by Unknown
* * *
The Yellow Zebra was a loud neon glare in the night of Kandaville. It was a small club, down a flight of stairs from the street. A quartet of young men played and sang in strong rhythm on the bandstand. They played well, and Illya nodded his appreciation as he entered with Ngara. The young girls of the city whirled across the dance floor, their young bodies quick and alive.
"There," Ngara said.
Illya looked. Azid Ben Rillah sat alone at a table near the bandstand. The Somali lounged indolently, a long, Russian-made cigarette dangling slack from his full lips, a glass of some colorless liquid in front of him. His strong, dark hands fondled the glass like a lover, raised it to his lips from time to time.
Illya slipped into a seat at a table behind Rillah. Joseph Ngara sat with him. Illya had removed his disguise now. The Russian Tworkov was supposedly asleep in the Imperial Hotel.
The blond U.N.C.L.E. agent looked nothing more than a young music lover on the town, but his sharp eyes missed nothing. He noted the faint sign given by Ngara to a young waiter and to a lithe girl singer who came out now on the bandstand and smiled softly at Azid Ben Rillah.
"Rillah seems a little interested," Ngara said without looking at Illya. "But I'm worried. He's smart, and Mahyana is one of our newest agents. I'm afraid she'll overplay it. But someone has to get close to him."
"There may not be time," Illya said. "Whatever they have, it seems to be advanced rapidly. Perhaps a day, two days, but then we'll have to force his hand. We."
Azid Ben Rillah suddenly turned around in his seat and his deep-set brown eyes passed across Illya's face. To anyone but an agent as sharply trained as Kuryakin it would have appeared that Rillah barely noticed him, for the brown eyes immediately shifted away to look at another part of the room.
But Illya Kuryakin knew better. Azid Ben Rillah had been shocked within a hair of his life when he had seen Illya. There had been no more than a flicker in the brown eyes of the Somali, a faint stiffening of Rillah's body, a minute knotting of the corded muscles of the THRUSH agent's neck. But it had been enough to betray him.
Azid Ben Rillah had recognized Illya—and had been startled.
Which meant, at least, that Napoleon Solo had not talked yet. A man who had known Illya was coming would not have been shocked at the sight of him.
Illya felt a sudden coldness in his stomach.
What was it?
Something he, Illya, saw in the dark face of Azid Ben Rillah. What? Damn it, Kuryakin, he told himself silently, what was it?
He stared at the dark face of the Somali. Rillah, recovering instantly as befitted a trained agent of THRUSH, was casually continuing his contemplation of the lithe and soft young dancers. Illya abandoned all attempts at concealment. He stared at the dark indolent face.
Yes! It was the face. Something—something he had not seen in the fuzzy blowup in New York. A picture can only tell so much, and the picture in New York had not been a good one. Now, with the live face before is staring eyes, Illya saw something different, something—familiar!
Yes, familiar! He knew that face. Not as it was, not dark like this, and the eyes—Illya stared, forced his mind back and back. How far? How far back was it?
Rillah, he knew, had had a similar feeling; the Somali knew Illya from somewhere. But where, when? The eyes—blue! But no Somali had blue eyes. The face floating somewhere in the dim past of Illya's mind had blue eyes and a fair skin, not a Somali at all.
It was something no picture could show, but the aspect of that face, the real live face, was know to Illya. Far back. Before U.N.C.L.E. Yes, long before U.N.C.L.E. when he had served in the Soviet-
And he had it!
He knew who Azid Ben Rillah really was.
In that instant the Somali who was not a Somali suddenly stood and walked quickly for a curtained doorway at the side of the room.
Illya leaped in pursuit.
Joseph Ngara was right behind him. Ngara nodded sharply to the waiter, who was one of his men, and to the girl singer. The waiter dropped his tray and clawed under his coat.
The girl singer lifted her skirt showing long, beautiful legs like smooth brown marble—and showing a tiny holster from which she drew her small pistol.
The three African Section-II members converged on the curtained doorway. Illya had been quick but Azid Ben Rillah had been even quicker. The fake Somali vanished through the doorway.
