"Yes, but where is Waverly?- if we're to take the message seriously at all."
Waverly? Sure he's in Rio."
"Well then…"
"If we'd waited for him, stayed there until he reached us from New York, we'd not have left until this morning. So we decided to drive up yesterday and last night - its not over six hundred miles - for the times of the planes were not convenient and anyway the car's rather – er - special."
"I'm afraid I still don't see..."
"Your Mr. Waverly's safe in my place. Joana and Consuela will look after him. Now come on and eat. We're not due to speak to him until two."
And not another word of business would the Irishman talk until that time. Rafael - who turned out to be the boy from the auto rental company in Brasilia - arrived with a fistful of thin green leaves. They ate and drank their way solidly through an excellently prepared and served meal, and at five minutes to two, O'Rourke pushed back his wheelchair, dabbed his mouth delicately with napkin, and said, "Right, me boyo! While Rafael and Raoul entertain the lady and prepare some coffee and Izarra, let's you and me cross the road and get to work, eh?
The enormous trunk of the Cadillac was entirely filled with electronic equipment - transmitting, receiving and recording. As the electrically operated lid rose, Kuryakin drew in his breath with a gasp of astonishment at the sight of the valves, transistors, condensers, selectors, tuners, spools and knobbed chassis packed in there.
"Ruddy old tin can," O'Rourke said, slapping the car on one of its huge fenders. "I'd rather have an Iso Rivolta, an Aston or a Maserati. But where else would you get about ninety cubic feet of stowage and enough motor to haul all this weight?"
"It's certainly most impressive," Illya said. "But isn't this a bit public? I mean, we're right on the side of road -"
"Have you heard any traffic while we've been eating? Did you see one single vehicle going in either direction Tell me."
"Well, no, now that you mention it. Even so -"
"Could happen there's a roadblock a while up the road. Just a routine check, no doubt. But these things do take time... and sure there are so many uniforms in Brazil that it's a bold man can tell the genuine from the spurious," the Irishman said innocently.
"O'Rourke! You haven't... you didn't... Actually, you did, didn't you? You really take the cake! You seal off half a state just so that you can make a private radio contact without inconveniencing yourself! I don't see too much difference between your setup here and in Casablanca. Talk about having your cake and eating it…"
O'Rourke merely smiled broadly as he wheeled his chair to the rear of the car and leaned in over the open trunk, twiddling knobs and dials.
"That must be a pretty powerful combination in there," Illya said conversationally.
"Powerful? Wait'll I show you, boy. It was built for me by a fellow he got drummed out of the CIA. electronics research department for helping radio hams with G.I. stores. Listen…?"
Through a burst of static a calm voice enunciated: "This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the eight o'clock news.... The rail strike is to go on as planned. Britain's balance of payments problem was described last night as 'chaotic' by the President of San Marino. In the county cricket championship -"
Chuckling, O'Rourke twirled his dials. "C'est ici Radio Monte Carlo," a voice said loudly. "Voire programme de vedettes. Et voici l'heuro: troisieme dop, ii sera exactement…"
Kuryakin looked at his watch. The minute hand was just beginning to coincide with the second hand over the hour. The hour hand stood at two.
"Hoe laat is het ontbijt? Wat hebt U klar? Wat is de specialiteit van het land?" the loudspeaker intoned. "Vandaag, morgenochtend altijd-het is de Corn Flakes van…"
"I don't wish to seem discourteous," Illya began as a lilting German voice began to croon of loves lost and regained, "but if Waverly is expecting us to call at two, don't you think perhaps…"
"You're right, boy. You're absolutely correct," O'Rourke said. "Here, wait'll I get the call sign going and you can speak privately on this." He handed the agent a radio telephone receiver shaped very like the normal domestic instrument. "It's scrambled at both ends. Not to worry!"
He spoke into a microphone in the trunk, adjusting knobs. Illya heard a girl's voice speaking in Portuguese and then, after a pause, Waverly's well-known dry tones: "Mr. Kuryakin? Are you there?"
"I'm here, sir."
"Good. We have very little time. I shall try to come out there myself later today, since I've come this far. But you'll have to act on your own. At once."
"Yes, sir."
"I'll give it to you straight, a run-down from the top. Anything you've already found out, so much the better. Afterwards you can fill me in on anything I don't know. Understood?"
"Certainly, sir. Go ahead."
"I intend to, Mr. Kuryakin… First, Mr. Solo is still alive - or at least he was early this morning when he managed to reach me with a radio message. The message was interrupted, so presumably he was caught and will now be in great danger. Here's what he has discovered: Thrush used the ostensible building of a new city and a spurious hydroelectric station as a blind to get a large force of contractors into the area of San Felipe.
"Secondly, this force built a sophisticated fortress powered with atomic fuel on the floor of the valley behind the dam. When the valley was flooded to make the artificial lake supposed to supply the hydroelectric station with power, the fortress was submerged. It can now be entered only through a tunnel bored under the mountain separating the dam from the adjoining valley, or via a special underwater entrance.
"Thirdly, the false D.A.M.E.S. are a collection of women with criminal records recruited from the West Coast to help resettle and pacify those Negro and Indian peasants dispossessed through the scheme; their subsidiary tasks are to assist with certain underwater aspect of the plan.
"Fourthly, the dispossessed natives and others likely to spread gossip about the rather unorthodox procedure at San Felipe have been actively discouraged by the head of a spurious Candomblé terreiro, a man called Hernando, who plays upon their superstitions and invokes their gods to obtain their silence - which is why no stories of these activities seem to have reached Brasilia or Rio or Salvador.
"Fifthly, and most important, the purpose of all this: The lake has been built as a safe base for tests involving a new atomic-powered submarine, something between Polaris and Nautilus, which has been developed by Thrush scientists at the fortress."
"What!"
"In a landlocked lake far from civilization in the Matto Grosso, they can experiment on a scale impossible in the crowded seas of the world. The underwater vessel is at the moment engaged in a series of proving runs in the depths of the reservoir, but in a day or so the plan moves into its next phase - which brings me to point five. Mr. Solo tells me they plan to fire a series of intermediate range ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads."