Текст книги "The Assassination Affair"

Автор книги: J Hunter Holly

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Waverly paced back and forth, explaining the foul– up, as though fixing details in his mind would lead to a solution. Illya waited through it because Waverly usually did come up with a solution.

Waverly said, "They took Archer out at Point Eight and we didn't know it. That's why you had no help."

"I understand that, sir. But" – he could wait no longer – "I'm not concerned with the mechanics of the thing. Only with the fact that they have Napoleon. And we have no tracing device on him. They threw it away."

Waverly faced him squarely. "Settle down, Mr. Kuryakin. Emotionalism can't help us. I've put the entire building on emergency duty. All of our facilities are operating. We'll find him."

"Dead," Illya said.

Waverly wasn't surprised at the pessimism. He had come to expect fits of gloom from the Russian. He said, to jolt Kuryakin out of it, "Perhaps you and Mr. Solo have worked together too long. You've become involved on more than a professional basis."

Illya sighed, taking command of himself. "I was his bodyguard. I should have -" He shrugged, ignoring the pain in his shoulder and arm, and reached across to the intercom. "I have one lead anyway. Confirmed tonight." He thumbed a stud on the intercom.

A young woman's voice answered, "Yes, sir."

"This is Illya Kuryakin. I gave you a license yesterday. Did you get it checked through?"

"But you said it wasn't priority."

"Check it now – immediately," Illya commanded, and thumbed the switch off. He swung to Waverly. "We know two of the men. Ordinary hoodlums. I could draw pictures all night of the old man and we might never find him. But that giant – I got his license number when he tried to run me down."

"It shouldn't take long to trace it. Sit down, for heaven's sake, Mr. Kuryakin. You make me frightfully nervous standing there bleeding."

Illya sat, but the intercom beeped and he jumped up again.

Waverly beat him to it, flicking the switch.

"Illya?" the young woman asked.

"Mr. Waverly here. Give me your report."

"Oh – Mr. Waverly. The report was in on the number after all. The car belongs to a Doctor Abel Adams, botanist He has a shabby address."

"Anything else on him?" Waverly asked.

"I've started a check, sir, and there is indication coming through that he is connected with Thrush. In an obscure way."

Waverly glanced up at Illya. "A botanist. Plants." He spoke to the intercom again. "Is he connected in any remote way with anyone in our organization?"

"No, sir.

"Just the same, get a check on every Adams employed by us." Waverly flicked off the machine. "He is connected with us, you can rely on that." He hit another switch. "Enforcement? I want agents Carr and Lansing to check out the address of Doctor Abel Adams immediately. Pick up the details from the Computer Room." He shut the machine off. "Adams won't be there of course."

"Of course." Illya resumed his seat. "He's been too careful. I was fortunate to get his license. He'll do some thing dramatic. From the way he spoke out there in the street, he likes the grand gesture, the display of melodrama." Illya dropped his chin into his right palm, mumbling to himself. Adams. Abel Adams." He straightened quickly. "My Uncle Abel!"

"What is it?" Waverly spoke swiftly so as not to interrupt his agent's train of thought.

"Mada Adams? But – it couldn't be. Just coincidence."

"Spell out the coincidence, please."

Illya told Mr. Waverly about Mada's charm bracelet and the brief conversation when she had mentioned her Uncle Abel. Waverly voiced Illya's own doubts. "Our pre-hiring security investigation would have turned up that relationship. She never would have been accepted."

"But it has to be, sir." Illya was eager. "There can't be two men named Abel Adams." He thrust himself out of his chair. "I'll go get her."

"Mr. Kuryakin." Waverly commanded. "You'll go straight along and have your arm tended. I'll send for Miss Adams."

Illya hesitated, vacillating back and forth. "But – "

"Your arm, Mr. Kuryakin. And change your jacket. I don't like my men in here with bullet holes in their clothing."

"Yes, sir, but I'll be right back. Don't let her get away from us. No wonder she's so afraid of Enforcement Agents!"