Illya followed, through a passageway and out, suddenly, into the dark African night of an alley that stank of garbage.
Rillah was waiting.
The fusillade of shots from the semi-automatic pistol hammered the night, striking chips from the stone wall, bare inches from Illya's head.
Illya went down, his U.N.C.L.E. Special out. He clicked the control to the paralyzing-dart magazine. He needed Rillah alive—false brown colored contact lenses and all.
Rillah stepped out, firing madly.
Illya raised his pistol from where he lay and fired once, twice. The sharp spit of the pistol firing darts was barely heard in the night.
Azid Ben Rillah clawed at his neck and went down, rigid on the filthy stones of the alley.
Illya started to rise.
They came from both sides at once.
Joseph Ngara and his two agents came out the door, guns ready.
The six strangers came from the open end of the alley. Their guns were held out in front of them. They stood crouched, legs straddled wide, firing as they came.
Joseph Ngara went down, riddled and dead.
The waiter choked on his own blood in his torn throat.
The girl singer sprawled in the shelter of two heavy garbage cans. She crouched, her dress torn open, legs and breast brown in the dim light—and she never stopped firing.
Her small pistol empty, she grabbed and reached Ngara's U.N.C.L.E. Special, set it on automatic, fired a withering fire toward the killers coming fast down the alley.
Illya clicked his Special to bullets and poured fire into the six strangers.
Six who were only three now, the others dead or dying.
No one had spoken a word. They were all trained, and words did not help. Cries of pain or anger only wasted time, spoiled the deadly aim.
Illya smiled like a wolf in battle. Three to two, but he and the girl had cover; the three THRUSH men did not.
Azid Ben Rillah lay silent between the two battling sides.
Illya aimed carefully this time. It would soon be over.
And the three remaining THRUSH agents suddenly vanished in great sheets of flame. Flame licked high in the alley. Flame that rushed across the ground toward the girl and Illya as if pushed on a strong wind. But there was no wind.
Illya felt cold.
They had thrown flame bombs, deadly flames that fed on their own creeping fuel and moved toward Illya to consume him.
THREE
Napoleon Solo talked, his voice filling the dark, cornerless room where Maxine Trent stood above him and the two hidden men stood behind in the shadows. Maxine still held the needle. An instant in his arm and Solo began to talk at once.
"Mary had a little lamb. Its fleece was white as snow. And everwhere that Mary went. The lamb was sure to go."
"Tell us!" Maxine Trent cried. "What did Waverly tell you?"
"Baa baa Black sheep, have you any wool?" Solo said, his voice crisp and precise. "Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!"
The reedy, inhuman voice hissed from the dark. "Slap him, you fool! He has to tell us. The serum cannot be evaded. He has to tell us what he knows!"
Maxine Trent slapped Solo hard. Blood trickled lightly from the corner of his mouth.
"The nineteen forty-two St. Louis Cardinals were one of the great teams of all time. Ray Sanders played first base, Marty Marion was at shortstop, Stan Musical was in right field, Enos Slaughter."
Now the deep voice cursed from the dark room. Maxine Trent stared at Solo, turned to look helplessly, with fear in her eyes toward the hidden men. T
he deep-voiced man spoke.
"It is no use; he has been conditioned. He can tell us nothing this way."
"Conditioned?" the thin, hissing voice said.
"U.N.C.L.E. has its methods, too," the deep-voiced man said.
"Conditioning so that under any form of truth serum a man will only tell what he has been conditioned to tell. It is a long process, much too long for general use. I know they had conditioned the five Section-I members to give us false data; we had Waverly once, and everything he told us was false. But I did not know they had extended it down to Section-II. You will get nothing but nonsense from Solo this way."
There was silence. Maxine Trent stared down at the babbling Solo as he reeled off the personnel and exploits of the 1942 St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. The needle in her hand seemed ludicrous now. She wanted to stop Solo, shut him up, turn off the endless stream of ridiculous information.
She slapped him, but he neither blinked nor stopped, rendered helpless by the truth drug.
