by John Oram
"You've got men searching?"
The inspector looked hurt. He said, "Of course. This is first steps, nej? Also there is a helicopter, now the snow stops."
Illya asked, "He couldn't have made it into Silkeborg?"
"I think that is not likely. Would a wounded man wish to show himself in the streets? And where would he hide himself?"
"This character," said Illya bitterly, "could hide himself in a perspex bag."
A young policeman came floundering through the snow from the direction of a beech wood. He looked agitated.
The inspector said, "This is one of the searchers. I think he has news."
The man came up and saluted. He spoke rapidly in Danish. The inspector's face hardened.
He told them, "This is very bad. There is a farm beyond that wood there—a small place run by one old man. My officers have found him shot dead, and his car is gone from the garage. Do you wish to come with me?"
Solo said, "There's not much point. Garbridge wouldn't hang around, once he got transport. How many ways out of the farm are they are?"
"One only. A very small road, little more than a track. It by-passes Silkeborg, coming out onto the A15 in the direction of Aarhus."
"But that's crazy," Illya said. "Your patrols are bound to get him."
The inspector nodded. "If he stays with the car, yes. But he may take to the open country again."
"Wounded—and in this weather?"
The policeman spread his hands. "Who can tell what a desperate man will do?"
Solo stared thoughtfully at the wrecked car and then raised his eyes to the snow-covered fields and the wood beyond. He said, "I don't get it. He's backtracking all the time. Why would he want to do that, unless...But that's impossible."
"We're thinking the same thing," Illya said. "Let's get back to the Citroen. Goodbye, inspector."
* * *
The little car headed once more toward Silkeborg.
Illya said, "It's crazy, but it's the only thing that makes sense. He's trying to get back to the chalk mine. There's nowhere else for him to go. We'll drive to Jacobsen's place and pick up reinforcements."
Solo objected, "But you blasted the front of the mine in, and he can't use the tunnel. What can he hope to gain?"
"There may be another way in that we don't know about. That's why we've got to see Jacobsen."
They went to Silkeborg through Herningsvej and cut through the Town Square.
Illya laughed suddenly. "It's a wonder Thrush didn't make this place its headquarters," he said. "Down the road there, in a street with no name, they make all the paper for the Danish bank notes. That could be handy."
They met two more patrols before they got onto the road that led to Jacobsen's farm, but neither had news of the wounded man.
"It looks like the inspector was right," Solo said. "The major's trying to make it overland. If he's headed this way."
"I wish him joy," said Illya. "Remember what happened to the Donners. And they had covered wagons."
They found Viggo working in the barn. He listened to their story sceptically.
"A man on foot would not get far in this country," he said. "He had no coat, no hat, and you say he has a bullet in him. No, it is not possible."
"But if he did," Solo insisted, "and if he made it back to the mine—could he get back inside?"
"Another tunnel? Some secret entrance? Perhaps, but I do not know of one."
"Well, there's only one way to find out. We've got to go back there and watch for him."
Viggo sighed gustily. "If you say so, my friend. But if he had the seven-league boots of the fairy tales, he could not have gotten there yet. So first we shall eat and drink. It will be cold waiting."
They returned to the house. The imperturbable Else served them meat balls swimming in thick brown gravy, with beetroot and sugared potatoes. Solo got the idea that if a regiment marched unexpectedly into the farm she would dish up a meal with just as little fuss. She put bottles of lager beside the plates and poured a glass of akvavit for each man. "The weather is cold," she explained in halting English. For her that was an oration.
* * *
It was half-past three when they set out for the mine, and the setting sun was reddening the sky. Leaden clouds were massed ominously, portending a further snowfall, but mercifully the wind had dropped to little more than a stiff, cutting breeze.
Neither human nor animal moved on the dead white waste around them as they plodded along the road. The great tumbled mounds of rock and earth that now completely blocked the mouth of the mine were covered by a deep carpet of snow that rounded and smoothed their outlines. Not a trace of a footprint broke the virgin surface of the hillside and its approaches.
"It looks peaceful enough," Illya said, "but I suppose that if he's around, he would hardly be likely to try to get in at the front door. Much as I hate the thought, I fear we shall have to do a little climbing."
