“That’s my odd-job man, honey. Illya Kuryakin—Sarah O’Rourke.”
“I hope you’re not as bloody-minded as your cousin Bridget,” Illya murmured, inclining his head a fraction. “Is she, Napoleon?”
“Not this one. King Mike was saving the pair of us for a few of his gruesome experiments. She’s on our side. How’d you get in here?”
“Up through the laboratory floor. It seemed the easiest way. Do you have anything to linger for?”
“Not a thing, and this place is stuffed tight with Irish shotgunners. Let’s get out of here, fast!”
“What about the Mafia here?”
“He can snore in our place. It won’t hurt him any.” Solo slid the tray inside with a foot, swung the door shut and shoved the bar across. “That’s that. Lead on!”
They hurried into the laboratory, where Illya showed them the hole under the bench. “Goes down into the drain and then along for half a mile. You go ahead; I want to leave a farewell gift. I’ll be right after you.”
He watched them go down, then began fumbling out more gear. A small but heavy box went up against the door. The rest of the plastic explosive was packed around it. Wires. A tiny timing mechanism which he set by his watch. He moved now, on an afterthought picking up one of the cans of beer. Then he slid swiftly down into the hole and flashed his light ahead. Solo and Sarah were well away, and they all scrambled faster with the aid of the light. He caught up to them just as they stumbled out into the cool night under the small bridge. The stream gurgled quietly. The air was pleasant on their warm faces.
“Just a minute,” Illya estimated, holding his watch steady, seeing the seconds tick away. There came a sullen rumble and a great drumming blast of air along the pipe, a shock through the ground, and a distant roar in the air. “It was only a small bomb,” he said regretfully. “Not enough to blow up a whole castle; But it will ruin the laboratory, and puzzle them a bit.”
“I feel a lot better just for that,” Solo said. “Better still when I see that yon Italian lunkhead had at least the good sense to bring back my own gun. We’d better travel, Illya. How are we fixed for mobility?”
“I’ve a small pickup about five minutes’ walk down this road. Come on. Anybody got an opener, by the way?” He flourished the beer-can, and Solo snatched it from him with a stifled curse, tossed it into the stream and took aim on it. The pistol coughed in his hand, and there came a plunk from the can.
“Not for you, old man,” he said. “I’ll explain in a minute. First—can you locate the brewery from here?”
“I think so. Urgent?”
“Very much. Six thousand dozen cans of 3-B are due to ship out any time now, overland. We have to stop that shipment, somehow.”
“You haven’t suddenly gone Prohibitionist, have you, Napoleon? I can’t blame you for not feeling affectionate towards King Mike, but that’s no reason to knock his beer, is it?”
“You don’t know what’s in the stuff,” Solo growled. “All the beer in those cans is doped with Mike’s molecules.” He went on to fill in the background and his own reasoning as they scrambled up the bankside and across the road. Kuryakin listened intently, and nodded.
“Sounds logical,” he agreed. “Have you any idea just what the stuff does? I had word from U.N.C.L.E. One, but just the hint that it could be a hallucinogen. That’s vague enough. Do you know anything more?”
“Plenty!” Solo retorted, with feeling. “This is one of the best. It’s nothing more or less than canned courage exaggerated out of all reason. King Mike tried one on me without warning. It’s dynamite!” He went on to describe and catalogue his “symptoms” as clearly as he could be objective about them, but stressed that he had felt perfectly normal at the time.
“You’re quite sure you weren’t drunk?”
“On one can of beer? Slightly less than half a pint? What do you think? But I felt like a regiment of giants eager and willing to take on the Chinese menace all by myself. I could have walked through walls. In actual fact”—he grinned ruefully—“I was slowed up so much that Foden was hitting me whenever and however he wanted to.”
They reached the truck and Kuryakin slid into the driving seat, Sarah scrambled in beside him, and Solo got in last of all, slamming the door shut. And then he snorted in a way that made Kuryakin look at him critically and ask, “Something on your mind, Napoleon?”
