The Hungry World Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  “Price tag?’ de Luz murmured. “What price tag, Mr. Waverly?”

  “Our usual,” Waverly said. “Our lives.”

  THREE

  In an old-fashioned but elegant room in the Hotel Amernacionale in downtown Lima, Illya Kuryakin slept.

  He slept not because he had wanted to sleep. He’d willed himself to sleep because it was, in this instance, his duty. One replenished one’s physical and mental reserves when opportunity offered. Or one paid dearly for the neglect.

  He was, at the moment, the weapon held in the scabbard until the face of the enemy could be seen. He slept because he did not know when he would be able to sleep again in the hours and days, perhaps, ahead. Sleep was the dark whetstone, honing the weapon to razor-edge…

  While he slept, U.N.C.L.E.’s nerves and muscles pulsed, flexed, and vibrated throughout the earth.

  Alexander Waverly had spoken the order into a communicator here in Lima. With the speed of light, the order had flashed from one control center to another throughout the network.

  The order was simple and offered no alternatives: “Find the hospital ship Benevolence and report its position to Alexander Waverly in Lima, Peru. Top secret operation.”

  As a result of the order search planes jetted into the skies; a nuclear sub in the southeastern Pacific went to full speed and turned its radar sweep to maximum power: around the world, monitors of U.N.C.L.E.’s orbiting spy-in-the-sky satellites went on red alert; on a vast, translucent chart of the world’s shipping lanes in New York’s central control young and pert female U.N.C.L.E. technicians checked off all legal passenger and cargo ships as they were identified; computers began investigating information pertinent to shipping throughout the world, ships in port, in dry dock, ships at sea, ships clearing port, putting in, taking on supplies.

  And Illya Kuryakin was privileged to sleep for four hours and thirty-two minutes.

  Waverly came into the hotel room with a large rolled chart carried under his arm. He removed his key, closed the door, dropped the night chain in place, and crossed to the bed.

  He let his brows rise and fall as he regarded the sleeping figure. Enviable, this ability the younger agents possessed to turn themselves off and on.

  “Mr. Kuryakin,” Waverly said quietly.

  Illya’s eyes snapped open. He was instantly alert. He sat up, dropped his feet to the floor, a blink or two and a quick stretching of his arms the only indications that he’d been awakened from a nap.

  He stood up, glancing at Waverly. He didn’t need to ask if the search was over. He glanced at his wrist chronometer and decided the search had actually taken about an hour longer than he’d anticipated at first.

  “Where is the Benevolence?”

  For answer, Alexander Waverly bent over the bed and unrolled the chart.

  “At about this point, “Mr. Kuryakin.”

  “Off the coast, southwest of Chambasa.”

  “Yes.”

  “Moving which way?”

  “Southeasterly.” Waverly’s forefinger traced across the chart. “She may be heading for this area. Primitive, unsettled, wild terrain. The cliffs drop almost into the sea itself. Probably some natural, fairly deep water harbors, similar to fjords.”

  ”She could slip into any one of them and hide.”

  “I fear that is a possibility,” Waverly said. “But I fear another more. That floating laboratory will be first-class, you can believe that. They might have already gotten from Princess Andra all the information they need.”

  “How’d we spot the Benevolence?”

  “Satellite discovered her far off normal shipping lanes,” Waverly said. “Fortunately we had a sub in the area. It went in to sneak a look. It’s the Benevolence all right. No doubt at all of it.”

  “Does she know she’s been tracked?”

  “We think not,” Waverly said. “They have no way of knowing that the agent cut down by Mr. Solo survived long enough to tell us anything.”

  “Then they don’t know we’ve penetrated the disguise. To the rest of the world, they believe, the Benevolence is still a vessel of mercy.”

  “I pray you are correct, Mr. Kuryakin, in your assessment of their state of false security. It’s the one spin favorable to us from the beginning.”

  Waverly straightened, rolling up the chart. “We will ‘copter you out to the sub. The sub will slip you in close to the Benevolence---if she drops anchor in one of those hidden, natural harbors. The rest will be up to you.”

