The Pillars of Salt Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  TWO

  Subjefe Hernandez was one of the fattest men Illya Kuryakin had ever seen. He weighed in excess of three hundred pounds, and wore a soiled khaki uniform and a black-visored cap that was too small for his huge head. He was obviously not pleased at having been gotten out of bed in the middle of the night. He scowled down at Illya as the small, hawk-faced doctor probed with gentle fingers at his side. The girl had brought them from Teclaxican, arriving just a few moments before in a vintage station wagon belonging to the subjefe. She had been gone two hours.

  "You will tell me again what happened," the subjefe said.

  For the third time, Illya explained about the accident, about how they had been driven off the road by the jeep. The subjefe did not appear to believe him.

  "Senor," he said, "I have had a very difficult day. This afternoon, my wife tells me she is to have another child. Tonight, something strange happens to the water in Teclaxican. And now, you have gotten me out of bed to..."

  "What happened to the water?" Illya interrupted. But he already knew the answer.

  "It begins to taste of salt," the subjefe said. "Our fresh mountain water. And then there is no more water. I turn on the faucet...nothing. I do not understand it."

  Illya debated telling about the THRUSH tests, and decided against it. He could trust no one; somebody in Teclaxican had seen he and Solo leave that afternoon, and had sent the jeep after them. But he had to get to the hotel, to the spare communicator in one of the suitcases there. He said once again that his friend was lying somewhere on the slope, a victim of the accident.

  "There is nothing we can do tonight, senor," the subjefe told him. "In the morning, we will send out a search party to look for your friend."

  Illya gritted his teeth and kept quiet. It wasn't doing him any good, arguing.

  The doctor finished his examination, announced that Illya had three cracked ribs and a mild concussion, and proceeded to tape him tightly. Illya thanked the old man and the girl for their help, and then he, the subjefe and the doctor got into the ancient station wagon for the ride back to Teclaxican.

  After some argument, Illya Kuryakin convinced the doctor that he was well enough to spend the night unattended at the hotel, promising to stop for further examination in the morning. Alone in his room at last, Illya took the spare U.N.C.L.E. communicator from its hiding place in the false compartment under one of the suitcases and put through a Channel D call to Alexander Waverly in New York.

  He was not surprised to find his superior still at headquarters. He explained what had happened in Teclaxican that day, and that he was worried about Solo's safety. Waverly told him that he would dispatch a team of agents to Teclaxican, and that Illya was to wait until they arrived before returning to the mountain lake. The chief of U.N.C.L.E. operations seemed greatly disturbed, and Illya sensed that not all of that perplexity stemmed from his report. But Waverly did not elaborate, and Illya knew better than to question him.

  Late the following morning a distraught Subjefe Hernandez, his authority challenged by the arrival of the team of U.N.C.L.E. agents, led them up the winding road toward the lake. Illya, stiff, his side aching, his vision blurred from lack of sleep, sat grimly beside the subjefe in the lead jeep.

  An irate and hungover Diego Santiago y Vasquez was there as well, having insisted that he be allowed to accompany them when he was told what had happened to his battered sedan.

  They went first to the lake, along the path near the slide. Illya had wanted to search for Solo...he had not shown up in Teclaxican that night, and no one had seen nor heard from him-but he knew that if THRUSH were still in the area they had to be dealt with first.

  But they found nothing at the lake. Illya had half-expected to see a gleaming crystallized floor of salt when they reached it, but there was only blue water, shining under the sun. It seemed THRUSH had pulled out its forces sometime during the night, either because they had finished their testing there or because they had somehow learned or were fearful of U.N.C.L.E.'s impending arrival. At any rate they were gone, and as had been the case at the other test sites, they had left no traces.

  The men set about searching the slope where the sedan had hurtled downward the day before. Illya, tramping along the rocky, brush-covered ground, steeled himself for the discovery of Solo's body.

  But they did not find his body. They found nothing, except for a small, bent object one of the men discovered near a group of rocks. Illya knew immediately that it was Solo's communicator.

