The Ghost Riders Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  "I don't care much about dying, for a cause like Finnish's. Still, to do anything to stop him we've got to do more than stay alive on oxygen flasks. We've got to get out of here." He shook his head ruefully. "Too bad you didn't pick up some of those magic door openers while you were shoplifting."

  Illya reached into his other jacket pocket and held up one of the palm-sized rectangles. "You mean this? Opens any door in the city. Have one; have two. They're small."

  * * *

  Illya and Solo kept close to the shadowed walls, running.

  They slowed as they neared the end of the corridor. Beyond, where the corridor opened into the huge tunnel with walks and tracks and working people, there were fevered sounds of activity.

  Solo and Illya moved cautiously near the end of the corridor. The workers were loading beef on train cars, unloading other gear, working in silence, panting for breath, making every motion in languid heaviness.

  Along the silver rails of the tracks armed guards plodded in heavy tread, carrying their weapons loosely at their sides.

  Solo and Illya remained motionless for some moments, watching the workers and guards. All were in dun-colored coveralls, the standard uniform for workers and guards in the tunnels.

  Solo whispered across his shoulder to Illya. "We can bet our lives there are TV monitors fixed on all these lighted tunnels."

  "Big brother watching his happy subjects at work and play," Illya said.

  Solo nodded. "They're going to have a greater society, whether it kills them or not. But we've gone as far as we can go like this. We got one break—obviously there was no TV camera in the dungeon, or in the corridor. But we can't move around out there, unless we're dressed like the natives."

  Illya nodded. "Right. Once they gander us on their monitors we're marked pigeons. Even the blind men will recognize us in these clothes."

  "Clear enough why they dress everybody alike. It makes them easier to keep in line."

  Illya said, "Could work against them, too."

  Solo inched closer to the mouth of the corridor. Sighing, he whispered across his shoulder, "Will you be the decoy, or shall I?"

  Illya drew a deep breath, set himself. "I make an elegant decoy—classic profile and all that stuff, you know."

  He darted from the corridor, ran out into the tunnel almost to the place where the mole-round men were loading the cars.

  Workers yelled, and the fat guards reacted. They moved in slow motion, but they did move. By the time the two nearest guards wheeled around and got their guns to their shoulders, Illya had already raced back into the corridor.

  "Here they come!" he said to Solo as he passed.

  The heavy treads came nearer, like elephants charging.

  The first guard bounded into the corridor. He was only inches from the place where Solo was pressed against the tile wall. Solo let him pass, but reached out and deftly jerked off the guard's thick-lensed glasses.

  The blinded guard cried out, a sound of guttural terror as he toppled past Solo. Solo smashed the glasses against the wall and turned back, waiting for the second armed guard.

  This one lumbered into the corridor, gun raised against his fat chest. He tried to slow when he heard the cry of his fellow guard.

  Solo drove his fist wrist deep into the fat stomach. The guard cried out, doubling forward. Solo judo-chopped him across the neck. The gun was flung into the corridor and the guard went sprawling after it. Solo snagged off the glasses, smashing them.

  The he half-lifted the guard and tossed him beside his unconscious partner.

  Illya wasted a moment blowing on his fist. Solo was already undressing and Illya followed suit. Solo unzipped the coveralls, worked them off the porcine bodies. They donned the guards' suits, took up their guns.

  Solo broke the lenses from the black-rimmed glasses, gave one pair to Illya and set the other on his nose. They took up the rifles and moved along the corridor toward the tunnel.

  Illya strode ahead of Solo, until Napoleon's voice lashed out after him. "You look wrong when you walk that fast; you look to restless to be a native."

  At the very brink of the corridor, Illya slowed and grinned across his shoulder. "Right."

  "Just remember that," Solo warned. "We walk like fat men, no matter what happens. We won't get anywhere down here by hurrying."

  THREE

  Carrying the weapons in the sluggish manner of the other guards, Solo and Illya sauntered along the walks past the loading train cars. Workers kept moving without glancing at them. Other guards leaned against the walls. None gave Solo and Illya more than brief, myopic glances.