  Illya started to speak, but Waverly placed his fingertips on his chest. The shadows in the room seemed to flow across Waverly’s face. The loose flesh under his eyes sagged.

  “Mr. Kuryakin, beseech the fates that you shall really be going into the tiger’s den!”

  Illya nodded. The same thing had been on his own mind. If the deduction they’d drawn was wrong, if the Benevolence were actually a mercy ship, there wouldn’t be time to make a second guess.

  None of his feelings showed on his face. He flipped the corners of his mouth in a smile. “I’m skipping brunch, you know. Or is it dinner? How’s the chow aboard that sub?”

  “The captain is German, the first officer Italian, but you are in luck, Mr. Kuryakin. The cuisine is French.”

  ACT FOUR

  LET THEM EAT CROW

  Napoleon Solo struggled endlessly in a bottomless blackness. Weird lights shot through the darkness now and then, dazzling and blinding him. Strange glowing gargoyle faces reared before him. Scaly, taloned hands reached for him. He screamed silent screams, twisting and whipping himself from the hands.

  Such were the effects of the nerve gas that had knocked him unconscious in the courtyard of The Castle.

  After a timeless interval, the blackness faded to a luminous pearl-gray. The gray lightened.

  Napoleon Solo cracked his eyelids. A harsh white light scalded his eyes. He lay quiescent, a throbbing pain lancing between his temples as his brain struggled back to reality.

  Gradually, his eyes cleared. He was lying on a hard, narrow mattress. The fingers of his right hand inched away from his side in exploration, contacted a smooth metal plate. He felt the faint vibration of powerful engines that churned somewhere in the distance.

  Turning his head, he opened his eyes all the way. He was lying on a bunk bed in a small room. He felt the steady, even motion of his surroundings.

  A ship, he thought. He was on a ship. A ship plying which ocean? And where was Princess Andra?

  The urgency of his situation drove the last of the fog from his mind. He swung his feet to the floor and stood up. The nightmare conflict with the gargoyles induced by the nerve gas had left him a trifle weak. He gave his knees a moment to firm up; then he searched his clothing, the quick motions of his hands determining that he had been relieved of all weapons.

  He began an exploratory circuit of his quarters. The room had neither door nor porthole. Fresh air was fed through a slitted grille of an air-conditioning duct. One of the white enameled panels must constitute a sliding door.

  He began looking for a latch, trigger, or button, moving slowly along the wall. The assumption started crystallizing in his mind that the room was actually what it appeared to be.

  A barren cell designed for forcible confinement, openable only from the outside.

  “Did you have pleasant dreams, Mr. Solo?”

  Solo spun. Across the room a panel had slid open. The aperture framed a sinuously beautiful blonde, electrifying in a skin tight sheathing of black material that glistened in the harsh light.

  “Not very,” Napoleon Solo admitted. His brow quirked as his eyes swept over her in frank, masculine appraisal. “But I’ve a hunch the gargoyles in the nightmares were much less deadly than the lovely images of reality.”

  She gave a husky laugh as she stepped into the room. “Danger exists, Mr. Solo, only when one is on the wrong team.”

  “Did you ever hear of an U.N.C.L.E. selling out?”

  “Of course not. But aren’t you a
ssuming your side has something left to sell?”

  The cool, lovely face before him was touched with a remote smile. Solo felt a wash of ice across his forehead. “What,” he said levelly, “has happened while I was knocked out?”

  “You and the princess were removed to this ship, the Benevolence.”

  “Benevolence? The name strikes a chord. Of course---one of those hospital ships!”

  “An excellent front, don’t you think?” She reached and traced his chin with a forefinger. “Who would ever think of a bunch of THRUSH meanies launching their exciting little forays from a hospital ship?”

  “Practically no one,” Solo nodded. “An unexpected base, welcome in any nation, movable at will---and plenty of room for a command complex and laboratory.”

  “You see the advantages quickly, Mr. Solo.”

  “And the princess?”

  “Given the best our very excellent laboratory has to offer.”

  Solo made a blind, threatening move of despair. Marlene Reine stepped back quickly. Two hot-togged THRUSH men eeled inside the room.