“Yeah. The dope is finally wearing off, and the pattern has sprung a few stitches. Try this for size, Illya. King Mike is no fool, but a crafty old planner. He is about to ship six thousand dozen cans of doped beer to be transported to England. We know what that stuff can do. We can imagine what the result will be. I will even allow that this is a mass demonstration put on by the old man to show Thrush his muscles. But—”
“But what?”
“Think what’s going to happen next. Death and disaster on a large and shocking scale, right? Then the law starts to check back. What’s their first question in an auto accident, say, or any kind of accident that seems to be caused by recklessness? ‘Was he drinking?’ And sooner or later, they’re going to tie in the coincidences, and pin the blame right on 3-B. Which means Mike is in trouble. At the least, financial ruin. At worst, multiple manslaughter. Of course, most of the damage will be done by then, but all the same, it’s sloppy thinking on his part. Or is it?”
“On the contrary.” Kuryakin smiled slightly as he stared out into the dark. “It’s actually very crafty psychology on the old man’s part. I was on a job in England just recently. They are currently very concerned about drunken driving, and working on some efficient way of telling whether a man is drunk or not. You’d never convince them that one can of beer would have any effect on a man. They just wouldn’t believe it.”
“And Uncle Mike did say,” Sarah offered, “that no chemist would ever be able to detect anything amiss, either in the man or the beer!”
“That I can believe,” Kuryakin nodded. “Fractional traces are hard to find, even when you know what to look for. Interesting stuff.” He glanced at Solo. “I wonder how it would affect someone who’s not naturally conceited?”
“What’s in the back of the truck?” Solo asked, ignoring the gibe.
“Portable generator and assorted items of mayhem.” They moved off and gathered speed. “You never know what you might need, to get into a castle.” They rolled on a while in amicable silence, these two who were so unlike in temperament yet so close in spirit. Sarah sat shivering between them, even now hardly able to believe the nightmare was over for a while.
“Do you think,” she asked quietly, “that Uncle Mike actually had it in mind to kill me?”
“We’ll never know that,” Napoleon said. “And, for my part, I’d just as soon leave it that way. One thing’s certain. He intends to kill a whole lot of people with that beer shipment unless we can figure out some way to stop it.” They came to a low crest and he called gently, “Hold it, Illya. Isn’t that the brewery down there, Sarah?” They were looking down over a great square space filled with orderly blocks of buildings, all neat and functional. Most of it lay in darkness, but there was one comer where lights burned and people moved about their business. She stared down.
“That’s it,” she declared. “And there’s something going on. That’s the loading gate, there. And the lorries, see?”
“Get going!” Solo snapped, and the little truck roared into speed down the gentle slope. Those black masses down there triggered an instant and ghastly suspicion in his mind. The beer was loading up right now. Headlights stabbed at them from a bend, and Kuryakin hauled the truck over to hug the roadside as a small van went roaring past in the other direction.
“What will you bet,” he offered mildly, “that they’re on their way to help out at the castle?”
“Rescue operations? It could be. We might be able to use that idea.” The truck hit the flat now and roared around a bend to pull into a long straight road that lay alongside a high wire and steel fence. On ahead they sa
w the red warning of tail-lights, and those lights were moving.
“What will you bet,” Solo said, “that there goes our precious shipment of death? After ’em, Illya!”
“With what?” the practical Russian replied. “We might be able to catch them, it’s true. But then what?”
“You have a better idea?”
“Possibly. Miss O’Rourke, do you know anything about the laboratory work, the processing?”
“Yes, I do. Why?”
“Do you use homogenizing equipment? Ultrasonic agitators, to be more specific?”
“That’s right. The latest—”
‘We’ll have to gamble, Napoleon; it’s our only chance. We need that equipment. Miss O’Rourke, can you keep the gatekeeper talking while we roll past and in? Tell him anything you like, but we have to get in there.”
“All right, I’ll try,” she promised, and scrambled past Solo as the truck neared the gate. “The laboratory is away to your left as you get through,” she called, and eased the door open. Kuryakin trod on the brake, hauled the wheel around hard, nosing the truck through the still-open gate, slowing to let her drop off, then speeding up and swinging away to the left to run alongside a long low building that was almost all glass in front. He braked to a stop and leaped out.
