The Dagger Affair - McDaniel David. Страница 9

She sighed. "There's so much to tell you — and it's not coming out in any kind of order. I'm sorry I'm so confused. I'll try to get myself a little better organized for you. Kim was able to convince a lot of people — some of them with money — that he had a machine that could prevent atomic war. And he got money for his experiments. He convinced them that this had to be kept very secret, because there were a lot of powerful governments that would try to stop him and destroy his invention, because they needed the threat of atomic war to keep their people under control. You'd be surprised how many people really believe that! And Kim wanted to build one huge E/D with a non-directional field big enough to blanket the entire earth!

"He knew about U.N.C.L.E., and he got worried a few weeks ago about how much you knew about him. So he and I and Chernik and Holt — oh, Holt is another Nihilist friend of his; I'm sure he wants to destroy everything too — flew to New York. Kim talked to some people he knew there — people who have contributed to DAGGER. . ."

"DAGGER?" said Illya, sharply. "Is that your brother's organization?"

"It's not that much of an organization, really," she said. "Most of the people who are working for it think it's just against atomic war — since a dagger is a primitive and personal weapon. Kim was telling everyone there would be no more big wars. That he could even make gunpowder ineffective, and there'd be no power left but steam engines and everybody could go back to a leisurely life. And to people who didn't want this, he'd say he was just going to make atomic bombs non-functional, because a dagger was used as a weapon of defense in hand-to-hand combat. But there are people all over the country who think they know what he's doing, and are willing to work in secret to help him. But I think only Kim, and Chernik and Holt, really know what the master plan is.

"But as I was saying — Kim talked to some people he knew in New York and found out where you were going to be, Mr. Solo. And he told me to go out and watch for your car, and pull alongside and stop it, with the big E/D unit in the back seat. I don't know what he was doing at that time — I think he was going to see if there was anything in your apartment about him and the E/D. See, he couldn't get into U.N.C.L.E.'s headquarters, so..."

"Uh-huh. That's about what we thought it was," Napoleon said. "And that's why my wrist-watch was slow. The E/D field had stopped it."

"It shouldn't have done..."

"It's an electric wrist-watch — battery powered," he said. "Very expensive and very accurate, and guaranteed against everything. Except Energy Dampers. What about the address you gave at the place where you rented the car? That gave us a little trouble."

"I don't know where it is, exactly. Kim just said I should leave that address, and not to worry about trying to use a different name because the address would be enough to throw you off."

"It almost did — permanently."

"Garnet," Illya asked, "you said Kim was working for a consulting organization when he developed this. Do you know anything about the company? Its name, location, size and so on?"

She pursed her lips and thought. "Something Associates. Parson? Person? Pierson — that was it. Pierson Associates. They're not very big, but they have some important contracts, I guess. They're in San Francisco."

Illya caught Napoleon's eye and nodded significantly. A Thrush front organization, as they had suspected. To Garnet he said, "They may be able to help us."

"I don't know. Kim was pretty definite about keeping away from them. He mentioned something about a breach of contract — he'd come up with the basic theories while working for them, and they wanted the rights. And he said nobody could be trusted with the secret. That's what he said, anyway. Now, I don't know what to believe. He could have been lying about everything."

"Except the Energy Damper," said Illya, softly.

Garnet nodded.

The technician spoke to her for the first time. "Miss?wouldn't it take a pretty large machine to generate enough of a field to cover the whole world? And how much power would it take? And how does it convert its power into the field once the field covers it?"

Garnet shook her head. "Last week they started working on a miniaturized version. It should generate a field a quarter of a mile across, and it can be carried in my purse. And this isn't fully miniaturized. I'd guess in a few more months of experimentation they could make one big enough — it'd probably be as big as a boxcar, but I know Kim. He'd be able to hide it. As for power, I don't think it draws any kind of electric power. And once the field is established the E/D doesn't do anything but maintain it."

The technician looked at the floor and chewed the end of his right index finger. "That's not possible," he said flatly, as if he were trying to convince himself. "The field would have to be an unstable state, and it would take power to maintain it. There's a flaw in there. It wouldn't really work. It wouldn't." He looked at Napoleon. "It wouldn't. Would it?"

Expressionlessly, Napoleon held out his wrist with the electric watch visible. It was two minutes slow. The technician looked at it without really focusing his eyes. After a while he shook his head slowly. "I don't care if it works or not," he said. "It still isn't possible."

"The whole machine isn't possible," said Illya. "Personally, I believe color television to be impossible too. But since it does exist, I will act as if I believed in it. We must do the same for the Energy Damper."

The technician said softly, "He really could destroy the world."

Nobody said anything else for a few seconds.

"Garnet, do you have any idea what Kim is going to do now?"

"I don't know. He started talking with Holt a few days ago about a test of the new model — the miniaturized one. They wanted something big, something that would affect a lot of people. Kim is very sure nobody could connect him with it, and even if they did he has some places to hide that not even I know about."

Napoleon had the good taste to refrain from making an obvious remark about mad scientists and secret laboratories, but he was struck with the situation all the same.

Garnet continued hesitantly, "There was a road map on his desk last night and some figures about 300 miles. And he bought a canvas water-bag for a car."

Ralph Feldman sat quietly in a corner. He hadn't spoken during the interview so far, leaving that to those who knew more about what was going on. But now he did. "300 miles from Los Angeles — north would put him in Fresno, south in the middle of Baja California, and east would put him about Las Vegas. I'd bet on the last if he wanted to hit a lot of people."

"But how many people could he affect in a quarter-mile, even in the heart of the city? This sounds like he wants something really big."

"Boulder Dam," said Illya. "If he could knock that out, it would affect a large portion of Southern California."

Feldman nodded. "We'd better check any other possible places he could strike. But I think Boulder is the best bet. Any idea when he'd be planning to pull this 'demonstration'?"

"By this time he'll know I've — betrayed him." Her voice caught, but she went ahead. "He'll want to make it as soon as possible. It could be tomorrow. He didn't tell me about it at all — and he never thought I could figure anything out for myself — so he'll see no reason not to go right ahead with it."