The Electronic Frankenstein Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  He turned and spoke directly to Ovenden before the pilot or Illya Kuryakin could reply. "How long do you think it will take you to slip into one of the vacated pilot seats and take over? Perhaps we can skip ordering them to set the controls."

  Ovenden shook his head. "Not wise," he said. "I'll stand behind you and watch every move they make. If they set the controls a fraction off, or try to, I'll know. For a few seconds it may be touch and go, and a lot of things could keep me from taking over in time. With the controls set we'll have an added margin of safety."

  A grim smile flickered for an instant on his lips. "If there's any shooting an extra gun would be of more value than a sitting duck in the pilot seat."

  "I couldn't agree more," Solo said. "Here we go then. Our timing had better be good."

  Solo opened the panel wide and moved swiftly into the pilot compartment up behind Ovenden's THRUSH twin, whose rigid posture as he sat leaning forward over the controls gave him almost the look of a carven stone replica of the man whose identity he had assumed. Illya moved just as quickly up behind the second pilot. Both agents jammed their pistols against the backs of the seated men at the same instant, but it was Solo who did the talking.

  "Don't make a move until I tell you what to do," he said. "That goes for both of you. Keep your reflexes under control. If you don't—you'll be blown apart."

  Ovenden had taken up his position just behind the pair, midway between Solo and Illya.

  He spoke as warningly as Solo had done, the instant the vituperation stopped. "Set the controls! Be quick about it, if you want to stay alive. I'll be watching every move you make."

  The two pilots obeyed, in total silence. Solo watched their hands moving over the panel as closely as Ovenden did, and though he lacked Ovenden's specialized knowledge as to just how they should be set to keep the jet steadily on course he was sure that it was being done right. Otherwise Ovenden would have tapped him lightly on the back and advised him to let the gun in his hand go off.

  Solo darted one brief glance at Illya and saw that the latter was just as alert, his eyes trained on the rapidly moving fingers of the pilot in his charge.

  As soon as the task was completed Solo said: "All right now, get up. Very slowly. Then turn around, just as slowly, and walk back through the panel to the nearest seat. When you're both seated we are going to have the pleasure of tying you up. That will spoil your comfort just a little, I'm afraid. But a coffin would be much more cramping. Don't fail to bear that in mind."

  The pilot who had assumed the identity of Hart fell in the suggestion instantly and had risen and was just starting to turn when the other took a risk that could easily have proved suicidal.

  Instead of rising he lurched violently sideways and then let his entire body sag. He was below the seat, and pivoting about on his knees when Solo's gun went off. As the gun roared Solo was thrown off balance by the tight grip which the insanely reckless THRUSH pilot instantly clamped on his knees. But only for an instant. Before the smoke of the blast cleared Solo had not only succeeded in regaining his balance but was smashing down with the barrel of his gun on the kneeling pilot's skull.

  As the man collapsed with a groan he heard Illya Kuryakin cry out sharply. "Don't try what he did! Stop turning. Stand perfectly still. Don't force me to put a bullet through your head."

  Solo stood for a moment utterly rigid, his eyes sweeping the pilot compartment in concern. Then Ovenden was at his side, staring down at the slumped pilot at the base of the seat. The pilot in Illya's charge was still on his feet, staring into the barrel of Kuryakin's short-muzzled weapon.

  "Look around you quickly," Solo breathed, gripping Ovenden's arm. "Did that shot do any damage, do you think? If it shattered one of the instruments—"

  Ovenden shook his head. "No, I'm sure it didn't. The panel's okay."

  Minutes later both pilots were sitting securely bound in the two front seats of the passenger cabin.

  Obviously, THRUSH had indeed moved fast, in the space of six or seven short hours, to put a personnel computer to work and send a car speeding down the road to the airfield containing two operatives who bore the closest possible resemblance to Ovenden and Hart, right down to Ovenden's British accent. It must, Napoleon Solo told himself, have involved a miracle of almost lightning swift planning.

