[Magazine 1967-­10] - The Mind-­Sweeper Affair - Davis Robert Hart. Страница 10

Danton stared at the white-suited man, who still stood with his he down. The tall man pushed him forward.

"They beat up Gregor," the tall man said.

"The devil with Gregor!" Danton snapped. "What I want is to know just how Forsyte transmits his information. There has to be some very special method, and we want it. Now, you, tell us where the others are, and—"

Danton stopped. He stood there with his mouth open and stared at the figure in the white health club suit. His bright eyes blinked. Then he stepped forward and grasped the hair of the man. He pulled the head up.

Solo grinned. "Hello, Danton."

Danton dropped Solo's hair and jumped back as if he had been bitten. For a long moment he stared at Solo, who smiled and looked around the room like a man on a sightseeing tour. Solo grinned at Illya. Danton rubbed his face, brushed his hand through his immaculate grey hair. Then he began to shout.

"You fools!"

Danton shouted at the tall man. "You stupid ape! One of the others, eh? You idiotic incompetents! Do you know who this is? Eh? Don't you know your enemies! What morons am I forced to work with? I send you to get a gang with some method of taking secrets from reliable people, and you bring me another U.N.C.L.E. agent!"

The tall man stammered. "But—but he was wearing one of the uniforms. He was standing over Gregor. He—"

"Idiot! This is Napoleon Solo! Don't you know the Chief of Section-Il of U.N.C.L.E. How did you get to be an agent of THRUSH? I send you for someone valuable, and you bring me Solo!"

The tall man protested. "How could I—I mean, we're new in New York, sir, and—"

"Quiet!" Danton roared. "Do you know what else you've done?"

The tall man gulped. "No, sir.

"Shut up!" Danton shouted. "How many of you were there in your group?"

"Four, sir. The alternate group brought that other man here, and we—"

"And how many of you are there here now?" Danton snarled.

"With Gregor, sir, a total of four. We all—"

"Then who is doing your work? Eh? Who is watching the health club?"

The tall man was white. "No one, sir. They—they got out of the building without our seeing them anyway. So when they didn't come out, we went in, and we found Gregor and this man, and we were sure he was one of them, so we brought him here—"

The tall man trailed off in his weak explanation. Danton stared at him.

"You mean that you have lost contact. We have lost contact. You bunglers have let them get away, and we—"

Danton's tirade went on. All the men in the room were watching him. The three captors of Solo were pale with fear. The guards had their guns down. Solo edged away toward a guard who was looking only at Danton.

Illya touched his nose.

Solo jumped for the guard.

Illya hurled himself out of the special chair. The shock of pain, like a hammer blow, knocked him to his knees, but he was free of the chair. He jumped up and chopped a guard once on the throat.

Solo had a machine-gun in his hand. He shot down two guards who reacted to the sudden break.

Illya Kuryakin had a gun and sprayed the room.

The THRUSH agents all hurled themselves undercover. The tall man went down, spitting blood. Danton screamed and dived for a heavy oak table.

"Door!" Solo cried.

The two agents careened through the door and out into the baronial entrance hallway. Three guards came running into the vast hall. Solo and Illya shot them down with two quick bursts. Moments later they were out the front door and running across a gravel drive way toward the thick bushes of the grounds.

"There! Get them!"

It was Danton's voice, his courage back now that he was out of range. He was in the doorway behind them. Black-uniformed THRUSH guards poured across the driveway and the grounds.

Solo and Illya crashed through the thick bushes, ran across the parklike grounds under the tall oaks in the night. There was a glint of water to the left.

"The river!" Solo hissed.

"If we can," Illya panted.

They ran, and behind them the THRUSH agents pounded in mad pursuit. The night was dark and the THRUSH men were getting in each other's way. Danton's voice could be heard roaring his orders.

Illya Kuryakin stopped. "Not the river yet. They'll block us. Let's cut down the odds."

"Take two of them?"

. "Right."

The two agents circled back and dropped into the cover of a small ravine. Soon the THRUSH search moved close to them. Two THRUSH men passed above the low ravine. Solo and Illya rose up behind them like wraiths in the night. Both men fell without a sound under the single chops of the U.N.C.L.E. agents.

Moments later Solo and Illya were moving in the line of search toward the river. Danton was at the other end of the line. The search fanned out until Danton ordered a halt.

"They've gone to cover. Turn back and don't miss anywhere, you understand!" Danton shouted.

His men all nodded. Danton's voice was no longer smooth and urbane. The penalty for failure was high in THRUSH.

The search turned back inland.

Illya and Solo slid silently into the river and began to swim south.

ACT III

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE LATELY?

THEY EMERGED dripping from the river, a mile and a half south of the massive old mansion on the Hudson shore. They moved warily. Illya Kuryakin motioned Napoleon Solo to silence and crept up from the bank to a paved road that ran near the shore.

"All clear?" Solo whispered.

"All clear at the moment," Illya said. "Danton isn't a fool, Napoleon. He'll have figured it out by now, and then he'll fan out along the river."

"At least we know that THRUSH doesn't know anything about how Forsyte passed the information," Solo said.

"Do we?"

"We do," Solo said, and explained the macabre machine that he had seen in the room above the hot room of the Health Club.

"A machine?" Illya said. "No wonder THRUSH is so interested. They must have an idea, and in their hands such a machine would be murderous."

Solo was about to answer when both men heard the sound. Cars approached along the river road. They had no headlights. Illya and Solo went across the road quickly and burrowed into the deep bushes.

Two dark jeeps went past slowly. They were filled with THRUSH men, and in each jeep a sub-leader scanned the river and the shore through infra-red glasses.

The jeeps passed and vanished. But Illya and Solo did not move. They waited where they were hidden in the bushes. Moments later another car came by, its motor almost soundless in the night. In this car a man scanned the inland side of the road through infra-red binoculars.

The third car passed on and disappeared into the night.

"Let's move," Solo said.

With Illya Kuryakin following, Napoleon Solo walked away from the road toward the lights of a town some distance inland from the river. They avoided the roads, and crossed dark fields in the night. When they were near the town, and were sure that they were clear of THRUSH, Solo bent over his ring.

"Control Central this is Sonny. Come in Control Central. Sonny and Bubba calling."

Waverly's voice came calm in the night. "You have located Mr. uh, Kuryakin, I see, Mr. Solo. Good. Where are you?"

"About thirty miles up the Hudson Valley from New York. We've run into THRUSH."

"THRUSH, eh?" Waverly's voice said quietly. "I can't say that I'm surprised. The affair in Anagua had their fine touch about it. I gather that you have eluded them?"