Текст книги "[Magazine 1967-­10] - The Mind-­Sweeper Affair"

Автор книги: Robert Hart Davis

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Illya moved silently closer. The men did not notice.

"We've watched him all day, and I'm damned if he could have passed anything," the tall man said.

"Is Gregor still with him?" one of the other men said.

"Yes. In the health club. He contacted me."

"The Boss says it's certain that Forsyte passed the info on to Dachado. We've got to find out how."

"We'll find out," the tall man said.

"Why don't we just grab him and get it out of him?"

"Let the Boss do the thinking."

"Hell, we'd get what we wanted in five minutes with some of the stuff we've got."

"Sure," the tall man said, "but what if Forsyte doesn't know anything? What if he just passes the info to someone he doesn't know, or just leaves it at a drop? As soon as we grabbed Forsyte they'd know about it, and maybe we never catch up with who he gives the stuff to."

"I never thought of that," the other man said.

"That's why you're not Boss and never will be," the tall man said.

"The Boss takes his orders."

"Sure he does, and up top they know more than we do. We do our job and get paid. Right? We get paid pretty well."

"It beats working," the other man agreed.

"Do we just wait here?" the one who had not spoken said suddenly.

"For a signal from Gregor. Maybe Forsyte ducks out the back. Who knows?" the tall man said.

"Or the front. I better check with Ord out front to be sure he's watching," the man said.

Starting to walk as he talked, the man came directly toward Illya. Despite the shadows it was still daylight. There was no way for Illya to not be seen. He drew his U.N.C.L.E. Special, fired a sleep pellet at the man, and ran for the mouth of the alley.

The man he had shot took another step, opened his mouth, and pitched forward, unconscious. The other two saw Illya. But they had to draw their guns and he had almost reached the mouth of the alley when two shots whistled past him.

Two men suddenly appeared in the alley mouth. They had guns.

Illya skidded to a halt.

The two men came toward him. Behind him he heard the other two men. The blond Russian looked around quickly. There was an open window just to his right in another building. He ran and jumped for it. He was sure they would not shoot until they knew who he was.

His fingers closed on the window sill and he hauled himself up to the sill. He raised his knee to climb inside.

Something stung his neck.

The last he knew his fingers were slipping and then there was only falling through space.

SIX

WRAPPED IN THE towel, Napoleon Solo moved along a dark hallway on the floor above the health club.

The rooms up here were all dark, and nothing seemed to move. The hall stretched silent and dim Solo felt very naked and exposed in his towel in the dark hall, but downstairs he would have been conspicuous in clothes. He moved on along the hall.

He heard voices and someone coming in the distance where the hallway ended. There was a closet near. He opened the door and slid inside, leaving the door ajar a crack.

The voices came closer, and turned into the narrow corridor outside the closet.

"I tell you there was a disturbance in the alley."

"And I don't like the look of that muscular fellow in the hot room. He's never been here before."

"We better finish with Forsyte fast."

The voices and footsteps almost reached the closet door, but turned sharply right before they came abreast. Solo saw the two men, both wearing the white uniforms of health club attendants. They went through a door in the opposite wall and failed to close it. Solo heard the humming sound, louder now and closer. He slipped out of the closet and glided up to the half open door.

He looked in and saw a macabre scene like the scenes he remembered from the horror movies of his childhood.

The room was totally bare except for two more men, four in all, and a grotesque-looking machine. The four men all wore health club white uniforms. The machine wore nothing but a sense of cold efficiency.

It was a large machine that looked like a computer on wheels. A square section, covered with dials and buttons and flashing lights, was mounted on legs. Tape reels turned on its face. Beneath it, where it stood in the center of the room, a long tubelike shape protruded down like a searchlight and entered a hole in the floor.

The humming noise came from the machine. The four men all worked around the machine, touching dials, observing gauges, making adjustments. They looked like the fanatic priests of some evil god. They were so intent on their work that they did not notice Solo standing in the open door.

Solo had little doubt that this machine was aimed down into the hot room and at Colonel Forsyte.

"Finish it off," one of the men snapped.

"Quiet," another man said.

