor, the last door on the left. You'll see Mr. Rand's name on the door."
They thanked her and began to walk. Their quick eyes noted the activity all around them. It seemed legitimate and normal. No one looked at them unduly and no one ignored them pointedly. They were observed and ignored in the exact combination and degree they would have expected for any visitors at a busy electronics plant.
"Could we be wrong?" Solo said.
"I expect we'll find out enough, Napoleon," Illya "There's the office. Keep you gun ready."
"I haven't taken my hand off it," Solo said.
Illya Kuryakin opened the door of the office marked: Kevin Rand, President. The two agents stepped in. Solo checked the corridor behind them. There were two young men in it who seemed to have no interest in them.
Illya surveyed the office.
It was a large office, as befitted the president of a company. There were four tall windows, shaded now at night. A large polished wood desk stood in front of the windows. There was a comfortable modern-Danish teak-and-upholstery couch, three matching chairs, and a coffee table. The tall swivel chair behind the desk was empty.
"He acts like a company president anyway," Solo said, indicating the empty chair. "Keep them waiting."
Illya said nothing. He was looking at the paneled walls. There was a door in each wall. Illya considered the doors.
"The one on the left probably leads to the next office," the small Russian IJ.N.C.L.E. agent said. "But where does that door on the right go? This is supposed to be the last office. The hall ends just outside."
Napoleon Solo looked at the door. "Maybe it goes into the plant."
"Suppose we take a look, Napoleon?" Illya said.
The small agent turned to walk toward the door on the right. Before he could take two steps the left hand door opened and a man stepped through. He smiled.
"So sorry, gentlemen. My apologies for keeping you waiting. I wanted to have some figures at hand," the man said, and waved a sheaf of papers.
Solo stared. He touched Illya as the two of them turned to face the man. It was the man who had been working the machine in the room above the hot room of the health club. The tanned, slender, grey-haired man his helpers had called Professor and Chief.
"You're staring at me, young man," the slender man said to Solo.
Illya positioned himself to cover the doors and drew his gun. Solo covered the grey-haired man with his pistol. The man looked at them both with an incredulous expression on his face.
"I gather you think you know me," the man said evenly, "and that you don't like me very much."
"Who are you?" Solo said.
"Who? Why, I assumed you had come to see me. I mean, my name is on the door."
"You are Kevin Rand?" Illya said.
"I certainly am, young man. What do you plan to do with those ridiculous pistols?"
The slender, grey-haired man stood firm and imperious in the office, but with a faint line of amusement around his mouth. Illya glanced at Solo. Solo stared hard at the slender Kevin Rand.
"And you don't know me?" Solo said.
"From your appearance perhaps I should, but I really don't," Rand said.
"You didn't see me in the health club?"
"What health club, Mr.—What are your names? I gather that you are not two gentlemen from the defense department named Jones and Ivanov."
"Do you have a twin, Mr. Rand?" Illya said.
"Not that I know of," Rand napped. "Exactly what is this all about?"
Solo stepped closer. "You claim that you were never in a New York health club. That you didn't get some top-secret data from a Colonel Forsyte by using a machine on him? That you didn't knock me out in the health club?"
Rand stared. "A machine that—what? Is this some kind of joke? Do I look like a man who could knock you out? Really, gentlemen, are you sure you feel quite all right?"
Solo spoke carefully as he watched Rand. Illya still covered all the doors.
"I saw you, Rand. I saw the machine and you operating it. I heard you talk about Forsyte."
Rand blinked, and then he nodded. "Did you now? Well, that puts a different look on it all, doesn't it?"
"I'd say it does," Solo said. "Now—"
Rand smiled. "Yes, well I had to be sure what you did know, didn't I? Get them!!"
Solo and Illya both whirled to the windows behind them. There was nothing there. Instantly they turned back.
Rand was gone.
"We fell for the oldest—" Illya began.
There was a sudden hissing sound.
Clouds of vapor, gas, poured into the office from vents in the ceiling.
"The windows!" Solo shouted.
They ran for the windows and tore down shades.
There were no windows. Where the windows should have been, where the shades covered, was nothing but blank wall with window sills nailed on!
"A trap," Solo cried.
"And we—" Illya began. Neither of them spoke again as they suddenly collapsed. The only sound in the room was the hiss of the gas.
FOUR
THEY REVIVED side by side in a large bare room with bright hanging lights. Faces stared down at them. In the center of the ring of faces they saw the smiling face of the slender, grey-haired man— Rand.
"So, gentlemen, you're awake. I was afraid for a moment that our little sleeping potion had been too much. That would have been too bad."
They blinked and looked around. They were seated on a couch along the wall of the large bare room. They were not tied, but men in white smocks held guns and stood all around. The room itself looked like a warehouse. Boxes of electronic parts were stacked everywhere.
"Yes," Rand said, "you are in our warehouse. It is quite safe and remote. You are my guests. The men with guns are only a precaution in case you preferred not to be my guests. Now, perhaps we can get down to business. Who are you, and who do you represent?"
"Represent?" Illya Kuryakin said. The sm
all Russian moved his arms and legs to be sure that he was all right and not held by some device such as THRUSH'S special chair.
"Of course," Rand said. "And never mind telling me, that is a childish tactic on my part. You are Mr. Illya Kuryakin and Mr. Napoleon Solo of an organization called, I believe, U.N.C.L.E. And you are interested in my little brain child here, eh?"
They looked toward where Rand pointed. The macabre machine stood there in the shadows of the vast room. A row of tables and desks stood in front of it. Which was why the two agents had not noticed it at once. Rand watched their faces.
"I see you are interested," the slender man said.
"We're interested," Solo said. "Are you interested in destroying the machine?"
"Destroy?" Rand cried. "My brain child? Really, Mr. Solo, that is a poor joke. You have seen it work, you said? Surely you would not want to destroy such a marvel of the electronic art? Do you have any idea what it can really do, gentlemen?"
The eyes of the grey-haired man seemed to blaze for a moment at the thought of the marvels of his machine. "Beautiful! Sheer magic to think about. Imagine, gentlemen, to read the mind at any time in any place. Ah, who would dare destroy such a wonder?!"
"If it can do what you say," Illya said quietly.
Rand bridled. "If? You say if? Mr. Solo has seen what the Mind-Sweeper can do! That's what we call it, by the way. A rather clever name, I think. Our little mental vacuum cleaner, you might say. The Mind-Sweeper! It will revolutionize the world! Do you hear? And it is mine!"
"I took you for more of a businessman," Solo said.
Rand cocked an e "You did, eh? Very shrewd. Yes, I am a businessman. But I am also an electronics expert. I quite admit that the Sweeper is not precisely my development, but it is my creation. And you wonder if it can do what I say it can do?"
Rand looked at Napoleon Solo. "Mr. Solo has seen. You know that Forsyte came to the health club, and you know that he left his secrets there. A man above reproach. A man no pressure could have forced to reveal a word of what he knew—stripped of all his secrets within minutes!"
The grey-haired electronics man smiled at them. "I think you know much more, also. You know of my tests with the machine in London and in Ottawa. Successful tests. Naturally, we have moved the machine, to be certain we would not be caught while we were perfecting it. But you know of its successes in London, Ottawa, and now New York. We have now finished testing, and will soon market our little Sweeper, eh?"
Illya blinked. "You plan to sell the machine?"
"Why not? As you have said, I am a businessman. Think of the potential! Not a single nation could afford to be without a Mind-Sweeper. Not only does it sweep the secrets from the brain of any one, but it does so without them knowing it at all. Provided it is properly operated. Imagine—it takes the most secret data, and the subject never knows the machine has been working on his brain."
"Not always," Solo said.
"What?"
Solo grinned. "You used it on a man this morning, and he knew it."
Rand waved an angry hand. "A mistake. The idiots I left with to work it on the outer-space defense data made a small error. The man could have known no more than that he was a trifle dizzier than normal."
"It was enough," Illya said. "It will probably finish you."
Rand laughed. "I doubt it, Mr. Kuryakin. It is, however, one of the reasons we decided to end our tests and move now. No, I doubt if we will be found now."
"If it can make one mistake, it can make more," Solo said.
There was a silence in the vast room. Illya and Solo looked at Rand, but they were also studying the warehouse for possible escape. In addition to the armed men around them, there seemed to be another group in a far distant corner. Doors opened off the warehouse at the loading end, and other doors were in the inner wall that joined the production building. All the doors were closed and locked as far as they could see
Rand had stopped smiling. "No, there will be no more mistakes. You see, gentlemen, this is our prototype model. It is the only machine at the moment. I admit that it is not a simple machine; it took years to build and perfect. It has flaws. But the man who really invented the machine, our Dr. Heimat, is even now about to complete his work on the production models. I assure you, gentlemen, that the production models will have no flaws, and will be much simpler to produce. I may not be the research genius Dr. Heimat is, but I am a production genius. That, after all, is the true genius of America, isn't it?"
Rand smiled and touched the grotesque machine lovingly. "Production, and perfecting what is only a raw idea," he said as if to himself. "That is the true American genius. Soon my Mind-Sweeper will be produced in mass production. Now it can absorb only what a man has held in his mind for a week, but soon it will absorb a month, six months, a year, and finally all that a man has learned since his birth! The power! The power!"
