Porpoise waved him silent, and Apis took the opportunity to get in some really versatile dunking and dipping. When Illya finally came to a rest once more, the cough he was developing had to compete with a violent set of the hiccups. What little air he managed to drag into his sodden lungs was either sprayed or strangled out of him, and Porpoise was starting off on a whole new subject for discussion.
“You must be aware of U.N.C.L.E.‘s plan to get me out of here. I want you to tell me what sort of plan you
have in mind, when you plan to spring it, and how I can evade capture. If we get all these points settled, I will instruct Apis to give you a rest, a dry rest.”
“The plan is simple,” Illya choked and coughed, interspersing the words with loud hiss. “I was to come in here and tell funny stories, get you laughing, then when you were helpless I was to roll you out-”
Apis outdid himself in a frenzy of dunking. Illya tried to hold his breath, but the cough and the hiccups wouldn’t let up even though he was underwater. Finally the lights behind his eyes went out, and the bucking body went limp.
Illya was unconscious, lying on the pool deck with Apis bent over him injecting a few minutes’ controlled sleep, when Arnold and his two henchmen entered, dragging three angry flower-children.
“Arnold,” said Porpoise with undisguised annoyance, “why are you bringing those three in here again? I thought we agreed to ignore their pranks until they caused us some real trouble, and then to just shoot them out of hand. Why must you continue to annoy me with them?”
“This was no prank,” said little Arnold, holding Malista with both hands and avoiding her frantic kicks at his shins. “It was one thing for them to pose as rotten kids, breaking and stealing. It’s another entirely for them to be U.N.C.L.E. agents, helping Solo and your friend here.” All eyes turned to Illya as he hiccuped violently, but the spasm was over before Apis could move, and sleep took over again.
“I found them out on the beach, trying to flank our search party, talking about how they just helped Solo into a taxi. They probably also helped Kuryakin slip past the searchers, and for all we know they helped Solo escape my maze.”
“You couldn’t build anything Napoleon couldn’t escape!” said Mai, twisting to try and get Arnold with her teeth. He already had reddening tooth-marks on his nose, and drew back quickly enough to show he didn’t want a repeat.
“We didn’t help anybody out of anything,” said Andy belligerently, still trying to break the armlock holding him. “We found this cat out in the water, and dried him off. We got him past your fumble-foots and into a taxi. So what are you gonna do about it?”
The discussion promised to be a lively one, but the small chime in the wall sounded its gentle note, bringing all debate to a close. Porpoise levered himself into an erect sitting position in his chair. “You will all be much quieter. Arnold, hand over your prisoners to Apis, and then be about your tasks. Apis, you will lock our four guests in the Spaceship Room, and make sure that all of the devices are live. Don’t bother them with the usual warnings; if they want to go through the maze I’m sure that none of them will be missed. You two aid Apis.” The flurry of orders finished, the rotund villain set his floating chair into motion.
Apis scooped Illya up in one hand, and lifted the kicking Malista up by the back of her jeans. Illya hiccuped again, dribbling water, and for a moment all was deathly quiet in the room. Mai looked from Andy to Chuck, and then swung around to look at Porpoise. “It must be twenty of or twenty after!” For no reason in the world this took all three of them into a fit of laughter, and the combination of a meaningless joke and Porpoise’s aversion to noise raised their voices to a roar. Apis and his men quickly ushered them out, and Porpoise jiggled his way across the room to the hidden entrance to the radio room.
Coincident with the sounding of the chime, an electric wristwatch set off a small alarm on the wrist of a tall, lean blond individual. He glanced at the watch, reset the alarm, and reached into a pocket for a small gold case. Four men watched as he opened the case, shook it gently, and then snapped it shut. Two small red pills remained resting in a large-boned, muscular hand. The tall man excused himself and left the room, pills in hand. Once out of sight of the others, he replaced the pills in the gold case and lifted the handset of a telephone.
“Quoth the Raven. Code, O.N.E., repeat one. Plans proceeding exactly on schedule. Tell Mr. Porpoise that Breelen’s is on its last legs,” he whispered into the phone. Without waiting for an answer he replaced the handset and returned to the group in the adjoining room, where the Board of
Directors of Breelen’s was meeting to decide the probable fate of their company. ,
“Gentlemen, we must hold out for a few days more. If we can swing the loan with Bristol we can crush those who would have crushed us,” the tall man said upon his return. “I will deal with the Bristol people personally, and I assure you, there isn’t a man in this room who is more aware of the outcome of this struggle if I fail.” He smiled for an instant, and then five grim men exited.
Three hundred miles away, a government radio operator was keying up two non-government sideband transmitters to pass on the message, “Code ONE, all is well.”
Chapter 11
“Where have all the Thrushes gone?”
“HEY, YOU GONNA sack out all night?”
Illya hiccuped into Malista’s frowning face, as she bent over him and forced him to open one eye. She let the eyelid drop, and he sank back into the drug Apis had injected. After an almost sleepless night before and a day of uninspiring flatfoot work capped by Porpoise’s water games, he was easily able to rationalize six to eight hours of peaceful, noble slumber.
The girl didn’t see it the same way. For one thing, she didn’t like the way he lay crookedly on the Spaceship Rooms wooden floor, one arm beneath him so that he’d wake with no circulation in it; for another, she wanted to know what was going on, and Illya looked like her only source of answers. “Wake up,” she said, prodding him and shaking his shoulder. “Wake up, fella. You’re uncomfortable.” That struck his funny bone, and called him up out of the velvet black pit where he’d been trying to nestle down. He belched, spewing a feeble half-mouthful of water on the floor, and twisted into a half-sitting position. “You’re opposed to the pursuits of night,” he muttered at Mai.
She leaned back on her haunches and laughed lightly. “No way” she said. “No way, Mr. Man. I am the most night-pursuit thing that ever happened to Long Island. I just didn’t like the idea of amputating your arm in the morning, when you finally rolled off it yourself.”
“Well, IT1 consider you the savior of my good right arm. If Thrush doesn’t take it off for me anyway; if they do we’ll have to call the whole thing off, right?”
“Thrush? What kind of a Thrush is gonna take off an arm?”
“Thrush stands for the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity.” Illya looked around at the three youngsters and the room they were trapped in. “From the looks of things, the four of us are Undesirables, and the last time I heard, Thrush had some very efficient methods of Removal. They don’t just call up the D.S.C. and send folks off to the Hudson.”