The Doomsday Affair - Whittington Harry - Страница 16

Lying there he felt the pressure of his shoulder holster, of his gun. They were so sure of themselves they had not even bothered to disarm him.

Painfully, and after many false starts, and falls and wild muscular spasms in his legs and arms, Illya fell over on his back.

Exhausted, he lay for a moment before he attempted any other moves. Then, his forehead sweat-beaded, he ordered his right arm to reach for the gun in his holster.

His left arm trembled and waved in a wild arc. But when it fell, it landed on the holster, although there seemed little sense of feeling in his fingers.

He could see his hand lying on the holster.

He bit his lip, sweated, afraid that his arm might suddenly fly away from the holster in another spasm. Closing his eyes tightly, he ordered his right hand to close on the holster, to cling tightly. His left hand closed on the holster, but his arm quivered all the way to his shoulder.

Afraid even to compliment himself upon this small success, Illya forced his hand to inch upward toward the gun butt.

His shirt was sweat-damp, his eyes burning with perspiration by the time he forced his quivering, fatigue-aching hand to close on the gun butt.

He said the words over and over in his mind. Draw. Draw the gun. Draw.

Suddenly his left arm moved, yanking the gun from its holster. Then it swung in wide arcs, gyrating, shaking, no matter how his mind screamed at it to lie still. The fingers loosed and he watched the gun sail halfway across the room and go sliding under the bed.

He sagged back on the carpeting, too tired to care. His left arm continued to tremble.

He managed to turn his head and saw that his luggage had been brought into this room and stood with two green lightweight lady’s weekenders.

He remembered Su Yan’s words: “Miss Wild will see you safely put away.”

He breathed heavily, going over in his mind the implications of this mild statement. His mind remained clear, but he made the noises of a cretin idiot and his movements were those of one who suffered from epilepsy, or a crippling stroke, or brain damage at birth. He could not even control any of his movements.

Miss Wild will see you safely put away.

Put away where?

He managed to search the room by flailing about, lifting his head only to have it fall back hard upon the floor. He was alone. They were certain he wasn’t going anywhere.

He managed to hurl his right arm upward and allow it to fall across his shirt pocket and the ball-point pen clipped upon it.

Minutes later he had it closed in his fist and his shaking thumb had pressed down, releasing its point.

Holding the pen as if his life depended upon it, he rolled across the room to the small desk. Quivering, his body jerking in strange and uncoordinated spasms, he pulled himself up to his knees. He reached out and pulled the small stack of hotel stationary toward him.

The papers fluttered out around him and he sprawled out, holding the pen in his fist.

He closed his eyes as tightly as he could after setting his shaking fist at the top left hand corner of the sheet of white paper. He gripped the pen with all his strength even though this caused the rest of his body to react in paroxysms.

He took his time. He knew he could not hope to do more than to print his given name and the word help. Even this pushed out of the balcony would be enough to alert the other U.N.C.L.E. agents in the immediate vicinity.

He exhaled at last, dropping his head upon his arm. He cried out his success in wild laughter, recoiling from the unnatural sounds pouring across his mouth. He didn’t care, it was laughter. It was triumph. It was mind over convulsive muscle.

He lifted his head, staring at the short distance to the double doors standing open to the balcony. He had only to grip the paper, roll over there and let the wind catch it. Miss Wild will see you safely put away.

Maybe she would, Sam.

He finally was able to force his fist to open and let the pen drop to the floor. Then he turned his attention to closing either of his hands on the paper on which he had written, Illya. Help.

He stared at the paper upon which he had written so agonizingly.

The sound that burst from his mouth was a sob of agony, and it sounded like one. He cried out violently, helplessly. The words his mind had struggled so long with were not words at all. There was nothing on the paper except the meaningless scribbling of a three-year-old child.

V

SOLO MOVED the spirits of ammonia under Barbry’s nose.

“No.” She sat up protesting, pushing the small bottle away from her nostrils.

“You all right?”

A slight shudder coursed through her at the sound of Solo’s voice. Obviously, it brought back abruptly the reason why she had fainted.

“How did I get here?” She opened her eyes, staring about her in alarm.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of—”

“Let me decide that.” Her voice quavered.

“You’re all right, Barbry. You fainted in the restaurant. I didn’t want to attract too much attention to us, so a waiter and I walked you out to a taxi, and I brought you here.”

She met his gaze. “Yes. You brought me here. Where am I?”

“You’re all right. You’re in my room at the St. Francis Hotel.”

“You’re a sneaky worker, aren’t you?”

Solo smiled wryly. “Under other circumstances I’d most definitely be using all my wiles on you, Barbry. But right now I’m trying to help you, whether you believe me or not.”

“Right now I’m not so sure.”

He grinned at her. “I had coffee sent up. You’ll feel a lot better.” He poured a cup from the glittering silver service.

She took the small china cup, sipping at it, relaxing slightly.

“Why did you bring me here, Solo?”

“What would you do with a woman who fainted in a public place?” He sipped at a cup of coffee. The steam rose between them. “I promised to protect you. I can do it better when you’re where I can watch you.”

“That’s all off, Solo.”

He set his cup down, watching her narrowly. “What are you talking about?”

“The agreement you and I made. I meant to keep it. But you’ve already broken your part of it.”

He frowned. “Do you mind explaining that?”

“It’s simple enough. I told you I was scared half out of my mind. You said that if I’d tell you what I knew of Ursula and the time she worked as a spy with Thrush, you’d try to help me stay alive.”

“And I do promise that.”

“No. You said talk. But the next thing you wanted was to use me as bait to lure a man into your trap. He’s a man I’m more afraid of than I am of the devil. Talking about him is one thing. Putting myself where I know he can get at me—I don’t want any part of that. I mean it, Solo. I’m dead afraid—and I’m not going to get involved.”

“You are involved.”

“Am I? Then I’m not going to get involved any deeper.”

He stood up. He looked down at her. “I don’t blame you for being afraid. I wouldn’t think much of you if you didn’t have sense enough to be scared—”

“Oh, I’ve got a lot of sense! I’m scared to death. Sorry, Solo, flattery won’t do it, either.”

He smiled, “All right. But maybe the truth will, and the unvarnished truth is, Barbry, you are involved. I assure you that you are. If only because you were approached by Thrush—that means they know about you. Whatever it is they plan to do now, they may be afraid to trust you. You said for some reason they turned you down, but you didn’t tell me what it was.”

He saw a shadow flicker across her dark eyes. She drew a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about it—the reason.”

“Why?”

“Because it doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

He shrugged. “That’s up to you, Barbry. Everything you tell me to help me may aid in saving your life. But what you want to tell me, and don’t want to tell me, that’s up to you…But there are more reasons why you’re in danger from Thrush. You wrote Ursula a letter—and even if it was in a hip jargon only the two of you would understand, it would be enough to make Thrush suspicious of you. And the very fact that you stayed with Ursula for some weeks after she started working for Thrush may mean that you—even unwittingly—met or heard from Ursula about a man that we know only by his code name—Tixe Ylno. You may have seen him, or you may know him well enough for your life to be forfeit because he’ll be afraid to let you live at this critical time in his plans.”