Текст книги "The Corfu Affair"

Автор книги: John T. Phillifent

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Watching her, it took him a moment or two to convince himself that he was not dreaming, that he had not slipped back three thousand years of time. She had caught back her black hair with a white band of silk. Her only clothing was a similar white silk, a simple garment that started from a silver brooch at her right shoulder and hung straight as far as mid-thigh, all in one piece, with just a hole for her arm, on the right side. On the left it swooped away from her shoulder to her left hip, leaving her left shoulder and breast uncovered, and from hip to hem it was loosely laced with a cord that ended in a fringe-tassel. The whole was genuine Ancient Greek, not the modernized compromise, and like the ancients, it was all she wore. Then his eye caught and fixed on the one jarring note, the metal bangle and strange attachments that hung from her right wrist.

"Now!" she said, in the tone of a queen addressing a cabinet. "You will have heard rumors, stories, hints. On the strength of those you are here, believing or not. Now you will hear, and see, the truth. You have heard me talk about health and beauty. You have seen my statues. You think I am, perhaps, something of a fanatic. Perhaps I am, you shall see. But I ask you to think of this. The glorious Greeks said MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO. We say that a healthy body and a healthy mind go together. Perhaps it is true. But what is a healthy body, a healthy mind? How do you define these? Years ago I decided to take a position that no one can argue. A perfect body, this can be defined. A perfect body is a body without flaw, yes? And—a perfect mind is a mind without thought!"

If she was looking for a reaction from him, Solo thought, she was disappointed. The Thrush quartet was silent for several seconds. Then Vassi stirred.

"I do not understand. A mind without thought is what? Blank?"

"Exactly. We spoil white paper when we write on it, but alas, we must write. Children write on slates, and then wipe them clean afterwards. If we could do this with a mind, it would remain perfect, you agree?"

"And useless," Morales grunted. "Get to your point, Madame."

"I will. I will show it to you as it came to me. I am a cosmetic surgeon. I spend long hours repairing the deficiencies in people. I know they will go and do the same foolish things again. I despair, sometimes, of humanity. But an idea comes. A question. Why do bodies grow to be imperfect? What is wrong?"

Klasser snorted. "This is obvious, Baroness. We must live as the circumstances allow, and this is not a perfect world."

"Quite so." She gave him a white-toothed smile. "So I decided to try and grow a life in perfect circumstances. Without flaw. Adam!" She lifted a finger and the impassive hercules strode forward to stand by her side. She paused for effect, then said, simply, "Here is my first success. My perfect man. I made him."

Solo stiffened as the idea spread in his mind. Cabari exhaled slowly and said, "You had a good subject for your repair work, Madame."

"Not repair," she corrected. "Do not try to evade what is obvious. I made this man. I grew him, from an original cell-section. Here, in my laboratory. My first one. It was not easy, the first time, but I have learned much since then. A perfect human and a perfectly empty mind!"

"But– Klasser was spluttering to get his words out, "—this is not to be believed! This man moves and acts in an intelligent manner. If without thought he would be a cabbage!"

"So he is, without my thought. Look!" She raised her wrist and let the glittering attachments swing for a moment in the light, then chose one with a red identification spot on it. "This is a miniature transmit-receive device. It is one of a pair. The other? Adam, bow your head!" The man lowered his head forward slowly and she put her fingers into the thick black hair, ruffling, before drawing one fingerful aside. They could all see a small round patch of bare skin less than half an inch in diameter. "It is in there. I will show you. Adam, sit down."

Solo watched in chill horror as the herculean body settled into a chair. The Countess did something to the thing on her wristband and the statuesque shape sagged and became limp and lifeless.

"Now he is without thought," she said, very softly. "Now you shall see." It was grotesque, stomach turning, to watch her lean fingers probe, and then produce from the top of that immobile head a tiny tube of glittering metal. She held it for them all to see.

