The Deadly Dark Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  Clenching his teeth, he slowly pulled himself upward until he could seize one of the railing uprights. After more terrible seconds of effort, he clambered back over the bridge rail and felt solid concrete under his feet.

  A black and white car belonging to Canadian border authorities was speeding on to the northern end of the bridge. Panting, Solo fumbled in his jacket for his credentials. A twelve-foot section of the rail was gone on the opposite side. Black skid marks showed the route the gray car had taken to destruction.

  Napoleon Solo’s lacerated temple throbbed. He felt awful.

  But that was of small concern. Even the fact that he was still alive, though probably now listed as dead by THRUSH, didn’t concern him. What drove into his mind like a hot awl was one fact above all else---

  He had completely lost the trail of the blue sedan.

  The Bells and Beth Andrews were lost in Canada. They would be in Doomsday Creek for the pickup by THRUSH before he could possibly reach them. There was only one outside possibility for saving the situation---a quick identification for the Canadian authorities screeching up in their sedan, and a message to U.N.C.L.E., Ottawa. Perhaps other agents could reach Doomsday Creek in time to catch up the thread of the trail.

  He reached into his pocket for his communicator and keeled over on his face.

  The struggle had taken its toll.

  Solo did not waken for six hours. By the time he got out of the emergency ward of a hospital in Kingston, Ontario, even a call to Ottawa on the communicator did no good. Agents sped to Doomsday Creek and found nothing. The trail was dead.

  FIVE

  Illya Kuryakin had no possible way of knowing that Napoleon Solo had survived the jet fighter attack on the bridge over the St. Lawrence. To Illya, Napoleon Solo was dead. That made his escape from THRUSH even more necessary. And it was this knowledge which gave him the strength he needed to continue his wild flight up the snowy slope of the valley.

  Behind the ragged peaks where the snow-clouds whirled like scarves, the sun had nearly set. The THRUSH ski patrol had come to the end of the run at the bottom of the valley. The men were climbing up after him swiftly.

  Illya was nearly to the snow-walled notch. He hoped it would offer a way of escape from the valley, but the going was getting rougher by the second. He slipped and sprawled again.

  His fingers had turned numb inside the coarse THRUSH mittens. Snow-crystals clung to his eyebrows and lashes, melting quickly and making vision difficult. Every time he took an awkward, clumping step with one of his skis he let out low, guttural gasps. His energy was nearly gone. All that kept him going was the knowledge that he alone could carry word out of this inhuman valley about THRUSH’s plan to devastate Toronto with darkness and cause the Plowshare jet with its passenger-load of international dignitaries to fall from the sky.

  If I die, Illya thought, it must be only after that message reaches Mr. Waverly.

  Illya took three more lurching steps. Suddenly it did not seem like such a struggle to stand. He had reached the top of the slope.

  Above him on either hand reared the snow-thick walls of the notch. The notch or pass was about twenty feet across here at the bottom. Illya peered ahead and knew a brief, hurting moment of triumph---

  From somewhere out of sight down a slope on the far side of the pass came the yells of a party of skiers. And in the red-etched dusk he glimpsed the gleaming yellowness of half a dozen lighted windows.

  A small hamlet? An isolated ski lodge? He didn’t know. At least those lights represented civilization. Illya estimated them to be three or four miles away. Could he make it that far, even if he eluded his pursuers?

  They were climbing the slope fast behind him, each THRUSH man began using just one ski pole. With the free hand, each member of the dozen-man squad was unlimbering his rifle or machine pistol. Illya sucked in a lung-burning breath of the cold air. The pursuers made a silent, grotesque sight with their elongated shadows toiling up the slope ahead of them in the last wash of red light.

  Facing front again, Illya poled into the crust and found that because the floor of the pass was reasonably level, he could propel himself along with some speed. He worked the poles feverishly for half a minute, shooting ahead until he was well into the pass, hidden by the looming shadows beginning to fill every corner of the world now that the sun had sunk.

  Behind, the Thushmen saw that Illya Kuryakin had gained a slight advantage, was speeding ahead again. They began to curse, urging one another to hurry. The first parka crested the slope behind him.

