The Moby Dick Affair Page 2

  The reedy voice belonged to Dr. Artemus Shelley. He was flapping his arms and pointing wildly off the coast of the island. Solo turned.

  An ominous rumbling filled the air. Both Solo and Illya gaped in horror.

  A gigantic wall of foaming water had risen in the space of three heartbeats, from the surface of the ocean.

  Solo couldn't believe the evidence of his eyes. The monstrous tidal wave reached higher, higher, cresting up and up with every passing second, flying at the tiny island with incredible speed.

  Out of nowhere it had come. And now it foamed and thundered straight at them, twice as wide as the rocky little island and four times as high.

  It seethed, it roared like thunder, it crashed—

  And over it all sounded Naglesmith's hysterical laughing.

  ACT I

  WHITE WHALES AND PINK POISON

  NAPOLEON SOLO was not a man to expend effort on ceremony. He did not bother to inquire whether Thrushman Naglesmith wished to be evacuated. A dousing spray from the tidal wave was already trickling down his neck as he signaled Illya with a quick nod. Illya at the head, Solo at the feet, the U.N.C.L:E. agents bent to lift their prisoner.

  Beneath their boots the little island quaked. Over his shoulder Solo glimpsed the mountainous gray water-wall rising and rising. When it finally splashed over upon them, it would do so with a billion-ton force. Nothing would be left. Solo grabbed the ankles of Naglesmith's boots.

  For his pains he got a vicious kick under the point of his chin. Though wounded critically or fatally, Naglesmith had strength left. He cracked Illya Kuryakin's cheek with a flailing elbow and began to scrabble away.

  "You worthless fool!" Illya shouted. "Unless we get you into that 'copter, you're finished."

  The words could barely be heard above the grinding, rumbling sea roar. Naglesmith kept crawling away from them. Solo saw the man's danger, pointed. He flapped his arms, ran forward shouting. The sea-thunder drowned him out.

  Naglesmith's cheeks blanched; all at once as he realized there was nothing in back of him. With a squeal of fright he half skidded, half fell into a narrow crevasse. When Solo and Illya reached him his whole body below his rib cage was wedged tightly underground.

  They grabbed his arms. They tugged, swore. Water pelted them in heavy sheets. Naglesmith's face had acquired a wild look. Seawater streamed over his cheeks. He knew he couldn't be pulled free. Somehow he didn't seem to care.

  Solo glanced uneasily back. His belly churned at the sight of the fantastic tidal wave nearing the island. Dr. Artemus Shelley was running back and forth next to the THRUSH 'copter, obviously terrified that they wouldn't escape.

  "We have to leave him," Solo mouthed the words. Illya, drenched, nodded.

  "Go on, go on!" Naglesmith yelled, with such maniacal lungpower that the U.N.C.L.E. agents could hear something of what he was screaming. "Go on, run, yellowbellies. Run while you can. THRUSH has the secret. We'll squeeze the world's throat and the world will surrender! Go on, you ridiculous cretins; save yourselves for a few more days. But beware Project Ahab."

  Naglesmith was shrieking in the mindless abandon of a man doomed. "Beware Project Ahab, you—" He howled foul, hateful names.

  Napoleon Solo had as few scruples about the enemy as the next U.N.C.L.E. operative. Perhaps fewer. Yet he still rebelled at the idea of leaving a human being to die. Illya dragged his arm, signaling some trouble more immediate than the tidal wave. Solo spun around.

  Dr. Artemus Shelley lay sprawled on the rock below the open hatch of the THUSH 'copter, unmoving.

  Dr. Shelley had apparently been trying to climb into the machine. Damp footprints showed around the hatch edges. Solo raced for the 'copter, mind made up. In all the graying darkness of the nightmare, one blob of color leaped out, a bright crimson smear on the fallen man's forehead. Dr. Shelley had struck his temple on a sharp stone.

  "Can you fly this thing?" Solo bawled as he and Illya fought the battering wind.

  "If there is the usual simplified THRUSH manual on board."

  "That's what I like," Solo yelled. "Confidence."

  "––beware, beware," came the gibbering voice of Naglesmith, shredded into snatches by the roar of wind and water. "––beware the white whale, you despicable, crawling sons of Solo and Illya picked up Dr. Shelley, lifted him inside the 'copter hatch as Swiftly and ––" More verbal filth, mercifully blown away by the noise.