"Not to bore you with technicalities," she said, "it is enough to know that this is inserted in contact with the pineal organ. From there it controls the brain from the inside. I discovered this almost by accident. I had grown my perfect form, but it was blank and without mind. How to teach it, to train it in the way I wanted? Like a child, first with words and then on to subtleties? I thought not. That way is to establish exactly the very thing I did not want, patterns and habits like ordinary people's. But if I could reach the brain from the inside—ah! ...And I did. Gentlemen, I will not bore you with all my struggles, my mistakes. Let it stand like this. Adam is now asleep, passive, unconscious—call it what you like. If I replace this command switch, so," she did it deftly and stepped away, "he is unchanged but within my power. I can reach him with this." And she took the bangle-unit in her fingers. "I have trained him to obey certain very simple instructions, enough to make him useful to me. He is, you might say, programmed. By me. Strong, swift, unquestioning and utterly faithful." She touched her switch and the impassive giant sat up and moved away to stand by the wall at her command. Vassi started a strangled comment.

"A moment!" The Countess stopped him imperiously. "No more bush beating. My offer is just this. How would you like such a servant? Think, my friends. To have one person utterly bound to you, absolutely reliable, tot faithful, unquestioning, to be trained in whatever way you choose, to obey you whatever you say. Think now!"

Solo let out a very ragged breath and his hand shook as he drained the last of the wine in his glass. The technicalities were as far beyond him as they were beyond the Thrush quartet, but the facts were undeniable. And the potentials immense. A robot. An android robot. The perfect slave.

"I cannot contradict, Baroness." Klasser was having trouble with his voice. "I must believe that you have achieved this. But I have one question. You say you grow these perfect ones, in your tanks, and that itself is hard to believe. But—I accept it. Still, do you expect us to wait for what?—twenty-five years?—for these creatures to be grown?"

"You are a man of science, Herr Doktor. It is a pleasure to know that your mind is working. But wrongly, in this case. With my techniques for artificial nurture, you see, it is possible to accelerate the process. I could grow you a servant, a slave, to your own order—within six weeks! But I can do better, much better. You have not heard the half, yet. I said that Adam was my first. I have others. Regard now!"

She moved away to another wall, touched a switch that set a concealed light glowing, and Solo leaned forward, struggling at his bonds, as he saw what was on display. In a long niche in the wall stood a row of statues, very like those he had seen in the entrance-hall, but immediately different in that they were flesh-colored. They looked real, like people sleeping. Ten of them, all female, all breathtakingly perfect, superbly beautiful, they stood—then he looked again and saw that they leaned back slightly, all of them, against black velvet supports.

"Female!" Morales said, deep in his throat, swinging his gaze to the Countess. "Why? Why not male, like that one?"

"If you insist, senor, I can grow you a man, certainly. But think. Think how precious a perfect slave will be. Completely trustworthy, reliable, utterly obedient—and so decorative! Someone to wait in patience on your every whim, to look after you. And think, also, that a woman can go where a man cannot, and is unlikely to be suspect. And you may train her just as you wish her to be. Think. In a moment you shall make your choice. If you do not wish one of these, who are guaranteed against defect, then we can come to some other arrangement perhaps. But now I wish to tell you of the most important thing of all. Come and be seated again, and listen."

When she had them seated once more she said: "You saw the unit that I plant in the brain. It matches one other, here. These units are provided for me by the United States Military scientists, although unwillingly. Perfectly matched pairs, powered by body heat, but one is stronger than the other, is in fact master. I have the masters here, in each case." She shook her bangle. "Now, you can control and order your slave by training her to respond to your voice, your words. This works, but it is clumsy. Think, if you—" and she pointed her finger at Klasser, "—for example, had a master unit in your head, contacting the pineal, you would be in full control of your slave at all times, by thought. You could see through her eyes, hear through her ears, speak through her voice, command her mind, at all times."

Klasser stiffened, squirmed back in his chair. "You shall not drill a hole in my head! It is out of the question!"

"I expected you to be concerned, Herr Doktor. But, as you shall see, it is a simple and painless operation, taking no more than twenty minutes or so. I will do it now, for you to see, on M. Solo!"

He had seen this coming. He strained helplessly at his bonds as she moved round the table to come near him. From somewhere she had taken up a slim case, from which the now took a hypodermic, which she held expertly.

"You shall see. I will insert one unit into M. Solo's brain. From that moment he will appear to be normal, but will be my slave. It is my regret, of necessity, that I cannot perform this operation on myself, but I will be able to control him quite well. And use him. I have done it before. And then, gentlemen, you will be convinced!"

