The Cross of Gold Affair - Davies Fredric. Страница 28

He taught the three flower children the words of an old Russian lullaby. Charlie and Andy immediately went into a minor key harmony on the ancient tune, while Mai’s pure soprano soared two octaves above to carry the melody. Illya wasn’t sure that the song would put many babies to sleep, but he had to admit that their rendition was beautiful. The four continued singing, as Illya continued his search for any sort of doorway. Occasionally, one of the three would extend the doggerel of “Where have all the Thrushes gone?” to include another, even more improbable, continuation.

Every last inch of the Spaceship Room was finally inspected and probed, and no way out. Illya started to crawl into the adjoining alcove to the tune of When the Saints Go Marching In. The angled floor of their prison became perfectly horizontal in the alcove, and Illya stopped to inspect the juncture closely.

“This floor is steel!” he exclaimed, interrupting a complicated roundelay concerning porpoises. The three flower children rushed forward. “Keep singing!” the Russian commanded. “Keep Arnold and his crew at bay. This may be our ticket out.”

The flower children took up their favorite doggerel with gusto, and Illya continued to test out his theory. The hairs on the back of his hand stood up and he snatched it back from the electric field. There was no telling just what that floor was charged for, whether to trigger a trap, or fry him on contact. His eyes detected that the wooden planking

painted on the alcove floor had one subtle flaw. Two of the planks weren’t split by just a painted crack. That crack was real, and the floor was really two slabs of steel, side by side.

“Keep on singing; I think I’ve found it,” he said, as he searched his pockets for something to trigger the device. Finally his jacket was elected, his pockets being empty. He rolled the jacket into a ball, and, standing well back, tossed it into the alcove. The four prisoners watched it bounce from the far wall and descend to the floor. The floor snapped open to reveal a field of knives, and a figure in black.

The jacket fell into the knives, half in the ocean and half held up out of it. For many heartbeats no one said a word.

Chapter 12

“I’m all right, Doc/’

NAPOLEON WOKE UP with the driver shaking him. They were drawing up before the tailor shop that fronted for U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. Del Floria came out to pay the fare and helped the wounded agent inside.

“I need a big dose of first aid,” said Napoleon, indicating the lacerations on his body that were starting to bleed again. “But I also need a change of clothes, Del. And I must speak with Mr. Waverly immediately.”

While he passed behind a curtain into the old brownstone and headed for the Medical Department, he knew the tailor was setting wheels in motion to have the U.N.C.L.E. personnel ready for him at every stage. He arrived at Medical to be stripped and examined by two doctors who operated without any sign of curiosity about the strangeness of the damage he’d survived. They probed each wound for pieces of wood and dirt, and pronounced him ready for the Mediclean unit.

“You can certainly be glad the bug-chaser is in working order tonight,” said one. “You’re riddled with splinters, and ordinary methods would probably just made a good cut at

stopping infection. In a few days when it showed up, you’d have to go through everything over again. There aren’t any serious wounds, however, and you’re ready to get in.”

With a little help, Napoleon stepped into a tiled chamber and watched the door close behind, making a perfect seal. The little room was like a man-sized bullet, with barely space enough for him to move around. Overhead, the tile arched up to a dome, giving him space to raise both arms full over his head.

From every side a hissing noise preceded jets of warm disinfectant. The streams blasted his body from the chin down, and he closed his eyes and worked the fluid into the pores of his face and made a shampoo of it for his salt stiffened hair. He moved about in the churning spray, rubbing his whole body to help penetration into every cut and abrasion.

A finer set of sprays followed the first, and he held his damaged members close to the nozzles, permitting atomized liquid to massage the hundreds of wounds. Soap and water, applied by warm, wide nozzles, doused him completely, and it was a very clean Napoleon who stood looking at his pink, wrinkled skin with pleasure when the floods stopped. Warmed air whipped around him, evaporating the last of the rinses completely, and then the chamber heated up. The floor stayed warm, but the walls steamed up and the air became moist and drew sweat out of him. He grinned at the tile, remembering Arnold’s supersonic torture room in the Space House, comparing it to this friendly Swedish bath.

Another blast of air dried him, and he was ready to leave.

One doctor came to him to apply bandages to the severest cuts, preventing bleeding and later chances of infection. Napoleon found it hard to believe he’d ever been hurt, considering the euphoric feeling that followed his thorough shower. But the slashes in arms and legs were very real. Despite temporary lack of pain, he had to be bandaged heavily.

A new set of clothing waited outside the Mediclean laboratory, and he refused help in getting dressed. He smiled broadly at the doctor, feeling better than he had any time

since his first encounter with Gambol hours before. “I’m all right, Doc,” he said, and made his way out into the corridor under his own steam. He only allowed a pretty U.N.C.L.E. clerk to escort him to Waverly’s office, he told himself, because he liked pretty girls.

“Mr. Solo, I am pleased to report that we have a definite lead on the distributor of stock secrets,” said Waverly when Napoleon had seated himself at the circular conference table. “Mr. Kuryakin reported on your abduction by the broker Gambol, and while he drove after you he gave us the clue we needed to crack a rather intricate information-relay device. Departments of Finance, Research, and Cryptography have examined the market reports, and a certain crossword puzzle, with great success “

Napoleon sat upright, wondering if the night’s escapades had deranged him somehow. “Crossword puzzle, sir? Crossword puzzle?”

“Indeed. While you were being led to Thrush through the actions of Mr. Gambol and his associates, Mr. Kuryakin discovered a communications link in today’s crossword. It would seem that Avery D. Porpoise has been commanding his troops in a very curious manner. Of course, we have no definite proof against the man.”

Napoleon looked at his chief for a moment, struck speechless by the news. He stared at Waverly, at the bank of computers and tape drives behind Waverly, and at the bandages on his own arms and hands. “I’ve just been knocked around and snatched, chased and imprisoned by a gang of Thrushes,” he said. “They live in the biggest no-fun funhouse on Coney Island, working for a bad-humor man named Avery D. Porpoise. If on top of all the other trouble that that soggy little butterball caused me today he is also writing crosswords for Illya to solve, I’m going to devise some totally original and excruciatingly slow death for him. I always thought you had to sit up all night with a toothache to make up crossword puzzles.”

Waverly allowed himself to look slightly amused. “I have here the dossier on your intended victim, which covers what we know of his history up to a few years ago. When Mr. Kuryakin’s hunch pointed to him, we put together what is

known of him and found him to be a most unique individual. I would caution you, however, that torture will in all likelihood not affect him in the least.”

He put the folder down in front of him, and spun the table to position it directly before Napoleon. The data on Porpoise was unspectacular up to a point. Under Identifying Marks, some researcher had summarized all that had been or ever would be of interest concerning Avery D. Porpoise: