The Doomsday Affair Page 10

  Solo pressed the heels of his hands against his temples, trying to subdue the agony of his drug-hangover headache. Staring With hatred at Su Yan, he said slowly, “If this is a rest home, it’s not a very good one. I don’t seem to have had a good night’s sleep.”

  “Broadmoor Rest is a singularly fine refuge from the world,” Su Yan said. “Most singular indeed, as you shall discover in time. As for the pain, I’ll have a nurse bring you sedation if you wish. You may as well live your final hours in comfort. A man deserves peace and comfort at the end of his life.”

  Solo grimaced. “I hardly expected to hear words of compassion from you. A man who would blow a young girl’s face away—with a device inside a lei of flowers.”

  Su Yan’s face remained flatly expressionless for a moment. Then he shrugged. “A mistake of Americans,” he said. “Our allies are angels, our enemies are all soulless butchers. You would improve your relations with the rest of the world if you realized your enemies are human beings—with simply opposing ideology motivating them. We too are working for a better world, Mr. Solo—our idea of a better world. That’s all. Too bad you Americans won’t have time to learn this now.”

  Solo’s smile was cold. “What did you do with that part of you that is one-half American?”

  “What I am going to do to the rest of America, my dear Solo…I destroyed it.”

  Solo shrugged. “Then you’ll forgive me if I continue to have doubts about how genuine your compassion is. To me, Su Yan old enemy, you are a soulless butcher.”

  Su Yan’s face remained expressionless. “Don’t make the mistake of underestimating men, no matter how much you hate them. Do you think I want to be doing what I am? I know that a great deal of the earth’s surface may be rendered unlivable for vegetation for centuries. But it so happens that I believe with all my soul that the two great powers exploit and misrule this world through the applied philosophy of might and threat.”

  “Your soul?” Solo asked ironically.

  “My soul,” Su Yan replied coldly. “Yes. I admit to you, I killed that young woman. I used flowers as a vehicle of death. I’ve killed others. I will kill again. The sacrifices are for the greater good, and I do not pretend they always make me happy or pleased with what must be done. I’d far rather be alone in my study. I am involved in a modern translation, from its original Vedic-Sanskrit, of the most ancient sacred literature of the Hindus, the Veda. There are more than one hundred extant books, in addition to the four Sanhitos, hymns, prayers, the liturgical formulae that are the foundation of the Vedic religion which dates back at least to 1100 B.C., possibly to 1500 B.C. The Rig-Veda, hymns of the oldest religion on earth. This is what I would love to do. But this must wait—for the better day we shall bring to this world.”

  Solo was sitting up on the bed now, swaying a bit as vertigo and pain battered at his senses. But he brought himself under control and said bitterly, “You don’t convince me, Su Yan. Your pious scholasticism is just a cover for what you really feel. I don’t know if you’re trying to fool the rest of the world or yourself, but I do know that underneath the sophisticated scholar you’re just an animal. A mindless animal with no more sense than to try to start a war that could destroy the world.”

  Su Yan’s eyes narrowed for an instant; Solo heard a quick breath. Then the imperturbable mask returned, and he said, “Insult me if you wish, Solo. Perhaps it makes you feel better, like an aspirin to alleviate the pain of your failure against me. I have no objection to your being as comfortable and happy as possible. Look about you. Look at the elegance of this suite, the fine appointments. Nothing has been spared for creature comfort. You see, Mr. Solo, you may not be here very long actually, but it may seem long as the time drags past. That’s why I’d like you comfortable—and occupied.” With a faint smile, he upturned the cardboard box, spilling out Solo’s U.N.C.L.E. attaché case. Its component parts had been carefully dismantled so that the cleverly rigged bag of electronic communication and survival gimmicks, as well as those of attack and demolition, were so much useless wire, plastic, copper, wool, welding, chemicals and miscellaneous metal.

  Solo stared at the complete ruin, expertly accomplished.

  “We turned it over to our chemists and engineers for dismantling, Solo. They were very amused by it. They found it in part ingenious, and other parts completely naive, almost backward. As compared to our best efforts, of course.”