This last man spoke softly, almost gently, and yet there was a hard commanding sound to his voice. When he spoke the others all looked at him. Solo had no doubt that he was the leader. In the flashing lights of the machine Napoleon Solo saw his face. It was a pleasant face: tanned, healthy, with a sharp nose and bright, intelligent dark eyes. His hands were long and slender as they worked the dials of the macabre instrument. His hair was grey and thick, like the shock of hair of some professor. He was a small, slender man.

"To withdraw the instrument abruptly could kill Forsyte," this leader said quietly. "It must be shut down slowly. Would you care to leave a body here? Or a mad man? I have no wish to be traced through Forsyte and a hasty mistake. We are almost ready for the full development."

"Sure, Chief," one of the other men said.

The other two nodded. The slender man continued to work his dials like a man caressing a woman he loves. He seemed to talk to himself, almost crooning, as he worked. "The key to the sweeper is that it leaves no trace and no memory of its use, remember that. Isn't that so, little beauty? You touch the mind and the mind whispers to you and no one knows. That is your talent, isn't it, little one? No one can ever know you have been at work."

The slender, grey-haired man laughed softly. It was a laugh with an edge of insanity. The kind of insanity a brilliant mind can have when something has given it a small, sudden twist, and left all else normal.

"Professor—" one of the other men began to say.

The slender, leader snapped. "Very well! I understand the need for speed. I am nearly finished. Another few minutes. I have begun the withdrawal. If you are so worried, check with Drago below and hasten the departure of our patrons."

One of the men turned and started for the door. Solo leaped back just in time and slid again into the closet. The man came past the closet—and his footsteps stopped. Solo looked around the closet. There was a large laundry hamper filled with soiled towels and white uniforms. He climbed inside quickly and covered himself.

He heard the door to the closet open. He held a deep breath so that he would make no sound and the towels would not move to his breathing. He heard someone poking around in the closet. Then the man went away and the closet door closed.

There was a sharp click.

Solo raised his head from among the towels. The closet was pitch dark now. He climbed out of the towels and went to the door. It was locked and there was no lock inside. The man who had come in had sprung the lock and closed the door, and it operated only from outside. Solo listened at the door.

He heard low voices and movement. He could not break out while anyone was there. He would be a sitting duck—naked as a baby and without weapons. All he had was his ring. He bent close over the ring and touched a tiny button.

"Bubba, this is Sonny. Mayday. Come in Bubba. Mayday, Code Two, come in Bubba. Sonny calling Bubba."

Silence.

Solo stared at his ring in the dark. He tried again. "Bubba come in. Sonny to Bubba. Mayday."

Silence that seemed to hang in the dark air of the closet. Solo rubbed his chin. He could use the audible signal—but what if Illya were hiding? He tried once more.

There was no answer. Solo touched the ring again.

"Control Central, Sonny reporting. Come in Control Central."

It was the voice of Waverly himself that answered.

"Where are you, Mr. Solo? Your signal indicates you are very close to Headquarters."

"Close, but too far," Solo said dryly. "I'm about five blocks away, locked in a closet."

"Really, Mr. Solo, this is no time for childishness," Waverly's slow, clipped voice said.

Solo smiled. The calm, matter-of-fact voice of Waverly had saved many an agent from panic and death. The voice was only a cover. Waverly was serious and concerned about all his agents.

"Sorry, sir," Solo whispered. "But I can't raise Illya, and I am locked in a closet, and I think I have something."

"We will try to contact Mr. Kuryakin," Waverly's voice said. "What do you have?"

"A machine. It's in the health club," and Napoleon Solo described what he had seen. "It looks like this machine somehow gets the data from Forsyte, or anyone else."

There was a silence. Then Waverly's voice came again almost as calm as ever—but not quite.

"Mr. Solo, you must get closer to that machine. If possible get it, if not destroy it. We—we have heard vague rumors of such a machine for many years. It was reported during the Korean conflict as something being worked on by a mysterious ex-Nazi scientist. Until now, it was only an impossible rumor. If—"

Waverly left the sentence hanging. In the closet Solo nodded as if Waverly could see him. Perhaps Waverly could.

"It is vital, Mr. Solo, you understand? Such a machine in the wrong hands?"

"I understand, sir. But I can't get out of this closet until the place is deserted. I'd be caught in seconds. Meanwhile, Forsyte and the people here can walk away. If Illya is outside, he should watch."

