16 - The Splintered Sunglasses Affair

by Peter Leslie

  "And just what is to stop me," Solo demanded, "from switching off the engine and braking to a halt in the first town we come to? We're bound to pass some villages on the way: it's more than fifty kilometres to Buronzo."

  Giovanna del Renzio leaned over the back of Illya's seat, keeping the gun trained warily on Solo, and pushed the Russian's unconscious body down below the line of windscreen and windows. "Use your mirror," she said. "The Cadillac behind is Mr. Carlsen's—and in a minute a Lancia will pull out ahead of you from a layby. Lala Eriksson will be driving. As a foreigner with no papers, do you think any country policeman will believe you against the word of two car loads of local residents? Besides which, I should shoot one of these darts at you before you could say anything... and don't think we couldn't, between us, think up some convincing explanation!"

  Solo shrugged. The rain had stopped completely and sunshine was raising steam from the drying road as it curved between meadows of silvery green. Half a kilometer ahead, the familiar Lancia convertible, now with its roof raised, nosed out into the road from under a row of trees and took up its station ahead of him.

  "May one ask the point of this—er—maneuver?" Solo enquired.

  "Don't be foolish, Mr. Solo. You know as well as I do. When we get to Carlsen's house you will tell us what it is that you took from this pickpocket and, if it is here, we will destroy it; if not, we shall get it and then destroy it."

  "And if we don't tell you?"

  "You will. One of you will. There are ways and means at that house, believe me. Round this corner we enter the main road to Chivasso for a few hundred meters, and then we turn left off it again. Be ready for a sharp right and then left... And remember I shall be ready for anything else!"

  Without taking her eyes from him, the girl laid her arm along the shelf below the car's back window and gave the thumbs-up sign to the Cadillac which was purring along close behind.

  Half an hour later, they rolled in convoy along the road where Lala Eriksson and Illya had been forced into the hedge by Solo. Only this time there was no rescuer roaring up behind them between the thickets of cane.

  Soon they came to a cross-roads and Solo recognized part of the route he had taken on foot when he had escaped from Carlsen's domain.

  Two kilometers later, the Lancia turned in under an archway piercing the high wall of a gatehouse and they were in the driveway he recalled so well. The steel grille gates swung wide as Lala Eriksson sounded her horn, remained open as the three cars drove through, and then slowly shut to remake its electrical circuit with the wire mesh fence inside the wall.

  Solo caught a glimpse of a pair of dogs eyeing the convoy, and then they were past the poplar trees and circling the shrubbery in front of the house.

  They pulled up below the terrace with a rustle of gravel.

  La la Erikssen, slim and dark in a green trouser suit, was climbing from the Lancia's driving seat. Carlsen, his fat face split into a travesty of a welcoming smile, was standing at the front of the steps with one of his torpedoes on either side. And from the Cadillac behind, the manservant and three more gunmen descended.

  Giovanna del Renzio slid across the back seat of the Fiat and opened the door. She got out on to the driveway and jerked open the passenger door. Illya Kuryakin slumped inertly to the gravel.

  The girl gestured sharply with her gun and Solo in his turn pressed the catch of his door and stepped out of the car.

  "Mr. Solo!" Carlsen exclaimed effusively. "How nice to see you again. Let us hope that this time our hospitality will not bore you so much that you feel you have to leave... Giovanna my dear, we are indebted to you for so kindly bringing our friends here. So that they are spared the tedious preliminaries to the entertainment we have prepared for them, perhaps you would be good enough to make Mr. Solo comfortable for the time being, eh?"

  Too late, the agent swung round. He saw the snigger on the face of one of the guards; he saw the girl's knuckles whiten on the trigger of the gun that was pointing at him; and then he saw the spurt of flame from the muzzle that whitened, too, and spread and spread until it reached the farthest horizon.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Solo And Illya Take To the Air

  There was a man with a sledgehammer inside Illya Kuryakin's skull, trying to beat his way out. The blows became stronger and stronger, reverberating agonizingly inside the steel walls, until at last the hammerhead burst its way through at a weak point and daylight came flooding in.

