The Light-Kill Affair (5 page)

He put on the coffee and when it was ready, carried the girl a steaming cup. She took it, her hands trembling.

Illya and Solo sat near her, drinking coffee in the gathering dark.

The girl held the cup in both hands. She seemed depleted, finished.

Solo said gently, "Why don't you tell us about it? Who are you looking for?"

"That's it." Her chin tilted. "I don't know. I could have killed both of you—and been wrong. I know that now. I've been half out of my mind since my father disappeared."

"That's a good place to begin," Solo said. "Tell us about your father, how he disappeared."

"He disappeared last night," the girl said. "But that wasn't the beginning of it. I don't know where it began, really. Everything's been so strange for the past year... My father was an associate professor of biology at Northwestern—"

"Under Professor Ivey Nesbitt," Illya finished for her, as if thinking aloud.

She stared at them, caught between astonishment and suspicion. "How did you know that?"

Solo said, "We've been looking for Dr. Nesbitt. For a long time."

She frowned, staring at the steam rising from her coffee. "Well then, you know that Dr. Nesbitt simply disappeared from the school. No one heard anything from him."

"But your father came out here to Montana looking for Dr. Nesbitt," Solo prompted.

"Yes. He took a leave from the school this summer, I came along with him. I'm a secretary in a publishing office, but I gave up my job. I was worried about my father, and didn't want him traveling alone."

"Do you know why he came here to the Big Belt Mountains?"

"You're sure he never got any word from Dr. Nesbitt?"

"Of course I'm sure." Her voice rose slightly. "I would have known. He would have told me. No. It was a hunch he had. He said he and Dr. Nesbitt had done some biology experiments out in these ranges once years before. He had no other place to look, and so he came here, perhaps in desperation."

"Perhaps," Solo agreed. "Except that we're pretty sure that if Dr. Nesbitt is still alive he is some where in these mountains."

"Well, my father didn't know that, not for sure. He would have told me."

"Do you think he could have met Dr. Nesbitt somewhere and simply have gone away with him?"

"And left me? Why should he do that?"

"I don't know. Sometimes scientists do strange things."

"Not my father. The strange things were done to him."

"What strange things?" Illya prompted her.

She held her breath a moment. She stared upward, past the dark trees toward the star-silvered sky. They gazed at the perfection of her classic profile. She said, "The strangest of all was the summons to death that he got—"

"Summons to death?" Solo asked.

"Oh, I know it sounds incredible." She looked from Illya to Solo. "We were in the hotel at Big Belt. It was night. Father had been alone, riding through these mountains on horseback. He was tired. But he was troubled. Something was on his mind. Three or four times he looked as if he were going to tell me about it.

"Then suddenly a man walked into the lobby of the hotel where we were sitting. He walked across the room directly to us. He stared straight ahead. It was as if his eyes did not focus, as if he had no idea where he was, or what he was saying. It was as if he were in some mind-numbing trance, following orders, speaking words he'd been programmed to speak.

"He said to my father, 'Are you Professor Samuel Connors?'"

She exhaled, watching them narrowly, knowing they would have trouble believing what she'd say next. "Then he handed my father this summons to death."

Solo whistled slightly. "You'll have to tell me more about that summons."

"Oh, I know you'll find it as hard to believe as I did—harder because at least I saw it, I know it existed."

"What did it look like?" Illya asked.

"A perfectly legal looking document. Like any summons to court, a subpoena. Only it was to no court I ever heard of, and the wording was so strange, accusing my father of a capital crime. I thought it was a joke. But my father didn't. He became very upset. He went up to his room, and later I heard him in there alone, and he was crying."

"Where was the court to be held? What was its name?"

She frowned, remembering. "It didn't make sense. It was called the seating of The Highest Referendary of Unquestioned Supreme Hearings. A jumble of words."

"Not quite," Solo said. "A jumble, all right. T-H-R-U-S-H. It makes that much sense."

"Sure. THRUSH's own Supreme Court, where they dispense their own brand of international law."