There was another tense silence. Then—

"We cannot raise Mr. Kuryakin either. I am sending men to look for him and watch your building. They will await your signal before they enter the building."

Solo felt cold. Where was Illya?

"Illya was right behind me, sir. What does his brain sensor report as his location."

"It reports nothing, Mr. Solo. His sensor has faded out."

In the closet Solo did not move. All U.N.C.L.E. agents of first rank now carried tiny sensors implanted. The sensor located them when all other means failed. The sensors would not function from only three causes: over one hundred miles; some device that could block their signal—and death.

In the closet Napoleon Solo felt alone and suddenly frightened.

ACT II

HAWK IN A SPARROW SUIT

ILLYA KURYAKIN had a dream. He was a child again in his far-off home, riding wildly on a Mongol pony over the great vast spaces of the Steppes. The great forests, and the deserts, and the towering mountains of all of Siberia seemed to flash past under the flying hooves of his horse. He shouted to faceless companions, the abandoned comrades of his Russian youth. He shouted in happy Russian.

And woke up shouting the Russian words to cold, blank walls.

For a moment he lay still, not quite out of the dream, and feeling sad. Whenever he dreamed of his youth, his friends were always faceless, as if he carried a guilt for abandoning his homeland and his people.

Then he was out of the dream and coldly awake. He did not move at once, but looked around him without moving. He was in a small, dark room. Four walls without windows. Stone walls and a dirt floor and a wooden door studded with iron. A stone ceiling very high. The room was like a deep well and he was in the bottom.

Illya sat up. He could sit up. Neither his hands nor his feet were tied. But he had been stripped, literally, and dressed in some neutral grey trousers and a grey sweater. They had done a good job on him. All he had was the long, thin steel needle under the fake scar on his leg. Even his ring was gone.

He stood up and began to study the room. The first step was to see if he was being observed. He checked every inch of the walls and ceilings but could locate no hidden cameras, and he was sure that everything was real stone with no one-way mirror for observation. He also found no evidence of a microphone, but that was almost impossible to be sure about.

Next he studied the floor and walls for any possible secret doors. As far as he could tell the floor was solid earth, and the walls solid stone. The door was heavy oak, iron banded, and apparently locked by a bar on the outside. Illya saw no evidence of any other kind of lock.

He stood at the door and leaned his ear against it. He could hear nothing. There seemed to be no guard, and no sounds of anyone else. Not even distant sounds. Wherever he was, Illya was buried deep. He turned and once more surveyed the room in which he stood.

He assumed that by now he would have been missed, but with his radios gone, and buried in this room, they would have a hard time finding him. Unless he could get out somehow and give them some help. They would have traced his sensor, unless he had been taken too far. He had no way of knowing just what time it was, or how long he had been unconscious.

His bright, deep-set eyes continued to survey the room. He was looking for a flaw, any flaw. He thought of a conversation he had once had with Napoleon. He had insisted that there was no such thing as a prison cell from which a man could not escape without outside help, and without bringing any tools in with him. Solo had not been sure.

"What a man can build, Napoleon, a man can break out of," Illya had insisted.

"You mean there has to be a flaw?"

"There is always a flaw, my playboy buddy," Illya had said.

"If you can find it, my Russian jailbreaker," Solo had said.

If you can find it. Yes, that was the problem. And Illya recalled wryly that he had not said how long it might take. It had taken old Monte Cristo a devil of a long time. But Monte Cristo, too, had made it in the end.

All the while Illya had been thinking; his quick eyes had been searching the walls, the floor, the distant ceiling high above. It was sometimes best to let your eyes look while your brain thought of something else. The eyes, trained, could often see what the confused brain could not.

And he saw the drain.

It was set low in the floor far at the rear of the stone prison. Illya crossed to it and got down on his hands and knees. It was a small round drain in a low part of the floor. About four inches in diameter, and held in place by two screws. With the screws out it was a three-inch pipe. It seemed to lead straight down. Yet it had to connect to a main drain somewhere, or turn and run outside.

Illya considered the pipe. It was much too narrow for him to crawl down. He could dig, and probably find an eventual escape, but that would be a long job without tools.

