"Yes, the pen. For the ship. It has to go somewhere, doesn't it?"
"There's a ship connected with this place - and the ship docks on the top story? Presumably A Level is the upper one?"
"Yes, yes. For the depth. They can't risk her grounding, you know."
"I don't know!" Solo burst out. "Look, just to please me, tell me what's going on here. I assume we're still somewhere near the dam... right? Well, I know about the dam itself, I know about the power station that doesn't work, I know there's about twenty miles of filled up by an artificial lake. I know Getuliana's as much a blind as the hydroelectric scheme and the made-up road that leads from one to the other. But that's all I' know. I don't know what's going on."
"'Well the pen's on the top floor because the whole place is under water and -"
"Under water!"
"Of course. Didn't you know that?... Well, obviously you didn't or you wouldn't look so surprised. Yes, while, they were building the dam they also built this place on the floor of the valley, completely covered in and watertight - and then when it was finished and the water rose it was eventually covered over."
"How do you get in and out?"
"There's a tunnel that leads to it through the mountain. It comes out in the next valley at the estancia. And of course you can get in and out through the pen - though that doesn't do you much good, since the ship only comes back to the same place; there's no other dock in the lake."
"And where do you girls come in? Why the D.A.M.E.S.?"
"We helped resettle the natives from the valley, and -"
"I know that, but why not real D.A.M.E.S. for that matter?"
"I suppose because we had to become members of Thrush - for the secrecy, you know - and they felt we'd be more likely to agree if we had police records. All of us have, you know. I guess they pretended we belonged to this organization just in case any Brazilian officials asked about us - just to keep the thing looking above board. And then again, they preferred West Coast girls because of the swimming."
"The swimming?"
"We all had to be good swimmers and divers - divers especially. To help with the ship in the pen."
"Do you mean to say," Solo asked, the light finally bursting, "that the pen is under water too? It's an underwater dock... the ship is a submarine?"
"But of course, I thought you realized."
"They go to all this trouble to find spurious reasons to construct an artificial lake - just so they can build an underwater dock and play submarines with it? Why?"
The girl told him.
Solo gave a long, low whistle of astonishment. "Look," he said, "I don't know how you think we can get out of this watery fortress -"
"I don't think we can. It's just that I don't like to see people in cells. I told you."
"Sure. Well, never mind that. The point is - in or out, I have to make contact with my boss. You don't have any objection?... I mean, you don't appear to have any particularly strong allegiance to Thrush."
"I couldn't care less. Not if they keep people in cells."
"Sure, sure. It's a thing you have. I know... Now, did I hear you say there was a radio room here? If so, it, seems my best plan would be to try and crash that first and send a message from here, rather than try to escape from the place altogether - which is probably impossible - and make contact from outside. Do you agree?'
"Yes. I think there's only one man left on duty at night. And I don't suppose he'll be too alert at the time - but you watch out. You don't have too much reserve of strength, you know: you've been under heavy sedation for days."
"Just show me where the radio room is," Solo said, "and I'll worry about my strength when we get there. I promise not to kill more than a hundred of them..."
The girl took his arm and led him through a maze of passages, past louvered doors shaking with the vibrations of unseen machinery, past notice boards winking with red pilot lights and green and blue, and up a flight of concrete stairs winding around a shaft housing three elevators. On the level above, the humming of the plant was less obtrusive - though he still found the windowless subterranean atmosphere, with its dry and hygienic air, oppressive in the extreme. Somewhere below them, beneath the massive foundations of the fortress, lay the drenched earth which had until so recently supported the footsteps of simple farmers; somewhere around and above, millions of tons of water pressed remorselessly in upon the walls.
And somewhere not far away must be the heads within whose crania lay the warped brains which had conceived the evil plan which Napoleon Solo alone could thwart.
If he was lucky!
The doors on the higher level were mostly glass-paned and Solo saw as they passed offices with desks, a library with rows of filing cabinets, a computer room bright with levers and dials and lights, a miniature lecture theater where the semicircle of seats surrounded a vast wall map whose rash of bulbs and flags concentrated around the newly filled-in shape of the lake.
Finally the girl drew him against the wall and put her lips to his ear. "The first door around the corner of the passage is the radio room," she whispered. "There's probably only one man there at this time, as I say - but the Council Chamber is immediately beyond, and the main control room lies between the two, only further in, as it were... So there may be lots of other people within call."
"I don't know why you should do all this for me, Mrs. Lerina -"
"You can call me Alice."
"Alice, then - thank you. I don't know why you should risk your life like this for me - but I'll try to make it up to you if ever we get out of here... Are you actually on duty tonight? Could you have some reason for walking past the radio room door?"
"Sure I could. You want me to find out who's there, is that it?"
"It would help, Alice."
"Okay," the blonde said. "You want I should try and get the guy to come outside?"
"I don't think so. There may be other people who can overhear. If you could go past and signal to me afterwards..."
"Will do," the girl said. She walked on around the corner of the passage, with Solo sidling after her like a disembodied shadow. Beyond the right-angle, the corridor was wider, with rubber floor tiles in marbled gray. Halfway along, a shaft of bright light barred the gloom by an open door. Alice Lerina walked up and paused, looking into the room.
"Hi, there!" she said. "You all on your lonesome?"
"Like usual on this trick," a mans voice replied over the faint burble of automatic morse. "I'm waiting for a call to come through from some guy he has a report to make from Zurich, Switzerland. You wanna come on in and share the solitude?"
"I don't mind. Watcha got there, anyway?" The girl stepped across the threshold, trailing behind her one arm with which she gave Solo first the thumbs-up sign, then a single finger pointing upwards.
Taking this to mean that the man was alone and that it would be safe to approach, the agent tiptoed up and peered cautiously around the door. The room was small, but it was packed with chassis after chassis, console upon console of the most advanced electronic equipment Solo, had ever seen. On the far side, bent over the dials of a short-wave receiver, the blonde and the operator had their backs to him. "Now this filter slope here, see," the man was saying; "with this you can tune out..."
There was a small monitor speaker above the set from which bursts of static occasionally sputtered. Under cover of this, Solo flitted across the room until he was immediately behind the man.