20 - The Corfu Affair (10 page)

A similar stifled twist of amusement showed on the lips of the pretty receptionist as she pinned a badge on Kuryakin's lapel.

"I'll tell Mr. Waverly you're on the way up," she said, and her finger was on its way to the intercom automatically until he stopped her.

"You won't," he said coldly, "use that. You won't do anything at all until you hear directly from Mr. Waverly, which will probably be by telephone. This is an emergency. The condition is black!"

He walked stiffly away from her, fighting the tendency to limp. His leg ached. His head hurt. But that was only the minor stuff. There was a fire in his mind that he could hardly wait to unload. For once in his uncertain career he had the dubious satisfaction of seeing Alexander Waverly completely surprised.

"Mr. Kuryakin! You should still be in Paris!"

"Let us hope that a certain interested group of people also think so, and believe that I am, permanently. Don't touch anything yet, sir. I have to report that Thrush has got Napoleon Solo. Alive!"

For a long breathless moment the lead-lined office crackled with an utter silence. Then Waverly sighed and sat back.

"Have they, indeed? Sit down, Mr. Kuryakin, you look weary." He took up his desk telephone, pressed a button on it, and spoke. "Miss—close all forms of communication to and from this office except this telephone line to you that I am now using. Then issue firm instructions to cease all outgoing messages of any kind until I personally countermand that order. Is it understood? Good. Now, Mr. Kuryakin, I fancy I can guess what you mean by saying Thrush have got Mr. Solo, but I would prefer that you told me. In full detail, please."

The old man was a good listener. Apart from one early move, to reach out for a pipe to fondle in his sensitive old hands, he kept quite still. His leathery face remained impassive, his eyes down turned and half-closed, and he asked no questions until the account was complete. Then,

"There can be no doubt it
was
Mr. Solo?"

"None at all. I had some doubts, myself, at first. It is possible to fake likenesses, to impersonate with care, but you can't fake the way a man moves, or handles himself in a fight. That was Napoleon, all right."

"Hmm!" Waverly sighed again. "May I see the exhibits you've brought?" Kuryakin dipped into his pockets while the old man took up his telephone. "Send Mr. Cronshaw along to this office at once, please!" At the reply, he added:

"Advise him that it is to do with his new pencil-camera device, and to bring appropriate equipment."

He took up the pencil, put it down again, brushed his finger over the paper diagram, was about to ask a question when he saw the three extra objects lying to one side.

"Bullets?"

"Yes, sir. I thought it worthwhile to extract those that were fired in the room. We can compare them with the rifling-pattern of Napoleon's gun, which ought to be on file. I'm sure it was him and his, but it can't do any harm to confirm."

"Agreed. But these would at once confirm one thing, at least—that his intentions were lethal."

"That's what puzzles me, sir. I've tried to believe that he was playing some kind of trick, but hardly with real bullets. I'm afraid there is no doubt about it. He was out to kill me."

The words were not easy to say. Waverly nodded in sympathy. He knew better than anyone just how close these two men had been. Kuryakin was something of an enigma to everyone, and Solo had managed to get closer to him than anyone else. Now he had turned renegade, Kuryakin was, in a real sense, utterly alone.

Jeremy Cronshaw came briskly in, carrying a developer-projector outfit, and took up the camera-pencil without further word.

"This won't take more than a minute or two," he announced. "This is a fast developer film, in here. I'll be able to project it for you right away, soon as it's dry." His busy fingers made skilful movements under a black velvet shroud, then there was a hum as he switched something on. His sharp eyes wandered to the much creased paper.

"What's the diagram, Illya?"

"I'm not sure. I studied it a long time, on the flight. It seems to be some kind of communication wiring, but badly drawn."

"It's a mess." Cronshaw sniffed and studied it. "Doesn't mean a thing unless you know what values to insert here and here. Could be a kind of transceiver, though. Without the power source. Excuse me." He straightened as the humming stopped in his machine. After a few more dexterous moves, he requested the lights to be dimmed and switched on his projector, aiming the picture at a small screen on the wall. It took a moment to get the focus, then they all saw a foreshortened picture of a head, seen from a point about three feet above the forehead. By the hair, it was the head of a woman, but there was one small patch where the head had been shaven clean.

