Текст книги "[Magazine 1966-­10] - The Moby Dick Affair"

Автор книги: Robert Hart Davis

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The lady who had fainted from the fumes of the invisible and relatively harmless nerve gas was carried out of sight. Her cohorts followed. Soon the guard was back on duty at the cul-de-sac's entrance. He glanced around suspiciously. Hardly breathing, Solo and Illya crouched in painfully cramped positions inside the chest.

Ten minutes passed.

Fifteen.

Surreptitiously, the guard got out a cigarette and lit it. Cupping it so that it was hidden in one hand, he walked over to the chest, sat down heavily. Solo's view was cut off as the guard's weight bore down.

After a seemingly endless time the guard got up again. Voices drifted faintly through the chest walls. Finally, when it seemed as though he couldn't stand the ache of his pretzel-like position any longer, Solo noted that the illuminated hands on his watch stood at a few minutes past six.

Somewhere heavy doors clanged shut. A mammoth rattle of iron signaled the shooting of a bolt. Footsteps passed the chest. Solo peered out.

He saw the scar-eared guard reach up and give a tug to the handle of an ancient, rusty battle ax hanging on the wall. There was a whir. The wall at the end of a cul-de-sac swung out, revealing a metal partition. This slid out of the way. The guard stepped into what looked like an elevator. The door closed, but the stone partition remained swung out.

During the next fifteen minutes, booted feet passed the chest often. The guards going off duty all took the elevator. At last, when darkness and silence claimed the castle proper again, Solo risked lifting the chest lid.

Illya followed him out. Solo's knees popped like silenced pistols as he straightened up.

"The stone's back in place," he whispered. "Grab the ax handle, Illya."

The other U.N.C.L.E. agent craned up, gave the handle a tug. There was a grinding whine as the partition once more swung aside. Unfortunately there was no indicator beside the call button to show whether the elevator was in use. Solo thumbed the button.

He heard a whine inside the shaft, a sigh of power as the cage reached their floor. The metal door slid aside—

Revealing a pair of startled THRUSH guards just drawing their guns.

FOUR

ONE OF THE occupants of the elevator was the guard with the scar on his ear. An expression of suspicion satisfied flashed over his thick-featured face. With a flick of his thumb he snapped the setting of his pistol to rapid fire, and began to blaze away point blank.

The two U.N.C.L.E. agents had lunged back out of the way, one to either side of the open doors. The guard's pistol stuttered, tracer rounds penciling white dashes through the gloom. Solo slammed against the wall, righted himself. He ripped the camera loose from around his neck and flung it like a baseball.

The camera whizzed full speed into the forehead of the second guard, who was just aiming. The man yelped, sagged. Off balance, he fell against the elevator control panel. The doors started to shut.

Seeing that his potential victims were unarmed, the scar-eared guard stopped firing. Backs pressed to opposite walls of the cul-de-sac, Solo and Illya looked at each other. Both understood that if the guards retreated into the elevator and got away, alarms would surely be sounded. Solo watched the guard warily.

The man was toying with them. He sidled forward so that he stood with his backbone against one elevator door, his boot braced against the other to keep the doors from shutting.

"I had a feeling there was some thing wrong about you two," the guard said. "I told my section chief you hadn't left the castle. The fool wouldn't believe me."

Crouched against the wall, Solo shrugged. "Obviously we've under estimated THRUSH again."

The guard laughed. "As always. Now, if you will be so kind as to accompany me—"

Solo said to his companion across the narrow corridor, "We'd better do what the man says. Climb over that chest and come on. But be careful."

From the corner of his eye, Solo noted the distance to the weapon he hoped to use. He advanced into the center of the corridor. Illya shrugged as if to agree that the odds were indeed too heavily weighted against them. Illya had been crouching behind the chest in which they'd hidden. The shortest way out was to step up on the chest and down on the other side.

Illya performed the first half of this maneuver, a hangdog expression of defeat on his face. He poised to jump down on the other side. Suddenly his legs flew out from under him in a perfect pratfall that landed him with a thump on his gluteus maximus.

The moment Illya started this distraction routine, Solo moved.

He leaped to the nearest suit of armor on its pedestal, shouted, "One side, Illya," and at the same time got behind the pedestal, which was equipped with castors. A powerful shove, and Solo had the suit of armor rolling full speed at the elevator.

Illya dodged out of the way. The reactions of the guards were slow. Trying to do something useful for a change, the guard Solo had smacked with the camera lurched forward, jostling his companion. Both guards fired simultaneously. Their aims were off because of the accidental collision.