He stood and again toured the room. This time he saw a faint glint. It was in another corner of the floor. He got down and looked closely. Then he began to dig in the dirt. He came up with a steel soup spoon. He looked at it. Probably left by some former prisoner. It reminded him that he was hungry, and that they who had captured him would probably come to feed him at some time.

Which made the prospect of digging out around the drain pipe just about impossible. It would take so long they would be sure to catch him. With the spoon in his hand he again went slowly around the room. He found nothing. He sat down in the center and felt discouraged. Maybe he had been wrong. Or maybe he simply didn't have enough time.

Then Mr. Kuryakin found himself staring at the door.

The heavy wooden door with its iron bands. His dark eyes blinked. He ran his hand through his shock of blond hair. He blinked, and looked hard at the door. There was something about it. He stood up quickly and walked to the door. With the spoon he pried at the wood in the center where four round iron studs protruded.

The wood was rotten!

With the spoon he could dig a small hole with little pressure. Around the four iron studs. The wood, just at those points, had rotted from years of moisture and contact with the rusted iron. It would be slow work, but he was sure he could dig around all four studs.

And he was sure that the studs were the anchors that held the lock-bar on the outside!

In which case two should be enough. If he could dig out just two of the iron studs. If—

His gaze fell on the bottom of the door. The wood had rotted at the bottom also. And the cross bracing of iron was held on this side by a heavy spike. He bent. The spike moved in his fingers. It was loose. It would dig through the door much faster than the spoon.

On his knees Kuryakin dug at the loose spike with his spoon. It was not easy. He dug, pried, used the spoon as a lever. He began to sweat. Every few minutes he stopped to listen. There was no sound outside the door. Not even a distant sound. He dug on.

Until with a pull that took all his strength and gashed his fingers, the spike came out. He stood up with the spike. It had a sharp point.

He began to dig the wood out from around the studs at the side of the door farthest from the door jamb.

He stopped every few minutes to listen.

TWO

SOLO LISTENED inside the dark closet. It had been at least fifteen minutes since he had heard a sound. Nothing seemed to move beyond the locked door. He turned and began to move every large object in the closet. He piled the clothes hamper, an old desk, and two metal filing cabinets in a line from the rear wall to the door.

Braced with his back against the line of furniture, he placed his feet against the door and pushed with all his strength, slowly building up pressure. The door creaked, but did not give. Solo relaxed, breathed deeply, and once more used his whole body like a jack against the door. It creaked again, gave with a faint tearing of wood.

The third time he braced, and forced his feet against the door, he felt it slip and almost open as the wood tore with a low rasping sound. He stepped to the door and listened. There was no sound. He turned and went to the hamper and found a white health club suit that fitted him. He dressed in it, and went back to the door.

He listened again. No sound. Not even the humming noise or the noises from the health club below.

He leaned his full weight against the door, braced his feet on the floor, and pressed steadily and slowly. The door sprung open with a last ripping sound. It swung away. Solo caught it with a quick motion before it banged against the wall, and stood in the dark corridor listening.

Nothing seemed to move.

The door to the room above the hot room was still open. He looked in cautiously. The strange machine was still there, but silent and motionless now. Before he went to examine the machine, Solo stepped carefully along the hall to the door he had come up through earlier. He listened at the door. He heard slow noises below, as if the health dub staff were going about the normal business of closing for the night.

He went back along the corridor to the far end, where a cross corridor intersected. He searched down both wings of the cross corridor and saw nothing. He went back along the dark hallway to the room of the machine.

In the bare room he looked around. There was nothing in the room but the strange machine with its black tube aimed down into the floor. The machine was still, and the large tape spool was gone.

Solo studied the machine for a time in the dark, but he could make nothing out of it. It seemed like a combination of tape recorder and computer, with a sealed section in the center with dials and buttons that he did not recognize.

He got down and examined the long black tube that went down into the floor. It resembled an advanced and complicated X-ray machine. It was slightly warm to his touch, as if shut down only recently, and as if it generated heat, which probably was why it was being used in a hot room.

The ceiling of the hot room was exposed through the hole in the floor of the room. A perforated ceiling, and Napoleon Solo could just make out parts of the hot room below. There was no doubt that the long black tube was aimed exactly at the deck chair in which Forsyte had been sitting. Which meant that Forsyte had been the target, since it was now certain that he had been purposely maneuvered into that specific chair.

