The Beauty and Beast Affair Read online

  Even Illya Kuryakin whistled faintly between his teeth.

  She smiled at Solo. "Well, Tiger. Here we are. We meet again."

  Solo stared at her. "A THRUSH agent," he said.

  "That's right, Tiger." She laughed. "I told you I was—Pretty Wilde."

  "You really are," Solo said.

  ACT IV

  INCIDENT OF THE VOLATILE AGENT

  AT GUNPOINT, Pretty Wilde and her silent executioners ushered Solo and Kuryakin through silken drapes into a smaller room, completely remodeled in electronic modern.

  The men from U.N.C.L.E. stared in astonishment at this chamber banked with the sort of broadcasting and receiving equipment one might expect to find in the home plant of RCA.

  Three men with headphones sat in chairs that glided silently on casters from one machine to the next. Bright eyes of varying colors flashed across the faces of the sets.

  One of the technicians gave all of his attention to a complex rectangular box topped with a seventeen-inch television tube set at an angle. The metal machine hummed to life; the black eye of the screen lightened, brightened, and then held, as if waiting.

  "All of this just for us, Pretty?" Solo said.

  Pretty glanced at him along the nose of her gun. "You might say that. It offers you your only chance to leave here alive."

  "I for one am almost morbidly interested in this idea," Solo said.

  "And I," Kuryakin agreed.

  "As you see, it's a suggestion that's caught right on with both of us," Solo said. "Please tell us more."

  "It's very simple. One of our scientists, Dr. Polar Fuch, on the verge of a breakdown and suffering delusions, managed to steal a vital machine from us."

  "Ah, yes. The atom separator," Solo said, recalling Waverly's demonstrating this weapon to him in United Network headquarters. "A machine that Dr. Fuch invented."

  "A non-essential detail, since he was working for us, and all of his creations automatically became—"

  "A machine he planned for peaceful analysis, which is not the use THRUSH planned for it," Solo persisted.

  "Another quibbling detail," Pretty said, shrugging. "The important fact to us, and you two, is that the machine is ours, and we want it back. Now. We're willing to make a trade with United Net work Command. Your lives, and the bonus life of that girl in there, in exchange for our machine."

  Solo shrugged. "We haven't the authority to—"

  "Of course you haven't! But we can talk to Alexander Waverly via this sender-receiver. Give us the channel, and we'll discuss the trade with Waverly. If he agrees to deliver the machine to an address we'll give him in Manhattan, we will escort you safely to the air terminal at Kurbot."

  "We couldn't do that," Solo said. "Breach of security."

  "I forgot to tell you. You have five minutes to make up your minds."

  "If you kill us, you won't have much bargaining power, will you?" Solo said.

  Pretty Wilde gave him a twisted smile. "We'll keep the two of you alive only long enough to exhaust all means of making a trade. But that girl in there—the other people with you—they are expendable. They mean nothing to us. We will systematically kill them, starting with the girl, beginning in just five minutes."

  Solo winced, glancing at Illya.

  Pretty Wilde said, "Have you the authority to sentence that girl to certain death in—four and one––half minutes?"

  "Time," Illya said, lifting his hand. "Maybe it's became I've been so close to death these past weeks. I think we ought to cooperate, Solo. Give them the channel. As soon as they contact Waverly this once, technicians will scramble the signals in that channel, change the wave-length. What can we lose, except our lives?"

  After a second Napoleon Solo merely nodded, and Illya Kuryakin said smiling into Pretty Wilde's sardonic face: "Channel D, my pretty little cobra. And hurry, will you?"

  Pretty Wilde jerked her head to ward the waiting technician. He turned knobs, pressed buttons. The hum deepened, then rose to a keening wail, gradually waned. Jagged lines on the picture-tube screen settled into the interior of the U.N.C.L.E. Command Room and then closed in on Alexander Waverly's face.

  "Can you see us, Mr. Waverly?" Pretty asked, speaking into a microphone.

  "Yes. You're coming in beautifully. Lovely girl. I hope you are friendly."

  "That's up to you, Mr. Waverly," Pretty Wilde said. "We show you THRUSH'S latest prize."

