Pulp Fiction | The Invisibility Affair by Thomas Stratton Read online

  He didn't quite make it. The right fender smashed solidly into the left front of the other car, skidding it sideways against a sturdy metal post holding up a stop sign. "There goes our deposit," muttered Illya as the rear end of the rented car skidded violently through a section of wire fence, taking out one of the steel fence posts on the way.

  Napoleon had grabbed for his gun when the other car appeared, but before he could use it, his head bounced off the windshield, leaving a network of hairline cracks in the glass. His vision blurred, his ears rang, and he discovered that shaking his head to clear it was a definite mistake. Looking up, he saw several identical blurred figures standing by the car door. Another painful shake of his head resolved the images into one large man in a dark suit, green shirt and orange tie, pointing an enormous old Mauser automatic pistol at Napoleon's head. A second later, the door was open and he had been plucked from his seat and deposited on his feet in the road. Staring at the shirt and tie hurt his eyes; he looked around for something less clashing.

  "Step around to the front of the car, gentlemen. That's right; stand together where I can keep an eye on both of you."

  The speaker was a young man, wearing a conservative suit and a bright shiny expression. Any Hollywood producer would have immediately cast him as the Rising Young Executive. Only the Walther P-38 in his hand—a weapon basically similar to the U.N.C.L.E. Specials carried by Napoleon and Illya—seemed incongruous. He turned to the large man.

  "Take a look at our car, Andy' I don't like the looks of that puddle under the radiator."

  Andy, after a struggle, got the hood of the other car up, peered into the interior, and shook his head. "No good, boss. We ain't gonna run this heap till she sees a garage."

  "Too bad. Well, take a look at the other car; perhaps we can commandeer it. Andy," he added in an aside to Napoleon and Illya, has his faults, but he's the best mechanic I've ever met."

  "One of his faults would seem to be an addiction to old gangster movies," said Napoleon. "I didn't know you could buy suits like that anymore."

  After several minutes' effort, Andy announced that Solo's rented car was operable. "But she ain't gonna go far; I just hope she holds together till we get where we're goin'."

  Under the direction of the smaller man, Andy produced a coil of rope from the defunct sedan and trussed up the two U.N.C.L.E. agents. After they had been thoroughly tied, the smaller man went through their pockets with brisk efficiency, removing weapons, communicators, and identification cards. His eyebrows raised as he glanced at the latter.

  "Solo and Kuryakin, eh? This is interesting; we knew U.N.C.L.E. was sending agents to investigate, but we hadn't realized your organization considered the situation serious enough to call on the Dynamic Duo. If I'd known who it was, I'd have arranged a more ingenious trap. Still, simplicity has its advantages."

  When he received no comment, he smiled. "Incidentally, my name is McNulty—Arpad McNulty, at your service. Now then, Andy, I think the best thing is for you to dump them in the trunk, where they'll be out of sight. And I suppose you had better gag them; I hate to hear grown men screaming for help."

  "Right, boss," Andy replied. "Anyway, we'll need all the weight we can get on them back wheels to get outta that ditch."

  The two agents were unceremoniously crammed into the trunk. Together, Andy and McNulty were able to force the trunk lid down.

  Chapter 3

  "Which One of Us Gets His Wrists Greased?"

  To Solo and Illya, the next few minutes were torture. The lurching and bumping occasioned by the car's lengthy escape from the ditch made them both wonder how, as tightly packed as they were, they could bump into so many things. When the motion finally settled down, Napoleon's bound hands touched Illya's gag. He promptly went to work on it and soon had it off. Another lurch of the car and Napoleon became painfully aware that his head was against the spare tire. After a minute of deliberate scraping, his gag was displaced enough to allow comprehensible speech. Attempts to free their hands weren't as successful; it seemed that Andy was an expert with ropes as well as cars.

  "If we'd gotten rid of that blasted margarine," Illya grumbled, "we'd have a little more room back here..." His voice trailed off as his mental gears whirred. "Napoleon, can you squirm around enough to get your hands on that margarine?"

