The Mind-­Twisters Affair - Stratton Thomas - Страница 22

Ears straining for any sound, Illya waited in complete silence for a full minute before taking his own flashlight and making his way across the room. Using the watchman's own belt, Illya tied him securely to one leg of a sturdy looking workbench. Satisfied that even if the man did wake up before be was supposed to, he could do no damage, Illya searched him and removed a Thrush communicator and a revolver from his pockets. With his own communicator, Illya called Napoleon in.

By the time Napoleon had parked the U.N.C.L.E. car behind the building and entered the back door, Illya had made a cautious tour of the premises and was confident that only one watchman had been on duty.

"If we had any doubts about Thrush's involvement before, this should dispel them," Illya held the Thrush communicator in the beam of his flashlight.

Napoleon glanced at it briefly. "Weapons?" he inquired.

"A .455 Webley revolver, of all things," Illya replied. "I didn't know Thrush went in for buying war surplus."

"Maybe somebody got a bargain. It's comforting to think of them having to justify expenditures, too. But right now we had best get busy looking for the drug."

Illya swung his light over the cluttered back room in which they stood. "Any tampering would be done here. There's a passageway and some offices in front. The upstairs seems to have been used entirely for storage."

The two agents separated and worked their way through the clutter. Several minutes later they met at a long bench near the center of the room. "This would seem to be it," Napoleon said. "The jugs of syrup over by the stairway have the seals intact, probably the way they were received from the manufacturer. And here we have several that have obviously been opened."

Illya swung his light along the bench, bare except for the half dozen jugs of syrup. "So they're opened here and then resealed, with the magic ingredient added." He squatted down and looked under the bench. What appeared to be a rusty toolbox rested on the floor. "Here's something he said, pulling it out from under the bench and setting it on top.

Napoleon stared at it for a moment, then laid his flashlight down and tried to lift the toolbox lid. When it became apparent it wasn't going to budge, Illya produced his picklock again and went to work. The toolbox was much more difficult to open than the back door had been, but something finally clicked and the lid came up easily. The inside was in perfect condition, in contrast to the rusted outer surface. Six small sealed canisters sat in a wooden rack.

Illya took one out and carefully unscrewed the cap, then shook a small portion of the contents onto the bench,

"Lavender?" Napoleon peered closely at the colorful powder. "I never suspected that esthetics entered into drug manufacturing."

Illya wet a forefinger and dabbed it into the powder, then brought the finger to his nose to sniff. "No odor," he reported as he eyed his lavender fingertip. "Considering its already proven effect on me, I don't think I'll test it for flavor. Besides, I wouldn't know what the drug tasted like anyway."

"I think we can assume this is the drug," Napoleon said. "What we had better do, though, is get some of it back to the lab for analysis." He pulled a small test tube from a jacket pocket, filled it from the canister and carefully stoppered it.

Illya, who had been looking about speculatively as Napoleon filled the test tube, looked back at the six canisters. "Why not take all of it?" be asked.

Napoleon shook his head. "No need for more than a sample to analyze. We'd better destroy the remainder, though. Any suggestions as to how? Pouring it down the sink doesn't seem too practical. You never know where a town's old, used water is going to show up next."

"Burning would be easiest, if it will burn. I saw something that looked like a trash burner out in the yard."

Napoleon looked around the littered room again. "Thrush has become rather messy lately. You think we can do it without setting the whole place on fire? Remember what Mr. Waverly says about wanton destruction of property, even when we are reasonably sure it belongs to Thrush."

"I know. He's been rather sensitive on the subject since you blew a hole in that poor woman's bedroom floor to get at Dr. Morthley. But the burner is away from the building, and I don't see any other quick way."

Napoleon gathered the six canisters and the small pile of powder from the workbench and headed for the back yard. Illya grabbed one of the jugs of opened syrup and followed. In the back yard, Illya found an open space that looked like it would soak up the syrup while Napoleon started a fire in the trash burner. A minute later, he dumped the contents of one of the canisters into the flame and was rewarded with a blinding green flash that approximated seasick daylight.

"If it has that many calories, it must be fattening, too," Napoleon remarked as he hurriedly dumped in the rest of the powder and waited for the glare to die down. By the time Illya had dumped all the jugs of syrup, Napoleon's vision had cleared and he could make out the car several yards away.

They were just starting toward the car when the yard was suddenly swept by headlights turning into the drive. "Word gets around fast," Illya remarked as they broke into a sprint for the car.

The oncoming vehicle skidded to a stop on the grave and began disgorging armed men who were firing as they emerged. Illya and Napoleon were just able to make it to the cover of their car as the bullets began striking around them and whining off the car. From behind the car, Napoleon returned the fire with his U.N.C.L.E. Special while Illya got out the Mercox an fitted it with one of the high explosive projectiles. He fired quickly; a second later there was an answering explosion and the car's lights went out. Illya hurriedly reloaded the Mercox with a tear gas projectile.

"Get ready to move when I fire this one," he said, pulling the trigger a split second later. There was a slight popping sound, and Thrush fire rapidly slackened to be replaced by violent coughing and choking sounds

"Now!" Illya shouted, wrenching open the door and, leaping inside. Napoleon jumped for the door on the passenger's side and made it just as a final shot from a determined Thrush sent a bullet whining off the hood

Illya got the car moving before switching on the head lights to reveal a number of red-eyed Thrushes diving for cover behind their car. The car itself was little better off, its hood crumpled and a large puddle of something under the radiator. Napoleon glanced back as they roared past. "Haven't I seen a couple of those faces before?"

"At the Fort Wayne airport, yelling 'U.N.C.L.E., go home!'" Illya confirmed as he swung the car onto the long driveway that led to the highway. He reached the end of the driveway and was pausing to let a fast moving car by when he realized that it was not going by but headed directly at them. The glint of an automatic was visible outside the right front window and a bullet thudded against the rear of the car.

"Reinforcements," Illya muttered as he floored the accelerator. In a matter of seconds, the U.N.C.L.E. car began to pull away. Several ineffective shots came from the pursuing car.

"Whither away?" Napoleon inquired as Illya negotiated a curve with an expert, if stomach twisting, controlled skid.

"Anyplace I can find a straight road," Illya replied, braking suddenly and swinging onto a blacktop road that intersected the highway. At the same moment, he gave one of the buttons on the dashboard a quick jab. A cloud of smoke billowed out behind them, obscuring the intersection. They should have fun making that turn," he remarked.