  Solo and Kuryakin were photographed by the machine camera. Waverly said, "Yes. Well, they're not nearly as eye-catching as you are. But I'm glad to see them."

  "If you want them alive, you will agree to return the atom-separator to ten-twenty West Eight Street in Manhattan. It will do your agents no good to go there. It is merely a place for receiving this particular shipment."

  "I was sure of that," Waverly said.

  "Agree, we'll return Solo and Kuryakin. Refuse, and THRUSH will kill them. You'll agree, Mr. Waverly, that THRUSH has no compunctions about killing them THRUSH has many scores to settle with them. Since time is important, I'll give you one minute to make up your mind."

  Waverly gave her his chilliest grin across the thousands of miles. "I cannot give you a direct answer. Since word came that both my agents had fallen into THRUSH'S hands, I've been expecting to get some sort of offer like this. We are prepared with a counter offer."

  "Here's where we learn just how expendable we are," Illya whispered.

  "We authorize Solo and Kuryakin to make the decision about returning the atom separator," Waverly said, "knowing what destruction such a lethal weapon could wreak in THRUSH'S conscienceless possession, the lives and property lost—"

  "When he waves the flag," Illya said, "I'm walking out."

  "—if they call back in one hour saying they want the machine returned to you, we will agree to do it. When they get in touch with our people at the air terminal at Kurbot, instant delivery of said machine will be made to the address here in Manhattan. Over and out."

  The screen flickered, became a scrambled pattern of jagged lines, screeching interference.

  "They've scrambled channel D out of existence," Illya said;

  Solo nodded. "You know what that means, don't you?"

  "I'm way ahead of you. It means we're expendable, that Waverly doesn't expect to hear from us again."

  Pretty stared at them in frustration and rage. "How will you get in touch with him now?"

  Solo gave her a pained smile. "That's it, Pretty. We can't get in touch with him now. Not through any of your infernal gadgets. The next move is up to THRUSH."

  TWO

  ILLYA PROWLED the impregnable cellar under Zud's oasis retreat like a lynx unable to believe a cage could hold him.

  Along the walls, the chauffeur, Aly David, Frun and Piebr sat in round-shouldered dejection. Wanda slumped on a sack of grain, staring unseeingly at the floor.

  Solo tested the walls, found no weakness, no object his ingenuity could convert to offensive weaponry. He leaned against the wall.

  "We've got to agree to give THRUSH the machine, Illya," Solo decided. The other hostages glanced up, not daring to hope. "These people will die first, starting in less than an hour now. We don't have the right to sacrifice them."

  "We voted," Aly David said. The others nodded in assent. "We are more fortunate than you and Kuryakin in that we die first."

  "Yes," Piebr said. "The waiting is the worst."

  "No!" Solo straightened. "We've got to get out of here. If we only had a gun."

  Illya withdrew the automatic Solo had given him at the palace.

  Solo stared at him. "How did they miss that?"

  Illya shrugged. "Ordwell. Wasn't thinking straight. Never occurred to him you'd arm a prisoner—me."

  Aly David came up off the floor without touching his hands to it. His dark face glowed.

  "Give me one gun, and I'll turn it into an arsenal!" he shouted.

  Solo nodded. Illya handed over the gun.

  Aly hefted it a moment m his hand, g
rinning, then started toward the door.

  "Hold it," Solo said.

  Aly David paused. Solo ripped open the seed sack. "Everybody. Hands full of seed."

  They all scooped up seed. Solo lined them on each side of the door. Aly David took aim on the lock, fired once. The thick door quivered, hung there, slightly ajar.

  In that instant a heavy boot thrust it open and an armed guard burst through, rifle up.

  Handfuls of seed struck him in the face, blinding him, stopping him for the fraction of a second. It was too long. Aly David struck him with the gun butt neatly behind the ear and he pitched face first to the floor.

  Frun caught up the rifle before it struck the floor and Piebr knelt, taking the hand gun from the guard's holster.

  At the open door, Aly David wheeled around and fired upward. A second guard toppled down the stone steps. Illya got the second guard's rifle, and Solo snatched the hand gun from his bolster. They were already moving up the long stairs.

  Wanda wailed, "I still don't have a gun!"

