[Magazine 1967-­12] - The Pillars of Salt Affair - Пронзини Билл (электронные книги без регистрации TXT) 📗

"Perhaps the message you found on the man in Oregon holds the answer to that," Waverly said.

"Has it been decoded yet?" Solo asked.

"I am expecting a report presently," Waverly said. "When it arrives, we shall know better how we stand."

The report arrived shortly before four o'clock U.N.C.L.E. cryptographers, highly-skilled in their field, had finally managed to break what was to them a new and intricate THRUSH code. The message contained only two words, nothing more. But those two words were exactly the starting point Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin needed.

The message said: Teclaxican, Mexico.

A geographical map revealed that Teclaxican was a tiny Indian village several miles inland from the Western Coast of Mexico, in the state of Oaxaca. It also revealed that a lake in the mountains nearby served as the sole source of water for the village, and that there was but a single unpaved road leading up to it.

Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin were aboard an U.N.C.L.E. jet bound for Mexico a little more than an hour later.

TWO

Napoleon Solo decided he had pneumonia.

He sat next to Illya Kuryakin on the rear seat of a battered and chilly gray sedan that rattled and bumped its way across a pitted back road in Southern Mexico. Outside a light drizzle fell on the flat countryside. Ahead of them, in the distance, were low foothills that blended into a mountain range, and the village of Teclaxican.

Solo sat hugging himself. He was miserable. The cold he had contracted in Oregon had grown progressively worse. His eyes were red-rimmed and his nose was running. Naturally, the heater in the sedan did not work. He was in foul humor.

They had arrived in the capital city of Oaxaca late the previous evening, too late for them to leave for Teclaxican. A Section V man from the U.N.C.L.E. office in Acapulco had driven down to meet them at the airport, and had arranged their accommodations for the night.

The driver of the sedan was a short Mexican named Diego Santiago y Vasquez, who sported a thick, brick-red mustache and had heavy wrinkled jowls. He reminded Solo of a tanned walrus. He had informed them that morning when he had called for them at their hotel that he was the finest guide, the safest driver, ad the most dependable man to be found anywhere in Mexico.

During the hour they had been on the road now, he had kept up a constant chatter in passable English, extolling the virtues of the landscape through which they were passing, and accenting his dialogue liberally with anecdotes and obscure historical facts. Solo decided he would very much like to strangle the Section V man from Acapulco who had arranged for Diego Santiago y Vasquez to act as their guide.

"Off to your left, senors," Diego Santiago said from the front seat, "is the famous burial ground of the Zapotec Indian warriors, many of whom were slain by Aztecs who invaded their domain in the year—"

"Excuse my," Illya said, interrupting. "How much further is it to Teclaxican?"

"No more than ten miles now, senor," Diego Santiago said, and continued with his history of the invading Aztec hordes.

Illya sighed and looked across at Solo. A small smile played at the corners of his mouth. "How's your cold, Napoleon?" he asked innocently.

Solo glared at him.

"Have you been taking your pills?" Illya asked.

"Yes." Solo said with obvious effort. "I have taken my red and yellow pill, and I have taken my orange and black pill. Very soon now I am going to take my little pink pill."

Illya clucked his tongue patronizingly. Solo decided he would strangle him instead of the Section V man from Acapulco.

"In the foothills to the north senors," Diego Santiago y Vasquez was telling them "is a waterfall of such full-blown magnificence that your breath will catch in your throat at the very sight of it. You must be sure to take many colored pictures of it for it is rarely that—"

Solo cracked his head against the side window. The front wheel of the sedan had hit a chuck hole in the road, lurching violently, since Diego Santiago had taken his hands off of the wheel to punctuate his description of the waterfall with elaborate gestures.

Solo closed his eyes and wished blackly that some fine miracle would suddenly strike Diego Santiago y Vasquez most welcomingly mute.

THREE

They arrived in Teclaxican a half hour later.

The rain had stopped now, and there were patches of blue sky intermingled with the heavy black clouds overhead. It had already begun to warm noticeably, much to Napoleon Solo's pleasure.

Teclaxican itself was larger than they had expected it to be. It lay at the base of the foothills—several blocks of wooden buildings which included a sprawling, unornamented hotel, several cantinas and a high-steepled little church at the northern end.

The main street was unpaved, packed red adobe. Puddles of water from the rain dotted its expanse. In front of the church lay a grassy square where the street branched to circle back upon itself around the square.

They had passed through a small cluster of huts outside Teclaxican to the west, each having well-tended vegetable gardens and livestock pens. Diego Santiago y Vasquez explained that these were where the Zapotec Indians, indigenous to the region lived.

Off to their right, when they reached the outskirts of Teclaxican was an open market. Dark-skinned Indians hurried about, now that the rain had ended, setting up long and heaping rows of green Mexican lemons the size of American oranges, green zapotes and black chirimoyas, onions, garlic, hemp rope and countless other articles.

They drove along the adobe street, crawling past thick groups of Indians and laden burrows, they stopped before the single hotel.

Solo and Illya got out gratefully. Solo stood in a patch of sunlight, wondering how long you had to spend in the hospital when you had pneumonia. Diego Santiago opened the trunk and began to unload their luggage and the cases of photographic equipment which was part of their cover there and which had been furnished by the Section V man from Acapulco. They were posing as a writer photographer team from Travelogue Magazine, in the area to do a series of pictorial articles.

When everything had been gathered, they went inside. A reservation had been made for them and the clerk at the desk, apparently highly impressed by the presence of such distinguished guests, informed them happily that they had been given the finest room in the hotel. A dwarf-sized Indian who oddly resembled a fiddler crab carried their luggage upstairs after they registered.

The finest room in the hotel turned out to be a two-room affair of dubious Spanish design on the third and top floor, complete with a fine view of two banana palms, above which could be seen the foothills in the distance. It contained several heavy, varnished wood pieces of mis-matched furniture, two unsafe-looking canopied beds and plumbing which was reminiscent of Queen Victoria's idea of the proper bath.

After they had unpacked, Solo debated going to bed to nurse his imagined pneumonia, decided against it for obvious reasons and took two cold capsules of U.N.C.L.E. manufacture instead. The capsules, he had been assured, were absolutely fool-proof. He did not believe it for a minute.

Illya Kuryakin ran water from the tap in the bathroom and tasted it, remembering not to drink any. All drinking water in this part of Mexico had to be boiled first. The tap water tasted singularly bad, but there seemed to be no traces of salt.

"It seems THRUSH haven't begun their experiments here as yet," Illya said to Solo.

Solo nodded glumly. "We better look at the lake this afternoon."