The Final Affair - McDaniel David - Страница 20

In seconds, the circuitry was functioning, though only one pink light was on. Together within the invisible umbrella they moved slowly into the protected area. Napoleon was very aware of her presence, though she scarcely touched him.

The green warning signal. which had stayed dark through his inbound journey, came to life shortly after they entered the sonic field: Joan followed his lead instantly and froze until his hand cued her to move again.

The light gleamed once more just before they reached the corner. and he drew her closer to him with his free arm until the warning light went out. Her arm came around his waist. and thus embracing. they rounded the corner.

And thus Illya first saw them. An expression compounded of relief.

irritation. surprise and concern chased itself around his broad Slavic features as they approached.

“Napoleon,” he said softly, “that isn’t Harry.”

“Joan. this is my partner. Illya Nicolaivitch Kuryakin. He sometimes overstates the obvious. Illya. I would like you to meet Joan.n1y wife. She’s defecting from Thrush. Would you care to come along. now that you’ve been properly introduced?M

It is to Illya’s eternal credit that he remembered to lock the access panel.

“50 Mr. Stevens is no longer with us.” said Alexander Waverly when Napoleon had finished his report.

“Neither is he with Thrush. sir.” Illya pointed out.

MHn1. Yes. And neither are you,young lady. Which brings to the question of how you fit into this. I was aware of you only as I brief entry in Mr. Solo’s personal history file. closed before our first contact with him. You were dead. you know,N he added chidingly. “How do you happen to spring up in such an unlikely place?”

MI was interviewing Harry last night just before the sedative took. him off. He wasn’t very happy. His section super sent him in because he’d had an attack of the shakes and started to cry a little in the office… Nobody could figure out why. and they were sort of worried.”

“1 can understand that.”

“He was going to get a good long sleep and a nourishing breakfast and go in for a hypnoprobe at 11:00. I was sent in to talk to him as he was drifting off to see if I could pick up some idea as to where his problem lay.”

“And did you?”

“Not exactly. But he was moaning a little before he went deep’ asleep, and he mentioned U.N.C.L.E. twice. And he mentioned Solo. Was Harry connected with you?”

“You must have expected him to be rescued; did you know Mr. Solo would be doing the rescuing?” .

“I thought it likely.”

“Why?”

“Why did you send him?”

Waverly coughed and fumbled for his pipe. “Mr.. Solo —with the best of intentions, you could be forgiven a less than objective viewpoint —but are you satisfied as to her authenticity and sincerity? Her fingerprints are being compared at the moment. but they are not likely to match anythin9 on record.”

Napoleon looked at her and held her eyes while a thousand thoughts flowed between them in a few seconds. “Yes sir,” he said “I am.. And I’d stake my life on her sincerity.”

“You already did,” Illya pointed out.

“I did not report what I heard from Harry,” Joan said. “I filed only that he moaned and muttered before he went to sleep but that no recognizable words were formed. He didn’t respond to me at all; he was already half under when I came into his room. Whatever they gave him hit faster than usual.”

Mr. Waverly tamped his pipe reflectively with a nicotine-stained thumb and fumbled for a large wooden match. He waited for the sulfurous flare to die down before drawing clean flame into the tobacco-packed bowl. At length it was properly ignited and he dropped the remaining quarter-inch of white wood into a convenient ashtray.

He exhaled a cloud of fragrant blue smoke that rose about his head and drifted toward the air-conditioner vent. “Mrs. 5010,” he said as if considering the name,“Vou understand that your appearance here at this time is, frankly, unexpected. We have no pressing business for the next few hours —would you care to tell us the story of your life?”

“Well, the first sixteen years were ordinary enough. But then I was contacted by Thrush, and they offered me a lot of things I really wanted. I volunteered for something exciting. and they gave me a full battery of tests.

Now I guess this was about the time you were starting to be interested in Napoleon. As I recall, you picked him out of the personality profiles sent to you for consideration by that student testing organization —what’s their ”

name…

“I didn’t know anything about U.N.C.L.E. before I got out of the service,”

said Napoleon.

“But they knew about you. Didn’t they. Mr. Waverly?”

Waverly cleared his throat. “Ah —please continue.”

“Certainly. That was in 1949. The following year —”

“I was a senior in high school in 1950.” said Napoleon.

“You were still a junior in the spring semester. Thrush noticed you too about that time. and it didn’t take them long to learn that U.N.C.L.E. was already interested in you. They ran your profile through the Ultimate Computer and it matched mine to you.”

“And that fall you came to Hudson High as a senior. even though you were a year younger.”

“And it took you three months to notice me.”

They laughed together. then stopped and studied each other searchingly.

as though neither one was sure what they were looking for.

“And just a few months after that we graduated. I was just starting to find out what kind of man you really were when you went into the army.”

MI think I still have your letters —and that picture of you I…~

his voice caught slightly. ” …I took on our honeymoon..”

“I never even had that much.” She took his hand, and they stared at each other wordlessly for several seconds. Mr. Waverly and Illya stared at each other too. with rather different expressions.

“Twitterpated,” said the U.N.C.L.E. chief. and cleared his throat. “I believe Mr. Solo had just left for military service. H

“We wrote a lot back and forth, sir.” Napoleon explained.

“I proposed to her when I finished my basic, conditional on my survival. and she accepted.”

“Now you were working for Thrush all this time?”

“Yes. My original assignment was to assess Napoleon for subversion to Thrush before U.N.C.L.E. actually got around to making their first contact with him.”

“Did your assignment include marrying him?” Illya asked.

“No. But —well, I had to talk my nest leader into vouching for my report that convinced them to allow me to marry him. I wanted to marry him.”

She smiled. “The Ultimate Computer did a good job of match making.”

“Then what happened?” .

“We were married. I was home on leave for a few weeks in the summer of ‘52, and we were married on August third.”

“And you shipped out again on the eighteenth, and I never saw you again until tonight. Or is it this morning?”

“I’m afraid the sun’s up already. Mr. Waverly, we can quarter here.

under the circumstances, I should think.”

MI would like to hear the rest of her story. if she feels up to it?”

“Of course. That’s really most of it. Central wasn’t very happy about my marrying my subject, and they were, well, very difficult during those few months. And I finally had to tell them that you were very stubborn and singleminded. and would never work out as a double agent. They had already pretty well decided that from studying your charts. so they declared my assignment canceled and pulled me out.”

“They staged the accident?”

She nodded. ?I don’t know where they got the body, but I’m told there wasn’t much left of it. I was in Patterson, New Jersey at the time, and I’ve never been closer than that since. Except for once about six years ago when I flew past a hundred miles away. It was too overcast to see anything, but I thought about you for the next week.”