From every side a hissing noise preceded jets of warm disinfectant. The streams blasted his body from the chin down, and he closed his eyes and worked the fluid into the pores of his face and made a shampoo of it for his salt stiffened hair. He moved about in the churning spray, rubbing his whole body to help penetration into every cut and abrasion.
A finer set of sprays followed the first, and he held his damaged members close to the nozzles, permitting atomized liquid to massage the hundreds of wounds. Soap and water, applied by warm, wide nozzles, doused him completely, and it was a very clean Napoleon who stood looking at his pink, wrinkled skin with pleasure when the floods stopped. Warmed air whipped around him, evaporating the last of the rinses completely, and then the chamber heated up. The floor stayed warm, but the walls steamed up and the air became moist and drew sweat out of him. He grinned at the tile, remembering Arnold’s supersonic torture room in the Space House, comparing it to this friendly Swedish bath.
Another blast of air dried him, and he was ready to leave.
One doctor came to him to apply bandages to the severest cuts, preventing bleeding and later chances of infection. Napoleon found it hard to believe he’d ever been hurt, considering the euphoric feeling that followed his thorough shower. But the slashes in arms and legs were very real. Despite temporary lack of pain, he had to be bandaged heavily.
A new set of clothing waited outside the Mediclean laboratory, and he refused help in getting dressed. He smiled broadly at the doctor, feeling better than he had any time
since his first encounter with Gambol hours before. “I’m all right, Doc,” he said, and made his way out into the corridor under his own steam. He only allowed a pretty U.N.C.L.E. clerk to escort him to Waverly’s office, he told himself, because he liked pretty girls.
“Mr. Solo, I am pleased to report that we have a definite lead on the distributor of stock secrets,” said Waverly when Napoleon had seated himself at the circular conference table. “Mr. Kuryakin reported on your abduction by the broker Gambol, and while he drove after you he gave us the clue we needed to crack a rather intricate information-relay device. Departments of Finance, Research, and Cryptography have examined the market reports, and a certain crossword puzzle, with great success “
Napoleon sat upright, wondering if the night’s escapades had deranged him somehow. “Crossword puzzle, sir? Crossword puzzle?”
“Indeed. While you were being led to Thrush through the actions of Mr. Gambol and his associates, Mr. Kuryakin discovered a communications link in today’s crossword. It would seem that Avery D. Porpoise has been commanding his troops in a very curious manner. Of course, we have no definite proof against the man.”
Napoleon looked at his chief for a moment, struck speechless by the news. He stared at Waverly, at the bank of computers and tape drives behind Waverly, and at the bandages on his own arms and hands. “I’ve just been knocked around and snatched, chased and imprisoned by a gang of Thrushes,” he said. “They live in the biggest no-fun funhouse on Coney Island, working for a bad-humor man named Avery D. Porpoise. If on top of all the other trouble that that soggy little butterball caused me today he is also writing crosswords for Illya to solve, I’m going to devise some totally original and excruciatingly slow death for him. I always thought you had to sit up all night with a toothache to make up crossword puzzles.”
Waverly allowed himself to look slightly amused. “I have here the dossier on your intended victim, which covers what we know of his history up to a few years ago. When Mr. Kuryakin’s hunch pointed to him, we put together what is
known of him and found him to be a most unique individual. I would caution you, however, that torture will in all likelihood not affect him in the least.”
He put the folder down in front of him, and spun the table to position it directly before Napoleon. The data on Porpoise was unspectacular up to a point. Under Identifying Marks, some researcher had summarized all that had been or ever would be of interest concerning Avery D. Porpoise:
On 2 August, 1944, Maj. Porpoise, then in British Intelligence, was captured by Nazi agents while entrusted with a high priority mission in the north of France. The pressure of German High Command conflicts and backlash from the attempted murder of Hitler the preceding month threw the lone Intelligence officer into an unreal focus, and Nazi doctors became almost maniacal in their attempts to wring his mission from him.
Imprisonment and starvation had no effect on him except to strengthen his resolve not to talk. Collateral reports from others held nearby verify that he became completely convinced that the security of his nation depended on his continued secrecy, although in point of fact the mission’s failure had crippled a Resistance effort and the whole story could subsequently have been told. Maj. Porpoise did not allow this in the face of questions, and his inquisitors could only keep digging for what seemed to be a vital message.
Enduring privation gave him an inner source of power for what came next. Hitler’s growing irrationality forced the prison doctors to bum the captives hair and eyebrows. His stoicism at the pain and the High Command’s orders made them follow up with a systematic destruction of his beard follicles, and then application of fire torture to every patch of hair anywhere on his body. Pelvic, limb and pubic hair were scorched off, and today Avery D. Porpoise is covered with white scar tissue, completely bald.
“He’s a repulsive little beast in the flesh,” said Napoleon,
“but I didn’t see enough of him to notice all that.” He flipped the dossier back to Waverly with a shudder.
“Those scars on his body are actually marks of great heroism, despite his current activities, and despite the misplacement of his heroism. He’s somewhat less than a man, now, crisscrossed with scar tissue and turned obscenely fat through years of self-indulgence, but one must conclude that his pain threshold is superhumanly high when inspired as he was in World War II.
“It was his misfortune, however, that the Crown did not reward his refusal to talk under such treatment. His Majesty’s government naturally awarded him a 60% disability pension for life, and the Prisoner of War ribbon with, I believe, a bronze star. To indicate the torture, I suppose. They were quite uninterested in his story of saving the nation, because after all the mission he had started on was a thorough fizzle.”
“Kind of hard-nosed, I’d say. What else did he want?”
“A medal wasn’t quite enough, we can assume. He resigned his commission when they didn’t make him a general, and he never claimed a shilling of the pension.”
“Probably he just wanted somebody to clap him on the back and give him the ‘Jolly good show, old chap!’ routine,” said Napoleon. “A promotion-yes, Porpoise would have wanted recognition on all sides. He was probably sorry England didn’t have an opening for the job of King just at that time.”
Waverly frowned slightly. “In any event, he sold out in disgust to the highest bidder. His recent knowledge of the Intelligence service was considered very valuable, and for a while it looked as though post-war German underground operatives would get him. But he joined the neighborhood covey of Thrush in early 1947. All his subsequent activity has been in England and Africa, an undistinguished career in Thrush’s financial department. We noted his entry into this country, but from that point he seemed to have gone into retirement. If Major Porpoise had continued in His Majesty’s service he might well have become a member of U.N.C.L.E. by now. As it is, we will all be relieved to close out his file.” Waverly shut the folder and dropped it into a crowded basket of files.