The Corfu Affair - Phillifent John T. - Страница 22

"Good Heavens!" Waverly caught his breath. Solo grinned.

"Seems like a dream now, Illya, but that was some scrap we had. But I did shoot you, surely? I remember that bit."

"You missed." Kuryakin moved forward, shoved his fringe aside to show the almost healed scar. "I've told you a hundred times, Napoleon, that you tend to pull off to the right with that Luger of yours in a snap shot."

"Yeah!" Solo shook his head ruefully. "I'll have to watch that."

"This is no time for badinage—" Waverly began, testily, but the Russian halted him with a gesture.

"Just a minute, sir. Napoleon, did you drop that pencil-camera by accident? Really?"

"No. I planted it. And the diagram, as best I could. It wasn't too easy to get those pictures, let me tell you, but that fiendish woman has to sleep sometime."

"You did very well, Mr. Solo. Please go on with your account. You spoke of a master plan?"

"That's right, sir. On the surface, it sounds nothing. Louise is selling slaves, of her own make. She guarantees to deliver the perfect slave, servant, assistant, companion, call them what you like. At a price. A quarter of a million dollars each, cash on the nail. Each one fitted with a skull unit, the matching half of which is supplied to the new owner."

"That is certainly gruesome." Waverly shivered. "But not a very great threat to us. Is it?"

"Not, as I said, on the surface. But there's more. So far she has made her sales pitch to the various regional heads of Thrush. And she has managed to con them into a further refinement. She operates on them, just as she did on me, and inserts a command module to match the slave module. The con is that the big Thrush now has a perfect slave, utterly obedient and absolutely reliable, that will respond to the master's every wish, be in total contact at all times, and through which the master can literally 'be' wherever the slave is. The ideal snoop."

"Just a minute!" Kuryakin became agitated, and Solo grinned.

"You've spotted it, Illya. You would, I guess. It's like this, sir. What Louise is not telling them, but I happen to know, is that she has her own split-frequency radio setup. She can, at will, transmit into or listen from any one of those modules, at any time. Not only does she plan to be on the inside of everything that happens within Thrush, she plans, in the long run, to take over. Thrush aims to take over the world. Louise intends to take over Thrush, from the inside!"

"Can she do that?" Waverly demanded.

"I'll say. When the little demon inside your head starts to shout, you obey. Believe me, you obey, or you get a jolt that feels as if the top of your head is coming off. She can do it!"

CHAPTER TEN

OUT of a long and tense silence, Waverly spoke with a sigh. "At any rate we have established one thing to my satisfaction, Mr. Solo. Your mind is unimpaired. That is something to be thankful for. But your news is very bad indeed. I need hardly point out to any of you that the one thing which has always been on our side is the human tendency among the Thrush Hierarchy to quarrel among themselves for supremacy. It is their one weakness. And they know it as well as we do. That is why they have labored so long to perfect their Ultimate Computer. Of course, it goes against the human ego to take orders from a Computer, which is still a point in our favor. But if this dreadful woman gets her way, we lose all that. The entire Thrush evil will come under the single-minded and brilliant control of one person. That we must stop, at all costs."

"That means stopping Louise," Solo declared. "There's no other way. And I don't see how. Not now. If I was still on the inside, I could get close enough—but that's out, now. You can safely bet that she knows, by now, that I'm off the chain. Free of her influence."

"That is not necessarily so, Mr. Solo." Waverly dropped the words into the discussion very gently. Solo stared.

"But she must know. Just as soon as you took that thing out of my head, it would go dead, and she would know!"

"At this moment," Waverly said, as if talking to him self, "Mr. Crawford White is on the plane you were supposed to catch. When he touches down at Rome there will be a carefully contrived conflict with the Rome police. He will run, will go into hiding, and stay under cover until the heat is off."

"So?"

"So Mr. White bears a strong physical resemblance to you, Mr. Solo. In particular his voice is very like yours. At times, for the amusement of fellow agents, he has been known to do lifelike impersonations of you. And he has a module taped to his jaw that is a perfect wavelength match for the one we removed from you."

Solo thought hard, and it was obvious that he didn't like what he was thinking. Waverly waited a moment then resumed:

"He will remain in hiding long enough to give us time to work out some feasible plan for removing that menace from Corfu. We have two or three days, possibly more. But, and I am sure you have already realized this, Mr. Solo, the success of any plan we may devise will depend to a great deal on you. In the circumstances I feel I cannot order you to cooperate. I cannot order you to put yourself in jeopardy again, where that woman is concerned. But I can, and I do, ask you to consider our plan."

Solo's face was a study in tension, but before he could bring himself to pass comment, Susan Harvey stepped into the discussion.

"Mr. Solo is still my patient," she stated firmly. "I forbid any further discussion or planning for at least twenty-four hours."

"That's it!" Solo caught her up quickly and grinned. "Doctor's orders. You can't argue with those." He looked up at her, then up and down, and his grin bloomed into a warm smile. "Especially a doctor like this. All at once I feel weak and helpless. Leave me!"

Kuryakin snorted. "You need a doctor like you need a hole in the head!" He aimed a cold blue stare at Susan. "Don't let that helpless-in-bed routine fool you. What you should have done, while you had the chance, was to have inserted an on-and-off switch into his skull. You may need it." He moved to the door on the heels of Waverly and the two grinning agents. In the doorway he halted and turned.

"Don't worry, Napoleon," he said. "I won't tell anybody."

Solo bit it. "Won't tell anybody what?"

"That you really do have a hole in your head, as they have always suspected!"

He ducked out of the door as Solo reached for something to throw, and then chuckled easily. But the smile faded as he turned to look at Susan.

"It's a point," he murmured. "Will I be affected, d'you think?"

"Not at all," she assured him. "In a week or two there'll be hardly a trace. With all her faults, Docteur-Proffesseur Louise Santelle is still a fine surgeon. She made a neat job."

"Who?"

"Your Countess Louise. I looked her up in the medical records. She was a brilliant woman in her field. Too bad she had to go crooked."

"Ah well," he sighed, and wriggled happily in the bed. "Let's not talk about her. Let's talk about you. How come, for instance, that someone as beautiful as you has been right here in Headquarters for a time and I didn't know?"

"I can't imagine," she retorted calmly, "since my special field is dealing with the worst cases of infection and contamination."

"Like that, are we?" he murmured. "Tell me, what will your tiny-tot sister say when she finds out you've pinched her best dress?"