  Illya said, "Everything's going fine, but I feel like I'm carrying a target on my back."

  "Just keep moving."

  "They must have seen me on those monitoring screens."

  "I've an idea we'll find out about that at any moment. They likely have their own ways of handling situations like this."

  "You don't fill a guy's day with sunlight, do you?"

  Solo was almost breathless. He longed to look over his shoulder, yet did not dare to. "It's just that I won't really relax until I get out of here."

  By now they had moved in that lumbering pace to the head of the long train.

  Solo slowed, touch Illya's sleeve. He nodded, indicating the cab of the engine. Two dun-clad men slouched at their places in the cab, the engineer and his assistant. The powerful engines, breathing, smoked, waiting a signal to roll.

  Solo jerked his head upward. Illya nodded and moved ahead of him, swinging up into the cab.

  The engineer and assistant turned in that leaden way. The engineer spoke coldly: "What do you want?"

  "This train," Illya said. "Do you mind?"

  The engineer squinted, peering more closely. He saw the slack dun-colored uniform, the lense-less glasses. The rotund man shuddered visibly, crying out: "You're not one of us!"

  Illya nodded, smiling. "Nicest thing anybody's ever said to me."

  Solo stepped close beside Illya, raising the gun, fixing his finger on its trigger. "I got the word for you. Never mind who we are. Get this train moving!"

  "We're waiting for our orders!"

  "You just got 'em," Illya said. He thrust the barrel of his gun into the engineer's fat belly. "Move it!"

  The engineer nodded, turning slowly.

  He engaged the gears. The train shivered, then inched forward. His voice rasped with contempt. "Where do you think you are going?"

  Illya prodded him harder with the gun barrel. His voice was soft, "Miami's nice this time of year."

  Solo watched the stout guards falter to attention, jerking up their guns as the train ground into motion. He spoke warningly over his shoulder. "The important thing for you, friend, is to get this train moving."

  "I don't think there's any real misunderstanding. Is there?" Illya lifted the gun and let it bite into the engineer's flabby neck.

  "No. None." All protest seeped from the engineer's voice. He and his assistant turned their attention to heading the train out.

  Guards fired from the walks. They waddled forward, running as the train gathered speed. Bullets ricocheted off the metal of the cab. The two engine men crouched low, but kept working. The train moved faster.

  As if reacting to delayed messages, workers in the train cars straightened, belatedly realizing the train was moving. They ran, leaping from the cars, striking the walls, or rolling along the walks like helpless bugs. Firing, the near-sighted guards stumbled over the fallen workers or collided with those still jumping from the faster rolling cars.

  Solo fired his gun, aiming high, hoping only to keep the guards back until the train picked up momentum.

  The engines struggled; the spinning wheels clicked on the railings. Corridors, cavern houses, white tubes of lights raced past.

  Solo leaned out of the cab window, watching the loading yard and the guards receding in the distance. He stayed a moment as the train swayed on its braces.

  Finally he turned, walked clos
e to the engineer at the throttle.

  Solo said, "I heard your trains can do a hundred miles an hour—"

  "More!" The engineer straightened, showing his pride in this underworld rolling stock. "Much more!"

  Solo grinned coldly at him. "All I want out of you then—is the very best this train can do."

  Solo and Illya braced themselves in the swaying cab as the train moved with incredible speed, like a bullet through the white-glowing tunnels. The whole length of the monstrous train shivered. There were sudden turns in the runs, but the engineer did not slow.

  Solo moved to the bulkhead of the cab, bracing himself. But Illya did not move. Strange fires burned intensely in the blue depths of his eyes. His wheat-colored hair fluttered on his forehead.

  His mouth pulled across his lips. He shouted at the engineer: "Faster! Man, you can go faster than this!"

  Solo stared at Illya, realizing that he didn't even really know this wild man who had been closer to him than any other.

  "Move it, man!" Illya shouted at the engineer. "I told you, we're anxious to flake out of here."