  "Maybe, if you can manage to give me a couple more cubic feet to maneuver in. Why?"

  "See if you can get an individual package out. Maybe together we can get it unwrapped, and..."

  Napoleon grinned in the dark. "I see. Which one of us gets his wrists greased?"

  With Illya crouched as far as possible into a corner of the trunk, Napoleon had room enough to unwrap himself from around the spare tire. He butted his head against the back wall of the trunk, got his knees under him with his back braced against the trunk lid, then fell over on his side. With his back and bound hands toward the tire and the margarine. The impact of the fall bounced the car on its springs, and the rough mat on the trunk floor ground into Napoleon's right ear. Straining his arms upward, he grasped the top edge of the carton, and pulled down and forward. The carton tilted, scattering individual packages in all directions. Napoleon wrapped his fingers around one of the packages and managed to turn over to get his back to Illya. In coming down, he squashed at least one of the errant packages. The two agents ripped the package apart and Napoleon took one of the quarter-pound sticks. After a futile minute spent trying to unwrap it, he worked his hands around until they held the stick above Illya's bound wrists, and squeezed.

  "You have never lived," he announced, "until you've squashed a quarter-pound stick of margarine in your bare hands." He smeared Illya's wrists and hands, not to mention his shirt, the ropes, and the trunk floor.

  "Good," said Illya. "Now try to get a grip on the rope." Getting a hold on the greasy rope was no easy task, but after some minutes Illya's wrists slipped through the coils, leaving some skin behind. He immediately assaulted Napoleon's bonds and had just completed the last knot when the beeping of Napoleon's communicator reached them from the interior of the car.

  "Solo here," they heard McNulty say in a passable imitation of Napoleon's voice. The voice of Mr. Waverly was recognizable, but they were unable to make out any of the words. After a few seconds, McNulty said, "Thank you, sir. We'll get right over to talk to her. Solo out." Moments later he was speaking again, apparently into a Thrush communicator. "Her name is Kerry Griffin," he said, and gave an address in the 4,000 block of Farwell Street in Milwaukee. "You get out there and pick her up. We'll deliver these two."

  "Mr. Waverly must have given them the information we asked for about the girl. We'd better get out of here fast if we want to talk to her." Napoleon began squirming around in the trunk. "Let's see if we can unlatch the trunk from the inside. As I recall, this model is fairly easy to open." A minute later he muttered, "Well, in the daylight it looked easy."

  The latch finally clicked back. "How's your good right arm, Illya?" Napoleon asked. "Are you up to pitching into a strong headwind?"

  "Wait a second," Illya cautioned him. "I want to yank these wires and kill the tail-lights before that lid goes up."

  The wires ripped loose and Napoleon eased the trunk lid open a crack. By now it was too dark to see much, but they could tell they were still on a secondary road; the tar surface whipped by inches from their faces.

  "You hold the lid down to keep it from springing all the way up," Illya said after a few seconds, "and get a grip on me too. I don't want to get bounced out." He rolled up his coat and placed it across the sharp edge of the trunk, unwrapped several sticks of margarine and laid them on his stomach as he straightened out, face up, his feet touching the back of the trunk, his head and shoulders extending past the edge of the partially raised lid. Napoleon raised his legs and lowered them over Illya's, bracing his feet against the spare tire. Locating the rest of the margarine, he began unwrapping it.

  Illya picked up one of the margarine sticks from his stomach,
squeezed it until it was good and soft, and hurled it over the top of the car. Picking up a second stick, he repeated the process. A splat and a sudden swerve of the car indicated that the second throw had been successful. He quickly hurled some more sticks, with Napoleon replenishing his supply as he needed it.

  "I think that did it," Napoleon said. "They're slowing down. The moment they stop, we take them. I'll get the driver; you take the other one." Both agents armed themselves with as much margarine as they could conveniently hold.

  Even before the car rocked to a complete stop, the two agents slithered out of the trunk, one on each side of the car. Almost in the same instant, both car doors opened and the Thrush agents leaped out. Napoleon and Illya launched themselves around the corners of the car, hurling the sticks of margarine as they came.