“I hope she remembers to bring the keys,” he muttered as they ran to the door. Solo went along, trusting his companion enough not to argue, but curious.
“What have you got in mind, Illya? Ultrasonic agitators?”
“You said six thousand dozen, Napoleon. You shot a hole in the can you took from me. Why? Because it’s not enough to stop those trucks, or to run them off the road, even if we could. Ah, here she comes, and with the keys. Smart girl!”
Sarah came running, a slim black shape in the gloom, keys clinking in her hand. As the door opened she flicked on the lights and they all blinked at the myriad reflections from gleaming chrome-work.
“Very neat!” Kuryakin approved, as they hastened into the fermentation room. “Very neat indeed. And there’s the fellow we want, right there.” He laid expert hands on the squat steel bulk of a cannon-shaped device that stood on a stubby plinth with its muzzle buried in the side of a huge vat. He began to wrench at wing-nuts.
“I’ll disconnect the power-line!” Sarah gasped. “Will you be able to manage? It’s heavy!” Solo caught the idea of what was needed and got busy on the wing-nuts of the opposite side.
“Stir things up a bit, eh?”
“Right!” Kuryakin grunted. “This is used to agitate the brew, to speed up fermentation, aging, and to ensure perfect blending. Free on your side? Watch out for the weight now. How’s the cable?”
Sarah came hurrying with the free end, to pass it under and loop it as the two men hoisted the heavy unit. “Make it double,” Kuryakin suggested, “and we can use it as a carrier. That’s it. Fine. Let it down easy, Napoleon. Now, if we grab the loops—” They grunted and heaved, and she ran on ahead to hold doors open for them as they waddled with the massive thing between them.
“Can you drive?” Kuryakin asked the girl. She nodded hurriedly, and he smiled. “Good—then hop into the driver’s seat. Start up as soon as we’re aboard. We’ll be fixing this as we go.” They shambled out after her and labored to heave the thing into the back of the truck, then scrambled in. She gunned the motor instantly, swinging the truck around in a tight curve.
“Where d’you want it?” Solo panted. “Up on the roof of the cab?”
“Seems the best place. Let me free the cable first. Now—hup!” The two men groaned as they heaved the massive unit shoulder-high and slid it onto the cab-roof.
The truck roared along to the gate and went into another sharp turn, sending the glittering mass of steel skidding perilously. Solo grabbed for it, flipped a nonchalant hand to the goggling gatekeeper and called out, “Much obliged. Good night!”
The truck swooped again in the opposite direction and was into the road now. Solo clung tight as the unit teetered. Kuryakin took the cable-end and went down on his knees beside the generator to wire up. It was a nightmare job, with only the narrow light of his wrist-light and the truck bouncing and swaying along the road, but he stuck at it patiently until all was secure. He spent a few precious moments making sure the generator was all ready to start up at the touch of a button, then straightened up and turned his face to the welcome coolness of the breeze.
Solo, clinging grimly to the precious unit, offered a heartfelt prayer that Sarah knew the route the beer trucks would take. By the time Kuryakin stood up and announced that all was ready the little truck had cleared Conway and was snarling along the Ennis bypass, heading for Clarecastle and points southwest. To the right, between occasional clumps of trees, they could see the distant lights of Shannon airport. Kuryakin laid his hand on the agitator, took some of the weight, and played his flashlight on it.
“How do you intend to aim and fire the thing?” Solo asked, curiously.
“By guess, I’m afraid. It isn’t intended to be aimed, you know. This, see, is the frequency-setting. We can wind that up a bit. The more energy the better. And this is the focal range. I’ll set that as far out as it will go. According to the dial that’s twenty-five feet. And that’s all we can do. No point in starting up the power until we see the trucks.”
“I think I’ve got it,” Solo murmured, “but check me, just to make sure. The ultrasonic beam will stir up the beer in the cans, right?”
“Right! They are already under slight pressure. When the sonic beam hits, its energy will be transferred to the liquid, making it boil violently.”