  The disguise itself had presented no great problem, for the physical characteristics of Ovenden and Hart were not difficult to simulate with the help of judiciously applied makeup. They were frequently encountered types in a flattering sense, for they were robustly built with clean-cut, handsome features. There were many Harts and Ovendens, and although Ovenden's British accent may have presented more of a problem it had apparently not proved insurmountable, since THRUSH had available for instant assignment not a few operatives with British accents.

  Just how a THRUSH car had succeeded in getting past the gate of the privately owned airfield without arousing suspicion was anybody's guess, and had now became of comparatively minor importance, though Solo made a mental note that Harris must eventually be informed that U.N.C.L.E.'S undercover influence might be on the wane at that particular airfield.

  Solo had no longer any doubt that, whether Waverly was right or wrong about the inscrutable instrument of science which THRUSH had at its command, it had functioned twice in Tokyo with absolute accuracy. Twice THRUSH ears had listened in on a conversation in a soundproof room in which no listening device could possibly have been concealed—had spied on plans discussed with absolute secrecy, and taken instant measures to bring about his and Illya's destruction.

  More than their destruction, perhaps, for if the two THRUSH pilots had succeeded they would not have been taken to Inner Mongolia, but in all likelihood to a THRUSH cell.

  But important as knowing all that was, it paled into temporary insignificance before a single question that Solo felt he should perhaps not have waited quite so long to ask Ovenden. He asked it now.

  "Can you fly this jet alone to Inner Mongolia? If you can't, we'll have to turn back. But returning to Tokyo now would jeopardize our entire mission. THRUSH is on the alert with a vengeance now."

  Ovenden stared at Solo steadily for a moment before he said: "I can try. That is all that I can promise."

  "With a reasonable chance of succeeding? Be completely honest."

  "An eighty percent chance, I think," Ovenden said. "Not higher."

  "Good enough," Solo said. "If we returned to Tokyo the odds would be just as high."

  Solo turned to Illya. "I don't think we'll be making a mistake if we stay right on course. How do you feel about it?"

  "Precisely as you do," Illya said.

  "Both of the pilot seats have been vacant for fifteen or twenty minutes," Solo said. "I wouldn't enjoy flying on set controls all the way to China. It's time for one of those chairs to be occupied by someone in whom I have complete trust. We'll be over the Sea of Japan in another ten minutes."

  "I'll do my best," Ovenden said. He gestured toward the bound THRUSH pilots. "What will we do with them?"

  "They'll have to live on goat's milk for awhile in Inner Mongolia," Solo said. "We'll just set them out to pasture." Solo's expression changed, became more somber. "There will have to be a burial at sea, I'm afraid," he said. "Unless—"

  He paused an instant, then shook his head. "No, a grave in a desert waste, so remote from civilization, would be very much the same thing, and a burial at sea—"

  "I think Hart would have preferred that," Ovenden said, nodding.

  SEVEN

  IN THE LAND OF AN ANGRY SUN

  HAD IT NOT been for the sound of human voices around him, the Gobi would have seemed unreal to Napoleon Solo.

  The hot, bright sunlight, the endless miles of trackless desert and the scoured, brightly gleaming bowl of the sky had combined to make Solo feel that he had been set down by a long departed helicopter in some larger-than-life wasteland that had come spiraling straight out of the unknown. But in another way it was as real a
s the glistening lake of perspiration on his brow.

  "We certainly can't complain about the timing of that 'copter pickup," Solo said. "But Harris seems to have arranged this stage even better. Practically to perfection so far, and we've no reason to believe there's going to be any change. Sun Lin is a first-rate guide, the best. He never raises his voice. But have you noticed how expeditiously he gets things done?"

  "I've noticed," Illya Kuryakin said, nodding. "I've an idea he'll appreciate the compliment. He has pretty sharp hearing."

  As the two agents turned back toward their camels and the motionless figure of the head guide Solo had no doubt at all that Illya was correct in his surmise. Precisely what did the Gobi, he wondered, symbolize to the oriental mind? Probably just the harnessing and unharnessing of camels, the pitching of camp at nightfall and the rushing in the dawn that preceded another long day's journey across endless miles of sand.