  McNulty, gun ready, had whirled to face possible trouble from his passengers. Before he could fire, he got a partly melted ball of margarine in the eyes, and Illya was on top of him before he could see exactly what was going on. Andy, more intent on examining the substance which had mysteriously appeared on his windshield, took a margarine stick in the back of his head and then Napoleon was on him, thrusting a soggy mass of it into his face before he could turn. Blinded, the Thrush agents were no match for Solo and Kuryakin.

  The two U.N.C.L.E. agents retrieved their guns and communicators from their captors. While Illya reached into the back seat of the car and picked up his briefcase, Napoleon called Mr. Waverly.

  "Yes, Mr. Solo," came the voice from the tiny instrument. "You've been to see the girl already?"

  "I'm afraid not, sir. That wasn't me you were talking to a few minutes ago; it was a Thrush agent who says his name is Arpad McNulty. You might send us a dossier on him. He's now our prisoner, but he relayed the girl's name and address to someone else, and Thrush agents are on their way to pick her up now. We're too far away; you'd better have someone from Milwaukee headquarters get to her house immediately."

  "Very well, Mr. Solo; hold on a minute."

  Meanwhile, Illya had extracted a small spray hypodermic from the briefcase and was pressing it against the neck of each Thrush agent in turn. "That should hold them for a few hours," he said.

  "Mr. Solo," the communicator rang out. "The Milwaukee branch will have someone at the girl's home in five minutes. I told them to wait for you there."

  Illya leaned over the communicator. "Have them bring some fresh clothes for both of us. Ours are turning yellow."

  "Yellow, Mr. Kuryakin?" Some new Thrush device?"

  "No sir," Napoleon replied. "We've been dealing intimately with some smuggled margarine."

  "Well, well"—Mr. Waverly sounded mildly impatient—"be sure to put it all in your report. At present, however, I believe you had best make for Miss Griffin's home at your best speed. I'll be waiting for another report from you after you have arrived."

  Napoleon and Illya hauled the two unconscious Thrush agents into the trunk they had so recently vacated themselves. Napoleon pulled off Andy's jacket and started around to the front of the car. "See if you can at least get a couple of those wires connected," he suggested. "We're in no condition to be picked up by the local gendarmes, with Thrush agents unconscious in the remains of a case of smuggled margarine. I'll clean off the windshield and try to find a map."

  Minutes later, Illya slid into the seat beside Napoleon, who was studying a map spread across the steering wheel. "This won't be much good until we find a road sign." Napoleon said, handing the unfolded map to Illya and starting the engine. "We might as well go ahead; presumably they were taking us somewhere in Milwaukee anyway."

  "Unless they're part of the Chicago satrapy," murmured Illya.

  * * *

  Almost an hour after they started, Napoleon and Illya pulled up in the 4,000 block of North Farwell. The proximity of Lake Michigan was making itself felt, for the temperature had drooped noticeably in the last few minutes, and the margarine had begun to stiffen on their clothes. They got out of the car and walked down the tree-lined street, watching for the address. It turned out to be a two-story building, apparently divided into upper and lower apartments. As they approached the front door, a man leaped from behind a large tree between the sidewalk and street. Leveling an automatic at them, he said, "Hold it! Where do you think you're going?"

  A second man stepped from around the corner of the house and came forward. He pocketed his gun and started to frisk the two agents, but stopped after a second, a distasteful expression crossing his face. "It's okay, Sam," he said, reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe the margarine from his hands; "these are our men, the ones we brought the fresh clothes for."

  "Does she know what's going on?" Napoleon asked.

  "As much as we do, which isn't much. Mr. Waverly just said we were to get to the girl before Thrush did, and bring some clothes for you. The clothes are inside. They ought to fit; Mr. Waverly gave us your sizes. Funny thing—he didn't even have to look them up."

  "Good," Napoleon said. "While Illya and I change, would one of you take our car—it's the one with the crumpled fender and the margarine on the windshield—and deliver it to your local headquarters? There are two Thrush agents sleeping in the trunk, and we should get them to a safe place before the drug wears off."