CHAPTER SIX

THE taxi fled down the Rue Hebert as if trying to qualify for the Monte Carlo rally. In the back, Illya Nikovetch Kuryakin ignored the speed. He had ridden in Paris taxi cabs before. He had done many odd, uncomfortable and dangerous things before, but never had he felt about them as he did about this one. For some inexplicable reason a sense of doom had perched on his shoulder all through the operation, ever since he had parted from Napoleon Solo.

Not that he'd had much time for brooding. One week had been spent in saturating himself in technical information, then the next two weeks had kept him inside the Soviet Union. There he had been passing himself off as Maurice Krasnin, a French-born Slav, a biomedical technician with one foot almost outside the law. Three days in Moscow had been enough to create the necessary background, the rest of the time he had spent in Tashkent, as the undercover center of the Soviet shadow world of plastic surgery and crooked science. His life had been a fiction, but he had to smile, thinly, now as he realized how easily it could have been true. There was a vast untapped potential in his mother country for men who could mould and manipulate the external appearances, legally and otherwise. His pretended purpose had been to forge a link between centers in Tashkent and the notorious possibilities inherent in the Paris center of St. Denis. It would have been terribly easy to really do just that.

So on the surface the project had been easy, but there were undercurrents that he had not cared for, signs that meant, to his eye, a breaking down of the values that had kept the Soviet Union going along a hard path. The subtle demoralization of affluence was having its effect here just as it was everywhere else. While he no longer had any loyalties to the Soviet, he did have boyhood memories and a degree of fellow feeling for the Russians, and the prospect had chilled him.

Adding to his gloom was the need to create an appearance. By habit he could be comfortable with a degree of untidiness, but that was not enough. People had certain fixed mental images about Russians, and he had to do his best to live up to them. Furthermore, this was no case for any painted-on disguise. A man who intends to move among highly skilled cosmetic surgeons needs more than greasepaint and facial putty to create an impression. For three weeks he had not shaved, and was now sporting a yellow wisp of beard disreputable enough to satisfy the wildest imagination. In the same period he had washed his hair regularly with a hard soap, deliberately neglecting to rinse it properly. As a consequence his hair was straw-yellow, dull and spiky. He wore a dark chunky sweater, a coarse-weave jacket with a touch of fur at the lapel, hairy pants and high boots. The overall effect was convincing, but highly uncomfortable to one of his temperament. He preferred to be inconspicuous.

The taxi slowed, halted, and he scrambled out, dismissing his inner preoccupations and tensing himself to match wits with the people in charge, here at St. Denis Surgery-Cosmetique. From the outside, no one would have taken the dingy old building for a medical house of any kind, but once inside the funereal doors and into the lobby all was hygienic chrome and glass, plus efficiency. A lady receptionist advanced to take his card. She managed, without effort, to make her plain black dress look chic, as only a Parisienne can. After a glance she nodded, moved away, gesturing him to follow.

"Venez avec moi, monsieur. I will discover if M. Lafarge is free to receive you. One moment."

She went before him to a desk, touched an intercom button and spoke in a rapid undertone. Beyond the wall, in his luxurious paneled office, Managing-Director Louis Lafarge hushed his very important guest with an apologetic palm and attended to the call. Nodding, he made a quick decision, then turned again to his guest.

"A thousand pardons, monsieur, but you will realize that business is business. If you will please retreat into the next room I will dispose of this matter very quickly and then we can talk more." The covering door had barely closed when a discreet tap at the outer door announced the receptionist.

She entered one pace, stood aside, and announced, "Mr. Boris Krasnin, from Tashkent, M. Lafarge."

"Bonjour, monsieur!" Kuryakin inclined his head, managed to convey the impression of a heel click without actually doing it, and advanced over the carpet. "I believe you are expecting me?"

"Of course!" Lafarge beamed and made gestures, but his alert attention missed nothing of his visitor's appearance, or his faultless accent. "I have your dossier right here. Yvette! You will request Gerda to come to me, at once, please! Now, M. Krasnin. A seat? You would care for a cigarette, no? An aperitif, then? It is good!" He produced a bottle and poured busily while making conversation. "You will pardon if I seem naive, but it is a strange thing to me that your people should be interested in our kind of work. After all, the Soviet Union has a great name for medicine and surgery, and the many inventions of all kinds. Yet you wish to do business with us?"