  He was equally sure that Sun Lin was no fool and a better than average desert tracker and guide.

  "How long will it be?" he asked. "Two more hours—three?"

  "We are very close to where the American you seek was last seen," Sun Lin said. "Two hours, yes. But it will be dark when we get there."

  "I was afraid of that," Illya said. "It's getting dark already. We'll probably have to postpone our search until tomorrow."

  "The time factor isn't that important," Solo said. "Blakeley vanished three weeks ago, so what difference will a few extra hours make? Starting from where he was last seen and searching the surrounding desert is probably our best bet, but we can't be sure of anything. He may have wandered on for miles, may even have reached Inner Mongolia—"

  Solo gestured toward a rise in the sand a hundred feet to the east of them. "He could be sitting right over there, behind that big dune, down to his last drop of water."

  "You're taking it for granted that he's still alive," Illya said. "I'm afraid I'm not that optimistic."

  "I'm only optimistic about one thing," Solo said. "A desert waste where there's little or no rainfall and travelers are rarely encountered can stay unchanged for weeks. If we search carefully we may find some clue as to precisely what happened—evidences of a struggle perhaps, or footprints leading in just one direction."

  "I guess I can buy that," Illya said. "Onward then, with stout hearts and banners flying."

  Solo looked back and saw that Sun Lin's two desert-tracking companions had halted their camels some sixty feet from where he had dismounted with Kuryakin and the enigmatic oriental. He gestured for the journey to be resumed, remounting his own camel as he did so.

  A moment later all five camels were jogging onward again over an almost level expanse of sand, with Solo and Kuryakin rewarding their untiring mounts with occasional hump-pattings which the camels seemed to appreciate, for it caused them to move at a slightly faster pace. They were quite different from fast-stepping horses, however, and though they could outdistance the wind in speed under the goadings of desert raiders they seemed to prefer to move in much more leisurely fashion.

  The twilight which preceded the coming of darkness was of short duration, and before an hour had passed the sky was sprinkled with stars and a crescent moon had made its appearance amidst fleecy clouds close to the desert's rim.

  They continued on for another hour, with Solo and Kuryakin slightly in the lead. Then, abruptly, Sun Lin halted his camel and pointed out across the sand to where a gigantic ridge of stone bisected the desert.

  "It is near this spot that the American you seek was last seen," Sun Lin said.

  "FOR MILES the landscape has been featureless," Napoleon Solo said. "And now we run into some thing like this, a rock formation that looks as if it had dropped down out of the sky with a Made on Mars label on it."

  "It looks more like one of those rugged lunar landscapes we've been getting moon-probe photographs of," Kuryakin said. "It's honeycombed with caverns, but they can't be very large. Just pitted indentations, I'd say. The entire structure can't be more than a hundred feet in length."

  "Do you suppose it actually did fall from the sky?" Solo said. "A meteor that large may have landed on Earth more than once. There was that Siberian one that splintered into fragments and shook up about a third of Russia."

  Illya shook his head. "I don't think it's anything but a natural Gobi rock formation," he said. "It's only slightly weather-eroded, you'll notice, with no blasted out surfaces."

  "Anything is possible in the Gobi. Is that what you're trying to say? I'm beginning to feel you could be right. In a legend-haunted desert—"

  Illya Kuryakin smiled wryly. "Actually, there's nothing geologically unusual about a big rock castle in a desert that's as vast as the Gobi. It could be just a mountain that got tired of fighting its way up through ten or twelve million tons of sand when the earth was young."

  "There's a lesson in that for us," Solo said. "We can't afford to get tired so early in the game. Tomorrow or the next day a sandstorm could bury us, along with every trace of what we came here to find."

  "Right," Illya agreed. "Maybe we should start searching right now."

  "It will be less of a risk in the morning," Solo said. "Everything will stand out clearly and sharply. And we're practically out on our feet. There's only one right way to start a search when the time factor isn't of primary importance. The slow, careful way, skipping nothing, going over every inch of the ground."

