The Pillars of Salt Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  Illya was dissatisfied. He felt left out of things. He did not want to be stuck here on the concrete dam; the need for positive action, fed by the long hours and days of waiting, was strong inside him. Why had Waverly wanted him to remain here when he could...?

  He realized the director was speaking to him "...cold out here," the director said. "Why don't you come down to my office? I have some coffee there."

  "All right," Illya said glumly.

  Inside the director's office, Illya sat with a steaming cup of black coffee, wondering how the U.N.C.L.E. attack on the THRUSH fortress, now underway, was progressing.

  The director, sitting across from him behind a large desk, chewed his lip.

  "Frankly, Mr. Kuryakin," he said finally, "This is the gravest situation we've ever faced here. There have been heavy snow storms in the Rockies of late. Because of that, there will be a strong run-off of snow into the Colorado. Will this fresh water crystallize upon contact with the already hardened water?"

  "I'm not sure," Illya said. "I should think it would."

  "That's what I was afraid of," the director said. "You say there is an antidote for the process?"

  "Yes."

  "Unless this antidote were placed into the river carefully, in some way regulating the flow of the water, then we are faced with a danger of floods. There is a tremendous volume of water built up in the mountains, and the flow is regulated through our facilities here. But we are only able to handle 4,400,000 cubic yards capacity. Anything above that would have disastrous effects."

  "I'll notify our people to use it only with the utmost caution when they confiscate the antidote." Illya did not mention the possibility the assault might fail. He didn't even want to ponder that potentiality.

  The director nodded. "It will have to be used soon," he said, "before too great a volume of water can build in the mountains."

  Using his U.N.C.L.E. communicator, Illya Kuryakin contacted Mr. Waverly in New York and imparted this information. U.N.C.L.E. headquarters was in a state of suspense waiting to learn how the invasion of the fortress was progressing. To that moment, they had received no communication.

  For the next two hours Illya sat in the director's office. The continued inactivity was telling on his nerves. Finally, the immobility became too much for him, and he told the director he was going up to the observation deck again, to get some air.

  The chill wind seemed to have increased in velocity outside. Illya walked along the observation deck, hands in the pockets of his mackinaw, brooding. He looked down at the frozen floor of salt, thinking how very close THRUSH had come in this single bid for world domination. And it wasn't over yet. If THRUSH had managed to get a large quantity of the salt chemical out of that mountain fortress.

  Waverly had told him that the interceptor planes he had sent into the area the night before had encountered nothing. Unless they got it out before, Illya thought. Better give Mr. Waverly another call. Maybe...

  In the quiet of the early morning and with the dynamos in the dam beneath him shut down, Illya heard the helicopter before he saw it.

  He tilted his head back, ears straining, peering up into the cold, gray sky. He saw it finally, coming in from the west, across Lake Mead, a tiny speck at first, and then looming larger as it approached the dam.

  He thought at first that it was an U.N.C.L.E. helicopter, sent by Mr. Waverly for some reason. But as it neared, he saw that it was smaller, a different model than that used by U.N.C.L.E.

  THRUSH! Of course! That was why Waverly had wanted him to remain at Hoover Dam; he had suspected that THRUSH might come there to inspect its handiwork.

  Illya turned and began to run toward the helicopter that had brought him to Hoover Dam, sitting silently in the empty parking lot at one end of the observation deck. His blood raced. Finally he was going to get a chance to act.

  He reached the helicopter. It was empty. Where was that blasted pilot? He looked again at the approaching helicopter. It had reached the far end of the dam, coming over the bluff there.

  No time to look for the pilot now, Illya thought. He slid into the cockpit, fastened the safety belt, and switched on the ignition. He let the rotary blades revolve slowly, warming, and stared upward through the glass dome.

  They had seen him. The-other helicopter slowed, halting its approach, and then banked sharply, turning, and started back the way it had come. Illya shoved the throttle on the U.N.C.L.E. copter forward, and it rose, gliding left as he hurriedly maneuverd the controls.

  His face grim, Illya chased after the helicopter.