–

The tableau in the kitchen was the same when Robard returned as it had been when he left. Solo watched him enter with his little tool box, desperately wishing that things would begin to move. Waiting was always the worst of everything. Yet he had to stall. If there was any chance, he had to give it time.

Adams stepped forward. "We're ready then, Robard?"

"All set."

Good boy." Adams patted him on the back, then drew himself up tall, puffing out his chest like some courting bird. "You've been elusive, Mr. Solo. More than you should have been."

"I would have come sooner if I'd known you had a great mission in mind. But you still haven't told me why. Aside from the obvious fact that somewhere among your plants and vegetation areas you lost your balance."

"My reasons are entirely personal." Adams didn't take the baited insult. "Years of degradation that finally led to revelation. I worked for Thrush, you see, never using my full talents. I was a research lackey. Me! I did them great service, but they treated me shabbily. Anyway, in my spare time I devoured books on psychology and philosophy – good and evil."

"And you chose evil," Solo said.

"No!" This time the bait was taken. Adams advanced on Solo, infuriated. His bony hands came out and grabbed Solo by the lapels. His right hand let go and made a nasty fist.

As the fist drew back to slam into his face, Solo shot his own manacled hands up to shield himself, rising slightly from the chair. The movement was defeated by Julius, who arrowed in behind him and pushed him down by the shoulders.

Adams still held him by one lapel, but the fist didn't strike. "I chose good, Solo. Good." Now his left hand too fell away from Solo, and he said in a lower voice, "I know you think I'm crazy, but I'm not. All of this is just one part of a plan. A plan you'll never be allowed to know." His rage was gone as quickly as it had come. "I finished my last work for Thrush a few weeks ago. Bits and pieces. They couldn't operate without me, but they wouldn't tell me what I was really doing, to what purpose my work might be put. They made a terrible mistake. Then they compounded it by laughing at me, setting me a fool's task. But I've gone them one better. My first goal now is to destroy you."

Solo replaced his hands in his lap, wishing Julius wouldn't stand so close behind him. "You have your logic backwards, Adams. If you've chosen to destroy evil, Thrush should be your target."

"Hypocrisy must go down first. Thrush is what it is and pretends to be nothing else. Evil, yes. But in the open. Whereas your killers masquerade as saviors of the world. U.N.C.L.E.! Hypocrites, all of you. How many men have you killed or maimed, Solo?"

Solo didn't even grace that question with an answer. Not that Adams expected it. He was off again in his own reveries.

"A man like me," Adams said, "wasted on bits and pieces. A scientist like me – Abel C. Adams!"

"C?" Solo asked.

"The C stands for Cain. So I am a man of many facets. You can find every sin in my name. I haven't lived up to my second name yet. I've never killed a man."

"Until now," Solo finished for him.

"Not really even now. You are a killer, Mr. Solo, and I would never dispose of a killer with my own hands. A killer's death must be more subtle."

"Death is never subtle, Adams."

Adams smiled, his teeth startlingly white against his reddened skin. "This is beautiful, Solo, and if you listen you'll appreciate it. These men here" – he gestured to his hired assassins – "can never appreciate it. That's the pity. But Thrush will, and you will."

Adams stood tall again, as though pronouncing some great truth. "In order to have justice done, you must be the agent of your own destruction. It requires a Solo to kill a Solo."

Solo blinked slowly, absorbing the statement and drawing a blank. He rubbed his hands, dispersing the perspiration that appeared every time Adams approached with his madness. "You're not asking me to hold my breath, I hope, because I won't do it."

Again Adams didn't pay attention. But Solo was gaining time. He hoped it was time for his rescue and not just more time to be kept in suspense.

Adams was lecturing. "A mad killer animal can be disposed of in only one way that will provide justice. A trap! You know how that works, Mr. Solo. Trapped, the killer chews off its own leg in a frenzy to be free, and in so doing it kills itself by bleeding to death. That is justice. Blood for blood. And that you will do."

