He didn't know whether it was the small current of movement he made in the dry air, or whether the girl inadvertently made some telltale sign - but a sixth-sense warning jerked up the man's head before he was within striking distance. He was a big fellow, a brawny; blue-jowled man in a singlet and uniform trousers, but he moved fast. He was on his feet facing the agent, having intercepted a glance between Solo and the girl, before Solo could raise an arm.
"Why, you dirty little..." he began, glowering at the blonde.
Solo's fist caught him in the solar plexus. It was essential that the man should not shout or cry out, that any struggle should be as silent as possible. Once anyone else's attention was attracted, Solo's plan would be ruined.
The operator doubled forwards with a grunt of astonishment and pain. His lips drew back from his teeth as he straightened, tugging at a blackjack in his waist band. Before he could draw enough breath back into his savaged lungs to yell, Solo had to disarm and then silence him.
Wheezing, with his eyes streaming, the man lurched forwards. Solo chopped viciously down, flat-handed, at his wrist and the blackjack clattered to the floor. At the same time, the agent raked a stinging blow across the bridge of the man's nose with the back of his other hand and thudded one stockinged heel to his kneecap. In his weakened state, Solo's only card was surprise - and he had to play it for all he was worth before the big operator could recover his equilibrium and get to close quarters.
The agent dodged back from a roundhouse left but was unable to avoid the followup - a short, pounding right that carried all the man's weight and slammed into his body just below the heart.
Solo heard his own choked grunt of pain as his legs abruptly turned to rubber and he collapsed backwards onto a wooden chair. Still groaning for breath, the operator pounced: grabbing a handful of dungarees, knuckling himself a firm hold and hauling Solo to his feet, he smashed his other fist to the agent's jaw.
Through the roaring blackness that threatened to engulf him, Solo saw dimly the huge fist drawn back again, the great face poised menacingly behind. With his remaining strength, he reached desperately up and grasped the man's ears. Then he went suddenly limp and dragged his adversary's head down after him. The man, caught momentarily off balance, pitched forwards, his hands flew instinctively out to break his fall, and his forehead crashed into a bank of equipment behind the chair.
Using the seat for leverage, Solo executed a kind of half back somersault and brought his knee jarringly up to connect with the underneath of the operator's chin as he hauled down on the ears. There was a sudden cessation of movement and then he was smothered in the dead weight of the man's unconscious body.
Panting, Solo laboriously hauled himself out from underneath with the help of the girl. Brief though it had been, the fight had totally exhausted him. Alice Lerina had been right - it would be some time before he regained his strength.
There would be no question of his attempting any further trials of strength, he realized bitterly as he dragged himself across the room to a transmitter. He must do what he had to do and worry about any subsequent action when the need for it arose. Slumping into a chair, he began methodically testing switches and revolving dials. Behind him, the girl watched wide eye.
---
It must have been almost twenty minutes later, and the agent's labored breathing had settled down to a steadier and quieter rhythm as he concentrated on his work, when a section of wall behind them swung silently aside to reveal three men standing there.
"All right, you - away from that transmitter. Move!" The words cracked out from the thin mouth of the man in the middle.
Solo whirled away from the radio. The man had slender, almost feminine hands with dirty nails and cigarette-stained fingers. A half-smoked cigarette drooped soggily from one corner of his mouth. And a short-barreled P.38 hung negligently from his right hand.
Behind him were a tall, white-haired Negro with a lined face, and a well-dressed man whom Solo recognized as Wassermann, the holder of the concession to build Getuliana and the dam, whom he had met in Brasilia.
"Don't do anything foolish, Mr. – er – Williams... or should I say Solo?" Wassermann drawled. "Greerson may look a little lackadaisical, but it's deceptive, I assure you."
Solo stood perfectly still, his hands at his sides. A few feet away, the girl crouched above the unconscious body of the radio engineer in a pose that was almost a caricature of guilty surprise. Apart from a sharp intake of breath when Greerson had first spoken, she had remained completely silent.
"I am most surprised to find you abusing our hospitality, Mr. Solo," the Negro said. "And disappointed. I had thought you were one of our more cooperative guests." The voice, Solo realized as soon as the man spoke, was the one he had been talking to over the intercom in his cell.
"Unfortunately," Wassermann said, "we were not attending to our monitor speakers in the control room, otherwise we'd have noticed earlier that clandestine messages were being transmitted. We have, however, heard enough to tell us that you were speaking in code - and that this story of you investigating some drug racket is false."
"Most interesting," the Negro said. "I'd be fascinated to learn the details of the treatment to which you were subjected. A system which permits deliberate lies to be told, mixed in with a judicious amount of truth, even under the deepest hypnosis and the most powerful drugs - that is something I really admire! Regrettably, though, I have to deny myself the pleasure of forcing you to tell me: our operation is ready to start. You have transgressed the laws of hospitality and now you have be come merely an embarrassment. You must be disposed of."
"Didn't they teach you not to end sentences with a preposition in the mail-order English course you took?" Solo said blandly.
The Negro smiled. "I am immune to insults, my friend," he said. "As I was saying, you must now die. You have until darkness tomorrow night… tonight, I should say, for it must be almost dawn now."
"Isn't that – ah - untraditional?" Solo said. "It's usually dawn."
"It is a question of method, Mr. Solo," Wassermann said. "We like to be tidy; we do not like to arouse the curiosity of our Brazilian hosts. So any deaths that are necessary are customarily arranged to look like accidents - a hit-and-run road accident, a heart attack, that sort of thing."
"What about the girls in the car?"
"One of the troubles about employing members of the underworld is that they will not obey rules," Wassermann said. "Despite our orders, individual members of our team persisted in driving all the way down to Rio to amuse themselves in their spare time. This particular pair drove carelessly, that is all. Then they had to be silenced to ward off your prying questions... In the case of your own death, as I was saying, this will be arranged to look like an accidental drowning. And it is better to stage that in darkness, simply to avoid possible witnesses."
"And how do you propose to stage it?"
"We don't really have to bother. The submarine pen attached to this building has double doors - so that the craft can enter underwater, wait until the water has been extracted, and then disgorge its crew in safety. With you, the process will be the reverse: you will be. left in the pen when it is air-filled, the inner doors will close, the outer doors will open and the water will come in. And then, sometime later, your body will float to the surface in the normal way and will no doubt be discovered at some time in the future by a worthy peasant. This way, too, we avoid any marks of violence on the body."