The Deadly Dark Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  “The explanation is simple. The U.N.C.L.E. operative who was following the party failed to discover one new piece of detection hardware we had placed in the subject car. Don’t blame the poor fellow. It’s a circuit and receptor molded into a plastic laminate barely one thirty-second of an inch thick. The laminate’s actually fused into the glove compartment front wall, an integral part of it. Our monitors picked up the girl’s conversations with the bells. When they were just outside of Little Rock she revealed that she had contacted U.N.C.L.E. and that your operative was following right behind in another car.”

  Dr. Leonidas Volta paused, smiling a little death’s-head smile. “And those, Kuryakin, are all the facts. Take any chair. Please sit down now. I wanted you kept in isolation until this moment when, you could witness an historic scene. The reunion of Martin Bell with his parents and sweetheart. With that reunion effected, I am quite certain young Martin will cooperate---“

  Dr. Volta let a little scowl trouble his forehead. Down on the research hall floor Martin was struggling with his captors. Pitiably, he did not have enough strength to make any difference. The guards held him firmly there near the table where the black-box apparatus reposed.

  Illya tried to blot from his mind what havoc that box would wreak if Volta succeeded.

  “If Martin still refuses,” Dr. Volta went on, “we now have a means to make him cooperate. His parents. His best-beloved. With all those little rats gnawing in your brain, Kuryakin, you are now fully prepared to witness the scene.”

  Volta scuttled for the door. A yellow flasher out in the research hall was blinking. Corrigan pointed.

  “Our guests are inside the station, Doctor.”

  “Yes, I must hurry. But I did forget to tell you one other thing, Kuryakin. The agent following the Bells and the girl was dispatched by two of our fighter planes. From a secret field we maintain near Kingston, Ontario. Our pilots reported a successful kill. I believe the agent was a friend of yours? At least a close associate.”

  To Illya’s left Felix Corrigan was nodding.

  “Mr. Solo. Wasn’t that his name? Take a seat, Kuryakin. And enjoy. Enjoy!”

  Blue-marble eyes bright and cruel, Dr. Leonidas Volta left the observation booth while Illya Kuryakin stood stunned with a disbelief that quickly changed to utter despair.

  THREE

  To Illya no blow could have been more severe than the news that THRUSH had liquidated Napoleon. Yet Illya was a professional. The possibility of death was always with him. So Volta’s revelation did not incapacitate him.

  After a moment his thoughts began to clear a little. He felt stronger. Whether he really was or whether the adrenalin of rage was pumping through him mattered very little. His urgent need now was to get out of this hellish place. For it seemed clear that he was the only agent who could bring down U.N.C.L.E.’s wrath on Volta and his associates before they worked their perfidious plan in Toronto.

  Illya’s pocket communicator had been taken away. Only one avenue lay open---a desperate dash for it.

  He didn’t like to contemplate the perils of trying to cross a snowy Canadian wilderness without adequate maps or compass. Nevertheless, he had to try.

  Illya dissembled. He pretended to slump suddenly, tottering into the nearest upholstered chair. He stretched out, head lolling. Corrigan’s voice cracked from behind.

  “Was the news about Solo a little too much, Kuryakin?”

  Cautiously Illya stretched his legs. The toes of his shoes were an inch from the front wall of the observation booth. He remained sprawled out, as though in a daze. He threw in a feeble-witted moan for good measure. His mind, by contrast, clicked swiftly. Thought tumbled over thought.

  From a corner of one slitted eye, Illya observed the floor of the research hall. Dr. Volta was in sight now, capering and hopping from foot to foot just this side of the table holding the black-box apparatus. THRUSH technicians clustered near. THRUSH guards propped up a sodden-looking Martin Bell. And on the far side of the hall, a huge concrete door rolled aside.

  Four soldiers forming a square marched into the research area. In the center of the square, huddling together, Illya recognized Harold Bell with his arm around his wife, and Beth Andrews.

  Should he try to take them along?

