The Thousand Coffin Affair - Avallone Michael - Страница 2

Waverly pocketed his cold briar pipe and walked to the wide, high window of his office—the only window in the entire fortress known as U.N.C.L.E. Before him spread a sunny panoramic view of the United Nations Building, poking like a modernistic glass finger from the depths of the East River.

“Napoleon Solo,” Waverly said aloud. “Of course.” The Fromes affair was obviously a matter which called for the special talents of the chief enforcement officer of U.N.C.L.E.

Clucking to himself as if chiding a personal error, he hurried back to his desk. A row of five enamel buttons lay at right angles to his fingertips:. one orange, one red, one gold, one blue, one yellow. Waverly thumbed the blue one.

There was a click as a connection was made somewhere in the office. A smooth, unworried voice abruptly filled the room, seeming to emerge from the four walls: “Section IV.”

“Cablegram,” Waverly said, putting his forefinger to his nose. “Napoleon Solo, Hotel Internationale, Paris.”

“Yes, Mr. Waverly.”

“Fromes Dead In Oberteisendorf, Germany. Claim Body Immediately. Your Uncle Greatly Upset.” Waverly paused. “Remember To Call His Mother. William Daprato Sends His Best.”

“Is there more to the message, sir?”

“No, that’s all. Do you want me to repeat any of it?”

“No, sir.”

Waverly thumbed the blue button again. He smiled, thinking about Solo. If past performances were any yardstick, Solo had already found Paris a most charming place to be on assignment. He’d much rather his top agent spend more time on enhancing his mind—at the Louvre, say, or even the Left Bank—but Solo was one of those young men eternally inclined to study the opposite sex.

Waverly snorted to himself, turning to the mystery of Stewart Fromes’ sudden, untimely demise.

That was something that demanded his immediate attention.

“Anything wrong, Napoleon? You look so worried. Is the cablegram bad news of some kind?”

“No. But I would like you to excuse me for a minute or so. A business matter, pet.”

“Napoleon, look at me. Is that from another woman?

Napoleon Solo studied the long-legged brunette raising herself from a languorous position on the gilded love seat. Denise Fairmount was worth more than one look. Her amber eyes looked beautiful even in anger. Her silver lame gown shimmered as she rose, emphasizing the almost feline beauty of her body. Solo reflected briefly that the Hotel Internationale’s plush, brocaded Suite Four One One was a completely appropriate setting for her. She was like some regal holdover from another century of French beauty—with just enough Americanizing to make her doubly interesting.

He smiled at her. “If the cablegram were from another woman, I’d simply tear it up and put on another long-playing record.”

She lifted her chin, eyes sparkling.

“Very well then. Go read your important cablegram in privacy. I’ll mix us another aperitif. We can get back to where we were soon enough, n’est-ce-pas?”

He winked. “Be back in a jiffy, Beautiful.”

She nodded, watching him move toward the bedroom. The yellowish lights of the suite seemed to cast a halation around Napoleon Solo’s form. Denise Fairmount sighed softly, and shook her head, bewildered by the unexpected sexual appeal of this man.

He had become far more than she had bargained for. Yesterday, on the Champs d’Elysee, she had picked him up as he sauntered on the sunny thoroughfare. He had been easy to pick out of the crowd of tourists on a spree. The foolishness she had invented about lost directions had not deceived him, she knew. She had not intended that they should. And so they had flirted, dined at Maxim’s that evening…and that was that. They had spent the night here in Suite Four One One.

She shivered in memory. An interesting man, Solo. An extraordinary charmer. It was a pity that he would have to die.

In the bedroom, Solo moved like a cat. His movements reflected tensile strength and an economy of effort that marked him for the trained athlete he was. His face, oddly boyish and pleasant, could become a cold mask of intellectual resolve when he was not smiling.

He was not smiling now.

Waverly’s cablegram, held under a bed lamp, was upsetting:

NAPOLEON SOLO

HOTEL INTERNATIONALE PARIS FRANCE

FROMES DEAD IN OBERTEISENDORF GERMANY CLAIM BODY IMMEDIATELY YOUR UNCLE GREATLY UPSET REMEMBER TO CALL HIS MOTHER WILLIAM DAPRATO SENDS HIS BEST

WAVERLY

Stewart Fromes was dead. Solo scowled and the lines in his face hardened.

William Daprato sends his best.

It was quite unlike Waverly to be so cryptic in a straight, harmless telegram. The death of Fromes was a blow, of course—a very personal one which Solo, who had known and liked the man, felt deeply. But the reference to Bill Daprato was something else again. “Booby traps for booby troops,” Solo said, tasting each word as he said it. That was Bill Daprato’s best—the one GI line of advice to all combat rookies. Solo folded the cablegram and put it into his coat pocket. There was something damnably odd—

Before he could further explore the meaning of Waverly’s message, Denise Fairmount screamed shrilly from the living room.

A high, thin scream of mortal terror.

“SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE SPIES”

SOLO REACHED the door of the bedroom in something less than one second, and he paused there, his eyes taking in the scene in quick, darting glances.

At first, the tableau seemed just as it had been when he’d left. Denise was still half-reclining on the love seat—but now every line and angle of her body was taut, frozen, as if she dared not make the slightest movement. Her beautiful face was a pinched mask of horror. The amber eyes seemed fixed on a point before her, between the love seat and the carved oak coffee table. Her hands were clutching the golden bolsters of the chair.

Yet there was nothing in the room.

Solo eased toward her, his hand streaking reflexively for his shoulder holster. He restrained a low curse, realizing that the romantic tenor of the evening had made him injudicious enough to leave his gun somewhere other than on his person. Moving closer he held his breath, his eyes on the woman.

It was then that the noise came to him. Suddenly, unbearably, there was a tingling sensation in his eardrums—a light, almost feathery sound of some kind like the low hum of a generator. He stopped short. Denise Fairmount moaned.

“My ears—oh, my God…” It was a cry of agony.

Solo shook his head, trying to clear it. The tingling feeling had begun to expand so that his brain seemed alive with the concerted buzz of a horde of bees. He felt his body tremble violently.

Denise had begun to writhe in torment. And still the low, humming, throbbing sound continued—rising in volume so that it filled the entire room.

The lights danced before Solo’s straining vision. The details of the room—the furniture and the drapes and the paintings—tilted with alarming abruptness. The floor seemed to move beneath his feet. The maroon carpet twisted in Daliesque convolutions. The sound expanded, moving to the walls as though it were something solid that needed a vessel to contain it.

Solo staggered, fighting the waves of dizziness that rolled over him. It was difficult to breathe now. His hearing had magnified so that the slightest tremor of the sound made him want to scream, to run, to hide. Panic tried to hold him, arrest his mind.