"There is nothing else for it," Viggo agreed. "If there is another way into the mine, it must be on the far side of the slope. Or perhaps on the crest of the hill." He looked at Solo questioningly. "We know this is where the roof-doors of the workshop must be. Could there not also be a smaller entrance—an inspection ladder, perhaps—beside them?"
Solo said, "It sounds feasible. But in these conditions finding it is going to be quite a trick. It had to be well camouflaged at the best of times. Now we might as well be looking for a grain of icing sugar in a ton of cotton wool."
"True—but at least from the ridge we can keep better observation in case our friend is on his way."
"And freeze to death sooner," Illya said gloomily. He gave an exaggerated shudder, hunching his shoulders to bring the collar of his jacket higher around his ears. "Well, if we must, let's get started. It will be dark in less than an hour."
"We'll split forces," Solo decided. "Viggo, you and Illya work up the left. I'll try to the right. We'll rendezvous at the top and quarter the ground. It's a poor chance, but it's the only one we've got."
They moved off.
The going was even tougher than they had expected. Their feet sank deep in the light, soft snow, often without finding firm hold beneath. They slithered, slipped, and sometimes fell full-length. A loose boulder on which Solo unwarily put his weight sent him skittering ten feet downward, clutching wildly at the yielding drifts.
Then the first shots came, cutting through the snow and sending a shower of rock splinters into his face. There was no cover. All he could do was lie still, fumbling with half-frozen fingers for the gun in his right-hand pocket.
Keeping his head low, he began to wriggle deeper into the snow, like a crab seeking shelter by burying itself in the sand.
Illya called anxiously, "Napoleon! Are you all right?"
"Ecstatic!" he shouted back. "I do this all the time."
Another burst of shots came from above, landing perilously close. Even in the rapidly-failing light the hidden marksman was finding the range.
There was answering fire from Viggo's Mauser.
"Can you see him?" Solo called.
"Not a chance. He's tucked away neatly. Viggo was potting at the muzzle flashes."
Solo raised his head cautiously. The gun on the ridge chattered again. A slug tore through his jacket sleeve and pain seared his right arm. He flattened hurriedly.
Viggo shouted, "He's got a tommygun up there."
"So I noticed," Solo returned. "How's your cover?"
"Not too bad. If we kick up a fuss, can you make it over here?"
He had little option. If he stayed where he was, he would either freeze to death or, sooner or later, collect a bullet in the skull. But a quick dash might get him safely to the hollow where Illya and Viggo were sheltering. He called: "Okay! Start kicking."
The Luger and Mauser opened up together. Solo got to his feet and scrambled toward the sound. Despite the cold, he was sweating by the time he reached the hollow and dropped down beside Illya. The inside of his sleeve was s
ticky with blood. He said, "What a lovely way to spend an evening."
"Well, we can't stay here all night," Illya reported. "The neighbors would talk. I think it's time we tried a little bluff."
He made a trumpet of his hands and called, "Garbridge! Give up! You haven't a chance."
High above them a thin, stabbing tongue of red flame cut the darkness. Slugs whined and ricocheted unpleasantly. There was no other answer.
"This," Illya observed, "would appear to be what is meant by stalemate. We can't go up, and he can't come down. The question is which of us is going to freeze first."
"He must run out of ammunition soon," Solo said.
"You want to bet?"
"Wait! Something's moving up there." Viggo was staring intently out over the snow, his countryman's eyes better attuned to the darkness than those of his companions. He raised his pistol, aimed deliberately, and fired twice.
This time there was no answering burst.
Viggo said contentedly, "I got him."
They waited, then after a few minutes left the hollow and began to climb. In awhile they could see ahead a black, still figure sprawled spreadeagled in the snow.
"That," said Illya, "seems to wrap everything up. What now?"
"We'd better go on and fetch him in," Solo said. "He may only be wounded."
Viggo said, "Not a chance. When they fall like that, they're dead. Leave him. He'll be there in the morning. Meanwhile, my friend, the sooner we attend to your own wound, the better."
"Maybe you're right." Solo turned, and they began the descent.
Then suddenly it happened.