Ducked low, Solo was right behind the suit of armor as it rolled like a juggernaut into the opening of the elevator. The guards were knocked backward. The scar-eared one jammed his arm forward around the suit of armor wedged into the doorway. He was trying to get off a shot. Illya darted in, caught the out-thrust forearm and brought up his knee.

There was a splintery crack of bone. The guard shrieked, dropped his gun.

Solo gave a yank on the upraised mailed fist of the armor suit. Down it squeaked with surprising speed. The iron fingers hammered the top of the second guard's head. The man's jaw flopped open. His trigger finger jerked automatically. A spray of white tracer slugs screamed past Solo, as the agent reached around the armor and gut-punched his adversary with vicious accuracy.

The man staggered.

Solo's next neck-chop flattened the man cold. Solo looked back over his shoulder.

Illya's head appeared under the upraised arm of the suit of armor. Grinning with a humor he obviously didn't feel, Illya knocked his knuckles against the armored chest. It gave off a hollow ring like an empty oil drum being pounded.

"Stout fellow," Illya said. "We should recommend him to Waverly as a recruit."

"Some other time. Help me drag these birds behind that chest. The THRUSH people know we're still inside their gates. We've got to get moving." Quickly he outlined his plan.

The two U.N.C.L.E. operatives dumped the guards, plus their cameras and gadget bags, behind the heavy chest. First, however, Solo took a small, flat plastic box from under his collection of potato chip sacks.

Gingerly he laid the plastic box on the chest corner.

"If we find anything down below, there are enough explosive gelcaps in there to take it out of action," he said.

Illya was busy peeling off the uniform blouse of the scar-eared guard. "And us right along with it?"

Solo said nothing about that disturbing possibility. They were inside the THRUSH headquarters, and how they escaped was secondary.

Quickly Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin finished their job, leaving the dazed guards in their boxer shorts and singlets behind the chest. A quick jab of an ampoule with a self-contained needle into the right bicep of each Thrushman insured their slumber for the next four hours.

Clad in the regalia of members of the Castle Sykedon guard staff, Solo and Illya freed the wedged suit of armor from the elevator and let the doors slide shut.

For a tense quarter of a minute Solo watched the indicator board above the door. The car remained stationary.

"We might make it," he said softly. "No one's hanging on the button to call the car. Now, what floor do we want?"

He turned to the control board. At the top of the board were buttons labeled C-1, C-2 and C-3. An amber bulb glowed next to the C-1 legend, indicating the car's current position.

Illya ran a finger down the board. Below the three levels for the castle, six more floors were indicated by numerals in descending order. There were three more buttons at the board's bottom, marked P-3, 2 and 1. Solo indicated the lowermost button.

"P for submarine pen, do you suppose?" He gave a punch. The car whined and dropped.

Silence, interrupted only by the motorized murmur of the elevator cables. The amber lights glowed in sequence down the board.

Solo took a firmer grip on the gun which he'd lifted from the guard. Illya wiped his upper lip.

"I don't like the feel of this, Napoleon. It's all too easy."

Solo felt his uniform pocket to make certain he'd brought the plastic box of explosive gelcaps. The light for level P-2 went out. The one for P-1 lit. With a gentle whir, the cage stopped and the doors opened.

Illya Kuryakin thumbed the Door Open stud, held it. Both U.N.C.L.E. agents gaped.

High over their heads soared an arched ceiling carved and blasted from the green-shot gray stone of the Cornish cliffs. This roof was braced in strategic places by towering steel beams of a bright rust-red finish. The footings of the steel super-structure were set in thick concrete which stretched away before them, forming a huge T shaped platform.

As they edged out of the elevator, the two U.N.C.L.E. agents were in a position approximately at the center of the crossbar of the T. Ahead, like a pier, the stem of the T stretched out into a huge natural basin filled with quietly lapping dark water. On their left alongside this pier, moored down with a dozen foot-thick lines, rode the most bizarre seacraft they had ever seen.

"I think," Napoleon Solo softly said, "we've discovered the white whale."

The incredible low-slung metal craft was painted a very light shade of gray. Only in barest outline did it resemble a conventional submarine. Its length was three to four times that of an ordinary sub. Its conning tower was little more than a streamlined blister rising about a foot or so above the dorsal surface.

Along the sides of the craft, from bow to stern, rows of large, oval viewports ran just above the waterline. The ports were made of dark green glass or some similar material, opaque and reflecting the shaded lights dangling from the rocky ceiling of the pen.