  Marlene wagged a finger, a maddening, arrogant smile on her red lips. “You wouldn’t hit a lady, would you?”

  Napoleon Solo stood rigid in the center of the cabin, his hands clenching at his sides. “Have you---destroyed Princess Andra?”

  “Perish the thought! Why bother to destroy what has become useless and no longer stands in our way?”

  “Then you’ve gotten it from her, the results of all her work. You know how to harvest and process plankton from the sea for human consumption.”

  “We know every detail of her research Mr. Solo. A little remains to be done. She’d planned to turn the whole thing over to a neutral international body when her project was complete. But with everything we now have, our own scientists can proceed and tie up the few remaining loose ends even more quickly than the princess working alone. We are ready to strike, Mr. Solo!”

  Napoleon sensed that she’d spoken a flat truth. The knowledge was stupefying.

  Her laugh spilled into the cabin. The perfection of her surface beauty remained, but she was unlovely as a person, gloating, greedy, and vicious.

  “How nice to see a vaunted U.N.C.L.E. man sweat, Mr. Solo! But you haven’t begun to taste failure yet! We have a pair of missiles tucked away nicely on pads secretly set up in an extinct Andean volcano, the old giant the superstitious natives call Iaclasco.

  “As we talk jet ’copters have dropped in the last of the materials. Those missiles are just about ready to fire, Mr. Solo, and set the stage with a fall-out rain of Doulou Particles. Rather fitting that the cataclysm spew out of the old volcano, don’t you think?”

  Napoleon Solo managed to moisten his throat with a painful swallow. “And by the time the Doulou Particles have destroyed the grain crops, you’ll be ready with Princess Andra’s process to dole out food to a world in chains.”

  “You put it too crudely. Why not just say that the arms of THRUSH will welcome all who wish to come into the fold?” She regarded him with tigerish interest. “Even you, Napoleon Solo, if you are sensible and accept the new rules that will govern a new world.”

  He patted his waistline.

  “I really should go on a bit of a diet,” he said with a flippishness he was far from feeling. “So don’t count on me when you feast on plankton.”

  “We’ll see,” she promised grimly. “Meanwhile, let’s have the princess herself corroborate what I’ve told you.”

  Marlene slipped aside and signaled the two THRUSH guards with a languid gesture. They strode across the cabin, flanking Napoleon Solo.

  “I get the hint,” Solo said. He broke his body in a short, mocking bow and extended his hand. “Lead on.”

  She led the way down a rubber-tiled passageway, Solo behind her, the two burly guards bringing up the rear.

  Solo felt a subtle change come to the ship. He couldn’t pin it down. Then he realized the engines had stopped. “You’re dropping anchor,” he muttered.

  Marlene Reine glanced over her shoulder. “You’re very observant, Mr. Solo.”

  He glanced back at the blank walls and ceiling of the corridor. “Do you mind telling me where we are?”

  “At the end of the journey, Napoleon. We’ve anchored in a small natural harbor hidden by the cliffs south of Chambasa.”

  She nodded. “We sit tight briefly---until we get the signal that everything is ready on the pads in the crater of good old Iaclasco. Then---“ She waved her hand airily over her head as she walked with long, lithe strides---“Dion Gould, the dear boy, gives the order to fire. Up swoosh the lovely missiles, one in a northerly trajectory, the other southward. At an altitude of about six hundred miles over the poles they explode.

  “Once the launch button is pressed nothing can stop the end result. The Doulou Particle fallout will filter down around the world. The coolie in Thailand and the farmer in Iowa, each in a few weeks sees the same results in his fields.”

  Mental images of the rest of it flamed through Solo’s mind. Cattle dying in sterile pastures. Men, driven out of their minds from hunger, looting, smashing, killing. Men hiding like wild-eyed jungle beasts in their lairs to gnaw the bones of their fellows…

  Then a well fed THRUSH hammering out of the chaos the unholy image that it desired…

  A touch of madness came to Solo’s own eyes as he regarded the figure before him. Would it be possible to make a quick lunge, grab her, use her as shield between him and the guards in the narrow corridor?

  His muscles tensed for the suicidal gamble. His eyes focused on her right shoulder. He readied for the primary judo contact.