  The stout head turned on the fat shoulders. "Sure, I can give it more speed—"

  "Then do it!"

  "Do you think it matters? It doesn't matter how fast you run, how fast you force this train; you cannot escape the master."

  Illya raged with laughter. "That old boy really has got you brainwashed, hasn't he?"

  Stiffening, the engineer thrust the throttle forward. The train shuddered, seeming to lie on it side as it slid around a hairpin bend. "You'll see!" He concentrated on his instruments. "I'll tell you this—and we have learned it is true down here—no one escapes the master."

  Illya laughed. "Your master says we can't escape." He pressed the snout of the gun into the thick jowls. "This gun says we'd better. Now who are you going to believe?"

  Solo stared through the cab window as the fantastic underworld fled past the screaming train. Incredible formations whipped by, like nightmare fragments.

  He spoke, awed: "Finnish didn't lie about one thing. There are whole valleys down here, three mile river beds. It's like a domed world."

  "It's the master's world," the engineer said. "And the master controls it. As you will find."

  The train whipped into a tunnel that seemed to press along the sleek exterior, and through it into a canyon of incredible depth and width. Underground towns loomed ahead, red lights flashing.

  The engineer shouted, "Those warning signals! We've got to obey them."

  "Negative." Illya said. "You keep moving."

  People raced, like frantic animals on the walks, pressing close to the tracks. Guards knelt, guns at their shoulders, fixed on the train.

  They fired as the streamliner wailed past.

  The engineer spoke coldly across his shoulder. "It should not be long now. The word is flashing ahead to stop you."

  Illya grinned at him wolfishly. "Just see that they don't."

  "You don't understand," the engineer began.

  "I know," Illya said. "It's like a broken record by now—"

  "—no one can defy the master."

  FOUR

  With his three ministers waddling at his heels, Leonard Finnish plodded toward the control room. He held his signal-disc out before him, pressed it, and doors slid open before them.

  The control room was frantic with activity, static with the tensions that seemed to rise from the television monitoring screens and from the automated control devices banked in the walls.

  Silent men hunched on stools before the banks of flickering monitoring screens. Though they did not speak, their myopic eyes showed their sense of panic. Only the screen showing the stolen streamliner racing away from the center had any meaning at the moment.

  Followed by his ministers, Finnish padded through the banks of control panels. He looked neither left nor right but went directly to the screen showing the stolen train.

  "Racing at top speed, master," one of the monitors said to Finnish.

  Finnish gave the man the briefest nod. He stared for some moments at the screen, the train whipping through tunnels, across wide valleys.

  Watching the picture, Finnish pressed fat fingers against his throat, wheezing. A man thrust a small oxygen flask to him. Finnish took it, pressed its cone over his nostrils, never taking his gaze from that flashing picture.

  He stared for a long time. It was as if he could see within the train cab itself where those arrogant young adventurers were in control, actually believing they could defy him, escape him—and live.

  Finnish's pouting lips twisted. He sucked air deeply from the flask.

  "What orders have you given?" he gasped.

  "We've sent orders to all towns on that line to halt the train. But three cities now have failed to stop them, even to slow them."

  Finnish sucked a deep breath from the oxygen cone. His voice was cold. "I'll take over now."

  The monitor bowed, moving away from the screen and the microphones.

  "Yes, Master."

  Finnish draped himself painfully upon the monitoring stool. He peered some moments at the flashing screen, his face the gray of ashes. "I've not come this far to be stopped now. By anyone. No, not anyone!"

  * * *

  Lights flashed on the instrument panel before the engineer.

  The stout assistant reached out toward the panel switches, but Illya leaped forward, snagged his wrist.

  "What are you doing?"

  "It is the signal from the control room," the engineer said. "We are being told to switch on our intercom receivers for a top priority message."

  Illya released the assistant's wrist. "Ah? The master himself, eh?"

  "That's right," the engineer said flatly.

  The assistant flipped a switch on the instrument panel. The receivers crackled.