  Solo and Illya picked up Dr. Shelley, lifted him inside the 'copter hatch as swiftly and gingerly as possible. Solo gave Illya a boost, then leaped up himself. He slammed the hatch and dogged it down just as the first down-pourings of the cresting tidal wave struck the island.

  "All burners active," Illya called turn the cockpit. "Now if we can only get lift—"

  The 'copter's roof sounded as though a ton of pebbles rained on it. Counterpointing this came the thin whine of the turbines. Solo crouched on the damp ribbed floor beside the lightly-breathing Dr. Shelley. He felt the 'copter shudder, strain as more and more water poured down, a torrent of water, a thunder of water that hammered his ears pitilessly. Suddenly, there was lift.

  "We're up," Illya called from in hunt. "Up, but not out."

  Nothing could be seen through the cockpit glass except streaming torrents of gray-green water. The 'copter began to lurch and pitch. Illya fought the controls. Using his knees, Solo tried to brace Shelley's body against one wall to prevent additional serious injury. The wound on Shelley's temple had slowed its flow. But a dark, sinister bruise was forming.

  Illya Kuryakin was wrenching the control rods and levers back and forth, adjusting the pitch every second as the rotors sought to lift the craft up and away from the torrent.

  The jet 'copter shuddered another time. Metal whanged. Insulated cables broke loose from the wall, lashed wildly. Solo was thinking up a prayer. He figured it would need to be brief if he was to get it all in. The 'copter gave one last awful buck and pitch, then went zooming upward with a speed that almost dislocated Napoleon Solo's stomach.

  Panting, Solo crawled into the cockpit seat beside Illya. The jet 'copter was lifting smoothly into the slate, blue sky. They had pulled up through the worst. Solo ran his moist tongue over strangely parched lips.

  Illya banked the 'copter. Out the window to port Solo saw an awful sight. There was a boiling cauldron of white water where the tidal wave had collapsed upon itself, a foaming area of churning fury nearly a mile wide. Nothing of the rocky island, nor any of its nearby companion islands remained.

  "Such tidal waves are an oceanographic impossibility," Illya breathed, as if to convince himself of the truth of those words.

  "That's nice," Solo said. "I'm really asleep in the hotel in London, having nightmares?"

  "Let us sincerely hope that's it, Napoleon. Otherwise THRUSH has scored a march. Tidal waves do not simply generate themselves spontaneously, in seconds."

  Solo tried to push the gnawing fact out of his mind. From where had the wave come? Naglesmith had given some sort of signal. But to what? To whom?

  "Shelley's seriously injured," Solo said, jarred back to matters of the moment. "Try to cram more speed into those chopper blades. We'll land on the seacoast and radio for a paramedical squad to meet us." He felt exhausted, thick witted. Dr. Shelley hardly stirred on the wet cabin floor.

  As Illya piloted the 'copter away from the maelstrom, Solo watched it drop behind. He licked his lips again. His expression grew stark as he gazed out over the ocean at the devastation still bubbling whitely back there. Cold sweat slicked his face.

  Illya glanced over. "What are you thinking, Napoleon?"

  In a croak, all Solo could manage to reply was, "Well, actually––I'm thirsty."

  TWO

  BEWARE THE white whale?" said Mr. Alexander Waverly.

  "That's what the man said," replied Napoleon Solo.

  A raised eyebrow from Mr. Waverly. "Project Ahab?"

  Up went Solo's right hand, Scout-honor sign. "Illya heard it too."
>
  Illya Kuryakin had his slippered feet up on an ottoman before the fire in the grate. Both he and Solo, twenty-four hours after their encounter with the bizarre tidal wave, looked somewhat gritty around the eyes but otherwise not much worse for the experience. Their scars were mostly on the inside.

  The paramedical plane had flown Dr. Shelley and the two agents swiftly to London. U.N.C.L.E.'s oceanography expert was now in a London hospital, the victim of a severe concussion. He had fallen into a coma. Both agents had managed to catch about an hour's sleep apiece before the arrival of Mr. Waverly, via transatlantic jet, in response to their signal to New York that something large-scale and fishy was up.

  Pondering, Mr. Waverly strolled to the window. He tapped his empty pipe against the sill. Outside, though it was midafternoon, fog lamps gleamed on the Thames Embankment. Chimes rang somewhere.