"Stop him," the reedy voice hissed.
A hand holding another needle appeared from the dark. Maxine Trent took it again plunged it into Solo's arm. Solo stopped babbling at once. His eyes came unglazed. He blinked, grinned up at Maxine Trent.
"I trust you enjoyed all my information, Maxine," Solo said.
The deep voice cursed again in the dark behind Maxine Trent.
"Prepare him. We will have to use older methods," the deep voice said.
"Anything," the hissing voice cried from the dark. "I must know what Waverly knows! The smallest error must be corrected! You understand?"
"Yes," Maxine Trent said. She looked down at Solo. "I'm sorry, Napoleon, but you won't cooperate. You can't be conditioned against simple torture."
"Try me," Solo said.
The deep voice whispered somewhere off in the darkness. Then a hand appeared again from the dark. It held another hypodermic needle.
"Release him from the hypnotic drug, make him comfortable," the deep voice said.
Maxine did as she was instructed. Almost at once Solo felt as if the ropes were gone, the soft material holding his feet was taken away. He moved, stretching the cramps from his muscles. A hand came out of the dark, holding a glass with amber fluid in it.
"Give him a drink," the deep voice said. "The best Scotch whiskey, Mr. Solo."
Solo drank and the warmth coursed through his body.
"Perhaps a sandwich, some hot coffee?" the deep voice said.
Solo nodded and his mind came alive. Inside, there was sudden flicker, a plan. He was aware of what the deep-voiced chief agent of THRUSH was doing—the hot and cold treatment. A variant. In torture it is the sudden changes that break a man. The coming and going and coming again of pain.
They were awakening his nerves, his responses. Almost any man can face danger once; it is the second time, the third time that are hard. Likewise in torture. Once the pain began a man could slowly learn to stand it, to self-condition his body to take the increasing degrees of pain.
It was the swing from pain to peace, to pain again that was hard. First agony, then relief, then agony, and again relief, until what finally broke a man was fear of the next agony.
They knew this, and they were relaxing his defenses. How far would they go? A faint hope flickered. A double hope, and a plan. He had his cigarette lighter camera in his pocket. He could feel it. An he still had the small but powerful gas bomb that was his innocent-seeming pearl stickpin. He did not think that the deep-voiced man or the hissing-voiced Council Member N would apply the torture.
Another aspect of good torture was to leave the victim alone with some mindless torturer, someone who could not be talked to. The true interrogator went away, and the victim in his agony almost prayed for the return of one who would listen. It was a chance. Solo nodded, breathed.
"First, if I could, a cigarette?" Solo said quietly.
"Of course," the deep-voiced man said from the dark. "Maxine, give him a cigarette."
Maxine handed Solo a cigarette. He reached quickly into his pocket for his lighter. He flicked it once, twice, three times before the flame burst out and he lighted his cigarette. The reedy voice hissed.
"The lighter, you fools! It is a camera!"
Maxine grabbed at the lighter. But Solo had anticipated her. The instant he had taken his three pictures of the dark ahead of him through the infra-red lens, he had pressed the tiny button that dropped the miniature film cartridge into his hand.
As Maxine grabbed the camera, he palmed the tiny cartridge and let it vanish up his sleeve.
"Open it!" the reedy voice hissed.
Maxine opened it and removed the film cartridge she found there. Solo tried to look beaten. They did not know that the camera had a special optical arrangement that took pictures on both cartridges through a single lens. The camera was made for just such an eventuality. There would be a cartridge in the camera—and it would be exposed in case they checked to be sure.
The deep-voiced man checked.
"Not bad shots, Mr. Solo. I admire you. Infra-red. I never underestimate U.N.C.L.E. Too bad you underestimate me."
"Why bother?" Maxine Trent said. "He won't leave here alive."
The hiss of the inhuman voice was almost like a laugh this time as it burst low and horrible from the darkness.
"You see too many spy movies, Agent Trent. No, we will not tell him what he wants to know because he will die. This is not a movie. Prepare him now; we can waste no more time. We will send in Gotz."