Catwalks and ladderways crisscrossed above them. Empty. The entire place was lifeless, soundless except for the whispering splash of water against the hull of the monster submarine. Far down past the sub's bow they saw a tall arched opening in the cave wall. The opening was barred by a thick steel grill which rose from the water. Beyond the grill, darkness. Solo was sure the far end of that black channel opened at sea.

He slipped the plastic box from his pocket. "Care to try a little harpooning?"

"I can think of more relaxing diversions," Illya replied under his breath. "Napoleon, this is too pat. They surely know we haven't left the castle—"

"I agree. But we've come this far and the odds are bad against getting out, so we should take the sub out of action while we can. Come on."

The agents walked quickly down the stone quay. Their borrowed boots clacked. Solo stuffed the gun in his leather belt, carefully opened the plastic box and removed one of the explosive gelcaps from its bed of special cushioning material. They were now at a point on the quay midway between bow and stern of the sub. Illya pointed at the dorsal blister.

"That hatch doesn't look secure," he said. "Shall we go aboard before we blow her?"

Solo shrugged, juggling the cap delicately in his palm. "With this much fat in the fire, a little more won't hurt."

They jumped across to the hull of the sub.

Illya Kuryakin knelt, slipped his fingers under the hatch, lifted. A moment later he pulled his head back from the hatch interior.

"There's a ladder down into some Sort of control room."

Solo signed for him to go ahead. Illya disappeared. Solo put a leg over, handicapped because he could only use his right hand. In his left he carried the highly sensitive capsule of explosive.

The gloom of the ladderway closed around him. Illya landed below with a light thump. Solo sent his right foot down to the next rung of the ladder. Suddenly he felt his sole skid, heard Illya's warning a fraction late: "Watch out for that third rung. There's a smear of oil or grease on—"

Solo's right foot slid off the rung. He grabbed for a rung above to check his fall. He was jerked up short. The violent pull made the fingers of his left hand open. The explosive capsule popped out into a high arc.

Hanging from the ladder, green with fear, Solo watched the capsule drop.

"Illya, catch it!" he choked out, watching the little football-shaped pill drop end over end, down and down with a kind of horrific slow-motion movement.

Illya jerked his head up, saw the falling capsule, extended his hands. The capsule sailed past his finger tips. Solo braced for the shattering explosion. He heard another thump, looked down.

Illya was lying on his spine, having tumbled himself underneath the capsule once he missed it. He'd shot up his right hand to catch the pellet just in time.

Solo felt his heart slow down from its frantic thudding pace. He dangled from the ladder, got his feet back on solid steel, completed his climb to the deck.

Tall panels of instruments covered the walls of the chamber, which was perhaps twenty feet long and half as wide. A highly futuristic-looking periscope device hung from over their heads. The instruments and dials equipment were baffling, indicating an advanced state of the art.

"Here," Illya said, cheeks slicked with sweat, "you hold the baby." He handed over the gelcap.

Solo jerked a thumb at the forward bulkhead. "Let's explore that way. I'm curious to see the rest of this floating nightmare."

"We shall be very happy to give you a guided tour, Mr. Solo. Welcome aboard."

The sepulchral voice drove fear like needles into Solo's belly. The voice echoed from all around them, issuing from several concealed stereo speakers. Abruptly, tiny lights on the instrument consoles began to flicker.

Underfoot Solo felt a tingling. The air filled with a low, powerful hum. Illya's eyes rounded with recognition:

"I recognize that voice, Napoleon. It belongs to Commander Ahab."

Even as Illya spoke, a section of bulkhead slid aside to reveal a forty-inch television screen on which glowed a picture whose sharp blacks and crisp whites indicated a live pickup. The screen showed a man with a spade beard seated in a sleekly modern chair. The man wore some kind of dark velveteen lounging coat. Behind him was an oval viewport against which water lapped gently.

Commander Victor Ahab looked out from the screen and said cheerfully, "We are delighted to have both you gentlemen aboard our vessel. The craft carries a THRUSH registration number, of course, but I prefer the name Moby Dick. A harmless little conceit. Incidentally, I am speaking to you from my personal command post forward. You will be brought here presently. First, however, I would appreciate it, Mr. Solo—so nice to meet you at long last—if you would hand the explosive device you are carrying to the crew member who is just now coming to take it from you.,,

The aft bulkhead opened with a whirring of motorized latches. A burly THRUSH seaman in a trim black blouse and trousers entered. Overhead, men ran on the deck– plates of the sub. The atmosphere of tension heightened.

Three other seamen followed the first into the compartment. Lights came on behind concealed brackets. The seaman in the lead watched Solo's right hand and kept his distance.

"No bravado, please, Solo," Commander Ahab boomed from the screen. "You could toss the pill and blow us all up, but you would be a member of the party. Escape is impossible. There is a powerful magnet under the deck on which you are standing. Special metal plates are built into the soles of the boots you so rudely stole from one of my men. This clever little device gives us perfect control of our crew. Submarines tend to grow unstable after long undersea voyages. Well, Solo? Why do you hesitate. Run!"

Captain Ahab's voice was thick with derision. Solo slashed his free hand across his brow to clear the sweat from his eyes. He made an effort to move his right leg, then his left.

His boots were locked tight to the floor.

Still he clutched the explosive capsule, hesitating.

"The pseudo-heroics of you U.N.C.L.E. people nauseate me," Ahab said, scowling.

Illya's lips were white. "Still, Commander, we can destroy you if we choose."

Ahab reached off screen. He picked up what appeared to be a canned sardine, tipped his head back and ingested the morsel in a gulp. "Ah, Kuryakin, of course you can. But I do not believe you will. First, there is your natural instinct for self-preservation. Second, and more important, I am sure both you and Mr. Solo are intensely curious as to why we allowed you to penetrate this project base to this point.

"After all, we were reasonably certain as to who you were the moment you passed the Castle entrance booth. We have been monitoring you with concealed audio and video pickups every step of the way. We deliberately cleared the sub pen of personnel so that you would come aboard. Don't you wonder why?"

He made a flashy gesture to emphasize his rhetorical question, went on: "Of course you do! And the only way in which you can both find out is for you, Mr. Solo, to put down that wretched bomb and join me in my quarters."

Solo's fingers were slippery with perspiration. One toss of the explosive cap and that would be it. But Ahab had damnably piqued his curiosity.

Swallowing, hoping blindly that somehow he and Illya would eventually be able to negotiate a way out of this trap, Solo closed thumb and index finger around the gelcap and extended his arm to the nearest seaman.

"You win, Ahab. Your magnets and your psychology are too much."

The seaman slid his palm under Napoleon Solo's hand. Solo opened his fingers. The gelcap dropped. The other THRUSH sailors in the chamber exhaled with relief.

Solo felt the tingling stop beneath his feet. He discovered he could move his legs. Overhead feet pounded again. Men bawled orders.

"Naturally we are superior to you, Mr. Solo," Ahab said, jovial now. "For too many years, THRUSH has operated from a position of weakness. But we were bound to succeed. Our secret—THRUSH's secret, if you will—is simply this." Commander Ahab beetled his brows in a caricature of confidence. "We're only number two, Mr. Solo. We try harder."

Commander Ahab barked a command. Seamen swarmed around the pair of U.N.C.L.E. agents and marched them to the forward bulkhead. They were led through complex instrument control rooms jammed with other THRUSH sailors, who had been lurking quietly aboard while the trap was sprung.

By the time they were ushered into Commander Ahab's personal quarters at the bow of the monster submarine, a rumble of power through the hull told Illya and Solo that their fortunes had just taken another dive.

The Moby Dick was putting out to sea.

ACT Ill

A DROWNING DAY FOR LONDON TOWN

COMMANDER VICTOR Ahab poised the ladle over the gleaming solid silver tureen.

"More lobster Newburg, Mr. Solo?"

Napoleon Solo suppressed a shudder. He was seated opposite Commander Ahab at a good-sized dining table in the latter's quarters. To his right, Illya slouched in a chair, most of his food left untasted.

Solo felt wretched. He and Illya had been jammed into small cells overnight, unable to talk to each other, alone with their thoughts while the atomic engines of the Moby Dick thrummed all around them. Solo had finally managed to drift off to sleep around five in the morning. He was wakened forty– five minutes later by a siren he was sure Ahab had turned on for the sole purpose of fraying his nerves even more.

He'd been given no soap, no chance to shave. His skin felt grubby. His beard was sprouting. Commander Ahab, by contrast, was freshly tonsured, smartly attired in a white naval dress uniform with a cluster of gaudy THRUSH ribbons on the left bosom. He presided cheerfully over the breakfast table to which the U.N.C.L.E. agents had been led by guards.

