MFU Whitman - The Affair of the Gentle Saboteur (8 page)

"May I be of assistance?"

"Remington Road. You know where it is?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't."

Solo pointed it out on the map. "That's where we're going. Not far now." He put away the map and started up the car. Savoy Lane grew narrow, finally leading them to Remington Road, and Solo understood why this was the appointed area. It was a flat, relatively uninhabited region. If Burrows was observing them through field glasses he could see for miles, and he could see whether they were part of a convoy, whether cars were following them. Solo made the turn onto Remington Road, drove north a few hundred yards, pulled up the car on the shoulder of the road, and turned off the ignition. "Okay," he said. "Out."

"Where are we going?"

"I don't know. We're following instructions." They walked north. It was a dirty, dusty country road, no houses in view, nothing but the high blue sky and the blazing sun. Solo turned once; he could no longer see the Chevy. No car passed them in either direction. The road was desolate, deserted, unused. Their shoes kicked up dry clouds of dust as they trudged, and finally the neat little man was no longer neat. His hair glistened wetly; rivulets of perspiration coursed down his cheeks; his suit was crumpled in damp wrinkles; his shirt collar was a sodden circle around his neck. He took the kerchief from his breast pocket, flapped it open, and mopped his face.

"How long?" he said.

"Our orders are to walk."

The little man grinned slyly. "He certainly picked an excellent location for the rendezvous, didn't he?" He stopped and looked about. "Nothing can be following us, no car, no man, nothing."

"Nothing," Solo said, knowing there were cars about, somewhere, far perhaps, but somewhere, their special instruments attuned to whatever it was he was carrying in his bloodstream. What was it the lab technician had called him?
A living beacon!
"Yes, nothing," Solo said.

"Leave it to Burrows. I can't say I'm enjoying this, but I must say I admire him."

Again Solo fished for information. "Burrows or Tudor?"

"I don't know, but whoever," Stanley said.

They trudged, kicking up dust, the sun burning overhead. Then, at long last, a half-hour by Solo's watch, they heard the sound of the motor behind them, the first sound of a car in all their long walk, and they stopped. A long, sleek, gray Rolls Royce purred slowly past them, braked a few feet in front of them, and they came to it. The driver was hatless, a dark man in an open-necked sport shirt.

"Stanley," he said.

"Hello," Stanley said.

"Thanks for nothing," the dark man said.

"You can't always win," Stanley said.

"What went wrong?" The dark man's voice was flat.

Stanley shrugged. "I don't know. Ask him."

"What went wrong, Mr. Solo?"

"UNCLE has eyes," Solo said.

"Where?"

"Everywhere. He was recognized."

"
Where
?"

"This time at the airport. When he arrived. Next time—who knows?"

"Recognized," the dark man snarled. "All right. Get in. Both of you."

They sat in the rear. Stanley lit a cigarette.

The Rolls glided forward, picked up speed.

Just like that
, Solo thought.
He knows I've got a gun, yet he sits up front with his back to me. It is a contempt, and he's enjoying his contempt of me. He knows I won't make a move, I can't, and he's enjoying making me sweat. He has Illya; he has a seventeen-year-old boy, so he is perfectly confident and enjoying it and rubbing it in. He is unhappy about Stanley's failure, but he is happy about the method of Stanley's return. Power gives confidence: He has Illya and the boy and now he is getting Stanley, and UNCLE cannot retaliate. It is a superlative contempt. Through me, rubbing my nose in the dirt, he is rubbing UNCLE's nose in the dirt
.

The Rolls purred through Remington Road, grown marshy now, high weeds on either side, no houses, utterly desolate, and then the Rolls veered off the road and stopped in the weeds.

Burrows turned his head. "You. Solo. Get out." Solo opened the rear door, Burrows, the front door. They came out of the car together. Burrows was tall, with long arms and powerful hands.

"This way." Again the contempt. He walked ahead, into the weeds, his back to Solo. He had a strong tread, catlike. He walked without swinging his arms, and in his right hand he held, of all things, a pair of black swim trunks. He pushed through the tall weeds, Solo following, until they came to a small, round clearing surrounded by the tall weeds. Now Burrows turned, smiling.