Solo raised his hands and pulled at the manacles in the slim hope that they might be loose. They weren't. "I'm afraid I don't have the teeth for it," he said, covering his movements.

"But I have! And quit wiggling about. You won't get away from me." He became a sudden flurry of command. "Robard! Fasten his hands as I showed you. Louie! Get the black cloth."

As Julius reached under Solo's arms and dragged him to his feet, Solo consciously stiffened his maddeningly jellied legs. This was it. It was coming at him fast and he didn't know what it was. Tiny rivulets of sweat drenched his back as a wave of heat headed out of his stomach to spread up and down his muscles. He drew in a deep breath. Oxygen. Strength, he hoped.

Robard came at him with a rope, then stepped be hind him. Julius came around in front and, grabbing Solo just above the wrists, held his hands at waist level to allow Robard to do whatever it was he planned to do. The rope was put through behind Solo's elbows and pulled taut, holding his elbows together nastily from behind. Yet they weren't bent backward. They rested evenly at his waist. He couldn't even guess the strategy behind it.

A hand came over his head and the rope dropped around his neck in a loop. Robard pulled on it and Solo's head jerked back as the hemp cut into the skin of his throat. He felt a knot being made on the rope between his elbows. Then Robard was through. Julius released him.

"Ingenious, isn't it?" Adams asked. "That elaborate tie will give you a limited use of your hands. You can hold them out in front of you and use your fingers to feel so you will have a chance. But you can't lift your arms high enough, or lower your head enough to rip this off." He hushed and brought out a strip of black cloth, narrow and thick. He waved it about like a banner. "The blindfold! The most essential part of my trap."

With the cloth dangling before his eyes, Solo raised his hands in a test of Adams' rope. The loop about his throat tightened and he coughed, immediately raising his head and lowering his hands to get his breath. Adams was right. He was helpless. There was no way he could ever get the blindfold off once it was in place.

"Well done," Solo admitted when the coughing spasm allowed him to talk.

"Don't lay it to the cleverness of insanity, Mr. Solo," Adams said. "I'm not insane. Now for the rest. You'll find the next rooms of the house are a giant booby trap – all simple, ordinary things, but lethal. Your goal is simple. The front door. If you can get out, you'll have your life. I don't think you can get out. And don't try the back door. You saw the pit there."

Solo sighed a shaky sigh. "Your mission in life is to kill killers, but you want to play with me a little first. The only trouble with your reasoning is, I'm not going to move." Solo's voice vented his anger and he let it come. He needed any emotion he could muster that would help him dispel the helpless fear that hovered in him. "If you're going to kill me, then kill me. I won't perform for you."

"Outguessed again." Adams smiled, close to his face. Solo couldn't even turn away because of the rope about his neck. "You will move. A man like you will never watch his life ebbing away without attempting to save it. You see, we're leaving you here alone. You're free to escape if you can. If you prefer to stand in one spot until you fall from exhaustion and die of thirst, that's your decision. I'm betting you'll move."

The knuckly hands straightened out the blindfold, narrow and black, then darted forward and clamped it over Solo's eyes. The kitchen went black for him. Totally black. Now he was both eyeless and armless – a third of a man.

Adams tied a tight knot at the back of Solo's head, and chuckled. "Tell me if you can see."

"Are you kidding?" Solo spat.

"It doesn't matter. I've tested this particular piece of cloth in the bright sun and I know it's foolproof."

Julius' deep hollow voice filled the kitchen. "You want me to spin him around, Professor?"

"This isn't a child's game, Julius. Forgive him, Mr. Solo. He simply hasn't the capacity to understand."

Hands were on Solo's shoulders and he knew they belonged to Adams. He quickly estimated what a solid kick backwards might do, then gave up the idea. They would all leap at him and he'd wind up in worse condition than he was already.

