19 - The Power Cube Affair Read Free

longer unless you hold still."
    "You've forgotten." Guard's voice was a thread but quite steady. "Mirror image!" And Solo swore under his breath, for now he remembered that John Guard was one of those odd people who carry their heart and internal organs in reverse, right side instead of left.
    "All right, but just the same you've lost plenty of blood. Whatever happened, it can wait until the wagon gets here."
    "I can talk," Guard insisted. "Must tell you—" He broke off as Kuryakin appeared in the doorway.
    "There'll be an ambulance here in ten minutes, Napoleon. What—?"
    He came to crouch and listen as Guard told them, briefly but omitting nothing, exactly what had happened. "I don't know what Green did after he shot me, of course, but if he left that tape I'd like you to handle it, Napoleon. Find out what's behind it." Guard looked rigid with inner rage and thin as his voice was, it held inflexible purpose. "I'm also interested in the criminal idiots who sent a girl like that into the hands of such murderous thugs."
    "Got the tape." Kuryakin came back from the bathroom. "And here comes the ambulance. I think you must have had an accident while you were cleaning your shotgun, eh?"
    Guard smiled. "That will do very well," he whispered, "until I'm fit enough to let the real story come out, where it will do the most good."
    The two agents, quiet and thoughtful, rode in the ambulance with him to the nearby hospital. They waited silently outside the operating room until the duty surgeon came to make a report.
    "Your friend is an extremely fortunate man," he said. "There's surprisingly little real damage. Considerable hemorrhage, of course, but it was only dust shot. That, and skin erosion, and shock."
    "How long before you can let him out, Doe?"
    "Well now, he's an extremely fit man, tremendous vitality. He should be up and about in, say, eight or nine weeks."
    "I see. Can we talk to him now?"
    "Only for a few minutes. He needs rest and time to make good the loss of blood. Don't excite him."
    Guard was startlingly brown against the white sheets. His tiger amber eyes fastened on Solo as the two men came to stand by the bed.
    "I've no right to ask you," he said. "You have your own work, and this is nothing to do with U.N.C.L.E., but I would like to be kept informed."
    "Forget that," Solo ordered. "This is personal, and we're on vacation anyway. We'll look into it, you can bet on that. But you're going to be laid up for a couple of months, and these boys may get away in that time. I wouldn't like that. At all. Show him the paper, Illya."
    There was a large portrait on the front page, and over it, in screamer headlines: ANOTHER BATTLE OF HASTINGS! The editorial matter went on in rich prose to describe a large scale riot that had taken place on the beach and promenade at Hastings, just a few miles along the coast, at about midnight. Gangs of leather coated motorcyclists had descended on the seaside town, smashing and wrecking with a fine disregard for others, until a squad of police had come in haste to drive them away. In counting up the damage they had found the body of a young girl, floating in the surf. So far, it said, she was unidentified. Guard took one look and his eyes burned.
    "That's her. That's Mary Chantry."
    "And that's one way to get away with bloody murder," Solo muttered.
    Guard shut his eyes in thought. "I can't ask you to step in. It isn't any of your business, and these people play rough, as you've seen."
    "Somehow," said Kuryakin, "I don't fancy the idea of just idling around while this kind of thing goes on. I'd like a word or two with Mr. Green."
    "So would I. And his boss." Solo laid the newspaper aside. "We'll keep in touch, John. Just you concentrate on getting well."
     
     
    TWO
     
     
    ON THE Thames Embankment, not far from New Scotland Yard, stands the venerable old graystone building which houses the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, British Sector. Even to the well informed eye it looks