"They accused my father of crimes against them, crimes which were to be detailed at his trial, and before his execution. All this was in the summons."

"One thing emerges clearly from all this," Solo said. "Your father may not have found his friend Nesbitt, but he got so close to something or somebody, that THRUSH couldn't afford to permit him to live."

"But he didn't even know what they were accusing him of. I tried to talk him out of it, but he took it with deadly seriousness—and hardly knew I was there. But he kept saying he didn't know what he had done."

"That does make sense," Solo said, "even if it sounds wild to you. Perhaps he came near to some thing, nearer than he realized at that time, or saw something that was without meaning for him at that moment, but which THRUSH was afraid might become clear to him once he gave it some thought."

"Who are you?" the girl said, "that you know so much about this organization that calls itself THRUSH?"

"Well, we're no friends of theirs," Illya said. "We can safely tell you that much." He smiled at her. "Why don't you tell us now who you are?"

"I told you. I'm Professor Connor's daughter, his only child. My mother has been dead for three years. The name that everybody calls me sounds so frivolous here, when my father is missing, and may be dead. But my father started it years ago. He said one day that bikinis were made for me, or that I was made for them." Her face flushed beautifully. "And the nickname, Bikini, has stuck ever since."

"Bikini?" Illya said. He smiled. "Believe me, it fits you—like a bikini."

FOUR

SOLO AND ILLYA sat for a long time outside the car-trailer after the exhausted Bikini had gone into bed.

She had handed out sleeping bags.

"I know you're on some vital mission," she said. "But please stay here tonight. Whatever it is will wait for morning."

Solo and Illya talked in whispers.

Illya said, "A frightened girl."

"On the brink of hysteria," Solo agreed. "She shouldn't be out here alone."

"There remains that lab over there, and the night may be the best time to sneak in there," Illya said. "She's a lovely doll, and she's got a big problem, but we came out here looking for THRUSH and Dr. Nesbitt."

Solo checked his wrist watch.

"Why don't we hit the sack for three or four hours? By that time she'll be deep asleep. We'll clear out then."

Illya nodded, yawning. "I could use the sack time."

"I'm too tired to ache even in the places that hurt," Solo said.

He fell asleep almost at once when he pushed down into the sleeping bag. Night winds riffled the tall pines, and the air was fresh, heavy, making him sleepier than ever. He dreamed he was wrestling an alligator, knowing he had to keep the animal on its back, or die. He struggled, but the saurian was too strong, and he was thrown over and he was being held down, but it was not an alligator holding him helpless, it was a girl.

She was shaking him, whispering his name over and over. "Mr. Solo. Please, Mr. Solo, wake up."

Solo struggled up from the depths of sleep with anguished reluctance.

He sat up, seeing Bikini bending over him in the darkness. She wore pajamas and a robe, and not even this combination could defeat her dream-stirring beauty.

He checked his wrist watch, and almost moaned. He had been asleep for fifteen minutes. A few feet away Illya breathed deeply and regularly, completely exhausted and sound asleep.

"Yes," he whispered. "What is it."

"I couldn't sleep."

He moaned. "Is that what you woke me up to tell me?"

She stayed on her knees, close beside him. "I know you are planning to leave during the night."

Solo winced. "Important business, Bikini."

"I know. But that's why I can't sleep. I'm going with you."

"You can't do that."

"I've got to. It's my only chance of finding my father. I know you're not looking for my father, but you may find him, along with whatever else you find. I want to be there."

"We'll bring him back to you if we can."

"I don't want you to leave me. Before I met you I wasn't scared; maybe I was too numb to be frightened. But now I realize the terrible danger in this place."

"Get in your car. Get out of here. If we find Dr. Connors we'll get word to you."

"I've no place to go without my father."

"Still, we can't take you with us."

"If you don't I'll follow you. I've got to find my father."

"Bikini, I don't know what kind of danger lies over there—"

"I've learned tonight that danger is all around here, in every direction. Please. Take me with you. I won't make any trouble—"

"That's what Eve must have said." Solo sighed heavily under the witchery of Bikini's sudden smile. "Get so sleep. You in on the party.

