The Deadly Dark Affair Read online

  TWO

  Twenty minutes later, Solo was still walking back and forth. Some of his tiredness was gone now that the scent of the chase was rising. Illya had left the room to run a check in the data section. He returned, edging up to Napoleon Solo and saying softly:

  “Central Records has no information to suggest that THRUSH has any research people currently working and capable of developing the kind of machine or blackout-box or whatever you want to call it that caused the havoc in San Francisco.”

  “They can’t be that short on brains,” Solo whispered back.

  Illya shrugged. “There are the usual lesser lights. Good, solid technical men---“

  “If you care to call murdering fanatics good, solid technical men.”

  “They have nobody at the moment who could be considered a genius in electrical field theory.

  “But it’s possible we don’t know all of their people.

  The conversation was interrupted by a rise in Waverly’s voice. He had been murmuring questions and replies into the trumpet-shaped receiver of the phone, but now he said more clearly:

  “Yes, Harold, yes. Good to talk with you too. I am sure Martin will turn up. No, I am not sure yet whether U.N.C.L.E. is connected in any way. I will let you know what we decide. Yes, and my best to your wonderful wife. Good-bye.”

  Waverly hung up. He gripped the phone a moment, the glanced somberly at Illya and Solo.

  “You both know me very well. I am not prone to act rashly, or make swift decisions. But in this case---“ He erupted from his chair. “Let me tell you what Harold said. Martin left a typewritten note behind when he vanished. It told his parents that the pressures and tensions of life had grown too much for him, that he wished to disappear, not go back to Bay State. Harold thinks the note was a forgery.”

  “How can he be sure of that, sir?” Illya asked.

  “A man is reasonably sure of his own son most of the time, Mr. Kuryakin. Harold told me that his son was simply not the type to call it quits when things got tough. And particularly not now. Martin informed his parents that he was working on a new project. His enthusiasm for it was practically boundless.”

  Waverly paused. “On the day before he vanished, Martin described it to his parents as a type of anti-generator. If it proved successful, Martin believed it could completely neutralize millions of volts of electrical power. In fact, he claimed that he believed the device ultimately would be able to control the flow of electrical power within a radius of at least fifty miles.”

  Tense silence hung in the room. Solo whistled. Finally he said; “Then you’re thinking it’s a kidnapping?”

  “By a little bird?” Illya added.

  “By a THRUSH?” Waverly shrugged. “I don’t know. I do know that we face a potentially catastrophic threat from that organization, in the form of this blackout device. A device which sounds very similar to the one Martin Bell was working on. I think it is worth my sending you both to talk with Harold Bell. And immediately. We will use the turbojet at the field on Long Island. You can be airborne in an hour.”

  Napoleon Solo’s nerves tightened up a notch. “Spoon Forks, Arkansas?”

  “I still don’t believe it,” Illya said.

  You had better believe it,” said Mr. Alexander Waverly, with one meaningful glance toward the window and the city beyond, where millions of twinkling lights held the darkness at bay.

  A yellow hound crawled out from under a spirea bush and bayed belligerently as the black sedan swung round the corner into the tree-shadowed stillness of Oleander Street.

  Napoleon Solo was at the wheel. He looked refreshed and dapper in a powder blue blazer and old school tie which had already caused a few elevated eyebrows among the locals.

  They had picked up the high-powered car from an U.N.C.L.E. courier waiting at the Little Rock airport. The drive consumed just under ninety minutes. They arrived in Spoon Forks (pop. 1,800) around nine, and drove up the main street, where farmers in overalls lounged on the curb and glared suspiciously at the neatly-dressed outlanders. Even the local pets seemed suspicious. The yellow dog was running along the car now, snarling and snapping at the glittering spinner hubcaps.

  Solo grimaced. “Actually what were those grits with breakfast at the airport? My stomach is dancing a jig.” He made a face and started to whistle Dixie.

  Illya craned forward. It was a hot, sunny morning. The houses on Oleander Street were large, on heavily-shrubbed lots, and mostly painted white. A telephone pole slid past. It bore a gaudy poster announcing that Crackerby’s Combined Shows & Mammoth Motorized Midway would be ensconced at the Spoon Forks County Fairgrounds for one week. Illya Kuryakin noted this as he noted all other details, automatically and professionally. Then he continued to count house numbers. Finally he indicated a three-story frame place coming up on the left.

