The Rainbow Affair - McDaniel David. Страница 31

Chapter 16

How Napoleon and Illya Made Their Farewells, and The Rainbow Faded for a Time.

SOMEWHERE IN THE winding maze of alleys that is Soho, beneath the night-shrouded streets, in a hidden room hung with silks and reeking with incense, two men sat as they had before.

"Your hospitality does not sway me," said the man in the gray suit as he picked at a plate of chow mein with his fork. "You said you would give me an answer in two weeks, and tonight your time is up. What is your answer? Will you work for us?"

The old Chinese raised a thin hand. "Business over shared food is not proper. Let us speak instead of inconsequential things. Your latest operation, perhaps." He returned to a bowl of something indescribable, and lifted out a piece of the contents with his chopsticks. He toyed with it a moment, enjoying his guest's reaction like a Moslem tucking away a slab of roast beef before the eyes of a devout Hindu.

The Thrush watched him with care. "This is also business. The destruction of Johnnie Rainbow was necessary. It will also serve as an object lesson to those who oppose us. Do you choose now to join us - or to join him?"

"Please, Englishman. You return to business again. I wish only to speak idly of your successes. You are certain this is one of them?"

"Beyond a doubt. The light was utterly destroyed, and Rainbow with it - because he refused to cooperate."

"Practical and efficient, if somewhat ruthless," said the old Chinese. "How did you identify his body?" He took a sip of tea.

The man in the gray suit paused. "The entire island was destroyed. It would be impossible to find, let alone identify, any bodies after the blast."

"I see." The old Chinese nodded slightly, smiling to himself. "There is a saying, ancient among the warlords of my people. An enemy should not be accounted defeated until his head has stood on a pole at your gate, and you have seen his wife weeping before it."

The Thrush almost registered an emotion. "Perhaps a valid axiom a thousand years ago, Excellency. But to day's engines of destruction are far more capable than your ancestors could have imagined. Rainbow is dead - this is a certainty."

"I have heard those words many times," said the elder. "They have been pronounced over my own humble person more often than I can count, and yet I sit here talking with you."

"Talking, but always avoiding the main question." The man in the gray suit set his plate neatly on the edge of the desk. "I have finished eating, and we will now discuss business."

"I fear we cannot continue this evening," said the aged Oriental, as he opened an intricately-inlaid box at the side of his desk and brought out an ancient, carved pipe with a tiny bowl. "The stars are not favorable for giving a decision at this time." He set something in the bowl of the pipe and picked up a candle. In seconds, the pungent odor of a Ming-Three began to seep around the incense in the room. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, stroking the marmoset which rested silently on his brocaded shoulder.

Finally he spoke again, distantly. "I will contact you when I am ready. Until then it will do you no good to continue approaching me. The interview is at an end."

The man in the gray suit leaned over the desk and sniffed. "You may force our patience too far. Rainbow's fate could be yours as well."

"I have much that you want, Thrush," came the other's voice, slowly and more faintly. "Destroy me, and you will lose all that I have to offer you. I know what you desire from me, and perhaps someday you may find something for which I would exchange it. I will know when you do."

The man in the gray suit felt a touch on his arm, and turned to find two great, bare-chested, turbaned guards. He accompanied them out, pausing a moment at the door to look back into the hazed interior of that enigmatic room, where an old Chinese with a brow like Shakespeare, a face like Satan, and eyes of the true tiger green, lay dreaming.

The following morning was Friday, and Napoleon and Illya hurried up the steep cobbled street of Baycombe towards Joey's cottage shortly before the clock would strike noon. They knocked, and she answered the door, tiny and quick, looking up at Napoleon under a sweep of coppery hair.

"Come on in," she said eagerly. "Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes. Aunt Jane's just starting the rolls."

They had just time to recover from their trip and refresh themselves before dinner was laid. Conversation was minimal until the fish came, and then Illya said, "By the way, Napoleon, have you looked at that envelope yet?" He explained to the others, "It was handed us at our hotel just as we left in a hurry to catch the train,"

"In the rush I put it in my pocket," said Napoleon. "Probably just a note from the manager wondering if we want to keep the room since we use it so little." A clean knife slipped into one corner and the envelope surrendered its contents - a small sheet of paper, folded twice. Napoleon opened it up and looked at it.

After several seconds he passed it over to Illya, who studied it in equal silence, then looked at his partner and said, "Wordsworth." Napoleon took it back and extended it across the table to their companions.

It bore four typed lines, and across the bottom of the page a polychromatic smear of watercolor described an arc. The message read simply,

"The Rainbow comes and goes,

"And lovely is the rose

"Waters on a starry night

"Are beautiful and fair."

Aunt Jane read it twice slowly, and nodded. Illya said, "I believe the quotation is from Intimations of Immortality. Johnnie seems to have escaped the destruction of his castle, at any rate."

"Yes, I believe he has," said the old lady. "But I was thinking there was a far, far truer line in the same stanza which he did not quote. Stanza two." Her darting eyes looked up like those of a little girl who is called upon to recite, but she seemed to be looking at something else - something which no one could see and which none but she and a few others could remember. And she said, "'But yet I know, where'er I go, that there hath passed away a glory from the earth.'"

Sunlight poured into the silent dining room through a bank of lace-curtained windows facing the calm sea. A gull wheeled and screamed somewhere.

"You don't mean Johnnie Rainbow," said Illya softly.

"No, I don't," said Aunt Jane. "He is one of the last."

Napoleon looked from one to the other of them, and gradually the meal resumed. "He'll start over," said the American agent. "And next time I'll bet he gets his elevator."

"Napoleon!" said Illya, scandalized. "Surely you aren't wishing success to him. After all, he is a criminal."

Solo quickly and emphatically denied any partisanship, and good cheer was restored. Dinner was leisurely paced, and small glasses of brandy were circulated in the neighborhood of one-thirty.

Just as the mantle-clock chimed, Napoleon's pocket communicator demanded his attention. He answered it, and Waverly's distinctive voice filled his ear.

"Mr. Solo? What are you up to now? It has taken an hour and a half to locate you. I will want a complete report on the Rainbow affair filed with the London office in twenty-four hours. Two reports have come in, both alarming, one immediate."

"We'll have the report in on time, sir," said Napoleon. "Itt's more than half finished. What are the problems?"