Solo stood up. Whatever the strange machine was, he was sure that it was how Forsyte transmitted the data—and probably not voluntarily. Solo raised his ring to call help. It was time U.N.C.L.E. moved it.

"Control—"

He stopped and froze. He had heard a noise. A soft, sliding noise. It seemed to come from a door to the right in the room. Solo stepped to the door and listened. The sound did not come again. He looked around for a weapon. There was nothing. The sound came again, like a man crawling slowly across the floor.

Solo opened the door quickly, alert and ready to use his karate-trained hands.

It was another dark room, but Solo saw what caused the weird noise. The wide, muscular man who had been following Forsyte was crawling weakly across the floor. He looked up and saw Solo. There was blood on his face. Solo stepped to him and bent.

He heard the step too late. Half turned, Napoleon Solo was hit solid on the head and fell on his face.

THREE

ILLYA KURYAKIN listened. There was still no sound of anyone outside the heavy wooden door.

Illya carefully removed the last iron stud. There was a sliding sound, metal sliding against metal, and then a heavy thud as the crossbar hit the floor outside. A solid thud, but not loud. The floor out side must be dirt, too.

Illya opened the heavy door and stepped out. The corridor was low and dark and the floor was dirt. There was no one in sight. The iron bar that had locked the door lay on the floor with the iron loop released by the studs still around it. Illya picked it up as a weapon, and started to the left where he saw a faint rectangle of light.

The rectangle was much closer than he had expected. The light was dimmer. Illya peered out of the open end of the corridor. He saw a large and high room, a cellar. He was in the cellar of some kind of large house. Old garden furniture was piled everywhere. The debris of many years of a large house. He guessed that the room he had been had perhaps been a wine room at one time, which would partly account for the drain.

The garden furniture, and the nature of the cellar, pointed to a country house somewhere. From the size of the cellar, Illya guessed that the house was some old mansion up in the Hudson Valley probably not too far from the city. Which also meant that this was probably the sub-basement.

He listened again, heard nothing, and moved out into the open cellar, gripping the iron bar. He crossed quickly with his cat-like silence toward a low stone archway. He went through the archway and saw, as he had expected, a flight of stone steps leading upward.

He went up the stairs swiftly and silently. There was a heavy wooden door at the top. It was open. Illya scowled. The security seemed very lax. He pushed open the door slowly, and then flattened back. A man in a black suit sat on a chair a few feet from the door.

The man was tilted back against the wall, his right side facing Illya, and a gun in his lap. The man was not asleep, but he was not alert. He had not heard Illya open the door.

Illya peered out and saw that where the man sat was in another corridor that had once been a cellar—the first basement. But it had been converted, and now had darkly paneled walls. An ornate door was at the far end. Illya saw no other guard, and watched the man in the chair yawn and stretch.

Illya leaped out in the middle of the guard's stretch. The guard heard him, tried to break his stretch and go down for his gun. Illya's iron bar caught him on the side of the head and the man went over, chair and all. Illya took the gun and jumped over him and ran down the corridor to the ornate door.

This door, too, was not locked. Illya opened it cautiously. There was no guard and a wooden stair case leading up. Illya went up these stairs slowly and carefully. There was no door at the top, but the stairs made a sharp left and emerged into a large, vaulted baronial-style hallway. Or they opened into a smaller and lower passage that led from the baronial hall.

Now there were sounds and people.

Illya Kuryakin heard voices, and men walked back and forth across the great hall. Through high windows Illya saw the fading sun of evening. From the position of the sun it was clear that the house faced west. The men who paraded through the vaulted entry hall all carried guns.

Illya looked straight across from where he stood to the opposite wall of the smaller passage. There was a door that, if he knew the usual layout of mansions such as this, should lead into a back hall. Unseen, he moved silently across the narrow passage and went through the door. It was a back hall.

He went down the back hall to ward the far door, looking for the door that should lead into the kitchen. He held his submachine gun ready. He could not find the kitchen door, and he suddenly heard voices coming toward the back hall from in front of him. He turned to retrace his steps, and heard someone coming from the other end. He looked around quickly. In the rear hall he was trapped, and one gun would not win against a house full of enemies.