"It is not so strange. Tashkent may be just a name to you, monsieur, but think. That area is now Uzbekistan, a preferred name in the new regime, but it was once Bokhara, famous for arts, beauty, the bourgeois things. The spirit is still there, but driven underground. It is not healthy, nowadays, to want to be beautiful, or different. Yet people want it, and where there is a demand, there will be a supply."

"Quite so!" Lafarge nodded agreement. "That is one rule which does not change." He looked up as a tap on the door heralded an interruption. With a scowl he called out, "Entrez!"

The door opened to admit a lean, dark-haired woman whose face was set in a severe and suspicious expression. With no more than a glance at Lafarge, she advanced to where Kuryakin sat, brought her left hand from behind her back to thrust it in front of him, fist clenched.

"Kak eto nazivayetsya po rooski?" she demanded, and opened her hand to reveal a small gilt and red enameled tube.

"Pomada dlya goob," he sneered. "Are you trying to trick me, madam? Or you, monsieur?" He turned to spear Lafarge with an icy blue gaze. "This was so obviously prepared, to have this stupid woman brought here, and for her to ask me to give the Russian name for a lipstick. What are you trying to prove?"

Lafarge spread his hands and shoulders in an eloquent shrug. "It was no more than a precaution, M. Krasnin. I have to be sure. Identities and names are so easy to fake. The name Krasnin means nothing to me."

"Names seldom mean anything to anyone. In England, once, I knew a girl called Cecilia Duff, if you can believe that. It was her real name. So what have you proved?"

"Enough." Lafarge was humble. "You must realize that in this business one has to be careful. There are secret formulae and techniques. And spies. And you do not look like a surgeon, or a technician."

"What do I look like, a Cossack?" Kuryakin did not say Cossack, but used an idiomatic equivalent that had such shocking associations that Gerda, who knew it, sucked in her breath in outrage. He swung his sword-like stare on her again.

"Does that shock you, polyak?"

Gerda cringed. In addition to her outrage, to be called Polish was too much, especially as she was and had worked hard to conceal the fact.

"I am not a Pole!" she denied shrilly.

"Then you must learn not to neigh like one. Have you any more little tricks to perform?"

She glared at him, compressed her thin lips, ducked her head at Lafarge, then scuttled out, shutting the door after her. The managing-director of St. Denis Surgery-Cosmetique made haste to repair the damage in relations.

"Please banish the whole unfortunate incident from your mind, my dear M. Krasnin. It was terribly gauche. I apologize. Now, which particular field of cosmetic surgery are you interested in?"

They talked generalities for a time, but Kuryakin was still on his guard. Lafarge was no fool. It was instructive to see how his expression tightened at the mention of skull and head surgery.

"I cannot speak on that section, M. Krasnin. Madame la Comtesse is the expert on that. No doubt you will have the opportunity to speak to her in person sometime soon. Now, perhaps you would like to see round the laboratories and surgeries? Good!" He touched an intercom and spoke briefly, then rose. "Yvette will show you the way. Our chief surgeon awaits you. I think you will be impressed, M. Krasnin."

With the visitor departed, Lafarge settled back in his seat to think. Illegal surgery is not the most active market in the world. A pipeline from Russia could easily bring in a flow of patients. Profits. Madame la Comtesse would be pleased! M. Lafarge was beginning to smile to himself as his banished guest came from the far room and stood staring down at him.

"You know who that character was you just entertained?"

"Of course. M. Boris Krasnin, of Tashkent—" Lafarge let the words die into uneasy silence at his very important visitor's headshake. "No?"

"Definitely not, my friend. That repulsive and scruffy character was none other than Illya Kuryakin. An U.N.C.L.E. agent. One of their best."

"You are sure of this?"

"Absolutely positive."

Lafarge seemed to shrink. "An U.N.C.L.E. agent, here? What could he want? What can they suspect? There will be a raid!"

"Take it easy, now, Louis. He's on his own, a loner. I know his ways very well. When you're working a charade like that you have to do it alone, to cut down the chances of a slipup. As for what he's after, that doesn't matter much, not now."

"But it does! It matters a great deal!" Lafarge grew excited. "We do not want trouble, not that kind. We avoid publicity, always. He must be stopped. Eliminated!" A he reached for his intercom once more.