  Illya rejected the idea at once. Beth Andrews might just make it, but---

  Martin’s mother saw her son. She burst into tears. Illya knew he had to leave them all behind and take a chance that Volta would keep them alive because he needed them. To attempt to escape across the snow by himself would be hard enough. Having the Bells and Beth along would decrease his chances to absolute nil. It was a hard decision, but a necessary one. The important mission was to inform Mr. Waverly about Toronto.

  Down in the hall Beth Andrews stood white-faced, staring across the distance that separated her from Martin. The young scientist raised his head. Recognition seemed to flicker on his face. Beth let out a wail of anguish which Illya could hear even through the thickness of glass in the booth window. Dropping her handbag, her disheveled hair flying, Beth ran forward.

  The THRUSH foursome guarding her turned inward to block her path. Dr. Volta clapped his hands. The guards fell back. Beth ran on, straight up to Martin.

  Trembling, she stopped and looked into his eyes. A strange, tormented half-smile crossed the young scientist’s face. With a sob he lunged forward, wrapped his arms around the girl, buried his face in her hair.

  Abruptly Corrigan spoke, “Here, Kuryakin! You’re not watching this touching scene. Sit up!”

  Illya groaned. He rolled his head from side to side, slouching lower in the chair until the tips of his shoes were pushing against the booth wall below the window.

  Corrigan was annoyed. He grabbed hold of Illya’s hair to yank his head up.

  “Kuryakin! Didn’t you hear what I said?”

  Pushing against the booth wall with all the power of his legs, Illya sent his chair smashing back into Corrigan’s uniformed midsection.

  The THRUSH officer cursed, doubling forward at the waist. Still balanced precariously in the chair, Illya whipped his hands back over his head. He seized Corrigan by the back of his neck and levered hard.

  Illya slid out of the chair as Corrigan flew forward. Corrigan’s skull met the wall of the booth with a pulpy thud. Illya scrambled all over him, karate-chopping the man’s fat neck. Corrigan kicked. Then with a feeble grab at Illya’s head, he gave a wheeze and blacked out.

  On all fours, so as not to be seen from the research hall, Illya crawled to the booth door. Already he felt bubble-headed from the exertion. He reached up, twisted the knob, inched the door open. He peered out.

  Evidently all of the THRUSH technicians he had seen earlier had adjourned to the main research area. Beyond various open doors machines chattered unattended.

  Illya crawled forward into the corridor. He stood up. One of his joints popped loud as a gunshot in the silence.

  Illya backed against the wall, blinking his eyes to make them stop blurring. His ears buzzed eerily. The corridor tilted, swam out of focus. Illya pressed against the wall.

  Slowly the surroundings sharpened again.

  Which way?

  To the left, the chrome steel door remained closed.

  No good. That route, heavy with THRUSH guards, led back to the cell where he had been imprisoned. This hall ended a short distance to his right. But now Illya noticed what he had not noticed before---double doors, painted dark blue, of a configuration suspiciously like an elevator’s. There was even a red stud set in the wall alongside.

  Illya stared in that direction.

  “What the devil! You!”

  The hoarse shout brought Illya spinning around. A last scientific straggler with clipboard in hand had emerged suddenly from one of the research rooms. Illya’s face turned professionally vicious, intimidating. He crouched and started back for the pudgy little white-coated man, moving fast, whipping up his hand for another jugular-chop.

  The ter
rified man leaped back inside the research room. The door thudded into place. Illya was caught in the center of the hall, hand upraised and no one to strike.

  He spun around again and went sliding and banging to the end of the corridor. He thumbed the red stud. He glanced back at that locked door. He pressed his ear against the dark blue steel. Distantly he heard a rising whine. The passing seconds coated his palms with perspiration. Finally the elevator arrived. Illya stepped back, ready to gut-punch anyone inside---

  The lighted box was empty.

  Jumping inside, Illya took one relieved breath and examined the control panel. A light glowed behind the button numbered 5. Illya took a chance and pressed the G marker. The elevator began to descend.

  Illya slumped against the wall, conserving his strength.

  A light flicked on behind the button for 4.

  That went dark and 3 lit.

  Then 2.

  Finally 1 came alight. It had just gone out and Illya was watching for the G marker to glow when the alarm sirens began warbling.