  He did not know what to think. Was Solo dead? If so, where was his body? Had THRUSH captured him? If so, where had they taken him? And what were they planning to do with him? Illya knew none of the answers. He knew only one thing for certain.

  Napoleon Solo had vanished.

  THREE

  Alexander Waverly said, "I can readily understand your concern, Mr. Kuryakin. I must confess I am concerned as well. But THRUSH security is the tightest we have ever encountered. There simply is nothing we have been able to learn about Mr. Solo's whereabouts."

  Illya said nothing. It had been three days since his return from Mexico, and in those three days every U.N.C.L.E. office, every agent, had been placed on standby alert, every informant and source of information available to U.N.C.L.E. had been exhausted. No one, it seemed, knew or had found out anything concerning Napoleon Solo.

  But there was another, even more important, reason for U.N.C.L.E. forces having been alerted and mobilized into readiness. There had been no more THRUSH tests.

  Waverly and the other members of Section I knew that this could only mean one thing: THRUSH, apparently satisfied by their experimentation with the salt chemical, were on the verge of whatever major offensive their Council had set forth. And there was nothing U.N.C.L.E. could do except wait.

  Their scientists, working feverishly, had learned nothing more from the sample of rock salt. The only new development had come from Section II, and that was the reason Waverly had called Illya to his office.

  U.N.C.L.E. was now certain that they knew the name of the man who had developed the salt chemical.

  Illya Kuryakin and Mr. Waverly were seated at the circular briefing table now. Illya, his injured side still bandaged heavily, sat uncomfortably on his chair, fidgeting. He had slept very little in the past three days, plagued with worry over Solo's safety. He had voiced those worries to Mr. Waverly just a moment ago. The waiting had begun to tell on his nerves; he wanted to do something, anything.

  The screen on the wall before the briefing table flashed on to reveal a newspaper photograph, taken at a large gathering of some type. In the foreground were a group of three men, one of which had been looking toward the camera when the picture was snapped.

  May Heatherly's voice came to them from Section III, somewhere inside the steel complex of U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. "This picture was taken at the National Scientific Convention in Zurich seven years ago. The man looking at the camera is Dr. Mordecai Sagine."

  Illya studied the man. He was short, squat, with a head that appeared much too large for his body, although that impression was not entirely an accurate one since he had a thick, leonine mane of light-colored hair that grew almost to his shoulders.

  He looked, Illya thought, like an anachronistic rock-and-roll singer. The eyes, covered with heavy brows, were stark and penetrating, and his lower lip protruded a good inch below his upper lip. If he had a chin, it was not visible in the photograph. All in all, Illya decided, he had that type of face that frightened little children.

  May Heatherly's voice said, "During the late nineteen fifties, Dr. Sagine received national prominence for his work in chemical analysis, most particularly in the early efforts to convert sea water into drinking water. He had been engaged in private research, with a government grant-in-aid. But in the early sixties he startled the scientific world with his announcement that he had discovered a reverse process, that is to say he had learned the secret of converting fresh water into salt water through the use of a cata
lytic chemical element.

  "Even though he conducted several public experiments to prove his discovery, his colleagues ridiculed it as impractical and valueless. Some even went so far as to term the entire process an elaborate hoax.

  "Dr. Sagine disappeared shortly thereafter, and since that time no one has seen nor heard from him. There was some speculation that, angered over the treatment he had received, he had defected, but this was never borne out. The photograph you see here is the only one U.N.C.L.E. has been able to obtain, and as far as we know the only one of Dr. Sagine in existence."

  The photograph disappeared from the screen, and it went dark again. Illya looked at Mr. Waverly. "Sounds like just the type of disillusioned individual THRUSH would entice into its fold."

  "Exactly, Mr. Kuryakin," Waverly said. "Even though Dr. Sagine's original chemical process did nothing more than change fresh water to salt water, there has been an interim period of seven years to allow him to finalize it, hence producing crystallized salt from fresh water, and to develop an antidote."

