The Mind-Twisters Affair (17 page)

Silence fell as the prisoners pondered their situation. Napoleon worked steadily in an attempt to get the tape off his fingers.

Whateley had been gone for some time when there was a slight noise from the corridor. The prisoners looked up to see Flavia Whateley entering the dungeon. Rita began to smile hopefully.

"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" Napoleon inquired.

"Getting you out of here, I hope," she replied. She was now fully in the light, and they could see she had a welding hood pushed back on her head and was pulling a small rubber-tired cart loaded with acetylene and oxygen tanks, hose, gauges, and a cutting torch.

"I knew we could count on you," Rita exclaimed.

Flavia smiled faintly. "I expected you to think I was a devil-worshipper and a Thrush, like Father. I hadn't realized - I thought all of his talk about gods and demons was just a pose. Oh, I knew that Grandfather had really believed himself to be a wizard, but Father had been educated; he was really a brilliant man. I just don't know what happened to him."

"What's likely to happen to us is more important right now," Rita said. "Get that torch going, kid."

"How did you find us?" Napoleon asked as she lit the torch. "Your father said you didn't know anything about these passages."

"I didn't," she said, starting to work on the bars of Rita's cell. "I was in an old storage room in the basement a while ago when I heard a noise outside one of the walls. As far as I knew there weren't any passages there, so I went over and investigated. There had been some junk piled against that wall - I was looking through it for some copper tubing that was put down here somewhere - but I'd moved most of it. Once I had the rest out of the way it wasn't hard to find the door."

"Clumsiness pays off again," Napoleon commented. "That noise was me."

"Anyway," Flavia continued, "I overheard Father when he was talking to you; when he said he'd have to eliminate everybody. In fact, when he started to leave, I barely got out of the passage ahead of him. Then I followed him back to his study, and listened. He was starting an incantation! I could hear him muttering, deciding what demon to summon, and for the first time I knew he wasn't joking."

"Did he get any results?" Illya inquired.

"He didn't finish it. I think he must have been missing an ingredient. He cursed a lot, and I could hear him open drawers and things, looking for something. Then he came out and got in his car and drove away and I came down here. I suppose he's gone to buy something."

"I wonder what ingredient for a spell one could purchase at a corner drugstore?" Illya mused. By now Rita was free and Flavia wheeled her cart over to Napoleon's cell. In a few minutes, all the prisoners were free.

"The next problem," said Illya, "is to get to the car."

"How do we get there?" Napoleon inquired. "I assume it was put in the garage to avoid curious eyes, but how do we reach the garage from here?"

"If you don't want to go tramping back through Whateley's study," Illya suggested, "how about the passage they brought us in through? It had some branching corridors."

"It's worth a try." Napoleon turned to Flavia. "Do you have any idea where we are in relation to the house and grounds?"

She stood quietly for a minute, mentally retracing her steps through the passages. "We should be about in the middle of the back yard," she said finally. "The garage will be back this way." She led the way through the corridors, turning now and then when she came to an intersection. Eventually they encountered a short stairway. Napoleon led the way up. After a short period of experimenting, he pushed open the door at the top of the stairway and the group stepped out into a grease pit, one wall of which was the door. There was a car parked over the pit but it left enough space for them to climb out.

The garage was large but crowded. Besides the U.N.C.L.E. car, there were two damaged Thrush vehicles plus Lem Thompson's pickup truck. A third wrecked car, which Napoleon recognized as the hotrod which had plowed into the Beaver Dam Muck Festival, sat outside an open door, next to a wrecker made of a twelve-cylinder Packard roadster with the rumble seat removed and a hoist installed. The damaged cars had been partially dismantled; evidently some Thrush mechanic had been working on them. Luckily, the U.N.C.L.E. car had not been locked, and Illya hurriedly entered and opened the weapons compartment. He looked unhappy as he pulled out the Mercox and a handful of projectiles.

"We're short of ammunition for this," he said. "One tear gas, half a dozen high explosive, and three hypodermic darts."

"But aren't you going to get away?" Flavia said.