  “Number one hundred twenty-nine. There.”

  “And some company is here ahead of us,” Solo said.

  A drab gray sedan was parked in the drive. Two men lounged in the rear seat. One put down a newspaper he had been reading. Both gave the car suspicious stares as Napoleon Solo swung into the curb and parked.

  Solo patted his left pocket to make sure his rod-shaped communicator was ready if he needed it. In specially-sewn inner pockets of the blazer reposed the mechanism, barrel and silencing-baffle tube for his pistol. The palms of his hands began to prickle as he and Illya got out and went up the front walk of Number 129.

  In the rear of the gray sedan the two nondescripts in fedoras continued to regard the new arrivals with unfriendly curiosity.

  A third stranger heaved himself up from a creaking metal and canvas glider on the spacious front porch. This man was big, bulky, with a neck fat dribbling over the collar of his nylon shirt. He wore an ill-fitting mass-produced suit, a summer hat. In between was a chunky face with a lumpy nose and down-turned mouth. His expression was not openly hostile. But neither did the man flash a smile of brotherhood.

  His big, formidable-looking frame barred the path of the U.N.C.L.E. agents at the top of the porch steps.

  “The folks inside don’t want any magazines,” he rumbled. “try next door.”

  “Perhaps you’d let Mr. and Mrs. Bell tell us that,” Solo said, already nettled.

  “We are not selling magazines in any case,” Illya added.

  The burly man scowled at Illya’s accent. “Nobody allowed on these premises except on official business. Especially nobody with a foreign accent.”

  An angry flush rose up in Illya’s cheeks. Solo laid a hand on his companion’s arm, put his other hand inside his jacket. The burly man tensed, hands edging upward towards his lapels. Behind him, Solo heard the doors of the gray sedan chunk softly shut.

  Carefully, so as not to provoke a shooting match, Napoleon Solo pulled out his credentials. He flipped the case open to show the stranger the triangular identification that was known world-wide.

  He said, “Napoleon Solo, United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. And if you don’t have better credentials than that mister, you’re in trouble.”

  The burly man lost a little of his hostility, produced his own shabby identification case. “Sorry. The Bells did say two of you guys were on the way. But I didn’t expect a couple of over-aged college boys.” The man smiled, about as mirthfully as a cobra. “Felix Corrigan’s the name.”

  Illya handed back the card case. “Yes, it says that beneath your picture.”

  Corrigan eyed Solo’s blue blazer distastefully. His raw envy was badly concealed.

  Solo said, “Do you mind telling me, Mr. Corrigan, why one of the top counter-intelligence bureaus in the Federal Government assigned men to this case?”

  Corrigan shrugged, but showed no disposition to move from the head of the steps. “All I do is follow orders. I guess it’s because the government keeps tabs on all the scientific bright boys. You never know,” he added with a dark glance at Illya, “when a foreign power might snatch one of these kids and carry hi
m off the Lord knows where. My men and me were sent here to cooperate with the local authorities, follow up on the case.”

  “How long have you been here?”Illya asked.

  “Since the day after the boy disappeared out at the fairgrounds.”

  Solo’s right eyebrow hooked up. “Fairgrounds?”

  A fat thumb pointed into space.

  Didn’t you see those posters plastered all over town?” A carnival’s playing here this week. Martin Bell went out to the county Fairgrounds right after supper the night he disappeared. He was supposed to meet his girl there. She works in a bank on Main Street.

  “Well, when she arrived, the kid didn’t meet her where he was supposed to. Nobody’s seen him since. The girl’s inside visiting with his folks right now, by the way. The old man discovered the kid’s typewritten farewell note later that night when he went up to the boy’s bedroom to look around.”

  Suddenly Corrigan’s eyes seemed to lose their glitter, flatten out. “I don’t why I bother to tell you all this. U.N.C.L.E.’s never given our bureau much cooperation. You can get all you need to know from Mr. and Mrs. Bell.” Corrigan waved at the gray sedan. “Cool it, you guys. These are the prep school kids from U.N.C.L.E.”