The next picture showed the same head, but where there had been a patch of bare skin, there was now a dark orifice.

"A cranial operation!" Waverly murmured. "At a guess this must be some work done by Countess Louise. The next picture, Mr. Cronshaw!"

This time the screen showed a chart similar to those hung up for the benefit of anatomy students. It was of the human head in outline and profile. An arrow pointed to a specific area of the skull, on the top of the head. The next picture was once more a head, but this time in full-face, and again the arrow pointed down at the top of the skull. One more picture, and this time both Kuryakin and Cronshaw leaned forward excitedly.

"That's the diagram again!" Kuryakin declared.

"Right!" said Cronshaw; "but this time the values are properly put in. And you know what?"

"I know." Kuryakin sighed. "It's that damned radio-module thing. Any more pictures, Jerry?"

"Soon find out." Cronshaw moved switches, but the rest of the film was blank. He switched off, restored the lights. Waverly blinked, then his face contorted into a frown.

"Have you two seen something I've missed?"

"I've seen it," Kuryakin said, very quietly, "but I don't know that I can believe it, entirely. Except that I recall, now, while I was fighting with Napoleon, I had his head and was banging it against the leg of the bed. And he had a small, round bald patch, just where it would show in that film. Jerry, that module doesn't need a conventional power source, does it?"

"No. It's designed to function from body heat. I know what you're thinking, Illya, but it's fantastic. You can't just stuff a thing like that into a man's brain!"

"Perhaps you can, at that. Could we have Dr. Harvey in here, sir? This is something she could pass an opinion on."

"Of course." Waverly took up his telephone again and gave the order. Then he gripped his pipe for a moment in bleak thought. "I believe," he said, "that I am guessing what you two are thinking. That somehow that woman has discovered a way of inserting one of those modules into a human brain in such a way that she can exercise remote control by virtue of the matching other. And you," he looked at the Russian, "believe that Solo has one in his brain at this moment?"

"It would explain a lot, sir. If it's possible."

Susan Harvey came in with brisk professional step, took one keen look at Kuryakin and made instant and appropriate movements with her black bag.

"Hold it, Dr. Harvey." The Russian halted her. "You can look me over later. Right now we'd like you to see some pictures. Jerry?"

They waited until she had seen all the film and the lights were on again, then Waverly took up the thread.

"The suggestion is, Miss Harvey, that something could be, and has been, inserted into the skull of a living person in the manner shown. Would that be possible?"

She took her time before answering. "I would prefer time to look this up before being dogmatic about it, of course, but offhand I would say yes, it is possible. So far as surgery is concerned, the brain is a special case. It is not sensitive to pain, and large areas of it are apparently without function. Patients have survived extensive brain surgery, have had large areas of the brain removed, in fact, and been no different. In the case shown, the arrow appears to be indicating the pineal area. Virtually nothing is known about the function of the pineal organ. If it has a function at all, which is doubtful. In structure it resembles an eye. There is a persistent but quite unfounded superstition that it is a kind of 'third' eye. It has been believed, at various times, that it is through the pineal eye that the soul and body are joined. It's safer to say that we know very little about it, or what purpose it serves. As for inserting something in the skull just there, that would be simple enough. It would depend on the size and nature of the insertion, of course."

"The thing we have in mind," Kuryakin said heavily, "is about half an inch long and the caliber of an ordinary pencil lead. It's a miniature transmitter-receiver, powered by body heat."

"In its military usage," Cronshaw added, "the man in the field would have it taped to his jawbone so as not to interfere with his movements. It's designed to convert into audio frequencies."

"That's rather beastly." Susan Harvey repressed a shiver. "I suppose someone with that thing in his head would hear voices."

"He would hear commands. Instructions," Kuryakin declared, with sudden inspiration. "And he would obey, or suffer. Imagine what a simple power boost would do! And the person at the other end, the controller, would be able to listen in and hear everything that went on, all the time!"

