There was a sharp, coughing explosion, not very loud, and Kuryakin jerked forward and slumped against the dashboard. As though in reflex, Solo had stamped on the brakes as the gun fired. The Fiat slewed momentarily and almost stopped, sending him lurching forward against the wheel, and then resumed its course as he released the pressure on the pedal.
"I shouldn't do that again if I were you," the girl said grimly. "You have no need to worry. It's only a sleep dart, similar to those you use yourselves. He'll be back with us in less than an hour."
"You've made me break my glasses," Solo said reproachfully. He felt his chest where it had struck the steering wheel and drew out a pair of sunglasses from his breast pocket. They had tortoise-shell frames—and one of the lenses certainly was cracked.
"Put them back. You won't need them where you're going."
"And that is? Back to Mr. Carlsen's place, I presume?"
"Yes. By minor roads in case of trouble on the Autostrada. As you see, we're already in open country. Straight over this crossroads here."
"And just what is to stop me," Solo demanded, "from switching off the engine and braking to a halt in the first town we come to? We're bound to pass some villages on the way: it's more than fifty kilometres to Buronzo."
Giovanna del Renzio leaned over the back of Illya's seat, keeping the gun trained warily on Solo, and pushed the Russian's unconscious body down below the line of windscreen and windows. "Use your mirror," she said. "The Cadillac behind is Mr. Carlsen's—and in a minute a Lancia will pull out ahead of you from a layby. Lala Eriksson will be driving. As a foreigner with no papers, do you think any country policeman will believe you against the word of two car loads of local residents? Besides which, I should shoot one of these darts at you before you could say anything... and don't think we couldn't, between us, think up some convincing explanation!"
Solo shrugged. The rain had stopped completely and sunshine was raising steam from the drying road as it curved between meadows of silvery green. Half a kilometer ahead, the familiar Lancia convertible, now with its roof raised, nosed out into the road from under a row of trees and took up its station ahead of him.
"May one ask the point of this—er—maneuver?" Solo enquired.
"Don't be foolish, Mr. Solo. You know as well as I do. When we get to Carlsen's house you will tell us what it is that you took from this pickpocket and, if it is here, we will destroy it; if not, we shall get it and then destroy it."
"And if we don't tell you?"
"You will. One of you will. There are ways and means at that house, believe me. Round this corner we enter the main road to Chivasso for a few hundred meters, and then we turn left off it again. Be ready for a sharp right and then left... And remember I shall be ready for anything else!"
Without taking her eyes from him, the girl laid her arm along the shelf below the car's back window and gave the thumbs-up sign to the Cadillac which was purring along close behind.
Half an hour later, they rolled in convoy along the road where Lala Eriksson and Illya had been forced into the hedge by Solo. Only this time there was no rescuer roaring up behind them between the thickets of cane.
Soon they came to a cross-roads and Solo recognized part of the route he had taken on foot when he had escaped from Carlsen's domain.
Two kilometers later, the Lancia turned in under an archway piercing the high wall of a gatehouse and they were in the driveway he recalled so well. The steel grille gates swung wide as Lala Eriksson sounded her horn, remained open as the three cars drove through, and then slowly shut to remake its electrical circuit with the wire mesh fence inside the wall.
Solo caught a glimpse of a pair of dogs eyeing the convoy, and then they were past the poplar trees and circling the shrubbery in front of the house.
They pulled up below the terrace with a rustle of gravel.
La la Erikssen, slim and dark in a green trouser suit, was climbing from the Lancia's driving seat. Carlsen, his fat face split into a travesty of a welcoming smile, was standing at the front of the steps with one of his torpedoes on either side. And from the Cadillac behind, the manservant and three more gunmen descended.
Giovanna del Renzio slid across the back seat of the Fiat and opened the door. She got out on to the driveway and jerked open the passenger door. Illya Kuryakin slumped inertly to the gravel.
The girl gestured sharply with her gun and Solo in his turn pressed the catch of his door and stepped out of the car.
"Mr. Solo!" Carlsen exclaimed effusively. "How nice to see you again. Let us hope that this time our hospitality will not bore you so much that you feel you have to leave... Giovanna my dear, we are indebted to you for so kindly bringing our friends here. So that they are spared the tedious preliminaries to the entertainment we have prepared for them, perhaps you would be good enough to make Mr. Solo comfortable for the time being, eh?"
Too late, the agent swung round. He saw the snigger on the face of one of the guards; he saw the girl's knuckles whiten on the trigger of the gun that was pointing at him; and then he saw the spurt of flame from the muzzle that whitened, too, and spread and spread until it reached the farthest horizon.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Solo And Illya Take To the Air
There was a man with a sledgehammer inside Illya Kuryakin's skull, trying to beat his way out. The blows became stronger and stronger, reverberating agonizingly inside the steel walls, until at last the hammerhead burst its way through at a weak point and daylight came flooding in.
The Russian blinked his eyes. It wasn't daylight at all, he saw, but the illumination of an unshaded electric bulb hanging from a flex about ten feet above his head. He was in fact lying on his back on the floor and he was—he flexed muscles experimentally—scientifically bound, spread-eagled to four rings set in the concrete. If he twisted his head, he could see the iron circlets and the wire which bit into his flesh and attached him to them. He could also see to his surprise (he craned his neck to make sure) that he was completely naked. He could feel the cool, gritty texture of the cement floor against his calves, his haunches and his shoulder blades.
As far as he could, he looked around the room. It was more like a cellar, really, about fifteen feet square and completely empty except for an apparatus that looked rather like a hi-fi set, and another which seemed to comprise a tubular steel tripod with a T-shaped crosspiece and a length of rubber tubing leading to it.
There was one other thing, though, a few feet away from him, he could see the bare body of Napoleon Solo similarly spread-eagled between four iron rings set into the floor. Kuryakin tested the efficiency of his bonds with his wrists and fingers. The wire was of the variety used to make netting for chicken runs, and it had been fastened by a master. It was not knotted but twisted into place, and the tightening had been effected either by a packaging machine or by someone who was an artist with pliers. Even if he could have reached the joins, Illya could have done little to free himself. Nothing short of a pair of wire-cutters or a half hour session with another set of pliers would have any effect on them. Struggling would only chafe away the flesh from his wrists and ankles; and he was already uncomfortable enough, stretched out to the full extent of his spread legs and arms. And there was a draught cutting across the floor like a knife from somewhere behind. He decided to try and arouse Solo. "Napoleon!" he hissed in a piercing whisper. "Napoleon! Are you with me?"