  G lighted. The doors slid open. A ferociously cold blast of air slapped Illya in the face, burning his lungs. This was the cold of the outdoors, of the frozen snow he’d observed earlier.

  The elevator opened into a short concrete tunnel, dim by contrast to the glare of evening beyond the entrance. Framed by the square tunnel mouth toward which he ran, a slope of red-hued snow blazed in the last light of sunset.

  Like a hiccoughing scream the wheepa-wheepa of the amplified warning sirens bounced off the concrete walls. Illya had nearly reached the tunnel entrance when a silhouetted figure stepped into sight from the left.

  The THRUSH guard wore a bulky coat with a fur-lined parka style hood. His snow boots were thrust into the bindings of a long pair of skis. With mittened hands he struggled to bring his rapid-fire rifle into position to blast Illya.

  The guard had difficulty because his mittens got tangled in the rifle’s shoulder sling strap. The alarm sirens boomed and wailed, bouncing back and forth across the snowy valley, a nightmare of sound. Illya kept running. When he was three yards from the cursing guard, he leaped. He hit the man’s booted legs in a flying tackle. The guard clubbed wildly at Illya’s head as they crashed into foot-deep snow, and rolled apart.

  The snow filled Illya’s mouth. He saw that the guard’s rifle had fallen within reaching distance. He grabbed it, worked the slide to feed loads into the chamber. A long black shadow flittered across the sun-reddened snow to his left.

  Sprawled on the ground, Illya barely had time to turn his head. The guard came slipping and sliding toward him, still on skis, a wicked glinting knife poised to throw. Illya squeezed the rifle trigger and held it down

  The rifle stuttered. Bullets caught the guard in the chest, making him jerk and shudder. He threw reflexively as he died. Illya wrenched himself over into the snow. The knife grazed the back of his skull like a thin, slicing kiss and buried itself a foot beyond him.

  Illya reached up, touched his neck. His fingers came away bloody. For a long moment the THRUSH guard remained upright, dead---but held erect by the skis. His pupils reflected the sinking sun glazing beyond one of the wild, jagged peaks that ringed the valley. Then he smashed forward on his face. Blood oozed out on the snow beneath his chest.

  Illya glanced upward. The THRUSH station was built into the side of a mountain, its wall hewed from natural rock. The walls towered and were lost overhead in blowing snow. Here and there a glassy glare suggested a man-made surface of deeply inset window glass. Cone-shaped alarm horns were visible fifty feet up mounted out from the rock on steel stanchions. They bayed and warbled their frantic message out to the echoing mountain walls.

  As he panted over to the dead guard and striped off the man’s parka and mittens, Illya wondered why THRUSH had located their station in this godforsaken wilderness. The supra-nation always did try to hatch its doomsday devices in the most secret of locations, but this one was not only secret, it looked like the end of the earth.

  Mountains completely surrounded the bowl-shaped valley. There was no way out that Illya could see, unless it might be through that faint, snow-walled notch on the eastern side, to his right. He decided to make for the notch. Everywhere else solid rock rose to bar his path.

  He got the coat and mittens on, then went to work at top speed on the ski boots. These were two sizes too large. They would have to do.

  Again a spell of dizziness threatened to pitch him head first. Illya stood unmoving until it passed. Warm wetness trickled down the back of his neck inside the parka.

  How much blood would he loose from that scalp wound? Well, this was no time to think of it. He fitted the boots in the ski bindings, laced them up. The guard’s poles were leaning against the side of the tunnel entrance. In a moment Illya had them. He slung the rapid-fire rifle over one shoulder, turned, took one quick gulp and pushed off down the snowy slope.

  His legs felt like matchsticks as he manipulated the poles and went flashing past a looming drift. He had not been on skies more than two or three times in the past two years. Once he had been reasonably good at the sport. Now he was in terrible condition, weakened by the maltreatment in the cell. His teeth began to clatter like sticks banged on a trap drum rim.

  The wilderness swam by in a haze of red-bathed snow. Wind bit his cheeks. Several times he nearly crashed into a drift. He fought constantly to control the perfectly-waxed skis, slaloming his way down the drifts.

  Finally he began to lose momentum.