  "But we're still right where we started," Illya said. "We may know who he is, but we don't know where he is, and we don't know what THRUSH is planning to do with his discovery. We don't know what the chemical is and we don't know how to counteract it."

  "We are faced with an extremely difficult situation," Waverly agreed. "Extremely difficult. But I am afraid the only position we can adopt at present is one of patient watchfulness."

  "All we need is one little clue, something to go on," Illya said. He slammed his fist on the table in a rare display of anger and frustration.

  "We have every department, every man, in constant vigil," Alexander Waverly said. "We shall uncover some pertinent development, Mr. Kuryakin. You may rest assured of that."

  Illya's face was tightly set. "It had better be soon," he said, and added cryptically, "Before it's too late."

  FOUR

  The break they needed came much sooner than they had anticipated. And it came, not from the combined forces of U.N.C.L.E., but strangely enough from the Managing editor of Travelogue Magazine.

  Two hours after Illya Kuryakin had been briefed on Dr. Sagine, a call came through the switchboard at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters for him. He had remained in Waverly's office, sitting silently in one of the chairs, the tenseness in his body mounting with each passing minute. The jangling of the telephone on Waverly's desk jerked him upright on the chair, and he leaned forward as his superior answered it.

  When Waverly told him the call was for him, Illya jumped from the chair, grabbing the receiver to his ear.

  The man on the other end of the wire introduced himself as Robert Pausen, managing editor of Travelogue Magazine. He told Illya that he had just received a telephone call, asking for one of his photographers. The photographer's name, the caller had said, was Illya Kuryakin.

  Illya frowned, not fully understanding at first. Then he remembered that, to insure their cover in Mexico, Travelogue Magazine had been informed of the guise and had agreed to cooperate fully if any queries were received by them. Now, Illya asked the managing editor who the caller had been.

  "A woman," Pausen said. "A Miss Estrellita Valdone."

  Estrellita Valdone? The woman they had met at the hotel in Teclaxican. Illya scowled. What reason could she possibly have for contacting him? Unless- He asked, "Did she say why she had called?"

  "No," Pausen said. "Just that it was urgent she speak with you."

  "What did you tell her?"

  "I told her I would try to locate you."

  "Did she leave a number?"

  "Yes," the managing editor said. He gave it.

  Illya wrote it down on a scratch pad, thanked Pausen, and hung up. He stood tugging at his ear thoughtfully, aware that Waverly was looking at him. He explained the nature of the call quickly.

  Waverly tapped the dottle from his pipe. "You should call the woman immediately," he said. "It may be that she has something to tell us about the events in Teclaxican."

  Illya Kuryakin nodded. He picked up the phone, contacted one of the U.N.C.L.E. operators, and gave her the number. He waited, drumming his fingers on the desk top.

  When the phone was answered on the other end, Illya recognized the voice as that of Estrellita Valdone. He explained that his editor had contacted him, and that he was returning her call.

  Illya stood listening, nodding silently as Estrellita spoke. He scribbled on the scratch pad. A moment later, he hung up the phone and turned to Waverly,

  "Well, Mr. Kuryakin?" Waverly said.

  "Just what we've been waiting for," Illya said, excitement in his voice. "She wants me to meet her at nine o'clock tonight."

  "Yes!" Waverly said. "And why does she want to meet with you?"

  "She says she knows where Napoleon is."

  FIVE

  Napoleon Solo did not know where he was. When he regained consciousness, he was lying on a cot in a small room with no doors and no windows. The walls of the room were painted green, a pale pastel shade of green. There was nothing in the room except the cot.

  At first his mind refused to function. Thoughts became separate entities, apart from each other. A single thought would touch his mind, and then fade, to be replaced by another. He tried to concentrate on each thought, fuse it with a second, achieve some continuity. But it was as if he were dreaming, a deep, troubled dream, from which he sought desperately hard to escape, to wake from, and could not.

  He was aware, separately, of his surroundings. First the walls. And then the color of the walls. The ceiling. The cot on which he was lying. The fact that the room had no doors or windows. Each of these facts touched his mind, fled, returned again, one by one, intermingling with other facts, other thoughts, but never two in the same sequence.

