[Magazine 1967-­10] - The Mind-­Sweeper Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 4

The colonel came along behind him, and the wide man came after the colonel. The procession went on for a block. Then Solo went into a stationery store and bought a bar of candy. He came out and was now last in line. The parade continued until Solo suddenly knew where the colonel was going.

He had followed the colonel the day before, and at this exact hour he had been in the exact spot. The colonel was going to his health club. The club was one block away, to the right down a cross street, on the second floor of an old building that backed on an alley. Solo passed both the wide man and the colonel and was the first one up the stairs to the health club.

Illya, on his motorcycle, observed the parade up Third Avenue. He saw the car of the tall man take up its position following the three walking men. Illya frowned. On his motorcycle he was too conspicuous. Yet he had to keep watch on the two men, who were now definitely tailing Forsyte. He had no choice.

On the motorcycle he moved along behind the slow moving car of the tall man. His brain was working hard. Who were they, the two men following Forsyte? If they were spies who got the secret data from Forsyte, why were they following the colonel? It made no sense.

Then Illya had no more time for thinking. The car ahead turned into a cross street. Illya followed. Solo, Forsyte, and the wide man had vanished. He saw the sign of the health club. He remembered Solo's report of the colonel's activities, and guessed that the three men had gone into the health club.

The car ahead passed the entrance to the club and turned into an alley that ran beside the building. Illya followed to the alley, dismounted, parked his motorcycle, and entered the alley warily.

At the rear door of the building two men stepped out to meet the tall man who had been driving the car. Illya Kuryakin crept closer to hear them.

FOUR

NAKED, NAPOLEON SOLO wrapped a towel around his hips in the locker room of the health club, and walked toward the showers. Forsyte was already in the shower. The wide man, a mass of muscles in his towel, was under a sunlamp from where he had a clear view of the showers.

Solo had watched Forsyte register and get his basket of athletic and swim clothes. The colonel had spoken to no one, except to say hello, and had passed nothing. In the locker room Forsyte nodded to various men, but said nothing, and hummed happily as if the health club was a part of his life he specially enjoyed. Now the colonel sang in the shower and Solo joined him.

Forsyte looked at him for the first time as if he recognized him. Solo smiled, and Forsyte smiled back. The colonel returned to his shower, singing. He clearly had decided that Solo was just some member he knew on sight, or some junior from his office on the staff of some other colonel. Forsyte was not a suspicious man.

Solo watched the colonel closely. But no one approached him; he did nothing that looked like he was transmitting any information in the shower, and he had nothing on him to pass. When Forsyte finished his shower, he toweled and went toward the steam and hot rooms. Solo followed, suddenly alert—the steam room was a mass of swirling vapor. An easy place to sit almost completely hidden and pass information.

But Forsyte did not go into the steam room. He entered the hot room instead. Solo followed, and so did the wide, muscular man. In the hot room the light was bright, the air was dry and oven hot, and naked men lay all around on deck chairs. From time to time an attendant brought glasses of water. The men on the chairs sweated in rivers.

Forsyte took the only empty chair in the hot room. Solo and the muscular man looked around. As if on a signal, three of the men stood up and walked out, leaving chairs for Solo and the wide man. Solo kept one eye on Forsyte, and one on the muscular man. So far, the unknown man who was also interested in Forsyte had shown no interest in Solo.

Solo lay in the deck chair and pretended to sleep. But he watched Forsyte like a hawk from behind his half-closed eyes. The muscular man was also apparently asleep. But Forsyte wasn't asleep. The colonel read a newspaper and drank water and the sweat poured off him. Forsyte seemed to be enjoying the sweating. Every now and then he rubbed himself vigorously with a towel and continued his reading.

No one talked to Forsyte.

Nothing seemed to happen. Solo was beginning to think that whatever method Forsyte used it was very good.

Then he heard the faint sound.

It was almost imperceptible. One sound among many that came from all parts of the health club. No one else seemed to notice. A faint hum, low and outside the hot room. Solo listened to it, tried to locate its location. After a time he decided that it was coming from above—from the ceiling of the hot room, or from the floor above the health club. Probably nothing…

He stopped in mid-thought. His half-hidden eyes stared at Forsyte.

The colonel was suddenly acting strangely.

Solo watched. Forsyte had not rubbed himself in some time. The towel lay neglected on the floor. The colonel's right arm hung down, almost limp. He still held the paper, but his eyes seemed to be having trouble reading the words. Forsyte blinked a few times, shook his head as if to clear it.

Solo stared from the slits of his eyes. Forsyte rubbed his eyes, and then rubbed his forehead. The newspaper fell from his left hand and lay forgotten on his lap. Forsyte shook his head again, like a man fighting sleep. Then the colonel suddenly reached up, slowly, with both hands and pressed his temples as if in pain.

The hands, the arms, of the colonel moved like a man whose muscles had just failed. Slowly, without strength. Forsyte pressed his temples, shook his head like a sleepwalker, and then his arms dropped and his eyes closed. He lay in the chair like a man asleep.

But it was like a drugged sleep, uneasy, almost painful and too deep. His arms hung down at his sides; his breathing became heavy, labored. Solo watched him, and then heard, again, the faint humming sound that seemed to come from the ceiling of the room.

He suddenly remembered the way Forsyte had been forced to take the deck chair—it had been the only chair vacant when the colonel entered. No one else in the hot room was reacting in the manner of the colonel.

Solo looked up at the ceiling. The humming sound continued.

Solo stood up and left the hot room.

He wrapped the towel around his waist and looked back once. Forsyte still lay there like a drugged man. The muscular man was staring at Forsyte, but the man had not moved.

Solo looked around and saw a door marked for a fire exit. He opened the door when he was unobserved. Stairs led upward.

FIVE

IN THE ALLEY Illya Kuryakin crouched in the shadowed afternoon behind a rank of garbage cans. At this hour of the afternoon no sun came into the alley, and the area was in dark shadow. The three men still talked near the rear door to the building.

Illya moved silently closer. The men did not notice.

"We've watched him all day, and I'm damned if he could have passed anything," the tall man said.

"Is Gregor still with him?" one of the other men said.

"Yes. In the health club. He contacted me."

"The Boss says it's certain that Forsyte passed the info on to Dachado. We've got to find out how."

"We'll find out," the tall man said.

"Why don't we just grab him and get it out of him?"

"Let the Boss do the thinking."

"Hell, we'd get what we wanted in five minutes with some of the stuff we've got."

"Sure," the tall man said, "but what if Forsyte doesn't know anything? What if he just passes the info to someone he doesn't know, or just leaves it at a drop? As soon as we grabbed Forsyte they'd know about it, and maybe we never catch up with who he gives the stuff to."