[Magazine 1968-012] - The Million Monsters Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 15

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“When will the full scale attack be made?”

“As soon as the transmitters can be finished. In about four days.”

“This is terrible!” Waverly said. “Will other media besides motion pictures be used?”

“Yes - radio, TV and everywhere people gather in large crowds.”

“How can they do that?” Solo asked.

“Subliminal broadcasters, portable units, will be taken into sporting events - football, baseball, hockey, basketball - shows, carnivals, and even churches.”

“Four days!” Solo said in a stricken voice. “That doesn’t leave us much time.”

“But we’ll do it,” Waverly said sharply.

“Where is the seat of this thing?” Solo asked.

“Here in Hollywood,” the prisoner replied. “I don’t know where. We are met, blindfolded and led in to our meetings.”

“What did Mallon have to do with this?”

“His daughter is a scientist. She developed the process. Her father saw it as a means of subliminally persuading audiences to come back and see his pictures.”

“Then THRUSH got wind of it and saw it as a means of controlling the world?”

“Yes.”

“Mellon must have realized what was happening and tried to warn you with that anonymous tip about himself,” Solo said to Waverly.

“It would seem so,” Waverly said. “I don’t quite understand about the girl, Marsha Mallon. She attacked you and Kuryakin while apparently under the influence of this monster-making process, but then she seemed untouched by it during the Sunset Strip riot.”

“She is twenty-six, in the age bracket where the subliminal hypnosis works erratically,” the prisoner replied under stimulus of the truth serum.

“How did she become inoculated with the hypnotic suggestion in the first place?” Solo asked.

“She was tricked into it. Griffis, our field director, thought he could use her to murder her father. At times she can be controlled and at other times she breaks loose from the hypnosis.”

“This Griffis sent her to murder Kuryakin and me at the airport?”

“Yes?”

“Did she murder her father?”

“No.”

“Who did it?”

“Members of the THRUSH liquidation team. They were supposed to kill her also but she got away. She has a higher destroy number on the THRUSH liquidation list than either Solo or Kuryakin.”

“We’ll have to stop now, sir,” Solo said into the pen communicator to Waverly. “You know the truth serum’s effects. He must rest.”

“Yes, of course,” Waverly replied. “Forget him now. Find that girl! She is the key to this entire mess.”

“Yes, sir,” Napoleon said.

“What are you going to do with the prisoner?”

“I have some very definite plans for him, sir,” Napoleon replied, his jaw setting in a grim line.

“Just what are you going to do?” Waverly asked, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice.

“Do, sir?” Solo inquired. “I’ll do whatever is necessary. Good-by.”

He snapped down the antenna to cut off the circuit.

The prisoner sprawled back in his seat. His eyes closed and he went into the temporary torpor that was characteristic of the last phase of the truth serum.

Solo took this opportunity to slip a pocket tape recorder out of his jacket. It was the twin of the one used by Kuryakin in Paris.

He flipped the control dial to transmit, but did not start the reels. He switched on the tiny battery and then shoved the operating recorder under the car seat.

Then, while closely watching his prisoner’s eyes, Solo extended the antenna of his pen communicator. A faint bleep came from the speaker as the set picked up transmissions from the hidden recorder. Satisfied, Napoleon shoved the pen back in his pocket.

Now he put the key back in the car ignition and waited for his prisoner to make the next move.

It took about five minutes for the torpor to wear off. After this the subject would feel no ill effects from the truth serum. The minutes ticked away. Solo could tell from the way the prisoner’s breathing changed that the paralysis induced by the drug had passed.

It seemed to Solo that the man’s eyes were still closed. But it was dark in the car and he suspected the prisoner was watching him through partially closed lids.

Solo took a deep breath and braced himself for the coming ordeal. He casually put one hand around on the door handle and reached for the car key with the other. He fumbled it. The key dropped on the floor. He bent over as if to pick it up.

The prisoner exploded into action. He swung a hard blow to Solo’s bowed head. Napoleon took the blow on the cheek. Even though he took it ducking back to soften the force, it jarred him badly.

But he still kept enough of his faculties to carry through the next part of his carefully laid plan. In ducking back, he threw the full weight of his body on the door handle. When the door swung open, he tumbled out. He broke his fall as an acrobat would with his hands. He rolled back under the car in the adjoining parking spot.

Before he could get up, the prisoner had started the car and was burning rubber in a fast getaway.

Napoleon Solo got shakily to his feet. He had a flash of fear that he had made a mistake. But he put the idea aside. Permitting the prisoner to escape was admittedly a desperate move. It might even be a disastrous one, but it promised the quickest results - provided Solo could keep alive.

Napoleon’s head rang. He had taken a harder blow that he expected. He hobbled as swiftly as possible across the parking lot to a U-Drive stand. His U.N.C.L.E. identification got him prompt service. Five minutes later he was wheeling out of the airport, heading toward Hollywood.

The pen communicator was open on the seat beside him. Telltale bleeps from the recorder hidden in the fugitive’s car came in clearly. Then they suddenly dropped in intensity, telling Solo that the man had turned to right angles to his pursuer. Then the sounds picked up volume again and became louder. This indicated that the THRUSH man was turning back, doubling to throw off possible pursuit.

The sounds indicated so many turns that Solo gave up and parked. After about ten minutes the fugitive passed him. Napoleon did not try to follow until the other car was five minutes down the street.

He didn’t need to hurry. The transmitted signals from the recorder would guide him easily.

The trail led him toward the coast and then circled back through Culver City. They passed MGM studios. Through the heavy mesh fence, Solo could see the stark, cardboard outlines of a typical western town set on the studio back lot.

Solo drove on, following the telltale bleep. He kept watching behind for a possible shadow of his own. He saw nothing. The sounds from the escapee’s car increased in volume as Solo passed the main gate of the Mallon Productions Studio and then dropped as Napoleon went past.

Solo drove on, sure now that the car had turned into the dark studio. The wrought iron gates were closed. Behind them Napoleon could see the shadowy figure of a guard.

As he passed, Solo noted the side streets, looking for the best vantage point from which he could observe the studio. He picked a narrow, winding thoroughfare that ascended a low hill topped by a small park. Here he figured he would be screened by sufficient vegetation that he would not be seen from below.

He did not dare risk turning into the street that close to the studio. He had no way of knowing how well it was under observation. But he was sure that if THRUSH was using the studio, they had taken all precautions against being surprised.

So he drove on. He had to go about a mile before he wound back through a subdivision and came in on the park from the rear.

As he came down the winding road past a children’s playground, he saw a car parked by the side of the road. As his lights swept across it he glimpsed a girl’s head suddenly duck out of sight.

Solo turned sharply at a side road and circled away. He parked out of sight in front of some houses across from the park. He climbed out and started back on foot.

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