  The Russian blinked his eyes. It wasn't daylight at all, he saw, but the illumination of an unshaded electric bulb hanging from a flex about ten feet above his head. He was in fact lying on his back on the floor and he was—he flexed muscles experimentally—scientifically bound, spread-eagled to four rings set in the concrete. If he twisted his head, he could see the iron circlets and the wire which bit into his flesh and attached him to them. He could also see to his surprise (he craned his neck to make sure) that he was completely naked. He could feel the cool, gritty texture of the cement floor against his calves, his haunches and his shoulder blades.

  As far as he could, he looked around the room. It was more like a cellar, really, about fifteen feet square and completely empty except for an apparatus that looked rather like a hi-fi set, and another which seemed to comprise a tubular steel tripod with a T-shaped crosspiece and a length of rubber tubing leading to it.

  There was one other thing, though, a few feet away from him, he could see the bare body of Napoleon Solo similarly spread-eagled between four iron rings set into the floor. Kuryakin tested the efficiency of his bonds with his wrists and fingers. The wire was of the variety used to make netting for chicken runs, and it had been fastened by a master. It was not knotted but twisted into place, and the tightening had been effected either by a packaging machine or by someone who was an artist with pliers. Even if he could have reached the joins, Illya could have done little to free himself. Nothing short of a pair of wire-cutters or a half hour session with another set of pliers would have any effect on them. Struggling would only chafe away the flesh from his wrists and ankles; and he was already uncomfortable enough, stretched out to the full extent of his spread legs and arms. And there was a draught cutting across the floor like a knife from somewhere behind. He decided to try and arouse Solo. "Napoleon!" he hissed in a piercing whisper. "Napoleon! Are you with me?"

  There was a deep chuckle from the dead area behind his head. "I'm afraid Mr. Solo is still unconscious," a voice said. "But I am always pleased to talk... and we haven't had the pleasure of meeting before, Mr. Kuryakin. The name is Carlsen... Supreme Council Member for Southern Europe."

  Illya twisted his head this way and that until eventually he was able to see the bulky figure of Solo's kidnapper seated comfortably on a chair behind and between the two of them. "We've used this line before, this week," he said; "but I'm afraid you have the advantage of me."

  "And I intend to keep it," Carlsen said genially. "You—either you or Mr. Solo, that is—are going to tell me exactly what it was that the tiresome Leonardo used to make his hologram. And when you have told me, we shall destroy it. And then the hologram will remain forever useless, and I can carry on with the work your people have interrupted."

  "Having destroyed us, too, no doubt?"

  "That depends upon your cooperation. Certainly we shall take steps to ensure that you will both be—shall we say—forever useless too!... But first the matter of the hologram.

  "I have no doubt that you have been subjected to the usual U.N.C.L.E. subliminal conditioning. Mr. Solo hasn't. And we expect, therefore, that he will crack first. Let me explain the method we'll use."

  He rose and walked slowly around Solo to the two pieces of apparatus on the cellar floor. "Here we have," he said, touching the tripod, "an item of homely garden equipment. Doubtless you are familiar with it. Through the rubber tube, water flows under pressure into the crosspiece, revolving it about its central axis, which is balanced on delicate bearings. At the same time, as it s
wings round, water emerges from a multitude of tiny holes along its length in the form of a fine spray. Since the pressure of the water can be varied, both speed and direction of crosspiece—and thus the distance and the course traced by the spray—are in effect random. And a tripod properly set up can water a fair section of garden very thoroughly in quite a short time."

  The big man moved across to the second piece of equipment and stood with one hand resting on it, looking quizzically down at Kuryakin.

  "That is of course only of academic interest," he said. "But with this apparatus we come into the realm of practical applications. And all this is—when you come down to it—is a kind of electrical generator." He paused and added significantly: "And water is a perfect conductor..."

  The draught behind the Russian increased. There was the sound of footsteps, and tall, white boots creaked into his field of vision.