  Struggling to control an intense dislike for this strangely hostile U.S. public servant, Solo asked, “What luck have the local police had?”

  Corrigan shrugged once more. “Afraid they haven’t had a bit. The kid just disappeared, poof, like that.”

  Illya and Solo exchanged dubious glances. Solo started up the steps. Corrigan reached for the old-fashioned bell twist.

  “I’ll just go along inside and introduce you---“

  “No thanks, Mr. Corrigan,” said Solo dropping his hand on the bell-twist a second ahead of Corrigan’s big paw.

  Corrigan drew back, furrow-browed, suspicious. “What kind of routine is this?”

  Illya said, “We prefer to talk to the Bell’s privately.”

  You’re right, we really aren’t very cooperative at all,” Solo smiled, and gave the bell-twist a turn.

  “Well, I’ll be a---“

  Corrigan uttered a short, sharp, anti-social word, turned around and clumped off the porch. He was last seen conferring furtively with his two fellow counter-espionage agents over by the gray sedan. Solo watched them carefully.

  “You know, Napoleon,” Illya whispered, “I have met quite a few men who work for U.S. intelligence. None has ever been quite so thick witted or shabby looking.”

  Solo scratched his chin. “Right. There are a few lemons, of course. But most of them are long on brains and good manners. They don’t work for starvation wages and waltz around in bargain-basement suits. Either Corrigan is strictly a loser, picked to come out here because the case is already a foregone dead end, or he’s the biggest, phoniest imitation of a Federal employee I’ve ever---“

  “Oh, hello,” said a warm female voice on the other side of the screen. “You must be the two gentlemen Alexander Waverly phoned to tell us about.”

  Solo put on his most winning smile. “Mrs. Bell? Napoleon Solo. May I say it’s a pleasure to be called a gentleman for a change. Mr. Corrigan thinks otherwise.”

  Mrs. Maude Bell held the screen door open for them. “That federal man? I don’t care for him. He’s done nothing but ask questions and sit on the porch.”

  Mrs. Bell was a petite brown-haired woman. She wore a print dress. Her speech was not a bucolic drawl. Solo noted that her hairdo was decidedly stylish.

  “I was just fixing some iced tea for Harold and Beth. Come right this way. We’ve been sitting on the side porch because it’s so muggy already.”

  As they proceeded through the cool, dim, old-fashioned parlor Solo performed the amenities, introducing Illya to Martin Bell’s mother. The amenities were repeated on the side porch, which was full of rattan furniture and screened on three sides.

  Harold Bell was as slight, gray-haired and unassuming as he had appeared on video tape. He welcomed them warmly, said, “Mr. Solo? Mr. Kuryakin? Let me present Miss Beth Andrews.”

  Napoleon Solo was not customarily inclined to whistle at girls. He had seen too many, in too many svelte and stunning shapes, sizes, and colors, to be easily impressed. But Beth Andrews was something special.

  She was no older than eighteen, a brunette with a shining complexion, large intelligent blue eyes, and that kind of clean-scrubbed yet sensuous beauty which bowled over beauty pageant judges and infuriated women from other countries.

  “Our pleasure,” Solo said with a smile. Illya carried it a little far, Solo thought. He bent over her hand and kissed it with a murmured, “Charmed, my dear, charmed.”

  Beth Andrews clearly had other matters on her mind. Her polite smile faded quickly as she said:

  “When Mr. Bell phoned this morning and told me that his old friend Mr. Waverly of U.N.C.L.E. was sending two of his best men to investigate, I nearly cried for joy. I know you’ll find Martin. And I think it’s wonderful of Mr. Waverly to send you here just because Martin’s father used to work---“

  Shaking his head, Harold Bell interrupted, “Alexander Waverly couldn’t possibly send his two top agents to help an old friend, Beth, just for friendship’s sake. That is contrary to U.N.C.L.E.’s policy. So I assume, Mr. Solo, that Martin’s disappearance is somehow connected with something else. Some case you’re working on?”

  With a quick nod, Solo accepted the frosty glass of tea Maude Bell had just brought in on a tray.

  I have to ask all of you to hold this in confidence,” he said after a sip. And then he told them, with interpolations and additions by Illya, of their experiences in San Francisco. At the end he briefly sketched in the speculations by Mr. Waverly which had led up to their presence here.