  “Of course,” Solo said.

  “I have returned your dismantled toys, in all their childlike splendor, to help you pass your time while you are our guest. It will help you pass the hours, and can do no harm, unless you happen to blow off your hand, or explode an eye.” He gazed at Solo. “You will play carefully with your toys, won’t you?”

  “Does it please you to display your contempt, Su Yan?”

  “We all have our different manners of achieving pleasure, eh?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Have fun, Solo. I am afraid, however, that no matter in what manner you assemble all these component parts, they will avail you nothing in this place. The room is solid concrete, and completely sound proof. You’ll disturb no one. But I’m sure you will enjoy trying.”

  “Speaking of pleasures, Su Yan. There’s one of your pleasures I’d like to inquire about.”

  Su Yan shrugged. “Ask me anything.”

  “Where is Barbry? What kind of sadism are you practicing on her?”

  Su Yan gave him a baleful look of mock hurt. “How you wrong me, Solo.”

  “Where is she?”

  Su Yan laughed and shrugged. “I said I wanted you comfortable and this would include peace of mind, would it not? His mouth pulled in an enigmatic smile. “I wouldn’t want you fretting over little Esther Kappmyer.”

  He shook a small two-inch microphone from his cuff into his palm, and spoke into it.

  Barbry was brought in almost at once by a whitesmocked nurse. Solo studied the girl closely. She looked tired, and there was a resigned slump to her shoulders, to her whole body. Her eyes held that empty glaze he had seen in them when he had returned to his room in the St. Francis Hotel. She remained in whatever trance it pleased Su Yan to hold her in. She was like a robot. Solo saw he would be unable to reach her consciousness either by speaking to her or touching her.

  “Are you all right, Barbry?” he said with no hope that she would even look at him.

  She sat on the edge of the round, king-sized bed where the nurse had led her. She stared straight ahead of her.

  “Of course she’s all right,” Su Yan said impatiently. Why shouldn’t she be? She’ll live in elegance here that, believe me, she was entirely unaccustomed to outside.” Su Yan glanced about the room, at the dining alcove, the impressive fireplace, the sitting room, the bath, the second bathroom. He nodded, pleased. “Very cozy. However, I think I can give you an even happier group—by adding a member.”

  His face was twisted with chilled smiling as he spoke commands a second time into the hand microphone.

  Solo tensed, watching him. He stood unmoving as the suite doors were pushed open again. His eyes widened, and illness spread in the pit of his stomach, compounded of outrage and futility.

  Two white-suited orderlies, bulkily made, their faces gleaming with their sweated, almost cattle-like stupidity, their muscles thick and corded, entered. Between them walked Illya Kuryakin. His slender face was pale, his fair eyes fixed on nothingness. The difference in the way he moved, and Barbry, was that she was like a robot, mechanical, awaiting commands. Illya looked mindless, not like a robot at all, but like a zombie.

  Solo stiffened, hearing Su Yan’s blandly mocking voice: so you see, Solo, no matter how rugged things may look to you, you are much better off than many others, aren’t you?”

  III

  SOLO HELD ms breath at the sight of the two mindless bodies left with him inside this smartly furnished suite for the insane. The indirect lighting reflected itself in the flat surfaces of their eyes.

  He li
fted Illya’s arm, tested his pulse, finding the merest trace. On the other extreme was Barbry’s racing pulses, the swirling shadows in her eyes.

  He looked at them, thinking they would stay seated as they were until the world ended—which might not be the too distant future unless he was able to find some way out of here, for all of them or for himself alone.

  He gently pushed Barbry back on the bed, so that she at least looked comfortable to him. He supposed in her state, she rested as well sitting up. She lay down obediently for him, upon her back. She did not close her eyes. She lay staring through the ceiling, through the dome of the sky, through the roof of heaven…

  He winced, thinking that he might find a way out alone. He hated the thought of leaving them behind, and yet all he needed was the chance to get word to U.N.C.L.E. headquarters—as quickly as that, the balance would shift to their side. But if they found him gone, how long would Illya or Barbry live? If he stayed, how long would the world itself last?