  The Thrushman dropped to a half-crouch. His machine-pistol stuttered. Spurts of snow leaped into the air barely a yard behind the spot where Illya was poling. Gulping for air, Illya realized he could not outrun them. Within seconds he would be shot down. In that terrible moment, a plan suggested itself.

  He accepted it instantly, desperate though it was. Other THRUSH pistols and rifles began to burp and chatter. Illya flung himself into the cover of a frost-rimed boulder. A THRUSH bullet blasted a chip from it. The chip hit his cheek, wounding it.

  The whole of Illya’s back under the parka was soaked with the blood from the knife-wound at the back of his head. He peered out from behind the boulder as the dozen THRUSH ski soldiers poled smoothly and gracefully into the pass proper.

  Unslinging the rifle from his shoulder, Illya sighted, and began to pump bullets into the snow clinging to the wall of the pass high over his head. The air thundered with his shots, and with those of the Thrushmen. Their bullets bit into the rock that concealed him. The hot gun began to buck in his hands, no more loads slipping into the chamber. He threw the gun away and listened.

  Overhead he heard the first grumbling, shifting rumble.

  The THRUSH soldiers heard it too. They began calling urgent orders to one another. The men in the lead ceased firing, tried to scramble backward. They stumbled into their fellows. All at once the pursuers were falling over one another in confusion. From the wall of the pass above, blasted loose by Illya’s bullet, the first sections of snow broke free and began to plummet with a roar.

  Beneath Illya’s feet the snow vibrated. His ears filled with the thunder of more and more massive snow-slabs shearing away. All at once the world became a wall of roaring, thundering white. Grim-eyed, Illya watched the Thrushmen disappear shrieking beneath it. His face resembled a very satisfied death’s head.

  A huge soggy dollop of something plopped on top of his head with a soft impact. The whole pass still shook and vibrated. The end leading into the THRUSH valley was totally hidden by a grinding avalanche of snow. And the avalanche was spilling over into the rest of the pass---a second chunk struck his forehead and blinded him.

  Illya wrenched his head up. His shots had loosed more destruction than he’d anticipated. In the last dying light, he saw an immense wall of snow directly over him peel away from the rock in great solid blocks.

  Wildly Illya turned, jammed his poles into the crust, pushed himself ahead. He heard the last, faint outcries of his buried pursuers. If he has eluded them only to die himself---

  His brain blacked out. He operated in a sort of trance, by sheer instinct, driving himself ahead as the pass trembled and shivered and the mighty mountain of snow struck.

  Illya’s wild flight had carried him a good distance, but it had not carried him quite far enough. He was struck on the back and lower body by a tremendous, sudden blow that knocked him forward. The roaring snow smashed the breath out of him, drove his face deep into the freezing crust.

  Struggling and gasping for air, he burrowed his head out.

  Both his poles had snapped. Snow was still pouring down the pass wall, though more slowly, building up in one immense, white mountain behind him. He was buried under the edge of this accumulation, buried from his chest to the tips of his boots.

  Only Illya’s shoulders, arms and head were free. He twisted, writhed, tried to drag himself out from under the crushing weight. He let out a low moan of rage.

  Either
he was too weak or the weight of the snow was too great or both. He could not move.

  So close. So close. Ahead in the next valley, the blurred lights of the little town or lodge glimmered. Dimly he heard the voices of the skiers. He shouted out, “Here! Help! I need help! Up here!”

  Herehereherehere came the echo, bouncing back, dying away, Hereherehere---

  Illya tried to dig with his fingers. Inside the mittens they felt wooden. The voices of the skiers died.

  Silence now, except for a last faint shifting and grinding of the snow. Illya’s strength began to leave him. His mind played strange tricks. He could not move, pinned as he was beneath what was very probably at least a ton of snow. Presently, sick with defeat, he watched the distant lights wink out as his own senses went dark.

  ACT IV

  “IT’S DARK AND YOU’RE DEAD

  With a feeling of reluctance Napoleon Solo said, “Open Channel D, please.”