  "Quite a pretty pair!" Giovanna del Renzio said, staring up and down the trussed figures of the two agents. "But how droll they look, spread out on the floor like that..."

  "They will look more droll still, when our little experiment begins," Carlsen replied suavely. "Perhaps, my dear, you would like to explain?"

  "It's quite simple really," the girl said to Illya. "As you heard, water is a perfect conductor—so if we connect the out put of the generator to the spray, the water droplets, as they whirl round, will carry the charge... so long as there is continuous contact, drop by drop, back to the metal of the crosspiece. Anybody on whom the spray falls when such a contact exists will therefore receive a shock, of course—unless or until the particles of water separate, when the circuit is broken.

  "Since the speed and direction of the spray is indeterminate, as is the frequency of electrical contact within it, the amount of time a person under the spray would in fact be receiving shocks is also totally random."

  "The point of all this," Carlsen put in, "is that in most forms of—er—persuasion, the person to be persuaded can see the hot iron or the stroke of the whip or whatever it is on the way... and can therefore in some manner tense himself, prepare to tighten up in anticipation of the pain. But imagine—as I am sure somebody in your position, Mr. Kuryakin, easily could!—the victim in the dark awaiting the arbitrary movements of a spray such as this... knowing that, even when the water touches him, it may not carry a charge. And that the charge itself, and therefore the amount of pain it produces, is also infinitely variable. Infinitely, Mr. Kuryakin!"

  "It may seem unduly bizarre or complex," the girl added, "but the system has been perfected to save time, really. The disintegration of self control actually does arrive much more quickly, I can assure you. It's rather like the old Chinese dripping tap torture, with uncertainty thrown in to add a... logical... element."

  "Yes, yes," Carlsen said. "And in the line of labor saving, like all modern equipment. And in that connection, of course, I must not neglect to point out that, as the floor becomes covered with a thin layer of water itself, a charge carried by spray falling on it can be transmitted to the body even though the spray may not in fact touch it. If you think a little you will see that this is why we use iron rings and wire for the purpose of securing you. Both conduct admirably."

  "If your people spent less time on the melodrama and more on planning, you might be a little more successful," Illya said.

  "We shall see how successful we are in a little while. A very little while, I should think," Carlsen replied. "Your headquarters are mad to send you against us. How can your puny little efforts triumph against our computer? Mr. Solo is not yet with us, my dear; but I think we might venture a little trial run, eh?"

  The girl nodded. Keeping her eyes on Illya, she walked over to a main riser culminating in a tap from which the rubber tube feeding the sprinkler ran. Slowly she turned the brass wheel opening the faucet.

  For a moment nothing happened. And then, with a sudden hiss, the crosspiece jerked into motion like a watery firework. From each end, a fan of spray feathered out, describing a moving spiral of mist in the air. And as the apparatus revolved more and more rapidly, these two, plus the smaller issues along the length of the rotating bar, coalesced to form a single arc of droplets which scythed this way and that in the bright electric light beneath the cellar ceiling. Initially, Illya saw the figure-of-eight patterns the damp made on the dusty floor.

  And then a trailing end of the douche fell once, twice and—after a slight delay—a third time coldly over the gooseflesh on his skin. By the time he had caught his breath, the whole floor was shining uniformly wet.

  Giovanna del Renzio was attaching some piece of equipment to the tap. "This," Carlsen said, raising his voice slightly over the swishing of the sprinkler, "will vary the pressure of the water reaching the crosspiece automatically, so the pattern of its fall will start to vary also. We'll let you watch for a few minutes before we go out and turn off the light; but first let me show you the electrical side of the business!" He wheeled the generator closer to the sprinkler, drew on a pair of rubber gloves, and made a connection.

  The water was falling across Kuryakin's flesh every now and then, sometimes in a fine veil, sometimes with a certain amount of force. And now, suddenly, one time, the unmistakable tingle of a mild shock whipped across his belly and up over his shoulder to his right arm.

  Carlsen was turning a rheostat control on the generator.