  "I guess you're right," Illya said. "I'll help Sun Lin and his boys get the tents unrolled. Otherwise it will take them half the night."

  Pitching camp for the night in a desert waste was the opposite of a simple task. This Solo had discovered for himself several times in the past. His admiration for Sun Lin and that tireless oriental's two companions was boundless as he watched the swift and efficient way the tent poles were taken down from the camels, the canvas stretched out on the sand, the sleeping mats inspected for the possible presence of vermin and shaken out in the windless air.

  His admiration increased when Sun Lin took barely five minutes to get the camels bedded down for the night in a comfortable hollow in the sand. Then the tents went up and that, too, was a gratifying thing to watch when aching bones and throbbing temples made six or seven hours of sleep a luxury to be prized.

  The entire task took about twenty minutes in all and it was surprising how much like a miniature tent city the entire arrangement looked. Just two tents, four drowsy camels and several wooden stakes driven in a circle into the sand gave the camp site a community look which was pleasant to contemplate with the moonlight shining down.

  Neither Solo nor Kuryakin spent more than two or three minutes wrapped in contemplation, however, for they were out on their feet. Just crawling on their hands and knees into the cool interior of a tent and flopping down on sleeping mats seemed the wisest thing to do.

  Five minutes after they had drawn the tent flap shut behind them they were sleeping soundly.

  EIGHT

  VIOLENCE IN THE SMALL HOURS

  IT WAS not a gunshot which awakened them. It was a scream, agonized, prolonged, a scream that went on and on.

  They awoke in total darkness, with no knowledge of the time, hearing only the scream shattering the silence of the night.

  Solo was the first to leap to his feet, tighten the belt of his tropical shorts and rush out into the night, stopping only for an instant to give Kuryakin a resounding slap on the shoulder and shout a warning, on the off chance that he had not come fully awake.

  But Illya was awake enough, and it took him only an instant to snatch a round of ammunition down from the tent pole and strap a holstered gun to his waist, a precaution which Solo had been in too much of a hurry to take.

  The instant he emerged from the tent he saw that Napoleon Solo had already crossed the wide stretch of sand which separated the tent from the long rock structure which they had encircled in puzzlement before turning in for the night and was struggling with someone about his own height who had thrown one arm about his
neck and was making a frantic effort to drag him to the sand.

  Knowing that Solo was unarmed and that the struggling figure might well be clasping a knife made Illya break into a run without stopping to upholster his gun.

  That his fear was justified he saw before he had crossed half of the intervening distance, for the sudden glint of moonlight on steel was unmistakable. The knife flashed twice and each flash was accompanied by a downward thrust of the attacking figure's left arm. Solo groaned loudly and fell to one knee. But he was almost instantly on his feet again, fighting desperately to keep the knife at arm's length.

  Illya managed to get his gun out of its holster as he ran. But the two men were so entangled now that to risk a shot at Solo's assailant would have been the height of folly. But still he kept the weapon, a .38 calibre special, leveled and ready, his forefinger on the safety catch.

  He crashed into the man just as his arm was going up for the third time, and Solo had started to sag, his right sleeve drenched with blood.

  Reversing the pistol, Illya Kuryakin brought the butt-end down with violence on the maniacal knife-wielder's skull. But the knife continued to rise, the hand that held it thrusting upward with a violent jerk that carried the weapon high into the air. Then the man's arm fell back to his side and the knife dropped to the sand. He crashed down on top of it, rolled over and lay still.

  His face, in the moonlight, was ghastly, the jaw sagging, the lips split in a half-idiotic grin. It was Chin Husan.

  Solo was still on his feet, clutching his right arm as he swayed. "Sun Lin has been killed and that poor devil got the idea into his head that we're in some way responsible. He kept telling me that while he tried his best to kill me. He went crazy because of something he saw. I hope you didn't crack his skull."

  "I hope so too, if he really was off his noggin and not just lying to you," Illya said.

  "He'd have no reason to lie," Solo said, still clutching his arm. "Nothing else could have made him slash at me that way. He had a wild look in his eyes."