[Magazine 1966-­09] - The Brainwash Affair - Davis Robert Hart (лучшие книги читать онлайн бесплатно без регистрации txt) 📗

"An atomic misfire," Solo whispered.

"Obviously I survived," Dr. Maunchaun said. "Without nurturing any deeper affection for your people and their goals."

"You always hated on a fantastic scale," Solo said, remembering.

"Perhaps you thought you knew me when I hated. But I had barely learned its nuances at that time, my old enemy." He stared through them at something in the middle distance. "I was born to hatred. I saw my sisters slain because there was not food for female children in my land. I saw starvation.

"I was the youngest of ten surviving children, subsisting on a plot of ground barely thirty square yards. People of my kind learn to live with hatred, or to die of despair. I lived. I persisted. I bought myself—at prices you would never understand—the wisdom of the ages, all the knowledge I would need to buy myself away from the land I hated."

"Only to find yourself meeting people you hated," Solo said it for him.

Dr. Maunchaun gazed at him unblinking. "Ah, yes, we've met before, Mr. Solo. But your partner, we've not met."

"Only in my nightmares," Illya said mildly.

"I'm sure you learned to hate Mr. Kuryakin without needing to know him," Solo said in irony.

Dr. Maunchaun waved his reed-like hand imperiously, dispensing with the preliminaries. He said, abruptly. "Which of you is doing it?"

They gazed at him blankly, as if they did not know he meant the bleep-broadcast signals.

The doctor's voice tautened. "I've been occupied this past hour or I would know unerringly which of you is the culprit. It does not matter. You will suffer equally for this crime."

They remained silent, watching

Dr. Maunchaun gazed at them a moment almost pityingly. Then he pressed a button on the table edge. A scientist in white smock appeared from a side room almost immediately. He carried an oblong sound-detector.

He walked close to where Illya and Solo stood. He passed the oblong before them, its thin antennae trembling.

He reached out, removed the cylinder from Illya's lapel. The expression on his face did not alter. He placed the small object on the table before the doctor.

Maunchaun looked at it but did not touch it. "No doubt made in Japan," he said in contempt.

"It upset your laundry cart," Illya said.

Maunchaun met his gaze for a moment, then shrugged his thin shoulders in his immaculate silk jacket. He pressed another button. "I remind you, there are guns trained on you from the walls."

Illya shrugged.

Maunchaun paused, then as if making a decision, he nodded toward the white-smocked scientist.

The man set the detector down.

From an inside pocket he with drew two small vials. Then he placed goggles and an oxygen mask over his face. He came slowly to Illya and Solo.

He broke the vials with the pres sure of his thumb and extended them toward the faces, of the two young agents.

There was no smoke, nothing they could see, a faint acrid odor, this was all. The scientist retreated. He removed his mask. He glanced toward Dr. Maunchaun and when he nodded, the scientist withdrew from the room.

Illya and Solo could not move, found they could not speak, though they remained conscious, aware of everything around them.

"No sense gambling with your foolhardy notions of courage," Dr. Maunchaun said.

He pressed another button be fore him. Almost at once, the corridor opened and Lester Caillou entered. Except that Illya saw this was not the real Caillou. This man, the ringer they'd substituted for the internationally known banker, paused, wincing slightly when he saw Illya.

"It's all right," Maunchaun said to the ringer. "Everything is all right. These are the agents who saved your life, some years ago in the Middle East. I'm sure you won't forget them again."

"No," said the false Caillou.

A knock at the door. Maunchaun pressed a button, the doors parted. A servant entered.

"Lieutenant David of the Paris Police, Doctor," he said.

The police lieutenant entered, paused, momentarily stunned at the opulence of the suite.

Maunchaun nodded almost imperceptibly at the false Caillou, and he spoke as if obeying a signal. "Come in, Lieutenant." His voice was gracious, perfect in its imitation of the real Caillou. "This is my house guest, Dr. Lee Maunchaun, a psychiatrist, and a leading financial expert."

The police officer bowed, awed. Dr. Maunchaun merely inclined his head, without speaking.

The lieutenant, a slender, dark man, nervous and out of his depth, said, "We've been picking up these signals. We traced them here to your chateau, M'sieur Caillou."

The false Caillou nodded graciously and smiled. "It was only a short in our closed-circuit television." He waved his hand with studied negligence toward the bank of screens on the wall.

The police officer stared in awe. "How ingenious."

"Yes," the false Caillou said. "Protection against intrusion. As a matter of fact, these two prowlers—" he inclined his head toward Solo and Illya—"caused the short in the television sender."

"Prowlers?" The lieutenant straightened. This he understood. "Shall I arrest them, M'sieur Caillou?"

Caillou shook his head. "We have our own secret police to handle these matters, Lieutenant. A matter of security, you understand? We'll deal with them quietly. We have so much panic just now because of these money matters all over the world—we want no notoriety. You understand?"

Dr. Maunchaun insisted upon presenting the lieutenant with a rare Oriental box, filled with gold pieces, and then the police officer was gone. The police cars roared out of the drive.

Maunchaun gazed up at Illya and Solo in chilled triumph. Then he reached out, snapped the small signal cylinder between his fingers.

He pressed a button. When two guards entered, he ordered them to search the prisoners. The agents watched all their identification removed.

The effects of the colorless gas dissipated. Solo gazed at the false Caillou. "So you passed another test, eh? You fooled all Caillou's friends and associates this afternoon?"

Caillou merely straightened, did not reply.

Dr. Maunchaun could not resist boasting. He said, "Ah, no. Our friend here stayed discreetly out of sighs. The real Lester Caillou himself entertained his friends, said what we wished him to say, did what we wished him to do."

He smiled. "After being so pleasantly and temporarily paralyzed as you were, surely you find it easy to believe I can control the mind of a man like your old friend Caillou? Ah, he was present—the precious, perfect host—present in body at least. Only his mind has been kidnapped, Mr. Solo."

Solo stared silently at the parchment face, the sharp-honed features, black eyes, not daring to doubt any boast the doctor made.

Maunchaun smiled faintly. "Perhaps it is vanity, Solo, the need to demonstrate that I, the son of lowest peasants, have accomplished almost everything I set out to do. Or maybe it is because you defeated me once, when we met earlier, thinking even you left me for dead in an atomic misfire. I want you to see you have no hope of stopping me this time. I shall control international finance—"

"You and THRUSH," Illya said.

The enigmatic smile widened slightly. It was almost as if the doctor said it aloud. He would cross the THRUSH bridge when he reached it.

Maunchaun pressed a button. He sank back then, sitting almost as if he were asleep, his eyes hooded like a cobra's.

Presently the corridor door opened. Marie entered, carrying a machine pistol. The real Lester Caillou walked past her.