  Leonard Finnish's wheezing voice suddenly filled the engine cab: "Mr. Solo? Mr. Kuryakin? Do you hear me?"

  Illya glanced at the engineer. The fat man nodded. "Speak. The master will hear you."

  "We're here," Illya said.

  The speaker crackled a moment. "This is Leonard Finnish speaking, Solo. And you, Kuryakin. Listen carefully. I shall warn you but once. Stop my train instantly. Return to the yards."

  The engineer's voice rattled with a pleased laugh.

  Solo moved near the cab speaker. "Sorry, Professor. You must know we're not going to do that. We're on our way out of here."

  Illya laughed. "That's right, Professor. I say that our agents probably have located your Indiana elevator shaft, your secret spur-line. But if they haven't they'll hear from us."

  Finnish's voice wheezed through the crackling speaker. "You remain arrogant, eh? You're wasting time."

  "Time's running out on you, Professor," Solo said. "Not us."

  "That's where you're wrong again, Mr. Solo. For your own sake, I urge you to listen to me, and stop throwing away your last chance to stop that train before I am forced to destroy it."

  For a moment the engineer's sharp, cutting laughter was the only sound in the cab.

  Illya stared at the engineer, he spoke to Finnish. "Afraid you're missing an urgent point, Professor. You may well destroy this train or this whole rail pattern in order to stop us. But it doesn't really matter, Professor, whether we die in your train or at the hands of your soldiers, does it?"

  Finnish said, "But I know your idealistic souls too well, Mr. Kuryakin. You will face peril. But will you force others to die with you?"

  Illya glanced at Solo. He said into the speaker, "Go on. I'm listening."

  "There are many other people aboard that train at this moment. Innocent people caught aboard it when you stole it. Will you sacrifice them to a foolish attempt to escape, an attempt doomed to certain failure? Must these people die with you? That is your decision, gentlemen. Clearly, I will permit them to die—I can look only at the greater good. But will you doom them?"

  Neither Illya nor Solo spoke. The train whipped through a tunn
el so narrow that the white light tubing was only inches from the cab window, an endless glow worm wriggling eternally through this maze of caverns.

  The speaker crackled. Finnish's voice deepened the tension inside the cab. "I must ask you to make your decision quickly. Your time is running out."

  The engineer turned, his jaws sagging. "Listen to the master! Do as he tells you, before it is too late for all of us."

  Finnish spoke. "The engineer gives you wise counsel."

  Solo drew a deep breath. "Sorry, Professor. I can't make a decision. I think you're bluffing."

  Finnish wheezed, gasping, the sounds magnified on the speaker: "You're a fool. That river you saw through the glass wall in my quarters should have warned you."

  Solo drew a deep breath, remembering the raging waters, the blind marine life.

  "I'm listening."

  Finnish said, "That's it, Mr. Solo. I neglected to mention to you that we down here live in constant threat of underground rivers breaking through shallow crusts and flooding. We've had to equip every tunnel with many steel, watertight doors. We can slam these doors closed every few miles, in every tunnel, making watertight compartments. Now. In seconds, Mr. Solo, I am pressing a button on a control panel in this room that will close and magnetically seal, through the use of our atomic power, steel doors.

  "The door immediately ahead of you will close. It will be like driving that train over a hundred miles an hour into a solid wall. Don't take my word. Ask the engineer there in the cab with you."

  The engineer cried out in panic. "We'll slam into that steel wall, the whole train! Demolished!"

  Finnish said, "Your engineer doesn't lie to you, Mr. Solo. And I do not bluff."

  "Listen to him!" the engineer raged, trembling.

  Finnish said, raspingly: "Your time is running out, Mr. Solo. I will no longer tolerate your interference."

  Solo drew a deep breath. He glanced at Illya, but Kuryakin did not speak. His face showed nothing.

  Solo lowered his gun. He nodded toward the engineer. "Stop it."

  He waited but there was no sounds of triumph from the control room. There was no elation, no astonishment expressed. There had been but this one answer from the start.