[Magazine 1966-­09] - The Brainwash Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 13

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Solo stiffened, watching him. It was Lester, all right, except that he moved in the strange manner of a sleepwalker. He was correctly attired, his head tilted in that old way he had, but his eyes were disturbingly empty.

Until this moment, Solo had not seen how completely it was as Dr. Maunchaun said: Only Lester Caillou's mind had been kidnapped.

"Stand there, Lester," Maunchaun said. He inclined his narrow head toward where the fake Caillou stood, identically dressed as the banker was.

Caillou smiled faintly, nodded. He walked to where the ringer stood, paused beside him, watching Maunchaun with a dog-like obedience in his face.

Solo shivered.

"Some of your detractors feel you have made a gross error in forcing gold payments from free world nations, Lester," Dr. Maunchaun said in that level tone which seemed attuned especially for Caillou's hearing.

Caillou gave them a faint superior smile and engaged in an obscure soliloquy on the reasons why only gold could be accepted at the present, despite growing panic in the free world countries. It was his first duty to protect the interests of the international trade organizations against the spiraling inflation, the worth of paper currency— Solo didn't even bother to listen.

He was certain that leading financial experts had little argument that was persuasive against Caillou. Maunchaun was not only a brilliant psychiatrist, he was the outstanding financial expert of the far east.

He knew how to make even outrageous falsity sound logical.

He was speaking now through Caillou's brainwashed mind.

Solo said with a certainty he did not feel, "The least whisper of what you have done to this man—"

"Yes. The least whisper," Maunchaun agreed. "But who is to broadcast that whisper? You, Mr. Solo? Your accomplice in international capitalist crimes Kuryakin there? Perhaps our old friend Lester Caillou?"

Solo flinched, did not attempt to answer.

Maunchaun indulged a small smile. "Caillou will continue to speak and perform in rote, what ever I tell him to do, as long as I will it. This is deeper than hypnosis, Solo. Deeper than any waking-sleep you can understand. A drug-induced hypnosis. There are secrets of my poor land, Solo, older than your crude civilization—"

Maunchaun stopped speaking, as if bored with the mentalities of his auditors. He clapped his thin hands and the real Lester Caillou was led away.

Maunchaun watched his odd, somnambulistic gait until the door closed. Then he brought his chilled smile back to Solo and Illya.

"And now what shall we do about you gentlemen?"

"I don't know," Solo said. "But I suggest you do it quickly."

Maunchaun waved his hand. "Don't make threats, Solo. Do you mean that if United Network Command doesn't hear regularly from you and Kuryakin, other agents will doom us?"

Solo shrugged. "That's part of

"I assure you I've handled this contingency. Your reports are regularly going into your headquarters in New York––glowing lies about your progress, which I can assure you our old friend Alexander Waverly receives with relish."

Maunchaun pressed another button. Albert and three armed guards entered. "Since we cannot afford to kill them at the moment, I believe an hour in the sound chamber will teach them the error of attempting to cross me with such childish toys as bleep-signals."

Solo and Illya were marched along the corridor, past rooms converted into chemistry labs. They were shoved into a metal lined chamber twenty feet long, but less than nine feet wide.

The metal was cool to the touch. The room was bare of any furnishings. They found that the metal was perforated from floor through ceiling. Faint sound began to flare through the tiny perforations, already higher than a whistle, and steadily increasing in intensity and rising in decibels.

Solo sagged first. The sounds penetrating his ears were like lances. But when he toppled against the wall, the sound on this side increased unbearably.

It was no better in the center of the area. As they moved from the wall, sound intensity increased, stalking them.

It was like some brain-smashing force, relentless, without pity.

Suddenly the sounds ceased, but the silence was unbearable. Solo felt as if his head were expanding, as though his brain would burst.

Illya sank to his knees, but then the sounds started again. They came upward through the perforated flooring. At first they were welcome, now that their force seemed to press inward upon their brains.

The intensity increased, going beyond the range they could endure. It was like physical blows slapping them about. They ran from one end of the room to the other, unable to escape the unwavering intensity of the sound waves.

They pressed their arms like shields against their heads, but the sounds would have penetrated steel.

Then silence again. They screamed against the pressures and expanding agonies of the silence. They almost welcomed the increase of the sound waves.

Neither was conscious at the end of the hour.

THREE

ILLYA REGAINED consciousness first. He pressed his palms against the throb in his temples. It was a headache beyond description—no hangover could ever approach it. But when his hands touched the sides of his head, he screamed. His head was too sore to touch.

Yvonne was kneeling over him, her face constricted with pity.

"Oh, you poor dears," she whispered. "What have they done to you?"

She extended her hand toward his face. Illya rolled away from it, crying out in panic. "Just don't touch me."

Movement jarred him until he wavered a moment on the brink of unconsciousness. But he did not pass out again. That would have been too easy.

After a long time, Solo stirred. He sat up, his head bent forward loosely on his neck. As Illya had been, Napoleon was unable to touch his temples or his cheeks. He throbbed with pain from his neck up.

He lay still a long time.

"Drug-induced hypnosis," he whispered. "Brainwash. So that's how he controls Caillou."

Illya stared at the distant gray ceiling of the dungeon. "And there's nothing we can do to help him—or the people who are going to be ruined in this game of money manipulation."

Solo did not speak for a long time. Illya thought maybe he had fainted, but it was too terrible an effort to turn his head to see. When he moved even the slightest, he felt as if his brain rattled inside his agonized skull.

The dungeon door squealed open. Biting his mouth, Illya managed to keep from screaming against the rusty sounds.

Marie entered, accompanied by Albert and an armed guard. They came into Illya's line of vision, or he would not have seen them. They wavered before him in some kind of red haze.

"You. Yvonne," Marie said. "Let's go."

Yvonne cried out, protesting. She caught Illya's hand, pleadingly.

Illya winced in agony. "I'm sorry we got you in this, Yvonne," he whispered.

She pressed his hand.

"It's not your fault," she said. "You are very brave, very good. Both of you. You have done all you could."

"Not quite," Illya whispered grimly between his teeth.

He lay there helplessly and watched them lead Yvonne away. For a long time strange sounds drifted into the dungeon through the high window, even through the walls. He tried to think his way out, but thinking was as painful as a physical touch inside his mind, and finally he sank into a troubled sleep.

Illya awakened in the deepest darkness, feeling as if he were b ing battered by an earth tremor. For some moments he did not know where he was. Then he felt the rough texture of the dungeon floor, the late night chill, the touch of Solo's hand on his shoulder, shaking him.

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