  Again water swept over the Russian. Once more it approached, wavered, went away, returned—and a violent spasm arched his body up from the iron rings as what felt like a red-hot whip scalded across his thigh. A hoarse cry of pain was torn from his lips. A few feet away, Napoleon Solo moaned slightly and shifted against his bonds.

  Giovanna del Renzio's bright plastic raincoat was shiny with water. Water dripped from the ceiling, washed across the floor and streamed down the cellar walls. Kuryakin could feel it clammy against his back. But there was no more water in the air. The girl had switched the apparatus off.

  Carlsen, his suit dark with moisture, spoke from the far side of the room. "We're going to leave you now," he said. "Some time during the next hour the lights will go off. And at indeterminate times subsequently, the sprinkler will be turned on—and off—sometimes with current, sometimes without.

  "You have already had a taste both of the mild and of the fairly severe current... although, of course, we can make it stronger still if we wish. We do not wish to keep on interrupting you with tedious requests as to whether or not you are ready to speak. So every sound you make will be taped, and at intervals we shall play the tapes back. When we judge from the noises that you are—er—desirous of further conversation, we shall return. But not before."

  He was about to turn and go, shepherding the girl before him, when Lala Eriksson appeared in the doorway. She had changed out of her green suit and was wearing slacks and a turtle neck sweater in black. There was a slight smile on her face and her eyes were shining.

  "Lala!" Carlsen sounded surprised. "I know we promised you the first trick, but I thought we'd agreed that a half hour to reflect—"

  "I know, I know," the girl interrupted. "But the more I think of it, the more I'm inclined to the view that too much time in the light is a bad thing. It may give them the time to steel themselves, you know. And we simply cannot afford to let them do that."

  "Very well then. At the beginning, anyway, you're the boss."

  He turned back to Kuryakin with a sardonic smile. "For you, at any rate, the night starts now. Other plans will be carried out as outlined." He switched out the light, ushered the two girls into the passage, went out himself and closed the door.

  In the sudden intense darkness, Illya lay spread-eagled on the wet floor and wondered desperately what he could do. There was nothing. His bonds were unburstable; since he was naked, there was nothing he could reach or hope to adapt from his clothes that might help; Napoleon Solo was still unconscious—and even if he could have talked, it would have been useless, as everything they said would have been taped. He imagined
, from the scrap of conversation he had heard, that they were to take it in turns to actuate the combined water-electric torture. There were probably controls just outside the door, and Lala Eriksson would be at them now. How long, he wondered, would they be able to hold out against the combined onslaught of pain and uncertainty?

  Not too long, probably. But whereas, as Carlsen had surmised, he was conditioned, Solo was not. And when he himself broke and wanted to talk, the things he said would be things implanted subconsciously in his mind by a New York psychiatrist attached to the Command. When Solo broke and they injected the drugs, he would simply tell them what they wanted to know.

  It was the uncertainty and not the pain that would break them, though. Carlsen had been right, damn him! Stretched there as humiliatingly as a specimen on a slide, the flesh tensed for the cold caress of spray that might or might not come, the shock that might or might not come with it... it was hardly a situation that called for rejoicing!

  Water hissed suddenly into action as the sprinkler jingled into movement. A wedge of light opened into the dark and then vanished as the door opened and closed. In the instant of illumination, he saw Lala Eriksson slip into the cellar. She had put on a black raincoat over her slacks and she was busy about the generator and the sprinkler.

  Cold mist trailed over Kuryakin's legs, but there was no shock, mild or violent—that time.

  A pencil of light from a pocket torch lanced the gloom. Footsteps splashed across the cellar floor and stopped somewhere just behind him. Again and again the spray washed across his body. But there was still no shock.

  The girl was on one knee by the iron ring to which his right hand was attached. He heard the rustle of the raincoat as she moved. When he craned his head over his shoulder, he could see highlights sliding over the contours of the polished proof material sheathing her body.

  An instant later, there was a sharp snick and his hand was free.

  "What the devil... ?" Illya began.