“Should be fun!” Solo peered ahead, but the road as far as he could see was still deserted. They had cleared Newmarket on Fergus and were coming up fast on Hurler’s Cross. He glanced at his watch. Just about midnight-and the whole place was deserted, quietly asleep. If this had been New York now—!
“Those trucks are making fast time,” he muttered.
“We’ll never catch them at this rate. Can you handle this on your own a bit?”
“I think so.”
“Good—let’s see what I can do to speed things up a bit!” He hoisted up onto the cab and squirmed to lower his face over the side, to call into the open window. “Get ready to move over; I’m coming down!” Then he changed ends, lowered his feet cautiously, slid them inside and went down in time to a convenient lurch of the truck. Sarah moved away, letting him grab the wheel. The motor-noise fell off momentarily, then howled into new fury as he put his foot down hard. He gave her a quick reassuring grin and she tried hard to smile back. “I daren’t think,” she confessed. “If I did I should be scared stiff!”
“Perfectly all right—we all get scared at times. It’s a very useful feeling. That’s what’s so deadly about your uncle’s molecules.”
“That was awful!” She shuddered. “You looked crazy—and helpless—at the same time. I thought you were going to be killed.”
“That bit bothers me.” He frowned, watching the road. “I gathered there were to be other experiments. Just how many trick synthetics has King Mike got, anyway?”
She shook her head in wonder. “Only two that I know about. One’s almost a mirror-image of the other—the structure-diagram, I mean. But the properties seem to be completely different, from what little I’ve heard. It’s a fast-acting fermenting colloid.”
“Which means?”
“Well, when in contact with water it ferments very quickly and then sets into a thick jelly. Something the way starch does when you boil it.”
Solo shrugged. “That doesn’t sound so terrible, at any rate.”
Directly over his head, Illya Kuryakin would have disagreed had he been able to hear. That unshakably serious young man had hoisted himself onto the cab roof, and with one arm wrapped around the ultrasonic unit he was playing the beam of his flashlight over that black-bound notebook in his other hand, and studying it with intense interest. There were some very intriguing diagrams in it, and the neatly
written explanations were even more interesting.
“‘At a liquid temperature of 60°F,’” he read, “‘the original sample ferments in a yeast-like manner, entraps water, doubling in volume every fifteen seconds for the first hour. The volumetric increase then falls off steadily, becoming stable after eight hours, when a colloidal suspension forms and the entire mass becomes extremely viscous—’” he flipped a page or two and came across one more diagram, an electronic layout this time. He studied it carefully as the truck jolted and swayed beneath him.
“Limerick!” Sarah peered ahead. “The lorries will have had to slow down a bit, here. ’Tis a bit of a job to get through the cross-streets to the T 13, which they will have to do, you see, to make for Clonmel and then on to the road to Waterford and the boat.”
“Good!” Solo nodded. “You’ll have to pilot me here.”
The black bulks of buildings began to rear up on either side of the road. Cobbles jarred them. He hauled on the wheel, swinging and whirling the truck crazily in response to her directions. They roared over Thomond Bridge, and he snatched a glance at the docks and long lines of shipping.
“Why don’t you ship your stuff from here?” he wondered.
“We do!” she declared. “But not to England. For that market it’s quicker to run overland to Waterford and take the short sea-route. Whisht now—I think that’s them on ahead, see?”
Solo peered, then raised one hand from the wheel to thump on the roof over his head, grinning as the replying thump came at once. Over the booming roar of the truck’s motor he heard a sudden new growl and shudder, and knew that the generator was spinning. He fastened his gaze on the winking tail-lights ahead, and cut his own headlights, leaving only the running lights glowing. They stormed through a clutter of cottages, a little backwater on the edge of town, and then out into the open again. The truck ahead drew near and he could see the tailboard and the narrow slats that held the shuddering cargo of cartons. Coming up fast. He tensed, remembering what Illya had said about a twenty-five foot range. He wondered if the driver ahead would have the common road-courtesy to pull over to let him pass. Not that he was going to, not yet. Closer still. He eased his foot from the gas, peering ahead, waiting.
Man From U.N.C.L.E. 05 - The Mad Scientist Affair Page 7