  Solo smiled wryly. Here he was, considering the possibility of his escaping from what must be an improbable fortress.

  He prowled the room, unable to sit still. Not even the complicated puzzle of the dismantled component parts from his attack and survival case could keep him at a chair. He needed something to make, something that would aid him somehow. There seemed a million unrelated parts spread out there, waiting, challenging. If only he knew what to do with them…

  The steady hum he had noticed from the depths of this building—somewhere under him, and there were no windows that looked from this room upon anything except stone foundation, which meant this suite was below ground—the unceasing sound continued.

  He found the steel bars at the windows were sunk deeply in the concrete, defying even a heat bomb. Besides, the window led nowhere. Set high in the walls were the grates of the air conditioning complex. The fireplace had once been a working one, apparently, but now it was strictly ornamental. A heavy steel plate barred the chimney opening. The doors of the room were flat-surfaced inside, with a small peep-hole, covered on the outer facing—the kind of sighting-opening in any insane asylum. The doors swung inward easily, but there seemed no way to force them open from within.

  He exhaled heavily, sweated, prowling all the rooms of the suite like a caged animal, despairing, but not tired.

  Lunch came. Solo abandoned his fruitless searching of the suite and sat at the linen-covered table in the alcove. He ate alone. Orderlies attempted to rouse Illya and Barbry to the food, quickly dismissed the idea. As he ate, he stared at Illya and the girl, trying to think how he might lift them from this artificially imposed lethargy. The food—a roast chicken, with tiny green peas, feathery-light mashed potatoes, a tossed salad, wine and coffee—was served by a tan-suited waiter who was obsequiously polite, but watchful. The service was perfect, but the man neither asked questions nor answered them.

  And then when the lunch was cleared away, Solo was left alone in the suite with the silent Illya and Barbry. He forced himself to draw a chair to the table where Su Yan had emptied the dismantled gadgets from his attaché case. Somehow he felt he was doing exactly what Su Yan wanted him to, that anything he could do would only play into his hands, or at the very best would be useless.

  He refused to become enmeshed in this negative thinking. The wires, metal, batteries, plastics, all so meaningful when assembled, were like the parts of some fantastic jigsaw puzzle. He went on sitting there, refusing to permit his mind to wander from the immediate task he set for himself: he sorted all the pieces, painstakingly, with infinite patience. Perhaps if he saw what he had, he might see where he could go. Or maybe it ground down to what Su Yan had said: it passed the time.

  He gazed with pride at the small stacks, piles, sets, pyramids, assortments. Plastics, wires, batteries, minute aluminum cones, empty pellets, even a communication earplug had been dismantled.

  Solo’s concentration was interrupted by the arrival of the waiter with his dinner. He was startled to look up and know that six hours at least had passed since he’d eaten his lunch. Nothing else seemed altered much. Illya remained where he was and Barbry lay unmoving on the bed. The busy hum of motors continued from deep within the earth.

  “How are things in the outside world?” Solo inquired.

  “It’s raining, sir,” the waiter answered before he thought. Solo saw the man’s face go gray, as if he were frightened because he had spoken to him.

  “Don’t worry; I won’t tell a soul,” Solo said.

  He ate the small filet mignon, drank his wine and coffee, poked at his salad, pushed the rest of it away. Alone again, he returned to his hopeless, thankless task as if his life depended on it. He was still at it when the engines ceased grumbling beneath him, when silence seeped down from the chateau above.

  The congestion of parts wavered before his eyes. He yawned savagely. He got up and prowled the suite, returning to his chair. There was a tension and silence in this place now. He supposed it must be early in the morning—those black hours between midnight and false dawn. Hours when anyone in his right mind would be sleeping, he thought as he yawned again.

  And why shouldn’t he sleep?—this was a rest home, wasn’t it?

  No, not a rest home. That was just a circumlocution for insane asylum. He was in an insane asylum, so why should he assume he was in his right mind anyway?

