[Magazine 1967-­11] - The Volacano Box Affair - Davis Robert Hart. Страница 8

The only trouble was that his captors were not feeding him. His bowels had been playing games with his system the last few days, alternating between severe diarrhea and severe constriction. And now there was nothing at all in his stomach and it didn't matter; he felt nothing.

They had not begun to torture him yet, but he knew it must follow soon. Because he was a coward he had allowed himself to be frightened into a limited agreement. He would construct his devices, one at a time, with the materials they provided for him. But he would not disclose the formula by which the devices were put together, nor the secret of the liquid mirrors by which the laser beam was intensified to literally earth-shattering proportions.

He had bluffed them into believing that he would give up his life before revealing those formulas, but in his heart he doubted whether he could withstand physical agony. And so, dawdling as best he could, he made his machines and was almost finished with the third. The first had created the volcano in one of the numerous Luciparan islands.

The second had all but wiped Tapwana, the rebellious island, off the map. And this one? It would undoubtedly be employed against a target considerably more ambitious than a petty island.

He knew he had little time left before they lost their patience with him. Yesterday they had taken him to a factory where he had seen three dozen of his machines being constructed. They had of course analyzed his other two and used them as bases for this large crop. Nevertheless his special formulas had eluded their analyses so far, and when they were through with the devices they would really begin pressing him to give away the essential secret so that the mirrors could be installed.

From what he could see of their progress on the basic device, he had only a few days left.

Then it would be torture.

He thought about the ancient tortures, racks and things like that, but he knew they had far more sophisticated ones than those nowadays. He had seen pictures of men whose brains had been so scrambled they were mere puppets. He could be one of them. The mere thought sent a ripple down his spine.

They were softening him up. Already the want of food and sleep was beginning to tell on him. He had begun to wonder what difference it made who had the formula or what was done with it. If the human race was hell-bent on destroying itself, it would be done whether they used his device or atomic bombs or fists and teeth.

But no, that train of thought was contrary to everything he had come to hold dear. There were still decent people in the world, and he could never obliterate the distinction in his mind between those decent ones and the wicked ones. Before he did his mind itself would be obliterated.

Dr. Edward Dacian gazed at the white ceiling, wondering just how much pain he could stand before they made him tell.

THREE

ALEXANDER WAVERLY studied the transcript of Illya Kuryakin's report, frowning. He removed his pipe from his mouth and, with the mouthpiece, tapped the description of Paul Rollins as if to sound a chest for a false bottom. His mind, like the memory bank of a great computer, was permitting a controlled cascade of associations and memories to fill his consciousness until he had recollected almost everything there was to know about Rollins.

Nevertheless it was wise to double-check, and of course to investigate the other suspects whose descriptions Illya had just given him. And besides, Waverly wanted to know the up-to-date whereabouts of the gaunt, scar-browed man.

He called Henderson in the Research Division of U.N.C.L.E. and immediately a review of the files was instigated on a Top Priority basis.

Rollins' file was dealt with first, and Waverly and his advisor sat before the screen of the information retriever, which scanned the organization's vast library of tapes for the one on which Rollins' data was located.

This data was printed out, while at the same time a photo of him was retrieved from the microfilm library and flashed on the Recordak screen, within moments after the instructions on Rollins had been programmed into the computer.

Waverly and Henderson studied the reports and renewed their acquaintance with the unpleasant features of Rollins. "Looks like an undertaker, doesn't he?" said Henderson.

Waverly nodded lugubriously. "That may be a more appropriate description than you think."

"Sir?"

"I believe he intends to bury us, you see. In molten lava." Waverly turned from the picture to the print-out of Rollins' dossier. "I know all this," he muttered impatiently, "but where is the data on his latest whereabouts?"

"Next page, sir."

Waverly flipped over the accordioned pages of the print-out and found, with considerable gratification, that as 1ittle as two weeks ago the U.N.C.L.E. agent in the Oklahoma sector had recognized Rollins and, with the help of state police, was having a routine surveillance placed on him.

"Please contact Reid in Oklahoma at once," Waverly said to Henderson, "and have him report fully on Rollins' precise location and activities."

Henderson, who recognized the imperative tone of Waverly's voice easily after years of working with him, rushed away from the retrieval computers as if fired out of a gun.

Waverly returned to his office and followed up on some other hunches he was coming to call "Dacian's volcano boxes." But he kept his eye cocked on his watch and wondered what was holding things up on that report from Oklahoma. Though an hour had gone by and no more, he still expected his organization to bring about a miraculous, instantaneous report.

As often as not, because he demanded miracles, he got them. But it took another two hours be fore Reid was on the communicator, spilling what he had learned about Rollins.

"He seems to be involved in an oil scheme of some sort, sir," Reid's husky voice told Waverly. "His procedures appear to be on the up-and-up; he purchased some land near here legitimately, and ditto for some tower scaffolding. The crew erecting the scaffolding don't smell too clean, however. A number of them have records or are otherwise suspicious."

"Very interesting," Waverly said, stuffing a wad of tobacco into a tan briar pipe and pushing papers around his desk in a hunt for his tobacco-tamping tool. "Have you or the police observed the presence of a box-like instrument with a large lens on it, like the zoom lens of a camera?"

"No, sir, but I do have one very interesting piece of information."

"Yes?"

"About ten days ago he cabled an innocuous message to Singapore. The cable address there was SINGOIL. Sounds like a contraction of Singapore Oil, which is probably the outfit behind Rollins' oil venture. That's all I know, sir."

"What was the message in that cable?"

"The message was 'All Well.'"

"Yes." Having found his tamping tool, Waverly's fingers were tapping his papers to find the outline of his matchbox. "Yes, I see. But all is not well, Reid. I want you personally to investigate Rollins' property and the drilling tower he is erecting. You are to look for a box of the kind I've described to you on his property, the dimensions and exact description of which will be telexed to you as soon as our conversation is concluded. You're to contact me the moment you find such a device or find out where it is being stored."

"Then it's not oil they're after?" said Reid.

"No, Reid. The exact nature of the device will be telexed to you. For now, let's just say that its presence is a grave threat to world security."

"Yes, sir. I'll get on this right away."