  Illya and Napoleon walked to the house, opened the door and stepped into a small entryway. To the left a man and woman sat, ill at ease, in a small living room. As they rose Napoleon and Illya introduced themselves but avoided shaking hands.

  "I'm Don Brattner, of the local U.N.C.L.E. headquarters," the man said. "This is Kerry Griffin. There's no one else in the house; she lives alone here." Napoleon studied the girl. She was tall, with a figure which was shown off spectacularly by the green knitted dress she wore. Her hair, a deep auburn, fell loosely almost to her shoulders. Green eyes studied the U.N.C.L.E. agents appraisingly. Napoleon was uncomfortably aware of his disheveled clothing, smudged face and margarine coating.

  "How do you do, Miss Griffin?" he said, and turned to Brattner. "I understand there are fresh clothes for us here."

  "Of course," the girl broke in. "The garments procured for your utilization have been given temporary storage space in the sleep module reserved for non-residents. Cleansing facilities are also available in an immediately adjacent area." She motioned toward a door halfway down the hall.

  Napoleon blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

  Illya stated down the hall, gesturing for Napoleon to follow. "She said the clothes are in the guest bedroom and there's a bath next to it. Come on." Napoleon continued to watch Kerry until she nodded agreement to Illya's translation, then followed Illya to the sleep module.

  They had just started to remove their greasy clothing when Brattner stepped into the room. "Didn't you say there were two Thrush agents in the trunk of your car?" he asked.

  "Yes," answered Napoleon.

  "Well, they're not there now. Smith checked the trunk before driving the car down to headquarters, and there was nobody in it."

  Napoleon and Illya looked at one another. "The anesthetic must have worn off early," Napoleon said. "Are you sure you gave them both a full charge?"

  Illya opened his briefcase, picked up the offending hypospray, and looked at it, frowning. "This isn't a standard unit," he remarked after a moment's inspection. "According to the label, it's loaded with something called M-27. Do you know anything about the powers of M-27, Napoleon?"

  Solo shook his head. "I've never heard of it before. Evidently its powers don't include sustained unconsciousness, however. It must be something Chicago supplied; I don't think Thrush tampered with our briefcase. I'll ask Mr. Waverly when I make the next report."

  Illya shrugged. "There doesn't seem to be much we can do about the escape now. You might arrange to get the car back to the rental agency; considering what it's been through, you'd better assign your most diplomatic agent to the job."

  "And have someone contact Charlie Reed," Napoleon added. "He's probably wondering
what became of his margarine. Tell him it was destroyed in action, and we'll arrange for the Chicago branch to get him some more."

  Brattner nodded and left the agents to their bath.

  Returning to the living room several minutes later, Napoleon felt more assured in a clean white shirt and fresh suit. "Now we can get down to business, Miss Griffin," he said. "We understand that you were a frequent visitor at the home of Dr. Morthley outside Mukwonago a few weeks ago."

  "Not precisely a visitor, Mr. Solo," she replied. "I was working for him."

  "Working?" Napoleon sat down on a couch facing her.

  "Yes. I'm a technical writer, and..." She paused, her face slightly flushed. "I must apologize for before. It's only that I'm so used to writing technical literature for government consumption. When I get flustered—and you people are enough to fluster anyone—I'm afraid I tend to lapse into rather unfortunate forms of phraseology and terminology." She broke off again and smiled slightly. "Like that."

  "That's quite all right," Napoleon reassured her, relieved to discover that she occasionally spoke English. "By the way, may I call you Kerry?"

  "Please do," she replied. "I've always favored informal nomenclature whenever its use is practicable."

  "You started to say you worked for Dr. Morthley?" Illya asked patiently.

  She looked up at him. "Yes. He needed someone to help him prepare a proposal to submit to the government. He thought he had a revolutionary discovery, but to properly develop the potential he need financial assistance."

  "What kind of invention? And why do you say he thought he had a discovery?"