The Splintered Sunglasses Affair - Leslie Peter. Страница 20

"Good Lord!" Solo said. "I had no idea my snatch was so important! You must brief me some time on the New York end of this particular comedy. I'm just a little hazy about what happened before I woke up here in Italy—"

His words were torn from his lips as Kuryakin seized his arm and literally hurled him against the side of a delivery truck that was drawn up on the far side of the street. Solo crashed against the steel panels with his shoulder, staggered, and sat down abruptly in the road. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kuryakin rolling over and over in the dust as the big closed car roared past in low gear, missing them both by inches.

"If we needed any proof that your kidnapping and my assignment are related," Illya gasped as Solo helped him to his feet, "that was it! Trying the same trick twice is a little naughty, though... even if it was with a different weapon.

They dusted each other off, politely refused offers of assistance and descriptions of the car that had nearly run them down, and pushed through the crowd of passers-by who had witnessed the affair. They were about to enter an alleyway leading to the square where Solo's car was parked when a girl stepped out of a recessed doorway and blocked their path.

"You were quite right not to waste time with witnesses," she said. "The number plate was undoubtedly false—and there are a very large number of big secondhand American cars of that type in Torino."

Solo looked at her. It was an agreeable task. There was a burnt-orange shantung dress, with a taut, full figure underneath it; black patent shoes with square toes and block heels; a matching handbag and white kid gloves. From the wide-set collar of the dress, the girl's shoulders and neck emerged flower-like to support a head reminiscent of a dark and slightly petulant Madonna. "I'm sorry," he said, smiling, "and I wish I had reason to mean this another way... but I'm afraid you have the advantage of me!"

"Of us," Illya Kuryakin corrected.

In her turn, the girl smiled. There was a great deal of make-up on her eyes, lovingly applied; none at all on her mouth or on the flawless planes of her cheeks. "A branch of the Defense Department labelled S.I.D.," she explained in a low voice.

Solo looked up at her from under his brows. "I find it goes against the grain to question a lady," he said, "and I can hardly ask you to produce secret credentials in the street. But nevertheless... "

The girl laid a gloved hand on his arm. "Understood, Signor Solo; but perhaps I can set your fears at rest without an exchange of papers!.... After my colleague Rossi was delegated to furnish you, yesterday, with clothes, papers, money, a Berretta and a Giulietta—the 1300 ex. decapolable one—I was instructed to keep what my chief calls a 'benevolent watching' brief on you! I have since then observed the following:

"You are staying at the Hotel Europa on the Via Pascal. Last night you retired early after eating in the hotel. You drove out to see Colonel Rinaldi this morning. While you were at the research station, somebody tampered with the braking system of your car and you had an accident on the way back to the Route 24, leading to Susa. The car was spoiled, but you were fortunately not."

"Thank you very much," Solo said drily. "I take it your brief doesn't extend to issuing warnings or lending a hand?"

"Ah, you mock me! But I am watching with binoculars from the other side of the valley. There is a bergerie there and I am inside it. But there was nothing I could do at the time  So. You climb back up to the Colonel and you borrow a Fiat 1500 from him—one that has been slightly gonfie, as the French say, which is to say in English, converted. She is very fast, but you are still too late to meet your friend here at the airport.

"On the way to Caselle, though, you see him being driven away by a lady you know as the Signorina Eriksson. You guess what must be happening and you turn around and follow that couple. After they leave the Autostrada, you catch them up and in a place near to Buronzo you force their car to leave the road. Miss Eriksson escapes and you bring your friend back to the city. And then you call upon the Commendatore... this most aggravating plot used against you as you emerge from there.  Now—my name is Giovanna del Renzio. I am here to help you. What can I do?"

"Take us at once to a restaurant near here," Kuryakin said feelingly, "where we can exchange notes, plan what to do next—and eat. Above all, eat!"

"But of course! We shall go to Angelo's. It is only just one block."

And while they attended to a vast fritto misto with peperoni alia piemontese on the side, Illya sat below an oak beam groaning with pendant cheeses, strings of garlic, Parma beans and sausages, telling Solo and the girl the burden of Waverly's theorizing the previous day.

"So, if I may recap, what it amounts to is this," Solo said finally, pouring the last of the Barbaresco into Giovanna's glass and signalling the waiter to bring more. "Leonardo acquires the list of intended Thrush satraps in Europe. He takes a copy and puts the original back in the safe of the Council Member (who may or may not be Carlsen). Then he visits Colonel Rinaldi and borrows the ruby laser to make a hologram of the list—which he immediately mails to Waverly. That's the initial bit, isn't it? Before I came in?"

Kuryakin nodded. "That's it exactly, Napoleon."

"Fine. He still has, however, the piece of semi-reflective substance which was used in conjunction with the laser beam to make that hologram. Somehow or other, he conceals this—and while he is on his way to let Waverly know what it is and where it is, he is killed, one assumes by agents of Thrush who have discovered the theft and know who is responsible. Are you with me?"

Again the Russian nodded. "In the meantime, though," he said, "either Thrush or a rival organization which is as keen to have that list as we are decides to kidnap you from New York in the hope that they can force from you certain facts: one, whether Leonardo used a hologram and, if so, whether it was sent to Waverly; two, whether or not Waverly has been able to decode it, if he does have it; three, what is the U.N.C.L.E. routine in such matters."

"Do you have any idea if it really is Thrush or not?" Giovanna del Renzio asked.

Solo, exchanging a glance with Kuryakin, pursed his lips and shook his head. "The conversations I had at Carlsen's house would suggest the latter case," he said. "And the killing of Leonardo followed by my kidnapping make more sense if they were done by different teams. If it was the same lot, you'd think they would have captured Leonardo and forced him to talk before they tried me! But if not, then Carlsen might not have known it was Leonardo who stole the list, you see.... Only that it had been stolen and probably sent to New York."

"I see what you mean."

"On the other hand," Solo shrugged. "Does it really seem likely that there would be another organization—one that none of us has ever heard of—which could have found out sufficient facts about Leonardo's assignment to justify the action that has been taken?"

"I guess not," Kuryakin said slowly. "Unless, of course, Leonardo himself was a part of it. But from my own knowledge of the man—and Waverly agrees—that would be so unlikely as to seem impossible."

"Whichever it is, it appears to have been Carlsen who was responsible for doctoring my borrowed car at Rinaldi's place. For it seems to me obvious that the only aim of that operation was to stop me meeting Illya—so that they could put in Miss Eriksson and take him off to the country house to be drugged and interrogated in his turn. How much did she find out before I caught up, Illya?"