"I imagine you're armed."

"You've a good imagination."

"And I imagine you're equipped with some weird little hidden gadgets—like a pistol disguised as a fountain pen, or a button of your jacket that's really an explosive capsule. Well, we're going to get rid of all of that."

"Are we?"

"Take your clothes off. Everything."

"Everything?" Solo said modestly.

"Everything!"

"And what do I do with the clothes after I take them off?"

"You leave them here, right here. Now come on! Start!"

Solo took off his jacket and dropped it to the ground, and his shoulder holster, and all the rest, including his shoes and socks. Then Burrows tossed him the swim trunks and he climbed into them.

"All right. You in front of me this time. Move!" Solo understood. Burrows was not turning his back now, not giving him any opportunity to pick up some tiny harmless object that could in fact be a weapon. In sunglasses and swim trunks and nothing else Solo walked gingerly, barefoot through the prickly weeds, back to the car.

"Going for a swim?" Stanley said.

"This is the day for it," Solo said.

Burrows, in the front seat, slammed the door, backed the car out from the weeds and straightened it on the road. He opened a compartment in the dashboard and drew out a microphone. He held it close to his lips and spoke softly. "All in order. We're coming in. Be there in thirty minutes."

11. "Mistake in Judgment"

ALL WAS READY, all prepared. Burrows' message came through sounding hollow in the speaker. Tudor switched off the receiver, went out to the helicopter on the beach. Pamela Hunter, rehearsed as an assistant in murder, waited in the house. Thirty minutes! And she was to be the greeter, the hostess. Stanley would proceed at once to the helicopter; she and Burrows would escort Solo to the concrete room. That's why she was in the house—to keep Solo placid, unsuspecting. She was young, a young girl, she would be smiling and gracious. He could not possibly conceive that she was the decoy leading him to death. Once Solo was locked in, Burrows would do the rest; then the panel in the iron door would be slammed shut. Smooth and simple, uncomplicated—and horrible!

Thirty minutes! She lit a cigarette, her fingers trembling. It was cool in the air-conditioned room, but her palms were wet and sticky and her mouth was dry. She tried to reason with herself, tried to shut the present out of her mind. Soon, soon, thirty minutes, and it would all be over; she would be with the others in the helicopter flying swiftly to safety.

Safety! What safety is there against oneself? What helicopter can fly you away from yourself? How can you live with yourself for the rest of your life knowing, knowing...?

She fought in her mind. She was a soldier. No! Yes! But in the wrong army—she knew that now, finally. She had been recruited, enticed by sly words, drawn in by fine-sounding phrases, slogans, speeches, all empty, untrue, enticements to ensnare her. What soldier in what army? What army entraps an innocent seventeen-year-old and murders him? He was no soldier in any army, nor was she!

The truth struck now like a tremendous gong. She was not a soldier but a mercenary, a paid professional. She was not a part of an army but a member of a world organization of professional criminals, covering their crimes by a pretense of political activity, earning huge sums of money as the lackeys, without conscience, of governments that desired unrest and world turmoil. And she had become one of them, lured by the lower echelon of their experts, the speechmakers, the lecturers with their high-flown slogans. And now there would be no turning back. Crime is its own trap. The blackmail of one crime compels the next; she would be forever committed.

No! Perhaps she could not save Solo. Perhaps she could not save herself from whatever punishment the American authorities would mete out to her, but she could save herself from herself! She could be free again, out of the trap, her conscience clear; free, her own self again, not hating herself, not cringing looking into her eyes in a mirror; free, remembering her blithesome nature; free, remembering her old happiness; free, no matter what her penalty. Free!

She hurled the cigarette into an ashtray and fled down the stairs to the basement. Breathlessly she tugged at the bolts of the iron door—three wide slide-bolts, top, middle, and bottom—and pulled with all her strength at the heavy door. It opened, creaking.

Mr. Kuryakin and the boy stood in the middle of the room, looking at her. They needed shaves. The clothes provided them fitted badly. Pale, untidy, unkempt, they looked rough, dangerous, like tramps, this man from UNCLE and this son of the British Ambassador to the United Nations. Wanting to cry, blinking, biting back hysteria, she laughed—and stopped it, feeling her teeth against her suddenly stiff lips.

