The Final Affair - McDaniel David. Страница 9

Nobody could see into the back booth. and Harry, oblivious to his surveillance. took the little case out again and opened it on the table before him. What could he possibly have been thinking of when he took this? It was a beautiful thing —still the most beautiful object he had ever seen —but hardly enough to risk his entire career and perhaps his life for. He had been incredibly foolish. And now what could he do?

It would be insane to try to return it — he would surely be detected. It would be dangerous even to take to back to his apartment. He had betrayed his trust for this worthless bit of metal, and he could think of nothing but to get rid of it. He ordered another drink, hiding it in his pocket until the waiter had come and gone. .

He could throw it off the Bridge — but that was an awfully long way to 90

and it was late and cold, and besides, the Bridge was hard to get to on foot.

He could drop it in a trash can or down a sewer, but it seemed little less than blasphemous to treat this perfect, precious rod so badly.

For that matter, he didn’t want to have to carry it another step. Could he just abandon it here?

Why not? He could tuck it out of sight somewhere. and it might not be found until the building was torn down. Certainly they didn’t clean this place very thoroughly… He looked around. What would be a good place? There was no room under his cushion — the seat was a solid unit all the way to the floor; the table stood on a central pillar and was bracketed to the wall. But on his right there was a gap of half an inch or more between the end of the seat and the cracked plaster wall. Plenty of space for the rod if not the case.

But he couldn’t just drop the rod down there in all that dirt —it would be awful to mar that virginal surface. In quick improvisation he wrapped the napkins from his two drinks around the gamma laser and tucked in the ends.

Looking quickly around to be sure no one could see into the booth, he pushed the paper wrapped package out of sight — and out of his thoughts.

He stared at the empty case, gaping in mute reminder of his guilt, and quickly closed it. He couldn’t stay here any longer — he gulped the last of his drink, stuck the case in his pocket and left.

Napoleon and Illya saw Harry come out of the booth. He stood beside it a moment, pulling on his jacket, then walked unsteadily out of the bar. The young John Falstaff carried his remaining beer back to the booth Harry had just vacated, glanced in and was satisfied; he drained his stein a11d set it on the bar on his way out the door.

“So much for that,” said Napoleon quietly. “We will have to go to plan B, whatever that is.”

“I’ll give you odds that was one of them,” said Illya. “They get all the field work they can handle.”

“Stim-heads? I thought so the minute I saw him. Let’s pick up the baby and get out of here. Mr. Waverly will have something else imaginative to hit us with in the morning and I wouldn’t mind getting some sleep. All that briefing for nothing.”

“Well, we had a quiet evening out. We can report in, drop it off and check. out for the night. But I wonder what is going on in Harry’s head right now …”

A block away Harry chucked the plastic case down a storm drain. As it vanished forever into the darkness he felt a tremendous load lifted from him.

Still, he didn’t feel well — he’d probably had a little more to drink. than he should’ve. He’d had two at each place, after all — and he hadn’t even noticed the name of the last place he’d stopped. Well. he hadn’t felt good all day.

He should go home and get some sleep. He was glad that business with the gamma laser was over and he could forget about it; he’d been pretty silly, was lucky to have gotten away with as much as he had. Best to just forget about the whole thing …

He dozed off in the bus on the way home, and only just woke up in time for his stop. He had had too much to drink, he decided fuzzily, and wondered why he’d gone out in the first place. He seemed to remember he’d done something bad — he’d stolen something from the lab. Or had he dreamed that in the bus?

He couldn’t really tell, as he stumbled up the steps to his flat. He didn’t want to think about it, because it hurt. He undressed and tell into bed, to sleep the sleep of the damned.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Ready To Do It —”

“You mean he’s wired with a backup system?”

“Effectively. It would’ve been simpler if we’d been able to bring him in last night, but this is supposed to get the job done —and probably with a little less damage to Harry’s fragile mental condition.”

Napoleon and Illya sat over spread sheets of the Sunday Chronicle their U.N.C.L.E. Specials disassembled and a pack of linen rags between them. The office air conditioner strove in vain to pump out the heavy pungent odor of gun oil and solvent as they passed an idle hour stripping and cleaning their personal weapons in a quiet conference room, unused at this late hour. Napoleon sighted into his muzzle, tipping the receiver to catch the light. squinting along the spiral grooves for any grains of foreign matter which had missed his energetic swabbing. “How does it work?” he asked. “A big black Cadillac with drawn curtains pulls up beside him on the street and whisks him away to an obscure fate?”

“No, he comes willingly. You should know enough about Dr. Grayson’s technique to be able to figure that out. Sometime early this evening Little Sirrocco called him up and in the middle of an apparently harmless conversation she slipped him the pre-arranged cue phrase, which triggers a series of subconscious reactions to bring him to her place within an hour or two. Then he’s debriefed, re-briefed, re-programed if necessary. and sent out.”

“Uh-huh. He did volunteer, right?”

“It couldn’t have worked if he hadn’t. Thrush has the technology to make it work. but it’s surgical, irreversible. and has several unpleasant side effects. I’d like to think nobody but they would use it.”

Solo snapped the slide closed and wiped his fingerprints off the metal.

“What’s the key phrase she uses? Anything to justify the behavior pattern it initiates?”

“You might say so. I think it’s something like, ‘I’m lonely, big boy.’ She was going to call him about 7:30, which means he should be under at the moment.

He’ll be sent home about half past two.”

“Shouldn’t we be there to participate in the briefing?”

“Napoleon, you want to be in on everything. My extraneous presences would complicate Dr. Grayson’s task. Besides, he might recognize us if he ever got a good look at us.”

“You’re being reasonable again. I just like to keep track of what’s going on. I presume we’ll be called if anything develops?”

“I have Mr. Waverly’s word on it. After all. it’s’ only 11:00.”

Napoleon finished repacking the kit and wiped his fingers fastidiously on a rag. “There are a lot of places I’d like to go and spend a couple of hours -no reflection on your company, but U.N.C.L.E. HQ gets pretty quiet between midnight and six a.m. If it wasn’t for the fact that Baldwin probably has bugs under some of the most interesting beds in San Francisco I’d be out investigating the Barbary Coast. Any ideas?”

“Not while we’re collecting duty pay. I have a landlord to feed in Brooklyn Heights.”

“If you didn’t throw all your money away on riotous living, you mad Russian, you could afford to live as well as I do.”

“And you don’t have a cent put away, and your checking account runs into Ready Reserve about five times a year. You live like Aesop’s grasshopper.”

“While your savings balance as of last month was $14,582.07. Why don’t you buy stock with it or something?”

“It’s against my principles. Don’t you expect to live to retire?”

“I trust in Social Security and U.N.C.L.E.‘s retirement plan. I’ll move to the Maldives, after sailing the Pursang around the world just to prove I can, and chase native girls until I’m shot by a jealous husband at the age of 102.