"Our job is to stop this entire business," Napoleon explained. "But it might be a good idea for you to leave before the shooting starts. You could take the wrecker out there."

"Not on your life!" Rita objected. "You're not going to catch me running around in one of Thrush's pet cars when Thrush agents could be anywhere in town. At least if I stay here I'll have some protection."

"If we could make it to my place you'd have protection," Lem said.

"Sure, if. I know you have a regular arsenal out there, but I've got no assurance that Thrush would let us get that far."

"I agree with Rita," Curtis said. "In addition, I would hesitate to miss this unique opportunity to study a criminal organization in its native habitat."

"You got queer ideas of fun," Lem grumbled, but he made no move toward the Packard.

Napoleon nodded. "Much as I hate to say it, Rita does have a good argument. It might be safer to stick together."

"But what are you going to do?' demanded Flavia.

"Stop your father, somehow," Napoleon replied.

"But you can't just shoot him down!"

"That's what he was goin' to do to us," Lem reminded her.

"But he's sick! He needs a psychiatrist, not a firing squad!"

"Don't worry," Illya answered her. "It's U.N.C.L.E.'s policy to avoid killing except as a last resort. The more help you can give us, the less likely we are to have to resort to violence to capture him. This," he held up the Mercox, "is an ideal weapon for the purpose, if we can get in position to use it." He explained.

Flavia was still reluctant, but eventually agreed to aid them. Meanwhile, Napoleon had been digging through the weapons compartment; now he backed out of the U.N.C.L.E. car with an armload of weapons. He kept an U.N.C.LE. Special for himself and gave one to Lem, handed a riot shotgun to Professor Curtis and a revolver loaded with tear gas cartridges to Rita. Illya carried the Mercox.

"What now?" Rita asked.

"Since our prime object is to capture Jabez Whateley," Napoleon said, "and since Illya has the only weapon we can use for that, we'll have to stick together. All we could accomplish by splitting up would be for one of us to run into a Thrush and give advance warning that we'd escaped."

"While we're waiting for Whateley to come back, we might do some damage to his lab," Illya suggested.

"No, if we capture Whateley, the lab is automatically rendered useless, since he is the only Thrush who knows how to manufacture the drug. Similarly, destroying the existing supplies won't help much if Whateley escapes to start over again somewhere else," Napoleon thought a moment. "We'd better contact Mr. Waverly. He can get reinforcements sent in from Chicago; the more men we have, the easier it will be to make a capture without having to kill anybody." He turned to Flavia. "Do you have any idea where your father put our communicators?"

Flavia shook her head. "Maybe in his study, but I don't know."

"All right, the study it is. If we can't find the communicators, we can use the car's computer to transmit the message. The trouble is that it will transmit it to the New York data banks and not to Mr. Waverly personally and we can't tell when the message will reach him. But we can try as a last resort."

"There's a signal transmitter with printed readout in the car," Illya said.

"Not now there isn't. I tried that when I was getting the weapons. Thrush has been at it. I suppose we might be able to repair it, but finding the communicators would be easier."

Napoleon led the way to Whateley's study, where Lem was posted to watch the hall and Professor Curtis to watch the secret entrances while the rest of the group searched. There were no communicators. Illya found a file of Thrush records and extracted a few of the more valuable papers, but there was nothing in the room which would aid them in capturing Jabez Whateley.

Finally Napoleon gave up the search. "They aren't here. We'll go back to the car. I'll try the computer link while Illya sees if he can repair the transmitter. Be careful; there may still be some Thrushes around and we don't want to give Whateley advance warning that we're loose."

After a cautious look around, they slipped out into the back yard and headed for the garage. They were halfway there when they heard the crunch of tires on gravel and a pair of brilliant headlights swept around the corner of the house and fell directly on them.

Chapter 16

"It's A Little Late To Call Mr. Waverly"

"THE GARAGE!" NAPOLEON SHOUTED as he lunged forward. "The car's our best chance."

The driver apparently anticipated their destination., for the engine roared and the tires spun as it raced for the garage itself. The sound of a gun came from somewhere behind the headlights and Napoleon heard something thunk into the ground just ahead of him.