  THREE

  The U.N.C.L.E. attacking force supplemented by interceptor planes and jet fighters overhead, left the mining community of Granite River a few minutes before daybreak.

  Napoleon Solo, weak, frost-bitten hands encased in heavy mittens, fatigue covering him like a blanket after a restless night, had arrived a few minutes earlier in a jeep driven by Emmett. Despite loud protestations from the men present, concerned over his appearance, Solo perversely insisted he was leading the attack, no matter what happened.

  The force consisted of roughly a hundred men, specially trained in this type of assignment, flown in from various parts of the country. There were several jeeps, three large canvas-covered trucks, and an arsenal ranging from handguns to small mortars.

  Mounted on two of the jeeps were strange-looking black boxes, somewhat larger than fruit crates, and containing a multitude of dials and gauges. Both boxes were covertly watched over by skilled U.N.C.L.E. technicians from New York City.

  Upon seeing the boxes, Solo knew immediately how Waverly planned to penetrate the concrete and-steel fortress. Each was capable, he knew, of producing a type of Laser beam, specially modified by U.N.C.L.E. scientists. The beam, used only on rare occasions by U.N.C.L.E. because of the awesome destructive power it possessed, was able to disintegrate, according to intensity, any metal or substance known to man.

  Napoleon Solo, riding in the lead jeep, led the convoy up the mountain road. They encountered no resistance. When they reached the end of the road leading upward from Granite River, they found a second road, its entrance well hidden, that would deploy into the mountains to the right. This second road had been apparently built by THRUSH, since neither of the forest rangers professed any knowledge of it.

  The convoy entered this second road. Overhead, one of the U.N.C.L.E. intercept jets radioed via the short wave band in Solo's jeep that no THRUSH opposition awaited them outside the entrance to the fortress. Solo reasoned that THRUSH had lookouts in the immediate area, and that they knew of U.N.C.L.E.'s pending arrival, and of the jets. Apparently, he decided, THRUSH felt their fortress was impenetrable, and were content to stave off the U.N.C.L.E. attack from within.

  They came in sight of the sloping granite wall that hid the entrance to the fortress minutes later. Acting with well-organized speed, the U.N.C.L.E. force began to mobilize. Men dismounted from the trucks and jeeps, weapons were loaded, and the boxes housing the deadly Laser beams were carefully lifted to the ground and placed in readiness.

  One of the jets, fighter-equipped, made passes directly overhead, waiting. When the U.N.C.L.E. unit was at attack-ready, Solo turned to where the technicians hovered about the Laser boxes. The mountain road was still and silent. The tension in the chill, snow-tinged air was electric.

  Napoleon Solo gave the command. Buttons were pressed simultaneously on the black boxes. They began to glow with a violent purplish light, blinding if looked at directly, and a low, humming sound came from each. The light and the hum lasted only a single instant, and then the boxes became still again.

  The lower portion of the granite wall before them, and the concrete-and-steel behind it, disintegrated.

  In that single instant the Laser beams were trained on the wall, a gaping hole appeared there almost magically revealing the warehouse Solo had been in the day before It had been jammed with THRUSH guards, waiting there. Those who had been unlucky enough to be directly in front of th
e entranceway had caught the glancing impact of the Lasers, and lay now on the concrete floor. Some were dead, others terribly burned by the radiation The rest milled about in panic, the suddenness of the assault turning their rank into chaotic confusion.

  The U.N.C.L.E. force, led by Solo, attacked under protective cover of a burst of machine gun fire from the jet above, spraying the mountain road in front of the entrance.

  They encountered almost no opposition from the frightened THRUSH guards. The element of surprise, and the awesome destructive power of the Lasers, had made the U.N.C.L.E. penetration of the fortress a quick and, for them, bloodless one.

  Leaving some of the agents to guard the prisoners they had taken, Solo led the remainder to the elevators against the left-hand wall. One of the technicians went to the control board behind the partition to the right, found the levers operating the elevators there and brought them all to basement level.

  A group of agents rode to each of the three remaining levels of the fortress for search-and-seizure operations. Solo went to the top floor, the laboratory and manufacturing plant.