  He fought the silent battle within his mind for an interminable period. There was no time for him; there was only the mental conflict, the intense pressure exerted on every cell in his brain that stretched dangerously taut the fine line between rationality and insanity.

  His body was rigid, immobile, on the cot, and he stared at the ceiling above and knew nothing of the silent, waiting eyes hidden behind one-way view-plates in the walls, watching the struggle that went on within him.

  Reason returned to his mind with infinite, but inexorable, slowness. Finally he was able to grasp one of the ephemeral thoughts, hold it, and it remained, stark and vivid. The walls were green. It was very odd, the thought said, that the walls should be green. Four green walls.

  Where was the door? There should be a door in one of the four green walls.

  He felt the fusion of those two images, and then, slowly, there was the related knowledge of the cot on which he lay, and of the fact that his entire body was soaked in hot, flowing perspiration. He was aware, in that moment, of the lessening of pressure on his brain, and he felt his body relax, lose its rigidity. A sense of great relief, like a purge flooded through him, to be followed almost immediately by a heavy drowsiness that seized the lids of his eyes and pulled them closed.

  He had won the battle, and now he slept. When he awoke again, there was full clarity.

  He was instantly aware of his surroundings, and even though his head pounded with an intenseness he had seldom experienced, he was able to recall everything that had happened before he had been exposed to the nerve gas. He had only vague recollection of its effects on his mind; it was as if he had just wakened from a nightmare.

  He lay looking around him. A cell, he thought. That would explain the absence of a door and of windows. Entrance was probably gained through an electronically operated panel in one of the walls. Yes, a cell. But where? Mexico? Or where else?

  That didn't seem likely. THRUSH had been there merely for the purpose of conducting tests. Then—THRUSH'S base of operations. Of course. They had to have a secret, well-hidden complex, one unknown and unsuspected by U.N.C.L.E. a place where the salt chemical could be developed.

  But where?

  Solo lay motionless on t
he cot. Why had he been brought here, wherever he was? A wedge, he thought. Yes, that must be it. An added bit of precaution by THRUSH, in case they needed bargaining power for negotiations with U.N.C.L.E. And such negotiations, Solo knew, would only come about if THRUSH gained the upper hand in the battle between the two powerful forces. Consequently, the obvious assumption was that THRUSH was on the verge of launching whatever insidious plot its council had devised.

  But what that was, he still had no way of knowing. And locked in this doorless, windowless cell, there was nothing he could do to stop it. Escape seemed impossible. But there had to be a way. And he had to be ready, not lying helpless on the cot. Solo gritted his teeth and swung his legs out and down to the floor, pushing himself into a sitting position with his hands. He sat for a full minute.

  He tried to stand. His legs would not support his weight and he fell. His body felt drained, fever-weak, and every fiber of his being ached. Nerve ends like open sores set him trembling.

  He spent almost an hour learning to walk again. It was almost as if he were a child, a baby taking his first experimental steps. He managed, with great effort, to stand finally, after falling several times.

  Equilibrium returned as slowly as had his ability for rational thought. But, irrevocably, it did return. He took a step on his right foot, swayed, arms flailing, and this time he did not fall. Elation rushed through him. He took another step, with his left foot and fell again. But now the sense of defeat had left him, and he got up immediately.

  He walked. He walked from front to back of the green-walled room, from side to side. Some of the weakness had begun to leave him. He flexed his arms, his fingers, working his muscles. He held his hands in front of his eyes and willed them to stop shaking.

  He had to keep moving. If he gave in to the raw jangling of his tortured nerves, his mind could still snap. He forced blankness of his brain, continuing to walk. A whirring sound came from behind him. His heart began to pound wildly and he spun around, crouching catlike.

  A small, square opening had appeared in the flat surface of the floor near the cot. Solo closed his eyes, clenching his fists, concentrating every ounce of his will on quieting the raging forces in his body. When he felt calm returning, he opened his eyes.