Adams spoke again, his voice confidential. "There's only one point left, Mr. Solo. You will die eventually. Understand that. It's the only possible outcome for you. But the duration of your ordeal is open to discussion. You are Chief Enforcement Agent of U.N.C.L.E., are you not?"

Solo said out of his enforced blindness, "Didn't Mada tell you?"

"She told me. I want to make you an offer. As Chief Enforcement Agent, you must know all of the U.N.C.L.E. agents. And more important, you know their personal habits. Tell me what you know. Give me names, descriptions, and ideas of where they're likely to be found when they're off duty."

"In exchange for what?" Solo asked.

"A quick death."

Solo didn't waver for a second. He didn't know what was facing him, but he wasn't about to betray his friends, to set them up for ambush at restaurants, nightclubs, or their homes. This was the crux of Adams' plan. Names and places. "Uh-uh," Solo said.

"I must have those names!" Adams shouted close to his ear. "I have declared war on U.N.C.L.E. I'm going to prove that I, alone, can do what Thrush hasn't been able to do. Dundee may smirk at me now, but wait until he sees how I have destroyed U.N.C.L.E. single-handed."

Solo laughed a short, quick chuckle, clutching at the name, Dundee. So, it was all of one piece. And with Adams involved, the "chemical – plant" that had baffled them must mean vegetation.

"Don't laugh," Adams shouted again. "My war is going well. I've won the first battle."

Solo felt the rope about his throat, about his elbows, and the manacles on his wrists. "So you have."

"And you, Mr. Solo, are going to die. I want your death and I want those names. I say you can't endure what I have planned. No man can because I've plotted it both physically and psychologically. You'll give me the names before you die. I'll be back to check on you and you'll talk. Or – you'll be too insane to make sense. This I can promise."

"You've already had my answer. Let's get on with it."

Adams again placed his hands on Solo's shoulders and turned him about with a grunt of disgust, aiming him, then holding him steady. Solo heard the door that had remained closed being opened. "Mr. Solo," Adams said, "the door into the main part of the house is directly in front of you. Through it you'll find a large dining room and a larger parlor. The front door is to the right at the end of the parlor. Life is that way. Try for it."

The hands left Solo's shoulders and he fought to balance himself in the dark. As his body signaled it was standing straight, he heard the clumping of feet leaving him, picking out Julius' oversized thump easily. Adams' voice came from in front of him, a few feet away. "Walk a straight line, Mr. Solo, and don't get turned about. Household accidents are wicked things. They can actually kill a man. Goodbye."

The feet moved again and there was a strange shuffling sound as though they were edging sideways through the door. They retreated further, another door opened, feet moved, and the other door closed. Everything was deathly quiet.

Solo stood still, wanting even the sound of his breathing to stop so he might hear the noises of the house. But his breathing came deep and harsh, the breathing of fear. There wasn't anything to hear anyway. He was alone inside an unknown booby-trap, tied and blindfolded.

He thought for quick dark moments of trying the back door in spite of the pit, but knew instinctively that Adams would have locked it against that chance. Then his mind played fleetingly with the idea of simply waiting until Adams tired of the game and tried some thing else. That wouldn't do, either. He had to get the information back to Mr. Waverly that his hope had been answered and it was a lunatic with an assassination scheme and not a new Thrush policy. He had to get that information out before the conscientious old man curtailed part of U.N.C.L.E.'s operations in the face of a Thrush plot that didn't exist.

He forced his numb legs to move forward, feeling with his right toe. There was nothing in the way. But he was hesitant to take a step in the black dark. He took it. Nothing happened. He brought his left foot forward carefully and took another step. Still nothing happened. He moved a little more boldly, estimating the distance to the dining room door. He thought he must be there.

A slight difference in the silent pressure on his ears told him he was. He swung his right foot and found solid wood. Bringing it back to the left, he found empty space. It was the door, then. He was ready to tackle it.

