The Pillars of Salt Affair

One

U.N.C.L.E. headquarters in Manhattan is an innocuous and unpretentious complex outwardly, including a tailor shop, an elaborate but artificial international aid organization, and The Mask club, a restaurant patterned after the many key clubs throughout the United States.

But beneath this facade is a fortress of concrete and steel. There are only four entrances, one of which is through secret tunnels from the river, and each of these is guarded by armed men and the ultimate in protective and alarm devices.

Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin stood on the sidewalk in front of the main entrance to U.N.C.L.E. headquarters — Del Floria’s tailor shop. They had just departed a taxi from Kennedy International Airport following their return flight from Oregon.

Both men were tired, having had little sleep the night before. After they had gotten Barney Dillon back to Kamewa the previous afternoon and, with some argument, to a doctor to have his leg checked, they had reported to Mr. Waverly in New York and had been instructed to make a thorough search of the area surrounding the reservoir.

One of the townspeople had volunteered to take the coded message and the salt sample to the nearest city for immediate transport to U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. Solo and Illya, accompanied by a group of armed loggers from the Kamewa Lumber Company, had then spent the intervening hours until nightfall in making a complete canvass of the timberland. They had found nothing — no camp sites, no evidence of hurried departure, no signs at all that anyone had even been in the area. The second man who had fired on them, and whoever else had been with him, had vanished, leaving no traces.

Now, the two agents crossed the sidewalk and entered the tailor shop. Since their efforts had been fruitless, they were hopeful that something of help had been unearthed by U.N.C.L.E. operations at this end.

Del Floria greeted them. As unpretentious as the facade, he was a tall, spare man in his early fifties, beginning to bald at the crown of his head. His manner was mild, almost meek, but hidden behind his light gray eyes was a photographic memory and a cat-like alertness that missed very little.

Del Floria knew every U.N.C.L.E. agent by sight. Should anyone not known to him attempt to gain entrance to the inner complex, he would have been immediately prevented and seized. For matters of his own safety and his invaluability to U.N.C.L.E., Del Floria knew nothing of what went on within the steel walls.

After exchanging amenities, Solo and Illya stepped into one of the small fitting rooms on one side of the room and drew the curtain closed behind them. When Del Floria had made sure no one was in sight, he activated one of the hidden levers know only to him.

The rear wall of the fitting room opened and Solo and Illya stepped through into the reception room on U.N.C.L.E. Square windowless, without doors of any kind, the room was furnished with a single desk, behind which a young blonde girl sat. In front of her was a panel of controls, none of which were labeled or otherwise identified and only she knew which button performed which purpose. As a measure of the rigid security of U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, the controls were changed periodically.

The girl smiled in greeting as Solo and Illya entered. The smile widened when Solo winked at her. She gave them their triangular identity badges.

Badges affixed to their suits, they walked through the maze-like innards of U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, their footsteps ringing on the steel floors. The badges they wore performed a definite purpose, for without them there would have been a triggering of the intricate U.N.C.L.E. alarm system and walls and doors would have closed, trapping them instantly. Twenty armed men would have surrounded them in a matter of seconds.

A swift and silent elevator took them up two floors. They turned left there, along another of the steel hallways. Doors opened as they approached, allowing them unhampered passage. When they reached the end of the hallway, they stood before an unmarked steel door, seemingly no different than any of the other doors through which they had just passed.

But this particular door held a most special significance. Behind it was the office of the chief of U.N.C.L.E. operations in New York, the office from which policy was dictated, from which decisions effecting the nations of the world were reached, from which the wheels of the entire U.N.C.L.E. organization were set into motion.

It was the office of Alexander Waverly, one of only five men who formed Section 1 — Policy and Operations. The door opened and Solo and Illya stepped inside.

Alexander Waverly was somewhat of a legend, and a mysterious one at that. It was said that he had spent some fifty years in British and American intelligence, but no one knew this for a fact and Waverly never offered any enlightenment. Though his accent was British his speech was punctuated with the inflections a man acquires when he has lived his life in many countries.

He was fond of rough tweeds and pipes. He had absolute recall of vital facts and information, but he had extreme difficulty in remembering the names of the men he saw every day.

Outwardly, he resembled a tired and elderly bookkeeper, eyes heavily wrinkled at the corners as if he had spent his entire life squinting at columns of figures in a ledger. His appearance belied the quick deadlines of his mind, the respect and obedience he neither commanded nor asked for, but which he unfailingly received.