  In a moment the dry, familiar voice responded, “Yes, Mr. Solo? What have you to report?”

  Napoleon Solo leaned against the window sill of his hotel room in Toronto. The sun was sinking. The buildings of the downtown began to cast long shadows. Lights in shop windows came on.

  In the past few days Solo had become almost pathologically restless about the coming of darkness. He knew why. There had been no further blackouts anywhere. To him this signified that THRUSH was massing its resources for a final, devastating strike.

  Where, though? And when? Each night at sunset Solo wondered whether this would be the night.

  “Mr. Solo?” Waverly’s voice crackled from the reed-like communicator in Solo’s hand.

  Wearily Solo rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, sir. I’m afraid there’s nothing new tonight either.”

  A little rush of breathing, soft, explosive, signified Waverly’s impatience and tension. “We have nearly four hundred operatives working in Canada, Mr. Solo. Surely one of them has unearthed something.”

  Solo turned away from the window so that he did not have to watch the darkness marching across the city. The spacious suite was disorderly. Newspapers littered the floor. Six special phones had been installed along the far wall. The remains of lunch stood on a silver cart. From this suite Solo had been directing a special search net of U.N.C.L.E. agents who had fanned out into the remotest provinces of Canada by plane, rail, bus, car, helicopter, skis, dogsled and virtually every other conceivable method of transportation.

  The agents were searching for some clue as to where Harold and Maude Bell and Beth Andrews had been taken. The search had started seventy-two hours ago. So far it yielded only a few leads, all of which had proved false.

  Solo continued, “The situation is the same as it was when I checked in this morning, sir. Nothing positive at all.”

  Waverly harrumphed. “Mr. Solo, a rather uncanny thing is happening. All of our stations around the world report a sudden dropoff in THRUSH activity. Even known THRUSH agents appear to have retreated into hiding, no longer visiting their usual haunts. There is an uneasy feeling growing here at Headquarters---one which I share---that Thrush is readying itself for a major offensive. We will have to find Martin Bell.”

  Fatigue lent Solo’s voice a harsh note. “We’re doing everything we can sir.”

  “Not quite. I am releasing an additional two hundred men to you. You haven’t delivered on this one, Mr. Solo. But I---“

  “No soft soap, please, sir. I’ve dropped the ball. That’s the worst part, the part I can’t bear.”

  “Have you had any sleep?”

  “How can I when something might break any minute? The back of my neck is crawling because I’m sure THRUSH is about to pull something. And here we sit, no sign of the Bells or Martin, not even knowing whether Illya is alive or dead.”

  “Personal considerations must not becloud our efficiency,” said Waverly gently.

  “Illya’s my friend! I can’t help feeling responsible---“

  “That will be all for now, Mr. Solo,” Waverly said, his mild, precisely-enunciated words cutting Solo off in mid-sentence. “I will contact you in four hours to let you know when the first of the additional men will be arriving. Until then, I suggest you get some rest. In fact I order it.”

  Solo winced. “Yes, sir,” he gave the break-off signal that closed the channel.

  The hotel room had darkened into a place of thick, unfriendly shadows. Solo sighed. Waverly was right. Lack of sleep, plus a mounting sense of dread and his own stinging guilt feelings were combining to rob him of his wits and energy. He had to keep himself in decent shape until something broke.

  Solo sprawled full length upon the bed, covered his eyes with his forearm. In the darkness of his mind as he dozed off, he saw a vast skyline spangled with lights. Suddenly the dream-city began to black out. From its cement canyons rose a frightened wail, the single-voiced cry of mob panic piercing his eardrums, piercing---

  Sweating, Napoleon Solo broke out of the half-dream and sat bolt upright. A small green bulb on one of the six phones had lighted. The buzzer’s low, repeated note vibrated in the silence.