  Solo said, "You stay right here at the head of these stairs until we clear a way out of here. We'll come back for you." When she opened her mouth to protest, he rasped, "That's an order, Wanda!"

  She nodded miserably.

  He closed the stairwell door, leaving it slightly ajar. The sound of running men was heard from the corridors. Solo motioned his party to fan out.

  As the men came through the door, the waiting men, crouched along the walls, shot them. They moved forward, room to room.

  Illya scouted ahead. He saw movement in draperies, fired into it. Two snipers fell forward, ripping down the draperies with them.

  They reached the front room. Solo jerked his head toward the radio room. Illya shot the door open, then emptied the rifle into the sending sets.

  "I'll get Wanda," Solo said. The others crowded at the front door, waiting, alert as Solo turned.

  Across the foyer, Pretty Wilde appeared. "I think you'll stay where you are, Mr. Solo."

  Solo stared at her. Pretty gave him a cold smile. "Did you think I was a fool like those men, to run into your trap?" She motioned with the machine pistol. "Drop those guns. All of you. I can cut you down with this if you move."

  "Drop the guns," Solo said, shrugging helplessly.

  "You are wise, Mr. Solo," Pretty Wilde said. "Now if you'll be smart enough to tell your superiors we have run out of patience and want our machine." She lifted her voice. "Ordwell! Come down here and keep these prisoners covered."

  A whisper of sound behind Pretty Wilde made her shiver. But she hesitated, afraid for the moment to take her gaze off the five prisoners. When she had to swing around, it was too late.

  Wanda cracked her across the skull with the spiked heel of her slipper. Pretty Wilde crumpled to the floor. "I could have done so much better," Wanda wailed across the room at Solo, "if I'd just had a gun."

  Piebr dropped to his knee, grabbed up an automatic as Ordwell ran out to the head of the stairs.

  Aly and Illya, too, caught up guns as Ordwell jerked up a machine pistol, but Piebr screamed. "No! He's mine!"

  Piebr fired. His bullet struck Ordwell cleanly in the solar plexus. In a slow movement, Ordwell Slybrough dropped the machine pistol and then toppled over and over down the wide stairway.

  As he reached the landing, Piebr was there. Zouida's son emptied the gun into the body of his father's slayer. Then he threw the gun down upon the bullet-riddled killer.

  When Piebr turned, his eyes were bright with tears, but his head tilted in triumph.

  Solo caught Wanda in the circle of his arm. He laughed down into her face. "Come on, Agent Kim! You just became one of the boys! And now, in the name of Allah, let's get out of here."

  * * *

  THE BLACK CAR raced toward the iron gates in the palace wall.

  The driver pressed the horn hard. After a moment the gates were shoved open and the car sped through.

  Napoleon Solo whistled as their limousine was braked down at the base of the forty steps. There were no servants out to greet them to day, but from all sides green-suited soldiers converged on them, bayonets reflecting the sun blindingly.

  "I knew we were heroes," Illya Kuryakin said in sarcasm, "but I never expected a greeting like this."

  "Any twenty-one gun salutes we get will be in our backs," Solo agreed, watching the threatening faces of the soldiers.

  A dark-skinned officer jerked the door open and screamed orders at them in a dialect.

  Solo glanced helplessly at Piebr. "What'd he say?"

  Aly David spoke over his shoulder. "We are to get out of the car slowly, with our hands locked on top of our heads."

  Solo smiled weakly. "If this is a friendly greeting," he said, "it loses something in translation."

  Sheik Zud padded about the eighty-by-fifty conference chamber. The huge council room looked too small to contain the huge man and his massive grief.

  Half the room was in darkness.

  When Solo, Kuryakin and the others were led into the council room, Zud let them stand for some moments while he strode back and forth, his lion's face contorted with a sadness that furrowed it from brow to jawline.

  At last, he turned and faced them. "Piebr!"

  Zouida's son stepped forward and knelt near the table in the center of the light near his ruler. "Your Majesty?" he said.

  "Piebr, I am being betrayed! By the only people I trusted and loved with all my heart."

  "No, Majesty!"

  Zud's roar shook the chandeliers, echoed inside the long room. "First, your father. Now you! Gone over to the enemy!"