  A state of confusion reigned there. The scientists, workers and guards there were well aware of the U.N.C.L.E. invasion, and were attempting to organize themselves when Solo and the U.N.C.L.E. agents with him emerged from the elevators.

  Solo shot one guard, brandishing a machine gun, in the leg, and one of the other operatives winged a white-coated man with a revolver. After that there was no resistance.

  Solo, after the THRUSH men had been herded into one section of the laboratory, went immediately to the private lab of Dr. Sagine at the far end. He found it deserted.

  "Where is Sagine?" Solo demanded.

  The THRUSH men were stony-faced.

  Solo singled out a hawk-faced little man with frightened eyes, grabbed him by the scruff of his white-smock and dragged him of to one side.

  "Better talk, friend," Solo said. "You will eventually, you know. We have ways..."

  It did not take much persuasion on Solo's part to learn that Sagine had left the fortress some time late the previous day, bound for the town of Pardee, in Utah, to supervise the introduction of the salt chemical into the Colorado River. Solo then questioned the man carefully, asking which of the scientists present knew of the formula for the chemical, and of its antidote, and how the antidote was administered. The frightened little man relinquished the answers almost gratefully.

  Solo then checked with the balance of the U.N.C.L.E. force on the lower floors. He was told by the leader of each group that everything as under control, that prisoners had been taken.

  U.N.C.L.E. now controlled the fortress fully.

  One of the U.N.C.L.E. agents in the warehouse also informed Solo that a search had revealed hundreds of jars of chemical there, ready for transportation. The agent had questioned one of the captured guards and had learned that THRUSH had not as yet transferred any out of the fortress. They were waiting to receive word as to the success of the Colorado River venture. As soon as that word had been given, the chemical was to be shipped by helicopter to a hidden THRUSH Air Base near by for distribution throughout the world.

  Solo immediately used his communicator to contact Mr. Waverly, waiting in New York, and told him that the assault had been a success. He relayed what the little man had told him about Dr. Sagine, and that his earlier conclusions concerning THRUSH knowledge of the salt chemical and its antidote had been accurate...one of the captured scientists knew the formulas and how they were used and regulated.

  "Good," Waverly said, "Mr. Solo, our agents from Salt Lake City have conducted a successful raid on a THRUSH camp in Pardee, Utah. They have confiscated several jars of the salt chemical and what, according to one of the scientists they had captured there, was the antidote. There was no sign of Dr. Sagine, the agents report. If the THRUSH personnel in Pardee knew where he was they weren't talking."

  "How about the antidote," Solo queried.

  "None of the scientists in the Pardee group professed to know how the antidote was regulated," Waverly said. "Our agents are awaiting instructions."

  As Waverly remained on stand-by, Solo questioned the man who had been designated as having knowledge of Dr. Sagine's chemical. The THRUSH man at first refused to tell Solo anything. But when one of the U.N.C.L.E. agents found what appeared to be the formula for the chemical processes in Dr. Sagine's private lab, and when Solo told the man that if they were too late to prevent floods, because of the time it would take for U.N.C.L.E. chemists to learn the proper usage, then the man could be held directly responsible for whatever carnage was wreaked. The THRUSH scientist finally acquiesced, telling Solo everything he knew.

  Solo hurriedly relayed the information to Mr. Waverly, just as the scientist had told it to him. Waverly listened carefully, making sure that he had the exact dosage of the antidote to be placed in the water to prevent flooding, and then had Solo wait while he spoke with the agents in Pardee. The antidote would be administered immediately, in the proper amounts, by an U.N.C.L.E. chemist that Waverly had sent to Pardee in anticipation of that very reason the night before.

  When Waverly came back on Channel D, Solo said, "What about Dr. Sagine, sir?"

  "We don't know where he is at present," Waverly said, "though I have my suspicions. I expect he is checking on the results his chemical has had on the Colorado River. By helicopter, I should think, since that appears to be the method of transportation THRUSH used to reach the camp at Pardee."

  "Then he could be anywhere along the Colorado," Napoleon Solo said.