  The green light! Solo scrambled for the phone. That would be Harforth, chief of the search team operating out of Ottawa. Solo snatched up the receiver. Harforth’s voice was blurred by a bad connection:

  “I believe we have something, Napoleon. One of my teams to the north just reported in. They saw an item in a newspaper. In a little ski resort fifty miles or so above Doomsday Creek---Saint Olaf is the name of the place---a skier was rescued a couple of days ago from the aftermath of an avalanche. A party of tourists taking a cross-country ski came across him. He was nearly frozen to death. The man is in the Sisters of Charity hospital in Saint Olaf. According to the little press clip he said his name is Kuryakin. He has said nothing else. The press clip says the authorities consider him an unidentified foreign national---“

  Now Solo’s pulse beat so hard in his left wrist that it almost hurt. “What’s his condition?”

  “Several badly broken bones. He’s delirious most of the time. But I gather he will live. I talked to one of the sisters long distance just a moment ago. I explained a bit of the situation. I also contacted the Saint Olaf police and straightened them out. They are guarding him now!”

  Harforth sounded as though he wore a weary smile. “I think it’s Illya, all right. The description fits. I told them someone would doubtless be coming right away to interrogate him.”

  “Yes,” Solo rapped out. “Me.”

  “The sister tried to be quite helpful. She had noted down some of the remarks Illya babbled while he was half-conscious. Not too promising, though. Here, let me look at my pad. Got it. Illya was muttering the word plowshare a lot. That mean anything?”

  Solo’s weary mind couldn’t quite make the jump. “It should. I just can’t remember. What else?”

  “Apparently Illya raved a lot about how dark it was in the hospital room. Lights going out and all that. Sounded terrified of the idea---“

  Solo’s eyes narrowed in the gloom. Had Illya gotten onto something after all? Harforth continued, “---and then Illya was carrying on about time running out. No time, the sister said he said. No time left. He fought and thrashed his covers about when he said it, as though he felt he must do something about it.

  No time left? Solo turned cold. He said, “I’m on my way to the airport. I’ll radio you after we take off. We can work out the landing arrangements and a car pickup at the field nearest Saint Olaf.”

  In twenty minutes an U.N.C.L.E. turbojet screamed up off the Toronto airport runway carrying Napoleon Solo into the far-lying Canadian darkness to the north.

  TWO

  Approximately twelve hours later, around eight the next morning, there was a good deal of activity in a certain warehouse left in one of the seamier sections near the lake shore in Toronto. The building in which all of his activity took place had formerly belonged, according to a large sign across its brick front, to Bloor Bros. Movers and Tran
sporters. Ltd.

  The brothers Bloor had moved elsewhere, leaving behind a To Let placard and a crumbling four-story ruin.

  At dawn two over-sized highway vans had rolled in through the wakening streets of Toronto. The vans headed for the lakefront district. Unmarked and ordinary-looking, these vans were now parked in the thick shadows of the loading bays once used by the trucks of the brothers Bloor.

  Felix Corrigan and several other unpleasant-looking multi-clad souls from THRUSH. They lounged near the trucks, smoked and discouraged any intrusions by the curious. Overhead, in the topmost loft which measured a city block on each side and stank of musk and rodents, the last of a group of THRUSH technicians was just carrying a big wooden box off a freight elevator. The box wound up alongside ten or twelve others which had been unshipped from the vans.

  With crowbars the THRUSH technicians attacked the cartons. They jimmied off the thick wooden sides, pulled out the cotton-wool packing by handfuls. They then unloaded various delicate pieces of electronic equipment. These smaller components were assembled quickly into larger ones and arranged in a rough semicircle on the grimy wood-plank floor.

  A small portable generator was cranked up. It provided the power for some small pin-spotlights on stanchions. The beams were direct on the faces of the sections of machinery. The THRUSH technicians stripped off their dusty coveralls and went to work, testing switches, calibrating dials.

  In the center of the work area the innocuous-looking black-box unit was hooked into another, larger machine, the radius booster, by three thick cables wrapped in bright red insulation.

  Dr. Leonidas Volta observed the operations with uncontrolled glee. His reddish hair was as disorderly as ever. His pale blue-marble eyes shone in the gloom.

  “Splendid, splendid!” he observed, turning to nudge the weary looking scarecrow beside him. “I’m sure you think so too---don’t you, Martin?”