  “The blackout!” Maude Bell said softly. “Of course we heard about it on the news. But I never imagined Martin could be in any way connected with it.”

  Harold bell jumped up from his rattan chair. “But it makes sense, Maude. Don’t you see how much sense it makes? Much more than Martin giving in to pressure, tension. I’ve said it before. He isn’t that kind. So if it’s true that Martin was kidnapped from the fairgrounds---“

  “No one really knows for certain,” Beth explained. “The town police found one concession stand operator who thought he’d seen Martin on the grounds, but we don’t know anything else.”

  “I see what Harold means,” Maude Bell spoke, eagerly now. “If Martin was kidnapped by this secret organization---“

  Quietly Illya said, “THRUSH is it’s name. Power-mad fanatics bent on destroying the peace of the world and substituting their rule for that of all other governments.”

  “If Martin’s in their hands,” Mrs. Bell insisted, “at least he’s alive.”

  Napoleon Solo did not want to express his grim doubt. Instead he said reassuringly, “That’s probably so, Mrs. Bell.” He rose, set his empty ice tea glass on a tray. “I think it would be wise if Illya and I went to the Fairgrounds immediately. The carnival is still playing there?”

  Beth Andrews’ hair caught angled sunbeams as she nodded. “It arrived Sunday and stays until Saturday, the day after tomorrow.”

  Solo gave a crisp nod and headed out through the parlor. He and Illya murmured more words of professional reassurance. Both Mr. and Mrs. Bell pumped their hands and expressed fervent thanks. Beth Andrews watched with a radiant expression as Solo pushed against the front screen and started briskly across the porch.

  He wished he could be as confident as those three people seemed.

  The head of Felix Corrigan popped suddenly into view behind a large bush near the porch. Solo started, nearly went for his gun. Corrigan smiled, showing several gold inlays as he straightened up from tying his shoe.

  You two in a hurry to get somewhere?” he inquired.

  “We’re going to the Fairgrounds, where Martin Bell was last seen,” Illya said coolly.

  Corrigan pinched the bridge of his nose. “That area’s been covered pre
tty thoroughly. But if you think you can turn up something new, what say I ride along?”

  Napoleon Solo sighed. “All right, Corrigan, come on. Just no more remarks about prep school.”

  “The U.S. is supposed to be a friendly country,” Illya said.

  The laugh in Corrigan’s throat was hearty but false. He conferred quickly with his two aides still lounging in the gray sedan, then dog-trotted along after the U.N.C.L.E. agents and climbed into the back of the black sedan. In three minutes, with Solo tooling the souped-up machine just within the legal speed limits, they had left Spoon Forks proper and were passing swiftly down a simmering asphalt road past a large billboard pointing the way to the Fairgrounds.

  A couple of garish neo-Hollywood hamburger stands whipped by. Then several shacks and a dilapidated filling station. Illya noted a very large tan-colored van sitting in the shade at the side of the station. As the black sedan passed the unmarked van revved its engines. Watching the rear view mirror, Solo saw the van careen at top speed, on to the asphalt behind them.

  “Unless the local constabulary travels in unmarked trucks,” he said, “we’re in trouble.”

  Solo floored the gas pedal. The high-powered engine under the hood whined faintly and the sedan leaped ahead. Rows of corn whipped by on both sides like a blurred camera flashpan. Illya and Corrigan screwed around to watch the van come arrowing up the straight, deserted country road, gaining, steadily gaining.

  “Maybe it’s just some hick speeding,” Corrigan said.

  “Napoleon!” Illya said, the corners of his mouth white. “Check your mirror. The van’s headlights just revolved and disappeared.”

  Solo’s eyes flicked up to the mirror’s oval. Illya had faced front again, was swiftly screwing together the parts of his pistol.

  Where the van’s left and right headlight ports had been before now loomed a pair of round, black, muzzle-like openings.

  The black sedan was inching up from seventy-five to eighty miles an hour as Solo held on to the wheel hard, tightly. The big van had stopped trying to gain on them, was matching their speed and staying eight to ten car lengths behind. In the rear seat Corrigan fanned himself frantically with his fedora and burbled incoherent remarks about something being crazy about all this.