Magazine 1967-­07] - The Electronic Frankenstein Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 18

• Предыдущая
• 18/21
• Следующая

"I said there were three things, Napoleon Solo, that made it necessary for me to take drastic measures to oppose both THRUSH and my father's secret plans. You know now what two of them are. But you have not questioned me about the third."

"And what is the third?" Solo asked.

"I told you that I have watched you often through the all-seeing eyes of the machine, Napoleon Solo. Despite myself I have come to respect and admire you. I will strike a bargain with you. If I can find a way that will enable both you and Mr. Kuryakin to escape from the ruins before it is too late—will you promise me that you will not forget what I have just told you? THRUSH has become my father's enemy? At any moment the blow may fall. The instant they cease to need him he will be destroyed. Only you can save him. If U.N. C.L.E. can strike first my father's life may be spared. Surely if I help you to escape, U.N.C.L.E., out of gratitude alone, would rest content with so shattering a blow to THRUSH."

The proposal was so unexpected that Solo remained for an instant silent, turning it over in his mind. Such a promise, he knew, would have to be conditional. Lee Cheng could not possibly escape the exaction which justice would demand—life imprisonment, at the very least. The frail little man's Frankenstein monster had been used as an instrument of death, and while justice could be tempered with mercy it could not be toppled from its pedestal by bargaining on any level.

Neither was it anything that Solo would have cared to attempt. Lee Cheng's guilt would not be lessened by the repentance of his daughter—if her repentance was genuine—or by her offer of help.

He was very careful to make his answer noncommittal and reassuring. "I'll do my best," he said.

"Then I will do my best," the woman at his side said quickly, a gleam of relief coming into her eyes, "to arrange for your escape. It will be difficult and may take a little time."

Solo was far from sharing her relief. What she had said about Illya was causing him increasing concern. "My father is not being too kind to him" could have meant more than the words suggested. It could have veiled an ordeal by torture that Illya might not be able to withstand.

"There should be no conditions attached to the kind of bargain we have just made," Solo said. "Kuryakin has risked his life more than once to save mine. You can hardly expect me to be unconcerned as to his safety."

"I know," Lhasa said, meeting his gaze with more understanding than he had dared to hope he would see in her eyes. "But what would you have me do? Take you to him? It would be difficult and dangerous. He is under constant guard."

"But you could do it, I think," Solo said. "I would just exchange a few words with him. It's important to me. I must be absolutely sure that he is all right. You just said—"

"I know what I said. But that does not mean that all of the guards will obey me, or even that I can trust more than three of four of them not to betray me. Why can't you believe me when I tell you that Kuryakin is in no immediate danger?"

"That depends on what you mean by danger," Solo said. "He may be in more danger than you know. Not of losing his life perhaps, but—" He let what he could have said remain unspoken.

For an instant Lhasa returned his stare almost defiantly. Then she shrugged. "All right," she said. "I'll take you to him."

ELEVEN

GOBI SOS

IN AMERICA it would not have been thought of as a room, but as a warehouse interior of an arsenal supply depot.

The walls were of stone, but they had an almost metallic sheen and they towered up into shadows. Long benches stood against the walls and one stood a little out from the wall and extended from the doorway to a far corner where a huge pile of miscellaneous objects lay scattered—steel helmets, gun belts, canteens and what looked like a collapsed parachute.

On all of the benches there were metallically gleaming instruments of science. Their technological configuration was apparent at a glance, although some were much larger than others.

But it wasn't the instruments of science, nor the scattered objects of desert warfare equipment that were half-obscured by the shadows that caused Solo to come to an abrupt halt just inside the doorway and draw in his breath sharply. The woman at his side had shut the door firmly behind them and was watching his face intently, as if she feared that just the sight of the half-naked man strapped from his waist to his shoulders by leather thongs to one of the benches might cause Solo to turn upon her in rage.

Illya Kuryakin's back was crisscrossed with swelling welts, and he was moving his shoulders about, as far as the thongs would permit, as if to ease the pain of what could only have been recently applied lashes.

"You lied to me!" Solo breathed. "You said that no harm would come to him."

"I did not know," she said, "that my father would—"

Lhasa straightened abruptly, a look of alarm coming into her eyes. They had both heard it, a sudden, clattering sound just outside the door that had barely closed behind them.

"That guard!" she said. "I'm not sure I can trust him. I did not like the look he gave me when I ordered him to leave. He may be waiting just outside. I'd better make sure—"

She had opened the door again and was gone before Napoleon Solo could move across the enormous room toward Illya Kuryakin.

"There's a bolt on that door!" Illya cried out sharply. "Lower it into place. Don't let her come back. Hurry! We'll never get another chance."

It seemed sheer madness to Solo, for what chance could two unarmed men possibly have in a room that was securely bolted? But he turned, grasped the bolt firmly and let it clatter into place, then crossed the enormous room in ten swift strides to Illya's side.

"Unbind me," Illya said, ignoring the appalled look on Solo's face as his eyes came to rest on the ten or twelve long red welts that crisscrossed the younger agent's back. They had cut deeply into the flesh, and it was easy to see from the tight set of Illya's lips that the pain was still agonizing.

"There's a powerful transmitting apparatus at the end of this bench," Kuryakin said. "Get me loose and we'll put through a message to Harris in Tokyo and Waverly in New York. It won't be picked up, because Lee Cheng's metal giant is lying immobilized in the desert close to where it brought the 'copter down. It developed another defect right after we caught a brief look at it."

Solo began swiftly to loosen the thongs which bound Illya to the bench, talking as he did so, his voice tight with strain.

"How did you find out all that? I had a very good chance to get some information just as vital, but I seem to have muffed it. Cheng's daughter—"

"She's a very talkative girl," Illya said. "But I guess you know that. She was here, along with her father. He finally lost patience and presented me with a souvenir of this place I'll be carrying with me for some time. Twelve lashes, straight across the back, with a very ugly cat. But trying to get vital information out of a man that way can backfire. He had to give me some information so that I could fil1 in the rest of it for him, which of course I refused to do."

For an instant Illya's lips twisted in a wry smile, despite his pain. "He thought it was safe enough to let a few things slip out, because he didn't think I'd ever leave this room alive."

"Are you sure you will?" Solo asked. "Even if we get a message through to Tokyo and New York, there's a long road of winding before any help could get here."

• Предыдущая
• 18/21
• Следующая