"I don't think our friends care for our hospitality." said the fourth guest at the table.

"Alas, no, Cleo my sweet," said Commander Ahab, attacking a lobster claw with stainless steel crackers.

Miss Cleo St. Cloud looked quite attractive in tight-fitting gold lamé slacks and blouse. She was smoking a cigarette in a long holder and watching the captives with amusement.

Cleo sat with her back toward the sharp angle formed by the bow-plates of the gigantic sub. Looking past her shining blonde head, Solo could see two of those large, dark green viewports which revealed the churning darkness of the ocean. It was morning, but the sub was evidently so far down that sunlight could not penetrate.

"Surely you will have a spot of breakfast juice at least, Mr. Kuryakin?" Ahab asked.

Illya cocked a sour eye at a pitcher of clam broth. "I eat nothing but peanut butter and jelly in the morning, thanks all the same."

Cleo exhaled smoke. "I'd eat hearty, darlings. Especially you, Mr. Solo. Ahab has a little task in store for you this morning."

Ahab got up, wiping his lips with an oversized white napkin. He went to a chart table and consulted a large map.

"That's quite correct, Mr. Solo. We should be reaching our rendezvous point within ten minutes." He turned, rubbing his pudgy hands together. "And then—the beginning of the end for the enemies of THRUSH."

Pushing his chair back, Solo stood up, stretched. A seaman stationed near the bulkhead lifted his short-muzzled power rifle to firing position. Irritably, Solo waved him away, walked to the forward viewports. A pearl-gray fish of unusual size nosed up on the other side. It regarded Solo with a sorrowful eye, then flicked its tail and shot out of sight.

Solo said: "I don't want any fried shrimp, stewed oysters or diced eel, Ahab. But I would like some in formation."

Commander Ahab stroked his beard. "I suppose that would be in order. Appreciating the totality of our plan will heighten your feeling of dismay as we carry it out. Very well. Ask."

"First of all—" Solo gestured to the foaming sea outside "—where are we?"

"Somewhere under the North Atlantic. Exactly where needn't trouble you. Next question?" said Commander Ahab.

"What's the reason behind this elaborate floating cigar?"

Ahab chortled. "Floating cigar indeed! The Moby Dick has been in construction for better than three years. It is a mobile operations base from which we shall put to use certain principles of oceanographic knowledge discovered and applied by various members of the THRUSH research wing.

"Poor Dr. Shelley, by the way, apparently had done some research along parallel lines, and had also collected scraps of data which made him suspect that we were going in the same general direction. Our preliminary tests couldn't be carried out in complete secrecy, you know. We did disturb the ocean here and there. At any rate, we have perfected a means to quickly and drastically alter major ocean currents. When explosive charges are placed at the proper depths and positions on the ocean floor, and exploded simultaneously, the result is the instantaneous creation of tidal waves of staggering size and destructive power.

"The one we sent in a vain at tempt to rescue Naglesmith—he was supposed to rendezvous with the Moby Dick, you see—was an infant compared to the one we are preparing now."

Ahab's manner was easy and conversational but his eyes were full of the bright, fanatic glitter of the dedicated THRUSH officer determined to attack civilization at its foundations, and destroy it.

Ahab crossed the plush ivory carpet to the chart table, returning with the oceanographic map he had consulted earlier. He pointed to a number of bright red crosses on the map.

"Here, here and here our divers will plant charges necessary to create a tidal wave of such immense proportions that it can easily sweep up the Thames River and destroy all of London and the countryside round about for a radius of fifty miles. Once the charges are set, we shall sail back to England and detonate them. When London is inundated and all its inhabitants drowned, THRUSH Central will hand a letter of ultimatum to all the major governments of the world. The letter will demand immediate surrender. This time we shall achieve our goal."

Ahab smiled good-humoredly. He was about to continue when Illya sat up. The thrumming had stopped.

Rather excitedly, Cleo St. Cloud leaned forward. "The engines are out."

"And the divers will be starting down. Well, Mr. Solo, now comes your moments of glory."

Once more Ahab tapped the chart. This time he indicated a cross that was not scarlet, but black.

"This is the reason we allowed you and Mr. Kuryakin to come aboard the Moby Dick. This mark. Just here, a charge must be placed—a key charge—at such a depth that the man who places it will very likely perish. Congratulations, Mr. Solo!" Ahab rolled up the chart and gestured. "You have been chosen! My men are standing by with your diving suit and the explosive package."

Solo scowled. "I didn't raise my hand, teacher."