It was impossible to tell by looking at him what went on behind those gray eyes, as Solo and Illya well knew. Waverly turned one of the sheets of paper before him face down and scratched his thinning, but neatly-combed gray hair absently.

“Bad news,” he said without looking up. “Umm, yes. Bad news indeed.”

Napoleon Solo sneezed — twice.

Waverly looked up. “Are you catching a cold, Mr. Solo?”

Solo sniffed. Illya said with a faint smile, “The mountain air doesn’t agree with him.”

“Yes,” Waverly said. “Quite so.” He picked up a letter opener from his desk and scratched at the blackened bowl of his pipe. “I have just been reading the chemical reports of the sample you gentlemen sent along.”

“Were they able to analyze it?” Solo asked.

“Analyze it?” Waverly said. “Yes certainly, Mr. Solo. Of course.”

“What were its properties?”

“Why salt, Mr. Solo. I expect you know that already.”

“Yes sir?” Solo said patiently. “But what I meant was, were they able to determine what was added to the water to cause the crystallization?”

“Not as yet,” Waverly said. “No. All that has been learned to date is that the salt is genuine, not a synthetic composition with fresh water as its base.”

Illya frowned. “Then there wasn’t any trace of foreign substance in that chip of salt?”

“No, Mr. Kuryakin,” Waverly said. “None at all.”

“That is bad news,” Solo said.

“Eh?” Waverly said.

“Bad news,” Solo said, sniffing. “You were saying that just a moment ago.”

“No, no, Mrs. Solo,” Waverly said. “I was referring to something quite different.”

He shuffled through the papers on his desk again, found several sheets bound together with a brad, and peered at the top page. He handed it across the desk to Solo.

“Section III’s weekly report, gentlemen.”

Section III — Communications and Research — was commanded by red-headed May Heatherly, a very pretty and capable young lady. Part of her job was to compile each week a report, gleaned from the heads on U.N.C.L.E. agencies throughout the world, on current THRUSH activity and movement. These reports were invaluable to Waverly and the other members of Section I in mapping out counter-offensives and strategy in U.N.C.L.E. ceaseless duel with the power-mad THRUSH Council and their quest for world domination.

Solo read through the report. When he had finished, he handed it to Illya, frowning. “Nothing,” he said.

“Exactly, Mr. Solo,” Waverly said. “THRUSH activity is at a virtual standstill. I trust you realize the import of this?”

“Yes,” Illya said. “The entire THRUSH operation has been mobilized into a single objective, a major offensive.”

“I daresay,” Waverly said. “Each time THRUSH has become dormant, some sort of master scheme has been in the offing. I should think that this time will prove to be no different.”

“Do you have any idea what they might be planning?”

“Not at the moment,” Waverly said. “However, what you gentlemen witnessed in Oregon rather smacks of THRUSH work, wouldn’t you say?”

“We had that though,” Solo said.

“There have been other developments as well,” Waverly said. “I expect you will be interested.”

He stood and clamped his cold pipe between his teeth. He pressed a button on his desk, and then led them to the circular briefing table with the movable top at one end of the room. When they had seated themselves, a panel located on the wall slid back, to reveal a large screen.

The screen was operated by May Heatherly in Section III. Presently, the gray screen lighted and an aerial film clip flashed in view. May Heatherly’s voice came to them through the intercom network.

“This film was taken early this morning from an U.N.C.L.E. helicopter, three hours after we had received a report similar to the one from Oregon. It is a small lake in Northern Minnesota, in the foothills behind a resort community.”

Illya and Solo and Waverly stared at the screen. Thick forest land surrounded the lake; the entire scene held a close resemblance to what Solo and Illya had seen in Kamewa. The film was in color, and the vivid green of the trees and the pale blue of the sky stood in bold contrast to the gleaming bleached whiteness of the lake itself. It lay silent and unmoving, like a pocket of fresh snow.

“Rock salt,” Solo said softly.

“A team of U.N.C.L.E. agents attempted to reach the lake to investigate further,” May Heatherly’s voice said. “But a large rock slide had blocked the only road yesterday. They were forced to make a lengthy detour, and when they reached the lake this is what they found.”

Another strip of film flashed onto the screen, this one having been shot from the sore of the lake. Placid blue water had replaced the glaring white of the aerial pictures.