  This conference room, a part of the U.N.C.L.E. London complex, was decorated in Victorian style. The only jarring note was the recessed bank of signal lights in the ceiling. Things were quiet. Only two lights flashed, one a standard blue showed that all security circuits surrounding the building's perimeter were operating correctly, and another, an intermittent orange flash, indicated cable traffic coming in from overseas.

  "I don't know what to make of it." Mr. Waverly sighed. "I'd say it calls for an answer from a student of literature, or a psychiatrist, or both. Obviously, gentlemen, Naglesmith must have become mentally unstable when he realized he would die on the island."

  "That's the easiest explanation." Illya did not sound convinced.

  "Unfortunately it also is too simple for us to enjoy the luxury of adopting it," Waverly replied.

  "Besides," Solo said, "we saw the evidence. Felt it. That tidal wave."

  "A double hallucination is out of the question," Illya said.

  "Um, quite right, quite right." Mr. Waverly sucked noisily at the cold briar. "Unfortunately we are faced with a dilemma. THRUSH may have succeeded in harnessing the tremendous destructive energy of the sea. But we are balked just there. We cannot question the one witness who might put us onto the right route of inquiry. Dr. Artemus Shelley's condition is not terminal. On the other hand, the physicians aren't certain just exactly how soon he'll come out of the coma."

  Waverly consulted a gleaming gold wristwatch. "Perhaps I might check again, though—"

  As the chief of one of the five sections of U.N.C.L.E.'s top level Policy and Operations division, Mr. Waverly showed his burdens in the slope of his shoulders and the pouches beneath his eyes. But he bore the burdens with dignity. As he walked across the carpet, he might have been starting out to pick up the phone to call his tailor.

  Flopped into a huge and supremely comfortable easy chair which ministered to his assorted aches very nicely, Solo peered through two fingers of his left hand, which was propped under his chin. He'd had to run out and buy a top coat for the trip to the airport to meet Waverly. He kept recalling the saucy little girl who had waited on him. The girl had a pert, fetching figure, a charming Cockney accent, and an easy to recall phone number.

  Too bad.

  There was an air of tension in the room, born of frustration. Illya sat up. "Beg your pardon, sir, but Napoleon and I still don't know exactly what role Dr. Shelley plays in all this. What does he really do for us?"

  Waverly turned. "Didn't I cover that? Forgive me. My mind's been a lot overworked in this affair."

  "We didn't see illusions," said Solo. "That was certified water. A mountain."

  Waverly said, "Project Ahab. It of course refers to Melville's magnificent book about the white whale, Moby Dick. Captain Ahab was the whaling vessel's maniacal captain dedicated to the whale's pursuit. Now the only context into which I can put the words Project Ahab is one which includes––no, no, it won't do. We had a report two and a half years ago that he went down in a THRUSH weapons bathysphere off Rio."

  Memory surged back to Solo then. "Of course. Commander Victor Ahab."

  "The THRUSH naval strategist," Illya said. "But wasn't he—well, crazy?"

  Waverly gave an emphatic nod. "Mad as a coot. Like his novelistic counterpart. Never ran up against him personally. Our lads said he was a deadly adversary. Lunatics often are, as we know."

  Waverly went on:

  "There have been instances when THRUSH tagged one of its top people for a long range project, then staged an ersatz death or disappearance to allow the person to operate at maximum efficiency behind the fiction of being dead. We might be confronted with such a situation here. Of course we're still stuck on the thorn of what the devil THRUSH and Victor Ahab, if it is Victor Ahab, are up to."

  "I need a drink," Solo announced. He pulled a bell rope. Soon an operative entered.

  The man was the soul of politeness, a dignified gentleman of middle years dressed in butler's swallowtail. The triangular U.N.C.L.E. badge hung from his front pocket.

  Napoleon Solo poured himself a jot of brandy from the decanter the man set down. Waverly was staring thoughtfully at a Gainsborough above the mantle.

  Illya Kuryakin coughed. "The matter of Dr. Shelley, sir. What he does for U.N.C.L.E. Perhaps it would contain a clue—"

  "Oh—sorry." Mr. Waverly refocused his attention. "Dr. Shelley. Afraid I can't be of much help there. I've seen descriptions of his work in his budget requests, but I'm not the technical type. Something to do with research into currents and tides around the world.

