6

Gen. Cooke and Lt. White were in Mr. Waverly's office when one of the agents assigned to review the testimony of Illya's neighbors came in.

"We may have something, sir," she said. "I was looking for Mr. Solo."

'What is it, Miss Took?" Mr. Waverly demanded.

"Well, sir, one of Mr. Kuryakin's neighbors, an elderly woman by the name of Edith Blankenship, told our interviewers that her granddaughter Alice disappeared that same night. Alice had been living with her for about four months, and according to Mrs. Blankenship she had some acquaintance with Mr. Kuryakin."

"Hm." Mr. Waverly fiddled with his pipe, observing the keen interest of the two militayr men with some annoyance. He'd have preferred to learn of this in their absence.

"What does Mrs. ... ah ... Blankenship believe has happened to her granddaughter?" he asked.

Agent Took consulted the file. "She thinks Alice has run off to a commune."

"What?" Gen. Cook barked. Agent Took blinked at him.

"A communal living establishment," she said. "Usually in rural areas, set up by young, anti-establishment types who--"

"I know what a damn' commune is," Gen. Cooke said. "Hippies."

"Where is this commune?" Lt. White asked. After a covert glance at Waverly, she consulted the file again.

"Vermont. Near Clearlake."

Mr. Waverly allowed none of the copious astonishment he was feeling to show. Could it possibly be that Mr. Solo's hunch had some basis in truth?

"Go," Gen. Cooke said to Lt. White. "He could be hiding out at this commune with this girl."

Mr. Waverly protested. "Really, general, I hardly think Mr. Kuryakin has abandoned his home and career to become a ... a counterculture guru sitting in the woods, growing his own carrots and playing the ... sitar."

Gen. Cooke was undaunted. "It's well known that these young antiestablishment brats have communist sympathies. Where the hell do you think they got 'communes' from?" Again he addressed White, who was already at the door. "Take some men. Get up there. See if Kuryakin is there. If he is, get him."

"Yes sir."

Mr. Waverly pulled his pipe from his mouth, said peaceably, "We'd like our man back alive, lieutenant."

White left.

When Lily wheeled her laundry cart into the room, Illya still lay asleep, stretched out stiff atop the blankets.

"Oh, what a mess!" she exclaimed as the guard shut the door behind her.

Illya started awake, glaring at her unseeing for a moment that sent a chill snaking up her spine. Then he blinked, sitting up and gasping in pain, and rolled off the bed to his feet.

"Come on," she mouthed, waving at the laundry cart. She went into the bathroom and grabbed all the towels and clothes there. She came out and started to throw the whole mess into the cart, but he stopped her, then drew her by the wrist to the bed. He pulled down the blankets and gestured. Understanding, she mounded the old laundry, and a spare pillow, into a vaguely human shape, over which he pulled the blankets.

He climbed into the hamper and she collected the soiled bedspread. The scent of chicken soup wafted up to her as she spread the cloth carefully over him. She took a deep breath, pasted a smile on her face, and knocked to be let out.

The guard opened the door and glanced into the hamper.

"He spilled his soup," she stage-whispered, heart slamming against her sternum. She tilted her head toward the bed and the guard looked at the lump thereon.

"Poor man," she said, grinning, amazed that he couldn't hear her heart. "I think he was worn out from my uncle's ... improvement program."

The guard laughed and she wheeled the cart past him.

Thank you, God. Now walk briskly. Not too fast, not too slow. You're just going downstairs to do the laundry. That's all.

In the bottom of the hamper Illya tried to brace himself against the metal frame as the bag jounced from side to side. He could smell chicken soup and a musty, damp, imprecise scent mixed from clean and dirty laundry. The cloth all around him muffled any sound -- or the hallway was simply very quiet.

The hamper stopped. He heard a mechanical grinding sound and when it stopped the cart moved forward, bouncing over a sharp bump, then stopping. The grinding sound began again. Illya realized they were in an elevator even as the car began to descend.

He tried to make himself comfortable without making any obvious movements -- it was possible, despite the silence, that Lily wasn't alone.

The lift jolted to a stop and the doors opened. The cart lurched forward, then stopped.

"Lily."

Every cell in Illya's body went on alert.

"Hello, uncle," Lily answered, her tone blessedly casual. "You've been out?"

"No. I sent one of those musclebound imbeciles to Clearlake for an extra generator and some fuel." A heavy thud shook the elevator. "The lights keep flickering every time I use my machine. I can't see what I'm doing. But he left it in the car. I came down to get it."

"You shouldn't lift that," Lily said. "Let those men do that kind of thing."