His groping fingers touched wood. He was headed into the door jamb on the right. He pressed ahead, felt the wood with his fingers – and then felt something else. A sharpness met his hands. He felt along it carefully, recognizing it. A knife. It was solidly fastened to the right door jamb. He smiled to himself in the dark. One obstacle met and conquered. He stepped into the door way, moving to the left to avoid the knife, centered himself – and was attacked from the left.

A startled cry escaped from him as the knife blade attached at the left sank its razor edge through his coat, his shirt, and two inches into his left arm. He was caught on the damned thing. He had to get off. If he went to the right, the other knife would stab him.

Painfully angling his body, he avoided the first knife, feeling it slide harmlessly along his right sleeve. Then he jerked straight away from the one in his left arm and came loose from it. Warm moisture followed in the wake of the steel, but he knew it wasn't too bad. He hoped it wasn't too bad. If it had hit an artery, the whole ordeal would soon be over, so there was no sense in worrying about it.

He halted to gather his courage and his strength. What else was facing him in the blackness, he didn't know, and wasn't in any hurry to discover.

Chapter 7

"A Do-It-Yourself Murder Scene"

ILLYA KURYAKIN stood at the far side of the round table, Mr. Waverly beside him, and stared across at the cowering figure of Mada Adams. She stayed glued to her chair, shaking, her face cascaded by trails of tears. Illya felt no compassion for her. His own arm was in a sling, the pain annulled by local anesthetic, the bullet wound closed. But Napoleon was out in the dark somewhere, partly because of this woman. She had to be forced to tell them where. They had already spent forty-five minutes on her interrogation and they had gotten nowhere.

Mada looked at Illya, a new tear following the others down her cheek. "You're frightening me! I know what you do up here. Don't you dare touch me!"

Illya made his voice low and cold. "If you know what we do up here, then tell us what we have to know before we start on you."

He caught Mr. Waverly's frown. The older man didn't like such threats; he never allowed them to pass. But this time even he kept silent.

"I can't tell you!" Mada cried. "I can't inform on my own uncle. Not after all he's done for me." Her head bobbed back and forth from Illya to Waverly, frantically searching for some sign of tenderness. "He never told me anything, anyway. He suggested that I take a job here, yes. He also told me not to mention his name on my application."

"And when the security investigation was made on you, he was conveniently out of town, I understand," Waverly said.

"That's right. There was nothing to link us together. He's just a distant relative, not a real uncle at all. We seldom saw each other. It was mostly phone calls and letters – and a lawyer handled all the money he gave me for my education."

"Don't play the innocent," Illya badgered her, keeping her going, keeping the tears streaming. "You knew he worked for Thrush. You passed him information."

"Only little pieces. And not for Thrush., either. I didn't see what it would hurt. An address – a routine assignment – the grapevine knew all those things. They weren't classified."

"But you go along with his plan to murder Napoleon!"

"Stop saying that, Illya! There's no murder involved. You wouldn't even have me up here, abusing me, if I hadn't made that one slip. I only mentioned my Uncle Abel once, but you remembered it. You have a nasty, clutching mind."

Mr. Waverly stepped in since she had rallied enough to put Illya on the defensive and take the offensive for herself. Illya watched his Chief's tactics carefully. The old fox was switching from browbeating to a gentle appeal to her conscience, trying to bring her back to the emotional state, to break her down. "Tell me, Miss Adams, what did Mr. Solo do to make you hate him so much?"

"I don't hate him," she countered. "In fact... he wasn't at all what Uncle Abel said he would be. But my uncle wouldn't harm anyone. I know that!"

She was back on the defensive, but Illya chafed under the slow passage of time. Right now he almost wished he wasn't an U.N.C.L.E. agent, that he could hit her, could force the confession out of her. He tried the only thing he could do. Still pretending some terrible threat, he said, "One warning, Mada. You haven't time to weigh pros and cons here. You have just enough time to talk. Do it! Because if your Uncle Abel wouldn't harm any one, then what was that red stuff I dripped all over the street getting back here? What is this sling I'm wearing?"