  "Majesty, no! My own father gave his life serving you with his last breath, as I will do if Allah grants it!"

  "Don't lie!" Zud roared. "Look!" He waved his arm and an unseen servant snapped a switch. A single, high-powered light played down on a body laid out on a high table draped with robes. The onlookers held their breath.

  "Kiell," Piebr whispered.

  "Yes. Kiell. We found his body. Slain. Stuffed into a baggage locker at the Kurbot airport! The great Kiell! To be so foully treated in death! Did you kill him? Or did that one there?"

  He thrust out his arm, pointing an accusing finger at Solo. "You're the one who impersonated Kiell, aren't you? Clever! In a plastic mask. I could not believe it was Kiell, and yet my heart would not believe I could lose Kiell and Zouida in the same moment."

  "No, Majesty!" Piebr cried in anguish. "None of us in this room has betrayed you. We have slain the man who killed both Kiell and my father! The conspiracy of these people was against you, Majesty, not in your interests."

  "How can you know of this?" Zud shouted.

  Solo stepped forward. "Majesty, Piebr speaks the truth. THRUSH agreed to aid you in a war against Xanra, and in exchange you were to deliver Kuryakin and me to be held as hostages by THRUSH. Isn't that true?"

  "I need aid in my battle!" Zud shouted. "Xanra is four times the size of my country, with ten times the population! I take aid where I can find it.'

  "Yes. And did you know that THRUSH meant to use Illya Kuryakin and me to achieve the return of a lethal war machine?"

  "Yes!" Zud strode back and forth beyond the table. "I was told the weapon would be a great aid in my unequal battle."

  "THRUSH wanted to use that weapon––as fearful and evil as the use of the hydrogen bomb. Devastating. Did you want Xanra laid waste?"

  Zud tilted his leonine head, jaw thrust forward, but finally he shook his head, his massive shoulders slumping. "I did not understand."

  "THRUSH was using you. THRUSH would have helped you win the war against Xanra. But Xanra would be rubble, its people destroyed or deformed. Then the world would see the graphic demonstration of THRUSH'S newest weapon. That was what THRUSH wanted. And when the war with Xanra was ended, its queen victim of that inhuman machine—"

  "No!" The growl of agony was torn from Zud's throat.

  "Yes!" Solo said relentlessly. "And you would have ended up a puppet of TH
RUSH, without power, without glory—to live out your life knowing what you had done to your neighbors in a war that doesn't even need to be fought."

  Zud straightened to his full height, staring down at Solo. "What are you saying—a useless war?"

  "You know it, King Zud. In your heart. Better than I do. Why did you go to war with Xanra? To prove that you could conquer it. To prove to its queen—as you once proved to your mother—how great you were. But you didn't need to do that. Queen Soraya knows your greatness. She loves you."

  "What? No woman so beautiful cou1d love such a beast as I."

  "Then why did she come here repeatedly on missions of peace, King Zud? Her country is larger, richer than yours. She didn't have to sue for peace, but she did! She even talked of marriage with you."

  "No woman would marry me, unless she was forced into it."

  "I heard her say she would."

  "To stop the war. Only to stop the war."

  "No. She loves you. Anyone but you could see it. Just as you should be able to see that Piebr here is as loyal as the slain Kiell, and trained by him to take his place. And Frun—meant to be a diplomat, like the lamented Zouida. And—"

  "And Aly David, your most loyal soldier!" Illya Kuryakin said. "Fighting for you, even when his heart broke because he disagreed with what you were doing to Queen Soraya and Xanra. A brilliant soldier, waiting to make your untried armies great."

  "Young men," Solo said, "anxious to serve you with their hearts and minds. Ready to make this nation––and you––greater than ever. Especially when you are joined in alliance with the Queen of Xanra through marriage."

  Zud prowled the carpeting. He stared at Napoleon Solo, at Illya Kuryakin, at the young men awaiting his decision.

  The door of the council chambers was thrown open. A young army officer burst through.

  Zud raged. "How dare you burst unannounced—"

  "Majesty!" The officer prostrated himself before the sheik. "Word comes that a woman named Pretty Wilde, with the mercenary troops sent into Zabir to aid you, have revolted against you. They have taken over all the refineries."