Quickly he tried the doors that led from the rear hall. The first two were locked. The third was open, and Illya jumped through just as the first men appeared in the rear hall. He stood for a moment catching his breath—and then became aware that he was in a lighted room.

"Ah, Mr. Kuryakin. Come in, come in."

The voice was soft and mocking. It came from behind him in the lighted room. Illya tensed. His muscles bunched as he prepared to turn.

"I wouldn't try that, my dear Illya. If you turn slowly you will find that you are carefully covered from about six directions," the mocking voice said. "Not to mention the men in the rear hall, who will come in the instant you turn."

Illya turned slowly. He saw the black-uniformed guards all around him, their guns leveled. He was in a comfortable paneled room furnished with the best leather furniture. A lion's head bared its teeth above a massive fireplace. But that was not what Illya looked at. He looked at a tall, distinguished, grey-haired man in immaculate dinner clothes and black tie who stood in the center of the room with a drink in his hand and a smile on his well-groomed face.

"That's better," this man said in his mocking voice. "Now lay down your gun, my dear Illya, and we can have our talk."

Illya laid down his gun and stood facing the elegant man.

"Good. I must say you showed the usual U.N.C.L.E. initiative in getting here," the man said, and looked at his watch. "In good time, too. I told my people that a simple spoon left in the right place would be enough for Illya Kuryakin to escape, and I was right, eh? But not all U.N.C.L.E. men could have done it, you know? I have often wondered why you continue to take a back seat to Solo. I consider you far more dangerous."

"Thank you," Illya said wryly. "I'll be glad to tell Napoleon. You've been watching me? You left the spoon?"

The elegant man shrugged. "A small amusement. But not all a game, eh? I have always told my fellow Council members that keeping an U.N.C.L.E. agent busy is far better than the most total security. Give them a project to occupy their busy minds and hands, and that way I always know what you are up to, eh? I mean, my dear Illya, if I had not provided you with the spoon and the old door, you might have come up with an escape plan that would have been better. You see?"

The elegant man laughed. His men, their guns ready, all grinned. Illya smiled himself.

"Very clever, Danton. I have al ways said that you are one of the most clever of THRUSH leaders."

Emil Danton, North American Leader of THRUSH, bowed his head and laughed again as his men moved in on Illya Kuryakin.

FOUR

SOLO CAME awake in an instant. He did not move. Only his eyes moved. As far as he could see he was on the floor of the room where he had been attacked. The room was dark, and nothing seemed to move anywhere.

He sat up. He was not tied. He listened but heard nothing. Then he heard a groan. It came from close by in the dark room. Solo looked to his right and saw the figure on the floor. He crawled to the man. It was the wide, muscular man who had followed Forsyte.

Solo looked down at the man, who moaned again but did not open his eyes. Solo saw the blood and the ugly wound on the man's head. He raised the man's eyelids. The eyes rolled. The wide man had obviously been hit harder, or more often, than Solo.

Solo stood up. His head hurt, but he brushed it off. He was thinking. He still had his ring. But before he contacted Control he wanted to know more. Why had they left him and the muscular man alive—and who were they? He got part of his answer at once.

He went out into the larger bare room where the machine had been. The machine was gone. He looked down through the hole in the floor. The hot room below was dark. Solo turned and went warily out into the hall. All was dark and silent. He walked along the hall to the door he had come up through, opened it softly, and looked down.

The health club below was pitch dark. There was no sound of any kind. Solo moved carefully down the stairs and came out in the dark health club. He went through the steam room and the hot room and the shower room. There was no one anywhere. Out in the pool the water stretched blue and smooth like glass. The pool was dark.

Solo turned and returned to the locker room. The room was dark and deserted, too, the lockers all standing open. He found his clothes in his locker and realized that who ever had attacked him had undoubtedly known that he was somewhere in the building by the simple fact that his clothes were in the locker.

His pistol was gone, but otherwise the lieutenant's uniform was untouched.

He found nothing in the locker room. He went into the club office and searched the desk and files. There was nothing at all but the records and other data that related to the health club. In fact, the entire club seemed to have suddenly stopped in its tracks, leaving every thing where it had fallen. Solo had a strong feeling that whoever had been operating the strange machine had cleared out and was not coming back.