Still grinning merrily, Ahab snapped his fingers. The seaman turned down a rheostat, plunging the chamber into semi-darkness. The only illumination was a faint phosphorescent gleam cast by the sea water lapping at the viewports.

Cleo St. Cloud picked up a small, silvered pencil-like affair. She touched a stud which started a purple bulb in the tip to winking at half-second intervals.

"Miss St. Cloud has ways of overcoming your reluctance, Mr. Solo," Ahab said. "That is why I invited her along for the voyage. Guard! Hold Mr. Kuryakin near the door so that he does not interfere."

The guard leaped forward, jammed his power-rifle into Illya's shoulder blades and jerked his head to indicate that Illya should follow. Illya tossed his napkin aside, hesitated as though ready to start swinging. Solo blinked once, very fast. Illya caught the signal, contained his anger. Solo had called the shot. They would try to ride it out a bit longer.

Illya accompanied the guard. Ahab walked around in front of Solo. "Please." He indicated an easy chair. "Be so good as to sit down."

"All of a sudden, Ahab, I'm not feeling very polite."

Ahab's face flushed. With surprising power, he jabbed his fingers hard at Solo's chest while Cleo, sneaking around from behind, shoved the chair forward so that it struck Solo's legs from behind. He sat down abruptly.

Iron bands snapped out from the body of the chair to pinion his arms and legs. He writhed, heard Ahab chuckling. The purple light floated near in the gloom.

Somewhere out beyond the blinking purple pinpoint, Cleo St. Cloud murmured, "Relax, Mr. Solo. Just let yourself relax. All we're going to do is relax you to the point where you'll be willing to follow Victor's orders through a headset."

"Your act is lousy, dear," Solo said. But he didn't feel confident. He remembered the glazed, mindless look on Illya's face in the Golder's Green lab. He braced for an ordeal.

"Cleo won't fail me," Ahab said out of the dark. "Not if she wants to see London again."

Solo's arms ached from the constriction of the steel bands. His forehead and cheeks felt clammy.

The tiny purple bulb seemed to swell in size, sending out star-like rays. Solo realized the starry effect was the result of his eyes watering. Already he was having trouble concentrating on anything except the blinking light.

Soothingly Cleo's voice reached him:

"Mr. Solo—may I call you some thing a little less formal? Napoleon. That's better. You're quite a charming man. You would do well as a member of the THRUSH team. Pity you're not with us. Still, the two of us can be friends, can't we? Nothing but trust between us, Napoleon my dear.

"Once you trust me, you'll realize that all this is for the best. You'll feel so much better if you relax and quit wrenching around in your chair that way. Victor told you the mission was dangerous, didn't he? Of course it is. But it needn't be fatal. No, not at all. Provided you obey instructions carefully, you have an excellent chance of coming out alive.

"Naturally you won't be able to obey instructions, if you continue to fight against us. You must stop fighting. You must let your muscles relax. That's the first of the important steps, my sweet Napoleon. Relax. Then sleep. Relax and sleep—"

Somewhere, faintly, another voice drifted. "Give her the raspberry, Napoleon."

Illya had hardly uttered the words when Solo heard a thud, a groan, a slumping sound.

"Don't let him interrupt us again," Ahab snarled.

Solo was growing drowsy. He wanted to say something to Cleo St. Cloud. Something smart; needling. Anything to show her that his mind was his own, unresponsive.

That purple light—how restful it was. Going off, then coming alight with a soft blaze, like a flower blooming in silence.

His upper arms tingled. Vaguely he sensed that Cleo St. Cloud was talking to him. Actually she hadn't stopped. It was like living in a house beside a waterfall. After five years the splash no longer bothered you. He'd been listening to Cleo for at least ten–

On and off went the purple light, blossoming, blossoming. On and off, on and off—

"Yes, Napoleon my dear, yes, that's it. Relax and sleep, relax and deep—"

A dim corner of his mind rebelled.

The purple light was soothing. But they were going to send him out into the ocean's depth to plant a bomb that would help create a tidal wave to destroy London, England. Desperately his mind tried to erect a wall against the soothing-syrup of her voice.

How many human beings in London? he asked himself with the small, still-alert part of his mind. Four million? Five? He wasn't sure. He tried to think of them as all dead. One by one he began to count macabre bodies floating over a fence.

One dead.

Two dead.

Ten dead.

Hundreds, thousands, millions dead if he let her win—

Blink blink blink went the purple light, so softly, so subtly, so treacherously.