Two succeeding bits of film were shown then, one of the tine dam in a Canadian province near Quebec, and the other of a lake in Alabama. Although both showed only blue water, May Heatherly explained that identical chemical changes had taken place in each. By the time U.N.C.L.E. investigators arrived, there had been no traces of the transformation, but eye-witness accounts attested to the validity of the report.

In each of the four wide-spread cases, including Kamewa, the bodies of water had been small, isolated, and accessible only be a single road, which had been rendered impassable by land or rock slides a day or two earlier.

When the screen had gone dark, ending the commentary, Illya said, “What do you suppose all of this means?”

“A definite pattern, Mr. Kuryakin,” Waverly said. “THRUSH is no doubt carrying out a series of tests. They have devised some type of chemical which is capable of converting pure water into hardened salt, as well as the antidote which reverses the process, and are testing its capacities. Preparatory to the major offensive we were speaking about, I should think.”

Solo tugged at his ear. “This chemical THRUSH apparently has takes several hours to crystallize water, but the antidote reverses almost immediately. I shudder to think of what they might be planning to use it for.”

“Indeed,” Waverly said. “That is why we must find out what they are intending and take steps to prevent it immediately. That is, of course, yours and Mr. Kuryakin’s job.”

“I rather thought it would be,” Illya said. “But where do we start?”

“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.”

“If the road hasn’t been mysteriously blocked by some sort of slide,” Illya said.

“The desk clerk would know,” Solo said.

They went downstairs. The informed them that the road had indeed been temporarily blocked by a heavy mud slide, two miles below the lake, apparently caused by the rains they had had in the area for the past few days.

It was curious that they should ask, he said. Illya Kuryakin quickly explained that they had heard conflicting reports of such a slide and since they were planning to photograph the lake they had wanted to confirm the reports.

“I suggest we have something to eat,” Illya said to Solo then. He smiled. “You would do well to feed that cold, you know.”

Solo agreed, although he was not particularly hungry.

The hotel dining room was poorly lit, smelled of garlic and contained several wooden tables so flimsy-looking that they appeared to have been made of lacquered balsa wood. There was an open verandah at the upper end, affording a view of the flat plain and the foothills beyond it. Solo spied a table there, basking in warm sunlight and went directly to it.

A fat Mexican woman in a garish dress gave them a gap-toothed smile. “Senors?”

“Napoleon?” Illya said.

Solo shrugged, looking at the woman.

“I would suggest the pozole,” the woman said, smiling. “It is the specialty, as you say.”

“Pozole?”

“A very delicious dish,” the woman said, “of pig’s feet and hominy.”

Solo’s stomach quivered.

“If you don’t mind,” Illya said, “we’d rather have a steak. You do have steak, don’t you?”

“Sí,” the woman said, a little hurt that they did not wish to try the specialty. “Yes.”

“Rare,” Solo said. “Very rare, please.”

The woman nodded. “You would like coffee?”

“Coffee would be fine,” Illya said.

The woman moved away. They sat looking out toward the foothills as they waited. Up there lay the lake, perhaps a party of THRUSH scientists and agents and possibly the answer to what THRUSH was planing to do with the chemical they had developed. They would know more that afternoon.

The girl came out onto the verandah while they were waiting. Solo saw her first. He had been looking of to his right at the square, where a group of young boys carrying baskets laden with chewing gum and peanuts were trying to intimidate two elderly tourists, when he caught a glimpse of swirling color out of the corner of his eye. He swiveled slightly in his chair.

She was tall and slender, tiny-waisted and her carriage and figure suggested that of a professional model. She wore a brilliant red and yellow enredo — wrap-around skirt — a white peasant blouse and braided sandals.

She walked to one of the tables where Solo and Illya sat. Solo watched appreciatively as she seated herself, smoothing the skirt. She had black hair, long and falling across her shoulders and in the sunlight slanting down on to the verandah, faint reddish highlights danced in its glossy sheen. Her eyes were a deeper black than her hair and very large and the light pink lipstick she wore contrasted well with her bronzed skin. She appeared to be Mexican, with perhaps traces of North American ancestry.

She caught Solo’s admiring glance and lowered her eyes. Solo smiled. “Hello,” he said.

The girl cocked her head, raising her eyes. A smile touched her mouth, widening and a soft musical laugh cam from her throat.

“Do you have a cold, senor?”

“Yes,” Solo said sadly.

She laughed again. Solo said, “Won’t you join us? It always depresses me to see people eating alone, especially very pretty young ladies.”

“Well,” the girl said hesitantly. Then, “Yes, all right. Thank you very much.”