Rand's voice rose and echoed through the vast warehouse. All the men in the room looked toward Rand. His booming, half-insane voice carried like a wave through the room and reverberated back from all the walls. In the silence that followed no one moved. At last Rand blinked, sighed.
"So, I get carried away. It is the beauty of the universe, gentlemen, a perfect piece of electronic machinery. But let us talk more, eh? You asked if I am going to sell the Mind-Sweeper. That will depend on the offer, the problems, and the price. At the moment I'm also considering a lease-deal, you know. Lease it to all the countries, but keep the primary secrets to ourselves—with a proper destruct in case anyone attempted to take it apart. Not that anyone could— Heimat's basic secret is a theory no one else knows, not even me."
Rand smiled at them. "Of course, I'm also considering the idea of going into the spy business ourselves. In the long run that might be the best. What do you gentlemen think?"
They said nothing.
Rand continued to smile. "Perhaps you would care to make an offer on behalf of U.N.C.L.E. A large enough offer might induce me to sell it, and Dr. Heimat, to you. After all, I am a business man, and a businessman is in business to sell."
Rand watched them both like a small, bright-eyed bird. They still said nothing. They were both thinking of how they could stop this man, who was obviously partly insane. Rand touched his machine again. Only then did they notice that the machine was operating! Rand read a piece of printed tape from the computer section of the weird instrument.
"No, gentleman, I am not insane, not even partly," Rand said, and looked straight at them. "You see? The machine does work. I have just read your thoughts. Now will you make an offer? And make it good. I already have one very good offer, don't I, Mr. Danton?"
With these last words, Rand raised his voice.
Across the room, in the middle of the other group of armed men, Emil Danton stood up and stared straight at Illya and Solo.
FIVE
RAND LAUGHED aloud. "Mr. Danton came before you, my young friends, and on a similar errand. I'm afraid he was no smarter than you two. You see, it was simple to know what you had on your minds—my little Mind-Sweeper has a coaxial link to the lobby. You were all under mind reading the instant you entered! Another example of what my beauty can do. Once I knew what you had in mind, it was child's play to capture you."
Rand made an abrupt nod of his head. The armed men across the room brought Emil Danton to stand beside Illya and Solo. The elegant THRUSH leader had lost little of his self-assurance, and showed not the slightest mark of violence on his immaculate clothes. Danton shrugged slightly as he looked at the two agents.
"I see you fell into the same trap, my friends," Danton said. "I must say you show remarkable abilities to escape, but not very good ability to remain uncaught again. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, eh?"
"Hello, Danton," Solo said. "You seem to be pretty much in the same fire."
"Me, Napoleon? Hardly. I'm just another good businessman out to make a deal with Mr. Rand. That is a truly fine machine he has," Danton said. "All I have to do is convince Mr
. Rand of the advantages of selling to me, or teaming with us."
"Rand is insane," Illya said dryly, "but I doubt if he is insane enough to trust THRUSH."
Danton laughed aloud. The elegant THRUSH council member was completely relaxed, or giving a good imitation. With Danton it was hard to be sure. Now the immaculate THRUSH leader took out a cigar case, selected a cigar, snipped the end with silver cigar- scissors, lighted the cigar, and began to puff contentedly. Rand watched him.
"Mr. Danton has made a substantial offer on the part of his, er, company," Rand said. "I have heard of his organization, and I have no illusions, but the offer is very attractive. Unless you gentlemen can think of a better offer—"
"No offer made by THRUSH is worth anything," Solo said sharply. "Once they have your machine they will have no use for you, and I doubt if you will get much use out of their money."
Danton shrugged. "Why, Napoleon, you hurt me."
Illya looked at Rand. "You must know that you can't trust THRUSH. I doubt if they have any intention of buying your machine, at any price. Danton is playing for time."
"And what are you doing, Kuryakin?" Danton snapped.
Rand held up his hands. "Gentlemen, gentlemen. We'll conduct this like businessmen. There is no need for these personal attacks. What I have is a simple business matter. I have a machine. I may wish to sell it. You are all interested in it. I'm not even sure that I care what you do with it after you buy it. If U.N.C.L.E. makes a really good offer, I will consider it, even if you mean to destroy the machine."
Danton went pale. "Destroy? Such a machine? No, Rand, that would be a crime! U.N.C.L.E. won't buy your machine! They are fools! Narrow-minded policemen! They would take the machine and then arrest you and lock you up as insane. Your Dr. Heimat, too. Don't listen to them, no matter what they say!"
Illya and Solo glanced at each other. Their eyes showed the same thought. It was Solo who put it into words.
"I think we might consider buying the machine. If we had absolute proof that it was the only model, and you sold Dr. Heimat with it," Solo said. He looked at Danton. "Under the circum stances I think U.N.C.L.E. might possibly top any bid THRUSH could make."
The Mind-Sweeper Affair Page 6