"Come!" she whispered, realizing there was no need to whisper, for they were alone in the house.

Kuryakin frowned, standing still, holding back, studying her.

Softly but quite distinctly he said, "What is it?"

"Come! Please! Quickly!"

Still he stood his ground, persisting. "Why?"

"They—they want to—they want to kill you." It was as though his study was completed. His grin was boyish, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. He slapped an open palm at the boy's rear, like a coach sending in a football replacement. "They want to kill us, the lady says, the beautiful lady." He slapped again quite casually, cheerfully, but his voice was tense. "Get a move on, Stevie boy. Don't let's keep our lady waiting."

She led them up and out through a side door, and they were in the hot sunshine under the blue cloudless sky.

"This way." Still she was whispering. She could not help herself.

They hurried, a little group, a long way through shady, sweet-smelling orchards and then in the blazing sun along the tended grass of wide lawns and then in the coolness of shady trees again. She led them a long way westerly, until they came, by a narrow path, to a little side-gate in the high, iron picket fence. The lock was a combination lock, and she twisted and turned the circular indicator, whispering the numbers, left, right, right again, left, right, right and right, left, and right.

She pulled down and there was a click and the lock opened and then the gate opened and she led them under the hot burning sun a long way along narrow roads. Then they were on a big road and cars passed and they waved at the cars and the cars passed.

"Look," Kuryakin said. "Steve and I better get out of the way. We look like a couple of hoods, delinquents. I don't blame them for not stopping." And he grinned. "But for you, Miss... Hunter, did you say?"

"That is correct."

"Anybody doesn't stop for you, Miss Hunter— that would be a pretty sick fella."

They went off the road and squatted behind a hedge of weeds and were out of sight of the whiz zing cars. The girl stood alone, a blond girl in a green-and-white striped dress, and waved at the whizzing cars. A truck stopped, and she talked to the driver. Then she turned and waved to them, and they came out of the shelter of the weeds and went up into the truck, and they all sat huddled together in the steamy cab of the truck thunderously rumbling on the hot road.

"I'm not allowed no riders," the driver said, a round-faced man in a visored cap, "but the little lady says emergency, and emergency, naturally that's different. But I am dropping you off at the first town, which ain't far, which is the deal I made with the little lady, which is all I can do for you. I'm not allowed no riders."

"Thank you," Kuryakin said.

"Ain't much of a town. Three blocks of town and then no more town. All the rest all around is suburbs for rich people."

They rode rumbling in the sun for a few miles, and then the truck stopped at the edge of a paved street.

"This is it," the driver said. "All I can do. I can get into trouble. I'm not allowed no riders."

"Thank you," Kuryakin said.

"Welcome. Watch your step, little lady."

The truck was gone, leaving a smell of gasoline in the motionless air. They walked and came to a diner, built in the shape of a railroad car, painted yellow. Now it was Kuryakin who was leading. They climbed up three stairs, slid open a door, and entered. It was an off hour; there were no customers. It was cool from wood-bladed fans slowly rotating from wooden staves in the ceiling. There was a counter with backless round-seat stools screwed into the floor. Opposite the counter there were booths by the windows. The windows had Venetian blinds drawn against the glare of the sun. It was dim and cool and empty.

A woman in a yellow uniform with a lacy white apron came out from the kitchen behind the counter, took up a pad and pencil from the counter, looked rather suspiciously at Kuryakin and Steve, but smiled toward Pamela Hunter.

She had a long face and long teeth and narrow inquiring eyes. Her voice was not friendly, but neutral.

"Yes, folks? What can I do for you?"

Kuryakin smiled, nodded, and said, "Please, a minute," and the three huddled. "Do you have any money?" Kuryakin asked Pamela. "We don't."

"No. I didn't bring a bag. Nothing." Kuryakin broke from them, went to the woman behind the counter.

"We don't have any money, ma'am, but if you please... ."

"What the heck's going on here?" the woman said, fear pinching in her mouth. "What is this?"

"Please, we don't mean any harm. We're in a bit of trouble."

"Look, I only work here. I can't serve you..."