He skidded to a halt as he realized they were cut off. "Back to the house!" he shouted and started for the back door himself, herding the others in front of him.

Before they had covered half the distance, the back door started to open. Illya, now in the lead, fired the only thing he had, the Mercox with a tear gas load. It crashed into the wall next to the door and burst into a cloud of white. The door slammed shut on a cough.

Casting about desperately, Illya detoured to the right toward the only available cover he could see: a rickety fence and an area of rank grass, bushes, a few old trees, and what might, except for their regular shapes, have been occasional boulders peering through the grass. Napoleon followed Illya's lead and herded the others ahead of him toward the fence.

Another shot sounded from behind him and Napoleon loosed some hasty shots over his shoulder as he ran.

They were at the fence now. Illya vaulted it easily, then reached back to yank Rita over bodily. At the same time, Sascha and Lem clambered over, a bit less athletically; Napoleon boosted Flavia and hurriedly dived over himself. There was another flurry of shots from the vicinity of the garage, and a slight groan from somewhere ahead of Napoleon, followed by some colorful cursing.

In another second, they were all out of sight in the grass, behind either trees or stones. What had looked like boulders in the dim light now turned out to be tombstones. Napoleon found himself sharing an extra large stone with Lem Thompson, who was clutching his right shoulder and muttering to himself. Before Napoleon could say anything, Lem glared at him accusingly.

"Nothin' busted, I don't think," Lem said. "You boys better have some damn good insurance! First my truck, and now me!"

"Here, let me -" Napoleon started to reach toward Lem's injured shoulder, but Lem batted his hand away.

"Never you mind! If you need as much help doctorin' as you do secret agentin', I'd as soon take my chances."

Napoleon got a brief glance at the wound when Lem batted at him with his left hand, and he decided that Lem was right. He'd be fine - if they could get out of here.

The shooting from the garage had stopped when they reached cover, so Napoleon risked a quick look over the top of the stone. There was no immediate fire. He looked around to locate the other members of the group. He spotted Illya behind a tree to his right; Flavia was crouching behind another tombstone a few yards to his left.

"Where are we?" he whispered loudly to Flavia.

"The Whateley cemetery," she said. "Although the only Whateleys in it are my grandparents. It was on the land when he got it, and - well, until now I thought it was just more of his and father's sense of humor, with all the wild trees and grass they planted to make it look moldering. Grandfather's vault is over there."

Flavia gestured toward a dark stone structure twenty yards behind them. Napoleon hadn't noticed it before, since it was half-hidden among the trees and bushes. At first glance it seemed an ideal defensive position, but he quickly saw that this was deceptive. There were no windows, the door was the only exit, and once inside, the defenders would be bottled up while Thrush readied enough high explosives to blow the place down around their ears.

Napoleon crouched down and made a short dash to the tree and joined Illya.

"What do you think?" Illya asked. "Can we hold out?"

"Probably," Napoleon replied. "I don't think they have enough manpower to rush us over that open ground. But we're low on ammunition. And besides, holding out isn't enough. We have to get Whateley somehow. If he gets away, he can set up shop somewhere else. We might never find him until too late."

Illya nodded. "I don't quite see how we can stop him, though. They can't get at us, but at the same time, we can't get at them."

Napoleon suddenly smiled. "What about the vault?"

Illya glanced around in the direction Napoleon was looking. He spotted the massive structure, and the same idea occurred to him. "A secret passage, you mean? But if there is, we'd better hurry or Whateley will be popping out of it himself."

"You keep a watch on the garage and house. I'll check with Flavia." Napoleon ducked down into the grass again and scurried over to Flavia's tombstone.

Flavia frowned at the question. "Not that I know of - but, then, I didn't know about all those others, either."

"It's worth a try. Keep down in the grass and start for the vault. I'll round up the rest and join you."

Napoleon moved back to Lem first. "Think you can make it all right?"

"I made it this far, didn't I? You just worry about yourself; that oughta keep you occupied." Lem released his shoulder and peered at it for a moment. It seemed to have stopped bleeding. He moved the damaged shoulder experimentally, then got down on all fours and started back toward the vault.