"Hold it right there! You say you don't want publicity, and I can understand that, but if you send some of your boys to tangle with him you'll get publicity that will turn your hair white overnight. He doesn't stop easy. I know him that well. He is very good—or very bad—depending on your point of view."

"Then what shall I do? I do not want U.N.C.L.E. agents here!"

"Don't worry about a thing. You have the address of his hotel? All right, just treat him nice and let him go back there. I'll take charge from that point. You just leave it all to me. I can handle him!" And Napoleon Solo grinned evilly down at Lafarge. "Oh yes." he said confidently, "I know his ways. I can handle him!"

It was late that same afternoon as Illya Kuryakin shut the door of his hotel room after him and leaned on it wearily. He was thankful to be able to relax for the first time in many hours. His encounter with chief surgeons and technicians had gone very well but it had been a strain, and he was not looking forward to maintaining the pretence very much longer. He would have to find what he was looking for quickly. Just now, though, all he wanted was a rest. He glanced round the large barn-like room he had acquired, and liked it. As in so many of the old, large, expensive Paris hotels, this very top suite, called the chambre de courier, was an awkward and misshapen afterthought, but it had a certain charm, and a truly magnificent view.

He crossed to the window to study the far-stretching roofscape. Rising out of it like some fantastic island stood the gilt-wreathed dome of the Invalides. Up here, high above the luxury level, one felt like a beggar at the gates of a great city, in it but not quite of it. The feeling suited him very well. He shrugged off his jacket, moved to the bed, paused a moment to admire its brass-bound massiveness, then heaved up and stretched out on it, kicking off his boots and wriggling deep into the white counterpane. An idle moment like this was a rare treat and he savored this one as far as he could stretch it. Then, sighing, he got out his communicator and flicked it into action with a practiced finger.

"Overseas relay," he requested, and traced the impossible outline of a flower on the wallpaper while he waited for the link.

"Is that you, Mr. Kuryakin?"

"Yes, sir. No snags so far. The managing-director and technical staff of St. Denis seem to have accepted me, after a bit of preliminary suspicion. I've had a general look over their facilities."

"Good beginning. Don't try to rush it."

"Couldn't if I want to. Their facilities are really extensive, and first class. There was a lot I didn't see, and some that called for explanations that I didn't get. They have four highly qualified embryologists on the staff, for one thing."

"Indeed! But you saw nothing to account for the theft of the communication modules?"

"No, sir. They'd be easy to hide, and impossible to detect unless one was in use. Anything new from Napoleon, on the Corfu end?"

"Hmm!" Waverly sounded peevish all at once. "News, you say? I have had reports, of a kind. The last I had was three days ago, from Turin."

"Turin? What on earth was he doing there?"

"I wish I could tell you. All he would say was that he was on the trail of something important but with no time to tell me what. It is most irritating!"

Kuryakin grinned as he shut off his instrument. Waverly was sparing with emotive words. For him to describe a situation as irritating was the equivalent of a string of lurid curses from anyone else. And, to be sure, Napoleon's behavior was curious. He had been staring absently at his little communicator for some seconds before he noted something highly significant about it. Right on the pencil-type tip a tiny neon glowed faintly. Just before leaving U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, Section Three had presented him with this modified communicator. Jeremy Cronshaw, the technician working on the problem, had explained: "If you're anywhere within a half mile of one of those modules, if it's in use, you'll get a glow from the lamp. It's not directional, I'm sorry, but at least it'll tell you if you're warm."

And he was warm now. Unfortunately, half a mile was quite a lot of ground to cover. He lay quite still on the bed, warm in the blood-red glow of the setting sun, and wondered what was the best thing to do; indeed, if there was anything effective he could do. And, in the hushed silence, he heard a faint but unmistakable click from behind a door he had not as yet opened.

The bathroom! He had not bothered to inspect it, because he had tangled with French plumbing before, and it was hardly conducive to comfort. But he did know that there was only the one door. That click—another came as he was thinking—meant someone was in there who had no business to be there. An enemy.

He put away his communicator and drew his pistol, all in the one movement, then waited, eyes riveted on the door.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SITTING quite still and silent, never taking his eyes from the door, Kuryakin nevertheless flogged his agile mind to consider the implications. How, for one thing, had the intruder managed to get in. And then, why? Had he been spotted at St. Denis, or was this possibly just a common burglar? The difference could be crucial. The bathroom, most probably, had a skylight. That would provide ingress for a burglar. And if that was all, then the mere sight of the gun would be sufficient.