  "I gather his research is basic rather than applied. Long term yields and all that, rather than some sort of sensational new diving suit we could use in our daily work. Frankly, Dr. Shelley would be our best authority if he were conscious. I'm regretful that we may have slipped up here, gentlemen, because evidently THRUSH holds Dr. Shelley and his work in higher regard than some of us at U.N.C.L.E. did."

  Mr. Waverly picked up the receiver. Solo fidgeted in his chair. The memory of the tidal wave bothered him with what it might signify in the way of a THRUSH breakthrough.

  Mr. Waverly murmured and clucked into the mouthpiece. Finally he hung up. The room had filled with the gloom of late afternoon. Yellow lamps shown like phantom eyes on the Embankment. A log fell on the fire, suffusing the room with a woody fragrance.

  "We're in luck, gentlemen," Waverly announced. "Dr. Shelley is not entirely out of danger, but when I stressed the urgency of the situation, the doctors agreed that they might be able to rouse him for a few moments, no more. At least they are going to give it a try. Shall we go?"

  Napoleon Solo smoothed his dark suit as he stood up. "Right now, sir?"

  "Of course, right now, Mr. Solo. Have you another engagement?"

  "He was just thinking about buying another topcoat," Illya grinned.

  "Chasing salesgirls again, eh, Mr. Solo? Well, some of them are quite sophisticated these days, I will admit." Mr. Waverly took down a Homburg from a rack. "Try to check your romantic instincts. There are bigger catches afloat. White whales."

  Solo sighed as he followed his chief out the door. "Call me Ishmael."

  THREE

  UNDER THE thinnest of transparent polyethylene tenting, Dr. Artemus Shelley looked like a person embalmed.

  He wore a white hospital gown. His cheeks were parchment color. The heavily guarded room in St. Bride's Hospital of the Templars was filled with ominous sounds and shadows. Life-giving oxygen hissed into the tent under which Shelley lay breathing thinly. Small hooded lights shone around the baseboards, the only illumination except for a thin white pencil beam slicing down next to the bed, onto a gunmetal box with a console of dials on top.

  This special sound system, carefully inserted into the tent and manned by an earphoned U.N.C.L.E. technician, was designed to make communication with Shelley as clear as possible under the circumstances. Three doctors, gowned and masked, hovered on the bed's far side. Behind them were oxygen tanks, a network of feeder tubes running to the tent. Solo, Illya and Waverly were grouped behind the technician on this side. The gas hissed.

  "Ready, sir,"
said the technician. He flipped a console toggle. From a speaker grid in the set came the amplified rasp of Shelley's feeble breathing.

  Mr. Waverly cleared his throat behind his glove. "Thank you, Mr. Jacks." He put a small, rod-like microphone near his lips and spoke softly:

  "Doctor? Doctor Shelley, this is Alexander Waverly. Policy and Operations. Simply nod if you hear me."

  The pale face beneath the tenting stirred almost imperceptibly.

  "Dr. Shelley," Waverly went on, "I do not want to tax you, but it's imperative that we learn whatever we can about the motives behind your kidnapping. Can you tell us anything about what you've been doing at your lab in Golder's Green? Just a word, Shelley, a word or two—where your secret files are kept? That would be enough."

  Solo's nerves grated at the sudden increased rasping from the amplifier. Dr. Shelley's veined hand twitched on the white sheet covering his chest. Instantly one of the masked doctors bent to scan dials near the oxygen tanks. There was silence.

  "Please, Dr. Shelley, try," Mr. Waverly whispered.

  One of the doctors said, "We can't allow this for more than another minute, sir."

  "Tides. Change—tides. Been studying the various—" Dr. Shelley coughed hard.

  "Yes, yes, studying what?" Mr. Waverly persisted. "Tell us where to locate the records."

  Abruptly Dr. Shelley seemed to start up. His eyes opened half way and into the room where the gas hissed came the harsh, grating amplified words: "Reports—eyewitness reports.—Saw the white whale—saw the white—"

  Furiously, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin spun toward the hospital room door.

  A physician clad in a green nylon jumper, mask and cap had just entered, somewhat noisily. Every head turned. With a sigh Dr. Shelley folded back down onto the pillows. Outside in the corridor, several other attendants in masks were hovering.

  "Sorry, chaps," murmured the new arrival. "Time for a new tank."

  "He's gone under," Mr. Waverly said, eyeing the tent. "We'll have to wait a bit."

  "I heard him say something about eyewitness reports of a white whale," Illya said.