"Well," Waverly sighed and put down his pipe, "at least we know this much, then. Mr. Solo is in the hands of the enemy, but not willingly. He is under compulsion by this fiendish device. The next question must be, how do we get him back?"

CHAPTER EIGHT

AS the whole of the efficient organization that was U.N.C.L.E. seethed into fervent activity to deal with the problem, Waverly was at pains to make one point clear.

"We want Mr. Solo back," he said, facing a team of experts from all sections, "preferably. But failing that, he must be killed. He is much too dangerous to be left in that woman's hands." It was a bitter decision and there was more than one sympathetic glance for Illya Kuryakin, but no one questioned the correctness of it. The United Network Command was too important to be risked for the sake of one member.

For two days, Kuryakin did less than anyone. Try as he might, his brain was too bothered by various factors, and in any case he was in urgent need of rest and recuperation from his wounds. Susan Harvey attended him as often and regularly as her time would allow, but he was difficult, both as a patient and as a person. In neither valence would he render any clues as to his feelings. Never, she felt, had she made less impression on a man. It was as if she was transparent, as if he couldn't see her, no matter how carefully she tried to make herself pleasant and attractive. He had interest in two things, and two things only. One was for news that Solo had been sighted. The other was for some outcome to the ceaseless quest for some efficient way of getting that telltale module safely out of Solo's head, if and when they did manage to catch him.

Answers to both came in quick succession on the evening of the second day. Kuryakin had taken up residence in one of the spare small apartments within the crumbling brownstone facade, so as to be on hand in the event of any news. Susan Harvey had come to visit him, ostensibly to change his bandages but in secret fact to try out on him the effect of her newest and most brief mini-dress. She had long and extremely attractive legs, and she knew it. He would have known it too, had he taken the trouble to look, but he didn't. She sat, now, directly opposite him and crossed her lovely legs with deliberate abandon. Then she sighed and shook her head in despair.

"All right!" she declared. "I'll tell you!"

"Hmm?" Resounded indifferent. "Why?"

"Jerry Cronshaw made me promise not to, because it's still in the uncertain stage, but he thinks he is getting close to a way of jamming the output of those modules with a directional beam."

"Hah?" Kuryakin sat forward at once. "That's more like it. If we can catch him, and jam the signal effectively until we can get him operated on—the operation is straightforward enough, isn't it?"

"Nothing to it," she declared. "I can do it myself."

"That's great!" The change in him was startling. She felt a twinge of sharp envy that he could care so much more about his friend than he did for a woman—meaning herself.

"He really means a lot to you, doesn't he?"

"It's not that, exactly." His grin was instantly wry. "It's just that he's not safe, running around on his own, and with that radio voice inside his head there's no telling what he might get up to."

"Oh well." She took courage from his flippancy. "If you're feeling that much better, how about going out somewhere this evening, to celebrate?"

"Celebrate what?" he asked pointedly. "The redundancy of female attire? You can't surely be serious about going out in that?"

"Why not?" she demanded, tugging ineffectively at an almost nonexistent hem. "What's wrong with it?"

"There isn't enough of it to be wrong. You'd be arrested!"

"All right!" she shrugged. "We'll stay in and celebrate, then..." Her suggestions trailed off as the telephone shrilled for attention. Waverly's voice came.

"Mr. Kuryakin? Is Dr. Harvey with you? Good. I want both of you in my office, a once, please."

"Is it Napoleon?"

"I think so."

"We're on our way!"

Waverly's outer office was full of silent grave-faced attentive men. Number One, Section One, waiting until the new arrivals were settled, swept them with a steady gaze.

"The wheels are beginning to turn," he announced. "Last night another military center was raided and another consignment of the radio-modules was taken. This time we have had instant cooperation from the military as to critical wavelengths, and those modules will be useless to whoever has them. That is by the way. We
know
where they are. At this moment they are being held within Thrush-Miami head quarters. Our man on the inside informs us that the Thrush station is standing by for an important courier from Paris, who is to collect the modules and carry them to Corfu. We believe we know who that courier will be."