  Then the small shoulder tab on her garment seemed to magnify in his gaze, as if a telescopic lens had brought the image within inches of his eyes.

  His glance flicked over her, seeing her anew. The metallic quality of the garment that covered her from ankles to wrists struck him.

  He knew suddenly that she was wearing a feminine version of hot togs. Probably had designed the outfit herself, chosen the color.

  All she had to do was flip that shoulder tab and to touch her meant sudden death.

  Solo didn’t fear death, not if it had purpose. But useless waste of life was quite another matter.

  “In here, Napoleon darling.”

  The lilting mockery of her words jarred into his thoughts. She had opened a door at the end of the companionway and stepped inside.

  Solo paused in the doorway. A sumptuous lounge lay before him. Soft, indirect light diffused over massive couches and chairs that looked as soft as the touch of a feather. Dark draperies laced with threads of gold spilled down the walls from ceiling to the white carpet that covered the floor like a layer of foam.

  Reclining Roman style on piles of thick pillows beside a low oriental style table were Dion Gould and the Princess.

  Solo entered slowly, aware of the guards at his back.

  Gould bounded to his feet, tossing a napkin on the table which held the remains of a repast that had ranged from caviar to pheasant under glass.

  “Too bad you didn’t snap out of it in time to join us, Solo. Most condemned men try to be on hand for their last meal!”

  Solo ignored the crack. He looked across the table at Princess Andra. She was pale, wan, and the degree of remorse and guilt in her large dark eyes caused Napoleon Solo to wince.

  “Our galley contains tidbits from every continent,” Gould said, following Solo’s gaze, “but I can’t tempt her to eat a morsel.”

  The princess pushed herself to her knees. “Mr. Solo---“

  “I understand,” he said gently. “You don’t have to explain. I imagine they used truth drugs to wring the secret of the plankton process out of you.”

  “Only the most powerful,” Gould said with a smile. “She resisted beyond the point of being human, but the drug proved most efficient.”

  Solo indulged himself the luxury of contempt as he looked at Dion Gould. The man’s superficial resemblance to Illya
Kuryakin was uncanny---but how much difference there was between the two men!

  Solo brushed by Gould, reaching as if to offer the princess assistance to her feet.

  As he bent forward Princess Andra, Solo’s body whipped in sudden, blinding motion. His fingers snatched a grease-smeared carving knife from the dining table. He brought his shoulders around, firing them at Gould’s legs. There was no danger in making physical contact with Gould, since he wasn’t wearing hot togs. With a knife at his throat, the THRUSH commander would serve as a one-way ticket out of here.

  The shock of surprise held Gould motionless for the barest fracture in time that Solo was counting on. Gould yelped and tried to spin aside as Napoleon Solo’s weight struck him just above the knees.

  Their bodies made impact on the frothy carpet in a writhing tangle. Gould kicked, jabbed with an elbow, trying to roll away. The two THRUSH guards bounded forward but struck an invisible barrier of uncertainty. They could not bring a weapon to bear on Solo without danger to their commander. Neither could they risk contact with their hot togs because of Solo’s contact with Gould. Gould was a wriggling, gouging mass of wiry sinew. Solo took a knee in the groin, the rap of knuckles on his mouth.

  Then he caught Gould’s wildly swinging fist with his left hand, flopped his weight backward, putting smashing power into the effort as he flipped the THRUSH leader’s body and brought the arm up hard behind his back.

  Gould screamed softly. He arched his back, trying to jerk himself free. Solo yanked hard on the knife to disentangle it from the carpet.

  Another second now and he’d have Gould pinned, the knife at his throat---

  “You’ve gone quite far enough, Napoleon darling!”

  Shoulders raised a few inches, his weight bearing down on Gould, Solo flipped a glance over his shoulder.

  Marlene Reine stood poised to throw herself against Princess Andra. Marlene had one hand raised to the tab on her shoulder of her skin tight hot togs.

  “Release him, dear boy, or witness Andra’s electrocution!”

  Princess Andra sprung to her feet. “No, Mr. Solo! Escape---warn them!”