Dr. Xavier coughed out a dismissive laugh. "I wouldn't trust them to change a lightbulb. Doing a little laundry?"

Silence. Illya imagined Lily nodding.

"Aren't you going into town for groceries?" he asked.

"In a bit. I wanted to get the laundry started. It can run while I'm gone."

"That cover is from Kuryakin's room," Dr. Xavier said. Illya's blood froze.

Again Lily's voice was a godsend to his nerves. Calm, uninterested, she said, "He spilled soup on it -- see? I wanted to get it started first, since it'll take so long to dry."

Silence. Illya tensed again, ready to strike out if the cover above him moved.

Then the hamper bounced out of the elevator and Dr. Xavier's voice came from farther away:

"Don't forget to pick up the aspirin for me."

"I won't."

Illya heard the elevator door close. The hamper rolled clattering across a stretch of bare floor, swung to one side, veered around a corner and stopped. The blanket was yanked away to reveal Lily's ghost-white face, lit from the side by the light of one naked bulb.

"Come on."

He clambered out of the hamper, one arm pressed against his aching ribs. They were in a small bare laundry room.

"We need to get out of here right now. Something in his eyes...he's suspicious." She peered around the doorframe for a moment. "Come on."

They trotted along a concrete corridor to a garage, lit by a few lamps and containing two late-model sedans and a battered paneled truck.  The garage doors were open, revealing a cloudy, misty night.

Lily went to the nearest car and got in. Illya climbed into the passenger side and ducked down. Lily started the car, pulling out. She drove maddeningly slowly while Illya crouched cold on the floor, listening to the crunch of tires over gravel and the off-kilter cycling of the engine. The gravel noise changed to a softer sound, dirt or asphalt, and the engine coughed as she accelerated.

Illya climbed stiffly up onto the seat. Once his head was above the dash he realized why she was driving so slowly; the road twisted and curved among tall trees pressing close on either side. The headlights penetrated only a little into the curling mists, and there was no other light. Indeed, she was driving a little faster than was safe, but Illya could  neither blame her nor suggest she slow down. The thought of another session in Dr. Xavier's machine made him want to slam his own foot onto the gas pedal.

"I can't believe it," Lily said, her hands white-knuckle-tight on the wheel. Her voice shook. "I can't believe we got away."

"We aren't away yet," he cautioned her. "If your uncle was suspicious he might be after us already. Do you know where we're going, by the way?"

"Vaguely. I've only been to Clearlake once. It's a tiny town at the other end of the lake. About 20 miles. But we can get to the highway from there."

"How long have you been here?"

"Almost two months. My uncle came and got me. He offered to pay for me to go to graduate school if I helped him out here for a few months." She laughed nervously. "I thought he meant as a secretary, you know, or a housekeeper. I don't really know him -- well, I thought I knew him a little, but I suppose I don't know him at all. I thought he was your typical brilliant and slightly odd scientist." She shivered, reached over to turn on the heater.

"Do you know what happened to Alice?" Illya asked. He felt cold himself, nauseated and dizzy.

She glanced at him. "I don't know any Alice."

"She wasn't at the house? A tall blond girl, about your age?"

"There was only me and my uncle and those fine upstanding Harvard graduates with the guns."

Illya wondered. It was possible they'd used Alice, then killed her. It was equally possible she'd been a willing accomplice who'd been paid off and had disappeared after fulfilling her assignment. Yet ... she had been in his apartment building for four months, well before the Bogota case.

"Thank you for helping me," he said. "There is more at stake here than just my life, but on behalf of my life, I thank you."

"Are you really a Russian spy?" she said. "That's what my uncle said."

Illya considered. "I am Russian. And I am a spy, if you wish to call it that."

He stopped and she glanced his way.

"But..." she prompted.

"But I'm not a Russian spy in the sense I think you mean. I work for the UNCLE."

"My uncle said that. But he said it was just a ... a cover. That you were really a traitor. He didn't specify to whom."

"He tried to make me one," Illya said. "To UNCLE."

"I thought spies were ... well, you don't seem like a very violent person."

Illya considered replying that he wasn't violent by choice, but that of course was nonsense. He'd chosen a violent profession -- not for the sake of violence, but because he wanted to make a difference.

"Appearances can be deceptive," he said instead, hunkering down in the seat, both arms crossed over his aching torso. He was anxious to get back home -- more, anxious to get back and make sure Dr. Xavier's procedure had done no permanent damage. Just getting back to UNCLE wouldn't mean he was safe. Anticipating the look on Mr. Waverly's face when he learned what had been attempted, Illya grimaced, sinking even lower in the seat.

