[Magazine 1966-­03] - The Beauty and Beast Affair - Davis Robert Hart (прочитать книгу TXT) 📗

"Oh, Zud, if you wish to take my life, you have merely to order my head upon the block!" Solo said, sweating. "If ever I betrayed you, even in my most uncontrolled dreams, I then would order my own life forfeit—"

"Yes! Yes! We know all this!" Zud shouted him down. "Why else do you think you have lived this long? I'm giving you more than you gave Zouida! A chance to be heard."

"Then hear me, O mighty Sultan! Zouida was a weak man, and not working in our best interests."

"You're saying Zouida was a traitor?" Zud leaped to his full height, and Solo half expected to see lightning bolts flare from his fists. "You'll have to do better than this, Kiell!"

"To my best knowledge, Zouida opposed what my king Zud feels is the best course for our nation."

"You mean that? You mean that Zouida opposed our joining forces with the international THRUSH organization?"

"I mean just that. He would have fought us. Perhaps I was rash. But I thought only of the safety of my ruler."

"Incredible. Incredible," Zud whispered.

"I had proof," Solo, persisted.

Slowly, the giant sank to his throne. He put his head back and glared at the jeweled ceiling, glared through it toward Allah, himself. His lion's eyes filled with tears. For a long time he remained like that. Nobody spoke.

Finally, Zud drew his arm across his lion's face and sat up. He moved his gaze across his ministers. He raged at them: "We will follow my plans. Do you understand? If there is another who opposes me, even in his heart—if he would save his own life, let him speak now, and I will swear to him safe conduct to our borders and a life of exile."

He waited, but nobody moved. Some even appeared to have suspended their breathing.

Zud waved his arm again. He stared at Ordwell and Wanda on their knees against the wall, under the guard of the two secret police officers. "Who are these people, Kiell? Did you bring me the man we must have to satisfy THRUSH's demands on us?"

"Napoleon Solo?" Solo said. "That is Solo." He jerked his head toward Ordwell.

"Have you nothing to say, Solo?" Zud raged.

Solo, as Kiell, spoke mildly. "He cannot at this moment say any thing, O King of Lions. I gave him a nerve-paralyzing injection. It will wear off, but it makes him easier to handle."

Zud nodded. "How about the pretty little girl? Can she speak?"

"She can speak, if she has the courage to do it," Solo said.

Zud shouted. "Come here, girl!"

Solo saw Wanda's trembling half across the room. Piebr prodded her and she stood up, came reluctantly forward and stood beside the throne.

"On your knees, female!" Zud shouted.

"Bow to his mighty person!" Solo raged at Wanda.

She went down on her knees, her black eyes round and stricken with terror.

Zud stared down at her. "Beautiful. Like a rare, exotic orchid from the Orient. What a brilliant addition to my present array of loveliness." He shouted suddenly. "You'd hate that, wouldn't you, girl? Because I'm so ugly. Go on. Say it. My own mother thought me ugly. She taunted me because of my ugliness. From the day when I walked from the cradle, I heard her taunts and her jeering.

"She had three handsome sons—and me, the beast! That's what she called her own son. The beast. She was all the loveliness of paradise on this earth. I wanted just one moment of her love, and she called me her ugly little beast. Well, perhaps I was her ugliest, but I became the greatest. Not even she can deny this!"

"No one of this earth can deny your greatness, O Ruler!" cried the twelve ministers in unison and Solo joined them, belatedly.

He frowned, because he found himself admiring Zud. The goodness inside the Gargantuan man showed through his eyes. He shook his head. He had a job to do. If

Zud was his enemy, he would have to fight him, no matter his secret feelings.

Zud said to Wanda, "I ought to make you my slave. I would teach you to accept me in humility. And when I had taught you that, I could force you to marry me—as I have all my wives. But no, I can see the terror in your face, and I am too tired to care anymore. Too much to do!" He clapped his hands. "We have the other prisoner THRUSH required. Kuryakin is in custody still. Put these two with him!"

Solo bowed, and then stood up. He hesitated because he did not know where to go from here. He sweated. The chief of security would know where a political enemy was imprisoned. He couldn't even ask.

Suddenly at his side, Piebr spoke. "This way, Master. Frun and I will go ahead of you."

"Bless you," Solo said under his breath, and then they retreated from the chamber, bowing.

But even when he was in the splendid corridor, following Piebr along it, he still shivered slightly because he had seen in the last moments, a strange doubting light, dazzlingly bright, in Zud's black eyes.

TWO

ILLYA KURYAKIN sprawled in the sumptuous softness of pillows stuffed with flamingo down. He wore linen robes and fed himself from bowls heaped with grapes, chunks of lamb, onion, peppers, roasted tomatoes, hunks of chicken breast.

He sat up in the high-ceilinged, lavishly appointed room, when suddenly the door opened and Solo entered, followed by Ordwell and Wanda under the guard of Piebr and Frun.

They closed the door and the two secret police stood beside it, guns drawn.

Illya waved his arm. "If you've come to take me out of all this opulence, forget it! I'm just learning how to live."

Wanda cried out, "Oh, Illya!"

She ran to him and hurled her self into his arms. She cried, "Illya! Are you all right?"

"I am now!" he said. "It hasn't always been like this. I might have known they were just dolling me up because we were having guests. On the other hand, I don't care why, just so long as it goes on like this."

Wanda said, her voice pitched warningly, "That's poor Napoleon Solo there—" She gestured toward Ordwell, paralyzed, but conscious of all that was going on.

Solo strode forward in his Kiell mask, raging. "Shut up, girl! How many times have I ordered that you say nothing! Nothing! No matter what happens?"

Wanda gasped, realizing she had spoken again when silence was indicated. She pressed herself close to Illya.

Illya smiled, pleased. "Things are getting better all the time. Maybe I'll start my own harem here."

Wanda subsided, still clinging to him. She watched him and Solo in the Kiell mask, frightened.

Solo walked close He held out the key club card with the code X on it. He said, "I believe this is yours. Your clumsy attempt to reveal a secret to your fellow agents."

Wanda's eyes widened as she saw how quickly Illya understood everything. She saw in his face that it was as if he and the masked Solo had spent three hours in urgent exchange of information.

He said, shrugging, "You won't get anything out of me, Kiell. Or my friend Solo there."

Wanda exhaled. It was as if she was breathing for the first time since she had entered this room.

"Where have they moved the woman evangelist?" Solo asked.

"I don't know anything about her, Kiell," Illya said. "I've been telling you that."

"You worked with her when she first arrived in Zabir!" Solo shouted at him.

"You're wrong! How many times do I to tell you fellows I'm here only because your king invited me? I don't know anything about Ann Nelson Wheat. But I'll tell you what I think, Kiell."