FIVE

ONCE THEY were in the dry canyon, locating the strange laboratory was no problem. Lights shielded from view by the high rising narrow ledge a thousand feet from the gorge sump, the building illumined the twisting dead riverbed for miles in both directions.

"We can't talk any more," Solo warned Illya and Bikini before they entered the mouth of the canyon. "They may be able to pick up my whispering from here. We know they were monitoring Don Sayres long before he came near them in the jungle."

"Maybe I should come in from the other end," Illya said. "That way one of us would have a surer chance of making it."

"Dark is running out," Solo said. "It'll be a tough trek to the other end of the canyon."

"It's worth a try."

Solo nodded. "Take Bikini with you."

"Illya laughs," Illya said. "If you're smart, you'll send her back. If she's smart, she'll go."

Solo shrugged. "We'll try to get in from here. Good luck."

Illya nodded and bounded up the steep ledge like a mountain goat. Solo watched him a moment; then he nodded at Bikini. "Stay close behind me."

She caught his belt in her fingers and he moved into the mouth of the canyon. Inside these rocks they were attacked by an incessant buzzing sound. Smile, Solo thought, you're on candid radar.

There was no sense turning back. He kept as close to the rocky wall as possible, slithering forward in the darkness. The buzzing sound grew louder. Far ahead he saw the brighter illumination of the lab around the sharp twists in the dry river bed.

The new sound was like a fist striking against a hand, swiftly, repeatedly.

Solo paused, listening. Bikini pressed close against his back.

He recognized the sound; it was that of men running in some sort of padded shoes.

Two armed guards came running around a sharp bend. They wore green fatigues, green caps with small, brilliant lights attached above the visors. The lights played across the ground ahead of them, illuminating the narrow canyon floor and the mountain wails.

Solo pressed hard against the rocks, pressing Bikini behind him.

The first guard ran past, his light touching at their feet until he was almost past. Then the glow illumined their faces.

The first guard didn't see them, but the second did. The first continued running.

As the second guard stopped, bringing up his gun, Solo chopped with the side of his hand across the man's throat. The guard slumped with a faint outcry.

It was enough to stop the man ahead. He turned around, his light raking across Bikini's stricken face.

Solo caught up the fallen guard's gun in one hand and threw it at the man running toward him.

The gun caught the guard across the chest, slowing him. Solo sprang toward him, tackling him and carrying him down to the ground under him.

The guard lost his hat. It fell to the ground and as the man rose, Solo saw his eyes were flat, did not focus, the face expressionless.

He remembered Bikini's saying that the man who had delivered the "summons to death" to her father had looked like a mindless robot.

Mindless or not, the man bad been programmed to fight furiously and to kill.

He brought his knee up, sending Solo sprawling beyond him.

Then he stalked Napoleon, gun hefted like a club.

Solo retreated, going into a side turn off the main artery of the canyon. This seemed to be what the guard wanted. He lunged at Solo, swung the rifle, and Napoleon Solo leaped back into the darkness to safety.

He swung again and Solo backed away again. Suddenly though, instinct and the abrupt chill cry of wind warned Solo that he was being driven toward a brink.

Solo flung himself against a boulder, stayed there, timing himself. The guard swung the rifle. At the last instant Solo ducked and the rifle smashed.

Solo sprang upward, catching the guard around the knees, taking him down. They fought on the floor of the narrow gorge, rolling almost to the edge.

Solo caught his breath. The pit yawned, bottomless, narrow, a fault in the rocks. A man's body would stay there forever.

The guard's cold hands closed on Solo's throat. Solo's head hung out over the chasm.

Solo set himself, trying to lever the guard over his head. It was impossible, the silent man was possessed of superhuman strength.

Solo forgot trying to throw the man and concentrated upon staying alive.

Those hands tightened. Solo felt the canyon and the sky changing places. Red stars wheeled and skidded before him.

He swung his legs up as high as he could, caught his shoe. The fingers closed on his throat. He felt consciousness slipping away, felt his body being pressed closer to the precipice edge.