Lily glanced over at him. He wasn't dangerous looking, but she remembered the ice of his glare when she'd awakened him, before he'd realized who she was. The look made her think of the way a landslide killed: abstractly, ruthlessly, almost by the way.

"Have you ever killed anyone?" she blurted.

"Do you really want to know?" he said coolly. He wished she'd just drive and let him worry in peace.

"No, but I have a feeling you've just answered me all the same. My uncle is out of his mind, isn't he?"

Illya watched the mist-laced trees flicker past on either side.

"Yes and no. He's not the traditional sort of crazy. He's sane enough to have arranged all this--" He gestured broadly, indicating their situation-- "and to have constructed a truly brilliant, if diabolical, machine. His hatred, though, and his goals ... those are not sane."

The road dipped, then levelled to come out of the trees and run alongside the placid lake.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Sorry I couldn't do more, sooner, to stop him hurting you."

"There's no permanent damage done," Illya said, then wondered why it was so important to him that he make that point. That tiny doubt in the back of his mind -- the one that insisted how would you know if your thoughts had been altered? -- refused to be silenced.

The lake was narrower at this point; Illya could see the old Victorian house on the far shore. "Is that the ... commune?"

"Yes. About a dozen hippies live there. I talked to a couple of them the one time I was in Clearlake. They're nice, but a little out there."

"They might be able to help us," Illya said.

"No phone," Lily replied. "Also nonviolent. They're getting back to nature."

"Ah ... nonviolent nature. I'd forgotten about that," Illya muttered sourly.

"I think there's a car behind us," Lily said, voice parched with sudden fear.

Illya turned to peer into the darkness behind them. Headlights flashed into view for a moment before disappearing as they rounded another curve.

"I think you're right," he said.

"What should we do?"

"Keep on. What else?"

"Maybe it's not ... him," she said, accelerating. Illya, yanked back against the seat, said, "Obviously your foot does not believe that."

"The rest of me has its doubts too," she said, leaning forward, intent on the dark, fog-shrouded road.

"Maybe I should drive," Illya suggested.

She shot him a glance. "You want me to pull over?"

"Never mind." He looked back again. "We may be outrunning them."

They rounded another tight curve, the road skirting right along the lakeshore -- and a car stood crosswise on the road ahead.

Lily shrieked and yanked the wheel hard, stomping on the brake. The car skidded and ran bouncing off the road, thumping to a jarring halt 10 feet from the dark waters of the lake. The sudden stop flung both of them against the dash. Before they could recover breath or balance, both car doors were jerked open and they were hauled out, dragged before Dr. Xavier.

In the moonlight his face was ghastly, more menacing than the rifles cradled in the brawny arms of the men who flanked him.

Illya could feel Lily trembling beside him. Dr. Xavier regarded them. In the quiet, Illya heard their erstwhile getaway car still running.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Lily," Dr. Xavier said. Illya expected Lily to offer some excuse, perhaps to claim she'd been forced. She said nothing. He realized, looking at her, that she was too frightened to speak.

"I made her do it," Illya put in quickly, doubting it would help.

Dr. Xavier laughed. "No you didn't. And it wouldn't matter if you had. Take him to my car. I think it's time for another treatment."

Ice splintered in lllya's gut.

"No!" Lily cried.

"Put my niece back in the car," Dr. Xavier ordered. "Run it into the lake."

White as a scream, Lily sagged in the grip of the man holding her. He dragged her bodily to the still-running car.

Illya twisted free of his captor, darted toward Lily. The crack of rifle fire pierced the quiet. The bullet slammed into his leg, wrenching him to the ground. He curled inward, clenched in agony.

He was lifted by two men and carried away, away from Lily's screams, away from the sound of the running engine. A car door opened and he was dragged onto a seat, pushed upright. Men got in on either side of him and the doors closed. Illya clutched his leg, gasping for calm, feeling the hot blood running over his hands.

Dr. Xavier got in the front and turned.

"It's too bad. If she'd just gone on her own, I'd have let her go. As it is ..."

Illya growled a curse and dove for the door; the guards grabbed him, jerking him back into the seat. He strained to see, but could only discern black sky and treetops from this angle. After a minute or two the last two men returned, climbing into the front on either side of Dr. Xavier.

"Is it done?" he asked.

"Yes sir," one of the men said. The other started the car.

"Good. Let's get back. I have work to do."

Illya, hands sticky with his own blood, bent double over his throbbing leg, burning inside with frustrated rage. Beneath that rage pooled the cold fear of what awaited him in Dr. Xavier's machine.