  "Yes," Waverly said. "As I told you last night, I have sent Mr. Kuryakin to Hoover Dam. Sagine would logically wish to inspect that most important site. But if he had not gone there, then we have U.N.C.L.E. jets in the air over the entire area along the Colorado north from the Dam. We shall have Dr. Sagine before too long."

  Solo allowed himself a small, tired smile.

  "It's almost over," he said. "There were times when I wasn't so sure of the outcome."

  "Quite so, Mr. Solo," Waverly said laconically. "Quite so."

  Solo said, "What do you want me to do now, sir?"

  "From the sound of your voice," Waverly said, "I think a hospital bed is in order."

  "I'm fine," Solo said wearily.

  "Hmm," Waverly said. It was a skeptical sound.

  "I'd like to join in the search for Dr. Sagine," Solo said. "There's a small airstrip outside Granite River where one of the jets could land and pick me up."

  Waverly seemed to be pondering the request. He said finally, "Very well, Mr. Solo. If you are quite sure you are all right."

  "Yes, sir," Solo said. "I'm sure."

  He wasn't really sure at all.

  FOUR

  Illya Kuryakin, piloting the quicker, more durable U.N.C.L.E. helicopter, had drawn to within five hundred feet of the fleeing THRUSH craft when they began firing on him.

  Twin bursts of flame erupted from tail guns mounted beneath the cockpit. Illya, reacting instantly, pushed hard left on the throttle, banking. He saw a long white scratch appear in the glass dome above him as one of the bullets slashed past, and felt a rocking jar as another thunked into the landing gear.

  He manipulated the throttle, dipping, cutting the speed momentarily, and then opening up again. The tail guns on the THRUSH helicopter spit more flame, but the hail of bullets passed harmlessly above him.

  The U.N.C.L.E. helicopter was likewise equipped with artillery, and Illya wrapped his hand around the firing mechanism, thumb touching the button. But he didn't fire. He could see that there were two men in the machine he was pursuing, the pilot and a squat figure seated beside him. He could not identify the second figure from this distance, but he caught fleeting glimpses of a yellowish mane of hair through the glass dome.

  From the picture of Dr. Mordecai Sagine that he had seen on the visi-screen in Waverly's office the day before, he had an idea that the perpetrator of the salt chemical was that second man If this were the case, he knew
that U.N.C.L.E. would prefer to have Dr. Sagine alive than dead.

  He remembered then that he had not had time to contact Mr. Waverly with this latest development. He caught up the microphone to the radio band there, flicking the send button, and yelled rapidly into it, making himself heard above the whir of the rotor blades overhead.

  The wave length was cleared for direct communication with U.N.C.L.E. headquarters in New York. Illya cut his speed, hanging back now, out of range of the tail guns on the THRUSH helicopter, but still keeping it in plain sight. Waverly's voice came through the microphone, asking the nature of the urgent call.

  Rapidly, Illya Kuryakin explained what had happened.

  "Are you able to identify the occupants of the THRUSH helicopter?" Waverly's voice asked him.

  "Negative," Illya said. "But I could venture a guess."

  "Dr. Sagine?"

  "Dr. Sagine."

  "What is your position, Mr. Kuryakin?"

  Illya glanced below him. He could see the flat, white surface of Lake Mead directly beneath, frozen white in the this morning sunlight. His compass heading was due west. He reported this to Waverly.

  "Your instructions are to keep the THRUSH helicopter under surveillance," Waverly said. "Remain at a safe distance. Do you understand, Mr. Kuryakin?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "There are U.N.C.L.E. jets in the area. I will radio for them to converge on Lake Mead immediately."

  "Yes, sir," Illya said again. He asked then how the attack on the THRUSH fortress had gone.

  "Satisfactorily," Waverly told him. "It is now in our hands, along with the salt chemical and the antidote

  "Napoleon?"

  Waverly said that Solo was as well as could be expected under the circumstances, and that one of the U.N.C.L.E. jets had picked him up in Granite River more than an hour ago to join in the search for Dr. Sagine. Then he said, "I will keep this wave length open. Report any changes in direction if they occur.

  "All right," Illya said. "I'll..." He broke off, staring out through the glass at the THRUSH helicopter ahead of him. A slight chill nudged his spine.