[Magazine 1966-­10] - The Moby Dick Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 5

"The THRUSH naval strategist," Illya said. "But wasn't he—well, crazy?"

Waverly gave an emphatic nod. "Mad as a coot. Like his novelistic counterpart. Never ran up against him personally. Our lads said he was a deadly adversary. Lunatics often are, as we know."

Waverly went on:

"There have been instances when THRUSH tagged one of its top people for a long range project, then staged an ersatz death or disappearance to allow the person to operate at maximum efficiency behind the fiction of being dead. We might be confronted with such a situation here. Of course we're still stuck on the thorn of what the devil THRUSH and Victor Ahab, if it is Victor Ahab, are up to."

"I need a drink," Solo announced. He pulled a bell rope. Soon an operative entered.

The man was the soul of politeness, a dignified gentleman of middle years dressed in butler's swallowtail. The triangular U.N.C.L.E. badge hung from his front pocket.

Napoleon Solo poured himself a jot of brandy from the decanter the man set down. Waverly was staring thoughtfully at a Gainsborough above the mantle.

Illya Kuryakin coughed. "The matter of Dr. Shelley, sir. What he does for U.N.C.L.E. Perhaps it would contain a clue—"

"Oh—sorry." Mr. Waverly refocused his attention. "Dr. Shelley. Afraid I can't be of much help there. I've seen descriptions of his work in his budget requests, but I'm not the technical type. Something to do with research into currents and tides around the world.

"I gather his research is basic rather than applied. Long term yields and all that, rather than some sort of sensational new diving suit we could use in our daily work. Frankly, Dr. Shelley would be our best authority if he were conscious. I'm regretful that we may have slipped up here, gentlemen, because evidently THRUSH holds Dr. Shelley and his work in higher regard than some of us at U.N.C.L.E. did."

Mr. Waverly picked up the receiver. Solo fidgeted in his chair. The memory of the tidal wave bothered him with what it might signify in the way of a THRUSH breakthrough.

Mr. Waverly murmured and clucked into the mouthpiece. Finally he hung up. The room had filled with the gloom of late afternoon. Yellow lamps shown like phantom eyes on the Embankment. A log fell on the fire, suffusing the room with a woody fragrance.

"We're in luck, gentlemen," Waverly announced. "Dr. Shelley is not entirely out of danger, but when I stressed the urgency of the situation, the doctors agreed that they might be able to rouse him for a few moments, no more. At least they are going to give it a try. Shall we go?"

Napoleon Solo smoothed his dark suit as he stood up. "Right now, sir?"

"Of course, right now, Mr. Solo. Have you another engagement?"

"He was just thinking about buying another topcoat," Illya grinned.

"Chasing salesgirls again, eh, Mr. Solo? Well, some of them are quite sophisticated these days, I will admit." Mr. Waverly took down a Homburg from a rack. "Try to check your romantic instincts. There are bigger catches afloat. White whales."

Solo sighed as he followed his chief out the door. "Call me Ishmael."

THREE

UNDER THE thinnest of transparent polyethylene tenting, Dr. Artemus Shelley looked like a person embalmed.

He wore a white hospital gown. His cheeks were parchment color. The heavily guarded room in St. Bride's Hospital of the Templars was filled with ominous sounds and shadows. Life-giving oxygen hissed into the tent under which Shelley lay breathing thinly. Small hooded lights shone around the baseboards, the only illumination except for a thin white pencil beam slicing down next to the bed, onto a gunmetal box with a console of dials on top.

This special sound system, carefully inserted into the tent and manned by an earphoned U.N.C.L.E. technician, was designed to make communication with Shelley as clear as possible under the circumstances. Three doctors, gowned and masked, hovered on the bed's far side. Behind them were oxygen tanks, a network of feeder tubes running to the tent. Solo, Illya and Waverly were grouped behind the technician on this side. The gas hissed.

"Ready, sir," said the technician. He flipped a console toggle. From a speaker grid in the set came the amplified rasp of Shelley's feeble breathing.

Mr. Waverly cleared his throat behind his glove. "Thank you, Mr. Jacks." He put a small, rod-like microphone near his lips and spoke softly:

"Doctor? Doctor Shelley, this is Alexander Waverly. Policy and Operations. Simply nod if you hear me."

The pale face beneath the tenting stirred almost imperceptibly.

"Dr. Shelley," Waverly went on, "I do not want to tax you, but it's imperative that we learn whatever we can about the motives behind your kidnapping. Can you tell us anything about what you've been doing at your lab in Golder's Green? Just a word, Shelley, a word or two—where your secret files are kept? That would be enough."

Solo's nerves grated at the sudden increased rasping from the amplifier. Dr. Shelley's veined hand twitched on the white sheet covering his chest. Instantly one of the masked doctors bent to scan dials near the oxygen tanks. There was silence.

"Please, Dr. Shelley, try," Mr. Waverly whispered.

One of the doctors said, "We can't allow this for more than another minute, sir."

"Tides. Change—tides. Been studying the various—" Dr. Shelley coughed hard.

"Yes, yes, studying what?" Mr. Waverly persisted. "Tell us where to locate the records."

Abruptly Dr. Shelley seemed to start up. His eyes opened half way and into the room where the gas hissed came the harsh, grating amplified words: "Reports—eyewitness reports.—Saw the white whale—saw the white—"

Furiously, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin spun toward the hospital room door.

A physician clad in a green nylon jumper, mask and cap had just entered, somewhat noisily. Every head turned. With a sigh Dr. Shelley folded back down onto the pillows. Outside in the corridor, several other attendants in masks were hovering.

"Sorry, chaps," murmured the new arrival. "Time for a new tank."

"He's gone under," Mr. Waverly said, eyeing the tent. "We'll have to wait a bit."

"I heard him say something about eyewitness reports of a white whale," Illya said.

Mr. Waverly took out his pipe and began fiddling with it. "Yes, he did, didn't he? For a moment there, I thought I might be mad. I can make no sense of it at all. Yet I'm sure it's very sensible in the grimmest sort of way. And we don't know. We just don't know."

In the act of ticking his pipe stem angrily against the electronic console, Mr. Waverly glanced at Solo. "Mr. Solo! Kindly get your mind off shopgirls!" He sounded tired.

"I'm not thinking about shopgirls, sir. I'm thinking that's an unusual looking nozzle at the top of that oxygen tank."

The hospital attendant heard Solo's remark. He stepped to one side, effectively blocking Solo's view of the other two attendants, who had wheeled the tank in on a rubber-tired hand cart. They were now shifting the tank gingerly onto the floor. Things, Solo felt, were happening too fast.

The tank handlers had the cylinder nearly off the cart. The first attendant was still blocking it from view. Solo walked quickly around the end of the bed. He caught a glimpse of the tank's top.

Instead of the conventional solid cap on the cylinder's tip this one seemed to be perforated metal. Perforated in a dozen or more spots—Solo had been warned by less conspicuous things in the past. His hand whipped underneath his jacket.