"If my Uncle Abel isn't at his apartment, then he has to be at the old farmhouse he leased a few weeks ago. It's out in the country on a deserted side road. I saw it once. He said we could settle there if things worked out, and make it nice, and live there. But –" She clapped her hands to her head as though trying to clear it. "I don't know if I can explain how to get there! I'm not good at maps and things."
Waverly's voice entered calmly. "Can you point the way?"
Math sighed and nodded yes, resigned to the ultimate betrayal.
Waverly was all tense action beneath his tweed suit. "Mr. Kuryakin, order an assault team. Meet us in the garage as soon as you can."
Illya, new blood rushing through him, took off the sling and flung it on the table. "We're already there, Mr. Waverly," he said and sprinted for the door.
Alone and helpless in the blackness of the blindfold, Napoleon Solo edged away from the kitchen door and crept on into the dining room of the old house. "Through the dining room, through the parlor, and out the front door," he told himself, making it a command. He inched along, a half-step at a time, using his feet to feel the way. He bumped into something, felt along it with his shoe, and sidestepped it. What was the shape of the room? Long and narrow? Square? He couldn't know.
Another step, and he banged shakily into an over stuffed chair. There was an ache in him just to sit down and be finished with the whole thing. It was tempting. He sighed and continued on his way, wondering where the defeatist attitude had sprung from. He had never harbored it before. Adams was right. There was a special, unexpected terror in this business that clawed at his will and ate up his courage.
He felt along the edge of the chair until he could safely take a step. He took it and ran straight into some thing else that banged at his shin and almost threw him down. As he struggled for balance in the dark, getting his feet under him, he moved unwittingly to the right and his right leg was bitten by a stiletto. It sank into his calf, and he froze.
He tried to bend and get his hands on the thing, but the rope about his throat caught him short in another spasm of coughing. He stood straight. He'd have to handle this one as he had the other. With a quick move to the left, he jerked his leg off the stiletto point and again felt blood following it out.
At least he knew what he was facing. There were things strewn in his path, things with blades and points on them. Adams had said he should bleed to death. But knives at arm and leg level weren't going to kill him. The terror lay in the thought that there might be some thing at face level, something to gouge his eyes, his throat. And he couldn't raise his hands high enough to protect himself against them.
He gulped in a deep breath and thrust his feet on.
Another two steps and another encounter. This was something low, like an ottoman, and this time the blade only cut his trouser leg, missing his skin. He walked on.
Solo tried to ignore the feel of blood dripping unseen on his arm and his leg, holding a new thought in his mind. If be could find a knife that was located high enough… He groped forward with his manacled hands, praying for such a knife.
Four steps more and he had one. It protruded from a bookcase, he could figure that much. And it was sharp on both edges. Carefully, slowly, he turned himself around, letting the blade run from his hands to his arm and then along his back so he wouldn't misplace it. With his back to it, he positioned himself, felt the blade tug the rope between his elbows, and began the painstaking sawing movement that would cut through the rope and give him the use of his eyes and hands. The motion choked off his air, but he coughed only once, then held his breath.
Out of the black dark around him came a lunatic shout, "Turn him! Turn him!" Adams screamed. "Don't let him free himself!"
There was noise in the room, feet and jumping bodies and the blast of a gun. A bullet whined beside Solo's head and wood splintered on him. Startled by the commotion, he jumped from the bullet impact, losing the knife blade, the rope still whole and tight about him. Another bullet whizzed in, and despite his determination not to panic he recoiled in the dark, taking two running steps away from the bookcase.
His leg smashed against the ottoman he had side stepped moments before and he fell to his knees, a double sharpness stabbing his right thigh. He stayed where he was, impaled, gasping for air and control of himself. He jerked free of the double blades, held very still to test his balance, and lurched to his feet.
He said into the darkness, "So you're still here after all, Adams. Enjoying the show?"
"Immensely," Adams answered from his left. "But you have yet to draw enough blood to suit me."
Solo smiled, and it was real this time. "Thank you for that information. I couldn't tell how much I was bleeding."
"And you had visions of arteries pulsing?" Adams laughed. "I shouldn't have told you, should I? Ready to give me those names?"
Solo stood still, letting the silence return, attempting to reconstruct his flight in his darkened mind. He swiveled slightly one way and then the other. Which way was toward the front of the house? He bit his lip, cocking his head to listen for sounds or creakings that would orient him. At last he turned full around. He had retreated in his panic. He had to go forward.
His legs didn't want to carry him. It was a tremendous effort of sheer will to make his feet move, especially now that he knew he had an audience to his agony. Yet the fact that they were watching pushed him on. He was fully aware of the reserves he had in his physical body. All he had to fight was the darkness and the terror.
He crept on as he had been doing, letting it form a pattern. Feel ahead with a foot, grope with the fingers, take the step. Feel ahead with a foot, grope with the fingers, take a step. He counted out forty steps that way, two more cuts in his clothing, and one more knife slice in his left calf, but he was gaining ground.
His hands, angling before him, ran into something solid. He felt it with his fingertips. This wasn't a piece of furniture. This was a wall. The front wall? Hope welled inside him. Adams had said the door was to the right. He groped along the wallpapered plaster and ran into no more sharpnesses. His hands felt wood and a quick motion up and down told him it was a door! He grabbed quickly for the knob and found it, turning it frantically.
It was locked.
Adams laughed from far behind him. "I forgot to mention that part, Mr. Solo. I have the key. You'll have to come and take it from me."
Solo leaned his forehead against the cool wood of the door, choked on the rope at his throat, and straightened up again. There was a commotion inside his chest that he recognized with utter humiliation. His breath was threatening to come out in a sob. He couldn't walk back the way he had come. It had taken everything in him to get to the door. He couldn't search in this black death trap for Adams.
Adams' voice came again, "Robard! Get him away from that door!"
More noise, and as he expected, another bullet slammed in close to his head. Solo stayed where he was. He would outlast them. He wouldn't budge.
But the sound of the bullets triggered the reflexes he had struggled so hard to acquire and he turned instinctively to take shelter. He stumbled away from the door, bumping wildly into things, bruising his legs and thighs, cutting himself once more.