  In a matter of another minute he had reached the bottom of the valley, where he faced the agonizing climb to the snowy notch which might be the only way out of---Yes! By the fading red light, he detected marks of other skis coming down from that notch. Powder driven by the wind had nearly obscured them.

  The alarm sirens continued to warble and wail eerily across the big valley. Suddenly, as he was starting laboriously up the slope there was a flat, racketing blast. A geyser of snow shot upward several yards behind him.

  A dozen men with weapons poured out of the fortress tunnel. The range for accurate shooting was too long. They had fired to announce their presence. And they didn’t need to shoot him down anyway.

  They were all on skis.

  One by one, raven-figures against the snow, the THRUSH soldiers whizzed down the slope Illya had just descended. They skied fast and expertly, one behind the other. Illya gasped and started forward again. All at once his right ski went through the crust. His leg twisted painfully. He lost precious seconds regaining his footing. The notch seemed higher than before, impossible to reach.

  Illya lifted his right ski, set it down.

  Then his left.

  His right.

  Left---

  Wind tore at his cheeks and made his ears tingle even under the fur of the parka. He struggled upward through the blurring red blaze of the twilight, realizing that his ears were ringing with the echo of the alarms.

  The alarms had stopped.

  Risking one more look back, Illya saw that he THRUSH ski patrol had reached the halfway point in its descent of the slope. Their rifle muzzles caught the fading light off the mountaintops. Faintly came the whish of their passage.

  They did not shoot at him because they knew they could catch him and kill him later. They had a time and a place for everything.

  Twelve black phantoms, they swept onward. With a strangled cry of dismay, Illya thrashed laboriously on toward the snow-walled notch.

  FOUR

  Napoleon Solo clung to the wheel of the gray car as it careened along the bridge over the St. Lawrence. Out of the west, wing to wing, the THRUSH planes came on, their jet after-burners howling.

  Solo’s stomach was knotted. They had him in their sights. If he stayed with the car, they would surely kill him on this pass.

  The jets screamed closer.

  Fighting the yaw of the car by holding the wheel iron-tight with his left hand, Solo reached over with his right. He pressed down on the door lever
so that the latch retracted. From the left came the stutter of bullets.

  Solo spun the wheel so that the auto was pointed straight down the center of the span. Then he yanked himself to the right, butted the door open with his head, balled his body and rolled out.

  The whiplashing open door nearly decapitated him. Solo slammed the concrete with brutal force, knocking his head so hard he almost blacked out. The planes were almost over the bridge. Solo was banking on the pilots being unable to see down past the needle-tip noses of their craft to spot him lying on the pavement.

  Bullets ripped and tore at the gray car. As the jets flashed over with a whine and crack of sound, the car’s gas tank ignited. It blew up in a pillar of fire and a puffball of flame that smashed out through the left bridge rail and dropped like a fiery comet to the St. Lawrence far below.

  With all of his body one hurting agony, Napoleon Solo still managed to drag himself to the rail. The planes had shot away into the east. They were banking up sharply to the left. Solo tossed a leg over the rail. The distance down to the river gave him incredible vertigo for a long moment.

  Go on! His mind cried. Go on or they’ll make pass after pass until they kill you.

  Solo’s mouth wrenched with effort as he lowered himself by his arms until he hung from the lip of the bottom-most horizontal undergirder in the span.

  Thick, angled cross-bracings of steel spread away downward from this great girder to join the immense vertical concrete pilings sunk in the river. Solo stretched, caught one of the cross-members with slippery hands. Hanging there with only his own strength to keep him from dropping, he managed to wriggle on to the diagonal steel brace. He wrapped his arms and legs around it, keeping his body on the west side. He had a tendency to slip. Raw metal ripped his cheek open. The jets were coming up the river again to inspect the kill. Sunlight flashed from their wings.

  Solo hung on, biting down on his underlip and hoping the pilots would not spot him there in the shadows under the steel---

  With a whine and a roar the jets burst past. They climbed into the western sky. They diminished to dots very quickly, disappearing north into Canada. Hand over hand, every muscle hurting from strain, Solo dragged himself back up the diagonal again. He caught the undergirder, swung free, hanging in space with his arms throbbing.