But if it wasn't as simple as that, if, for instance, this was a Thrush manifestation, the outlook was totally different. He saw the bathroom knob turn, slowly. Not as a burglar would do it, at all. If Thrush was on the other side, the next move was predictable. Ease the door off the catch. Jerk it suddenly open. Drop and attack from the floor level possibly. Kuryakin kept absolutely still, ready to move rapidly when required.

The knob came to a standstill. The door eased open just a crack. Then, exactly as he had expected, it crashed all the way open from a kick. And nothing. The man out there was flattened alongside the doorjamb, tense and ready, probably hoping for a startled shot. So he knew this was no common burglar, but a highly trained operator.

There came a sudden blur of speed as a man sprang–pounced and landed all square with gun aimed. Kuryakin checked his trigger finger just in the nick of time.

"Napoleon!" he sighed. "That's no way to—" and only razor sharp instinct impelled him to forget the words he had in mind, to jerk himself to one side in frantic haste. He catapulted from the bed to the floor as the gun in Solo's hand bucked and roared, shattering the silence of the room.

He hit the carpet, rolled, got to a knee then hurled himself crazily under the bed to avoid another crashing shot. This time, as he went headlong, he was fractionally slow and the white-fire agony of impact shocked his leg. It needed that anguish to wipe out the last traces of doubt from his mind. If there were mysteries here, one thing was plain. Solo was intent on murder, and nothing less.

Kuryakin reversed his tracks, squirming like an eel, bobbed up by the side of the bed and snapped off a shot as Solo swung round. Part of his attention noted the acute difference in sound between his gun and the shots from Solo, even as he saw that his own snap shot had been a lucky one. It had struck Solo's gun and jarred it out of his grip. Now it fell, clattered on the wood floor beyond the carpet and skidded away into a far corner. It left the way for Kuryakin to stalk round the bed angrily.

"Hold it right there!" he ordered, limping painfully, but with the gun steady in his hand. "Just one minute. What—?"

He never got to finish his question. Solo snapped out of his momentary stillness into a vicious kick and back fall. The kick smashed Kuryakin's grip, sent his weapon flying. The back fall dropped Solo only just long enough for him to strike the floor, roll, and dive for his own gun. The Russian swayed back, wincing at the weight on his injured leg, then launched himself headlong on top of Solo. All his weight came down hard, and he grasped at once for a bone-breaking arm lock, but his efficiency was impaired by a sense of unreality. It was hard to believe, to accept, that this snarling hard-eyed fury who now snaked out of the arm lock and flung a vicious groin kick at him was really Napoleon Solo. And, more to the immediate point, if this was Solo, he knew all the tricks and how to use them.

For some frantic seconds they rolled and snarled over each other like a pair of animals too evenly matched to have any advantage over each other. Then one squirming roll brought Solo's head up against the leg of the brass-bound bedstead, and Kuryakin seized the head by the ears and pounded hard. Solo wrenched strongly, kicked out, his shoe striking Kuryakin where the bullet had plunged into his leg, wincing the Russian into momentary agony and the chance to break free. He was away at once, diving into the corner after his gun. Again Kuryakin plunged after him, got a grip on one wrist and hung on desperately. He knew he was failing. This was a killing pace, and he was losing blood. Grunting with effort, his gaze began to fog up, magnifying the dusk of the room. He felt Solo rear up powerfully, and all he could do was to hang on for very life.

Then Solo gave a tremendous wrench, tore his wrist free, and the effort sent Kuryakin reeling backwards, to catch the back of his knees on the bed. Too late to stop himself falling, he went with it, flung himself all the way over in a backward roll, over the bed and to the floor on the far side. He landed heavily, gasped for breath, fought his way erect, and as his head cleared the bed level, he saw a blur of movement. He threw himself desperately aside. There was one more shattering roar from Solo's gun. The room filled with a great light, just for a moment, and then there was nothing at all but deep black darkness.

"Monsieur! Monsieur!" A cracked and quavering voice demanded his attention. He screwed his eyes open to peer up at the strained old face of a woman. She was in black, with lace edges to her apron. He remembered her dimly. The concierge. "You are alive, monsieur?"