The deep-voiced man laughed. "We will leave you now, Mr. Solo. Miss Trent and Gotz will take good care of you. If you find you would like to talk, just send for us. We will not be far."
Suppressing the smile he felt at their predictable actions, Solo flexed his arms as if preparing his body to resist the tortures of the unknown Gotz. One of the weaknesses of power was the tendency to always use the same methods to enforce its strength.
Solo had often seen this peculiarity of power-mad nations. It had been one of the weaknesses of Hitler's Germany, and it was a common, fundamental weakness of THRUSH.
But it was the time to act. Solo did not know how many men would be with the unknown Gotz.
Maxine stood watching him, her pistol in her hand, now that he was free. She was the proper distance away, and the rest of the room was still lost in darkness. Solo would need time to find a door, and exit. He stretched.
"Careful, Napoleon," Maxine said. "I would hate to shoot you now. Too bad you have to be U.N.C.L.E. They'll never let me keep you now."
"I'm sorry, really, Maxine," Solo said, continuing to flex his arms and legs, but carefully.
"You'd make a lovely pet. I could tranquilize you every day," the tall beautiful agent purred. "My little kitten. But you have to be U.N.C.L.E. Why couldn't you have been just C.I.A., or British MI-five? They'd have let me play with you then."
"I'll try to do better next time," Solo said.
"Poor Napoleon. Always trying," Maxine said. "It wasn't nice of you to trap me earlier, was it? How did you guess? The record player I imagine. I told `N' that you would guess when it shut off and the tape recorder came on."
"It was a trifle too convenient, Maxine," Solo said. And he distracted her for an instant. "So `N' isn't that smart?"
"Not as smart as he thinks," Maxine said smugly, her guard down the fraction of a second as a result of her anger at her leader. "They think they can't make errors on the Council. They."
Solo moved. His hand flicked up and across his tie, tore the pearl stick-pin out and hurled it at Maxine's feet, all in a single motion.
The force of pulling it out set off the fuse. A cloud of gas exploded and engulfed Maxine Trent. Still the beautiful agent managed to fire a single shot. The bullet tore a furrow, skin deep in the side of Napoleon Solo's head. He went down, but came back up almost at once. His head ached, but there was not much time, not after the shot.
Maxine Trent lay crumpled on the floor of the room. She would be un
conscious for hours. Solo stepped quickly through the light into the dark corners. He found, once his eyes were accustomed to the dark, that the room was large and empty. Only the inlaid table and the lamp were in the completely silent room.
And there were no doors.
Solo blinked, looked.
There was nothing but smooth walls without doors or windows. He walked quickly around the entire perimeter of the room. There was no way out. And then he saw that the room was soundproof. This, at least, gave him a little time to locate some exit. There had to be a way. But he could not find it. Nothing but bare smooth walls.
Routine—and a little luck—came to his aid. Solo had been an agent for a long time, he knew no one survived long without a little luck, accident or pure chance, all helped by the mistakes of the enemy. THRUSH had a prescribed routine of operation, and it helped Solo now.
A tiny red light winked on, winked three times, and stopped. But it was enough. It had to be a signal that someone was about to enter the room. A precaution, of course, since all agents who used this room undoubtedly had standing orders to shoot anyone who entered without the signal. A precaution that would save him.
Solo waited.
The wall opened silently, without even a hiss, directly beneath the winking red light. A man stepped through. Two men.
The second man was a tall, slender Chinese carrying a machine pistol. Solo chopped him down with a single blow to the neck under the ear.
The first man turned slowly.
He was the biggest man Solo had ever seen. A giant well over seven feet tall, weighing over three hundred fifty pounds without an ounce of fat anywhere. There was no doubt that this was Gotz, the torturer.
Gotz turned ponderously, his tiny pig eyes seeing the Chinese lying on the ground, Maxine lying unconscious. He moved toward Solo.
There was not an instant to wait. Once in those giant hands Solo would have no hope. The giant could not be fought. One chance was all Solo would have, and he took it.