She was terrified, but still too stubborn to speak. She gasped, "Now are you going to hit me?"

Illya swung from her in total disgust. He said to Mr. Waverly, "She's abnormally afraid of everyone in Section Two, sir. Her uncle brainwashed her."

Waverly stepped away from the table, motioning his agent to follow. Waverly spoke in a whisper. "I think she's just about ready to speak in spite of herself. What do you say?"

"From the symptoms, yes, sir. Do we have time to push her over the line?"

Waverly made the decision with a quick shake of his head. "No. It may take another half hour. Yet I can't use drugs on the chance we need her to lead us to Mr. Solo. We'll have to try a bluff." Without explanation, he faced Mada again and said loudly, "All right, Mr. Kuryakin, get the hypodermic. And make it a goodly-sized dose. We can't worry about side effects now."

Mada clutched the arms of her chair. "Hypodermic? What -"

Illya headed for the door with long strides, waiting for her call to halt. Before her call came, and before he reached the door, it whooshed open on its own and a frantic figure ran into the room. Lainy Michaels. She pushed by Illya, almost knocking him down.

Lainy took a stance halfway to the table, panting from exertion. "I heard you'd found someone who knows where Napoleon is. Is this the one?"

Mr. Waverly was taken off guard. All he could muster was, "Miss Michaels – if you please! You have no business here."

Mada stared hard at Lainy, her own mouth set. Mada said, "No, you mustn't stay around to see the torture."

Lainy's body lost some of its stiffness. "Torture? Don't be ridiculous. These men would never – you wouldn't, would you?" She swung to Illya. "Would you?"

Illya only said, "You d better leave."

Lainy didn't move. Instead, she zeroed in on Mada. "If she knows where Napoleon is and won't tell, then I'll pull out her fingernails, myself!" She broke from her spot in the middle of the room and ran to Mada, grabbing the other woman by the shoulders. "Do you know? Do – you – know?"

Illya covered the distance quickly and with his one good arm clutched at Lainy. "Please. This is none of your affair."

Mr. Waverly watched the action with an intent stare, letting it play out to its own end.

Lainy slapped Illya's hand aside and still grasping Math's shoulders, started to shake her. Mada s head jerked back and forth, her neck limp. "Now, tell!" Lainy shouted into her face. "Tell! Maybe they won't touch you, but I will! Where is Napoleon?"

Mada fought, but couldn't rally the strength to push her away. "Leave me alone! No one is going to hurt Napoleon. You all think in terms of killing so you believe everyone is a killer."

Lainy let Math go, bending over her, her breath pulsing onto Math's face. "But they are going to hurt him! Don't you understand that? They're going to kill him! I saw them attempt it once. With my own eyes."

Mada became suddenly still, unbelieving. "You saw? And you don't work for U.N.C.L.E.?" She was vacillating, tying to make the decision.

Lainy stayed close, face to face, and there were tears on Lainy's cheeks, too. "Please! Whoever you are – please!"

Mada made up her mind. It seemed to Illya that he could almost see the decision form. "All right," she said. "Get away from me. I'll tell everything I know. But get away!"

This time, when Illya touched Lainy's arm, she stepped away from her astonished victim. "Hurry, Mada," Illya said.

"If my Uncle Abel isn't at his apartment, then he has to be at the old farmhouse he leased a few weeks ago. It's out in the country on a deserted side road. I saw it once. He said we could settle there if things worked out, and make it nice, and live there. But –" She clapped her hands to her head as though trying to clear it. "I don't know if I can explain how to get there! I'm not good at maps and things."

Waverly's voice entered calmly. "Can you point the way?"

Math sighed and nodded yes, resigned to the ultimate betrayal.

Waverly was all tense action beneath his tweed suit. "Mr. Kuryakin, order an assault team. Meet us in the garage as soon as you can."

Illya, new blood rushing through him, took off the sling and flung it on the table. "We're already there, Mr. Waverly," he said and sprinted for the door.