  Drowsy. He sat down in the chair and reached for a small metal spring, trying to bring his thoughts back to focus by concentrating on the parts before him. But the drowsiness continued. Broadmoor Rest, he thought. Where had he heard that name before? Something about U.N.C.L.E. briefings…he couldn’t remember.

  His head nodded, and he sank forward on the table. He was asleep before his cheek settled upon the wood.

  IV

  HE AWOKE WITH a start.

  There had been a noise behind him, and he jerked erect, turning. But it was only the waiter, bringing breakfast. He set the tray down on the table, his eyes flicking over Solo silently. Solo yawned loudly, and rubbed his eyes. The waiter started to leave, but Solo said, “Just a minute.”

  The man paused, eyeing Solo cautiously. Solo yawned again, exaggeratedly, like a man who had had far too little sleep and was having trouble waking. The waiter seemed to believe it; a faint smile touched the corners of his mouth.

  “My friends,” Solo said thickly. “They haven’t eaten since God knows when. We ought to see if we can get them to swallow something. Will you give me some help feeding them?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Solo laughed, letting it trail off into another yawn. “The story of my life,” he said. “I never can get a waiter when I want one.” He sat up, running his fingers through his hair. “Look, you’ve got a guard right outside the door. I’m not about to try anything funny. It’s too early in the morning to get shot.”

  The waiter hesitated visibly, then stepped over to the bed and looked at Barbry and Illya. Barbry was still asleep, but Illya had awakened at the sound of Solo’s voice and was trying to sit up. His limbs thrashed about weakly and he sank back down.

  “Looks sinister, doesn’t he?” Solo said. “Obviously dangerous.”

  The waiter flushed. “All right,” he said. “Bring the tray. But any funny business and I’ll yell my head off; remember that.”

  Solo picked up the tray from the table and took it over to the bed. The waiter nodded for him to sit down with it. “You feed him, while I hold him steady.” Solo nodded, and the waiter approached Illya cautiously. Illya watched him coming, his eyes flickering from the waiter to Solo. Solo smiled at him, and winked. The waiter sat down next to Illya, took him by the shoulders and lifted him to a sitting position. All the time he kept his attention riveted on Solo, alert for any quick moves.

  But it was Illya who exploded into action.

  With wild, deadly strength his arms flailed out, striking in all directions at once. He butted with his head jabbed with elbows, struck with half-balled fists. He had no coordination,
no timing; he didn’t look like a trained U.N.C.L.E. agent in action. But he was effective enough—the waiter fell backward and slid off the bed, dazed and hurt by several of the wild blows.

  Instantly, Solo was upon him. He karate-chopped him sharply in the neck, and the waiter slumped into a heap on the floor.

  Solo stood up and smiled at Illya. “He didn’t even get a chance to yell,” Solo said. “Not that it matters—the room is soundproof, as our friend Su Yan so obligingly told us.”

  A sound like grotesque laughter came from Illya’s throat as he settled back down on the bed and his twitching arms and legs relaxed. Solo’s eyes narrowed for a moment. The sight of Illya in this state cut deeply into him. But he’d have to leave him here; there would be no chance of escape if he tried to take him along.

  Quickly, Solo stripped the waiter and changed clothes with him. They were nearly of a size, fortunately, so the waiter’s uniform fit Solo reasonably well. Stepping to the door, he knocked on it in the pattern he had noted the waiter use last time he had been there. After a moment there was a buzzing as the lock was electronically freed.

  Solo stepped through, his head down as if in thought. The guard glanced at him, and then took another look. Solo could almost see the guard adding it up in his mind and getting the wrong answer every time. But the few seconds’ delay caused by Solo’s having the uniform on was enough. The guard lunged for the warning button, but Solo struck him at the nape of the neck, caught him, heeled him around and shoved him through the door into his suite.

  The door swung shut, and Solo looked around him. At this hour the subterranean corridor was silent and empty, deeply shadowed. At its end was a bank of elevators; Solo strode toward them. He stepped inside one that stood open with garbage cans lined outside it—apparently a maintenance elevator. They weren’t likely to be watching this one as closely as the others. He pressed the button marked “1”.