“Not at all,” Solo said. Illya said nothing. He was used to Solo’s ever-present, wandering eye for the ladies.

Solo stood, holding the chair for the girl as she sat down. He introduced himself and Illya. She told them her name was Estrellita Valdone and then said, “I do not believer I have seen you in Teclaxican before.” She paused then. “I am sure that I would have remembered if I had.”

“We arrived this morning,” Solo said, pleased at the compliment.

“You are Americans, are you not?” Estrellita asked. “Touristas, no.”

“Americans, yes,” Solo said. “Touristas, no.”

“What brings you to Teclaxican, may I ask?”

“An assignment,” Solo said.

“Assignment?”

“Travelogue Magazine,” Solo said. “We’re doing a series of articles on the area.”

“You are a writer?” Estrellita said, impressed.

“Not actually,” Illya said. “What we’re doing is a series of pictorial articles. I take the pictures and he writes the captions.”

Solo scowled at him. The girl laughed. “It must be very interesting work,” she said.

“Oh, yes,” Illya said. “Very.”

Solo said, “Do you live in Teclaxican, Estrellita?”

“No,” she said. “I am from Mexico City. I have friends here and I come down quite often. You could not have chosen a more beautiful place to photograph.”

The fat Indian woman appeared at their table again and Estrellita ordered something in Mexican. The woman moved away again. Estrellita said, “will you be in Teclaxican long?”

“About a week, more or less,” Illya said.

“What will you be photographing, do you know as yet?”

“The Zapotec burial grounds, for one,” Solo said, remembering Diego Santiago y Vasquez’s oratory of that morning. “And we have heard of a waterfall in the mountains which appears promising.”

Estrellita nodded. “When will you begin?”

“Tomorrow, probably,” Illya said.

“Perhaps I could accompany you,” Estrellita said. “I know of many places which might be of interest to you.”

“That could be arranged,” Solo said. “On one condition, of course.”

“And what is that, senor?”

“That you agree to have dinner with me tonight,” Estrellita smiled. “I would like that very much.”

The Indian woman returned momentarily with their steaks and a steaming plate of fresh shrimp, lemon and hot sauce. Estrellita explained that the shrimp were freshly caught and brought in daily from the coast. She offered Solo one, dipped in the hot sauce. He declined in deference to his wobbly stomach.

He set about eating his steak. He was surprised to find that it was very good and as a result was equally surprised to find that he was much more hungry than he had previously thought.

When they had finished eating they made small talk over strong but good Mexican coffee. Solo and Illya used the opportunity to test their cover story, mentioning places they had been and photographed.

They learned that Estrellita was indeed a model, showing summer clothing for one of the large Mexico City shops. She was between modeling assignments, now she said and relaxing with her friends for a week or two here in Teclaxican.

Presently, Illya decided that he had had enough banter and reminded Solo that they had several things to do preparatory to embarking on their assignment. Solo knew that Illya was anxious to have a look at the lake in the foothills behind Teclaxican and was in agreement that they best go down to the real work that had brought them there.

They bade goodbye to Estrellita, Solo eliciting her promise to meet him there for supper and returned to their room to change clothes. They wanted to see the lake without the instant travelogue of Diego Santiago, but they needed the use of his car and of his knowledge of the area to guide them. It appeared his company was a necessity, at least part of the way.

They changed into light khakis and Illya Kuryakin strapped on two of the camera cases for sake of appearance. It was possible that THRUSH had implanted some of its number in Teclaxican to act as scouts and they did not want to take any chances.

Solo felt much better now that he had eaten and he no longer had the chills which had been with him on the ride down from Oaxaca. Perhaps, he decided, the capsules the U.N.C.L.E. doctors had given him before he left New York were working after all. To be on the safe side, he would take another one before they left.

Someone in the hotel had brought up a pitcher of drinking water while they had been eating. It was in an earthenware carafe on the nightstand. Solo found a relatively clean glass in the bathroom and poured it full from the carafe. He popped one of the capsules in his mouth, tilted his head back and drank from the glass.

The pill stuck halfway down his throat. He coughed, spitting out the water. He choked the pill down and went into a series of rasping coughs.

“What’s that matter?” Illya asked him.

Solo got his breath. “Try some of this,” he said, handing Illya the glass.

Illya sipped some of the water. “Well,” he said, “it looks as if our bird friends are hard at work again, testing or whatever it is they’re doing.”

The water in the glass carried the unmistakable taste of salt.