The whole hillside shattered as if with an earthquake, throwing them off balance so that they had to grab each other to keep from falling. Intense white light, brighter than the sun, momentarily blinded them. A wave of heat seared their faces and melted the thick snow around their feet as if it had never been. Clouds of steam rose from the crest of the hill like the plume of an active volcano.
Solo gasped, "Look!"
Silently, incredibly swiftly, the great disc of the flying saucer soared from the hilltop into the black night sky. For a second it hovered, luminously silver, above them; then it canted and made off seaward.
Before a man could have counted five the monstrous machine had diminished in size to no more than a dime seen edgewise. Then, as the three men watched, its course became erratic. It seemed to dance like a crazy firefly.
Illya said, "It's out of control."
The dime edge became a red glow that widened into a brilliant sunburst, making the night like day. An obscene pillar of iridescent light and smoke built like magic into a titanic mushroom.
Viggo said quietly, "Garbridge, farvel!"
Wordless, they watched the sinister cloud drift, swirling and curling, out over the Kattegat, its ghastly light slowly dimming.
Then Illya said, "If Garbridge was really piloting that thing, who was the man with the tommygun?"
"The morning will tell us," Viggo responded. He led the way back to the road.
* * *
Dawn was breaking when they climbed into Viggo's car to make their last journey to the chalk mine. A thin mist softened the outlines of the leafless trees standing stark against the whiteness of the snow blanket. The big farmer said, as he got behind the wheel, "My friends, I think it will be a fine day."
They halted the car beside the shattered ruin of the blockhouse. A crust of ice crackled under their feet as they tramped across the space where the cranes and trucks stood idle.
"Now, I hope, the place is out of business for good," Viggo said. "It has already cost too many lives."
Solo said, "Don't worry. We'll send a long a demolition squad. This time they'll plant the charges inside the workshop."
Heavy walking sticks made their climb to the crest easier. In little more than ten minutes they were staring at the body of the man sprawled face downward in the snow. A sub-machine gun lay near his frozen white hand.
He was wearing a long, padded blue nylon coat and his head was covered by a fur cap. The back of the coat was stained darkly red and punctured by two black holes.
"That explains the bloodstains in the Mercedes," Solo said. "He must have been driving the car."
"But who is he?" Illya asked. "He's too small and too slight to be Garbridge."
"We'll soon know," Viggo said. "Give me a hand here."
With some difficulty they turned the stiff body on to its back.
Illya said softly, "Well, I'm damned!"
They were looking into the face of the maternity home's general factotum.
"When he skipped out, he must have gone straight to the underground garage," Illya said. "He probably had the car warmed up by the time the major did his disappearing act."
Viggo shook his head wonderingly. "Poor little man! Who would have thought he had so much guts?"
Solo covered the sightless blue eyes with a handkerchief.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Solo looked out of the window of their suite in the Royal Hotel. Vesterbrogade, sixteen stories below, was almost deserted. The traffic lights winked WAIT and GO without customers.
He said, "A quarter after four, and it might as well be three in the morning. In fact, I've seen the place livelier in the small hours."
"What else would you expect in Copenhagen on Christmas Eve?" Illya asked. "Everybody's in church. That's the drill: Church, 4:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M., then home to Christmas dinner. Rice porridge, goose, red cabbage, and all the trimmings. Then everybody lends a hand with the washing-up. After that, the dancing around the tree, and the carols, and the present-giving, and the games. That's the way it goes. And all in the bosom of the family. All but relatives, avaunt!"
"That's nice," Solo said, "if you're in the family. Not so good for the stranger within the gate—like us. Switch on the radio and ring for drinks. Maybe after a couple you'll get to look like Santa Claus."
He walked over to the table and looked again at the dailies laying there.
"'FIREBALL OVER JUTLAND'," he read aloud. "'WAS IT A METEOR?' 'LOST SPUTNIK THEORY'. Well, at least we gave them a more original Christmas story than the Jingle Bells bit—even if none of them got near the truth.
"By the way, what about the after-effects? What this lad"—he tapped the front page of Politiken — "calls a 'nucleic pillar of smoke'?"
Illya said, "Whatever destroyed the saucer wasn't an atomic explosion. I've been in touch with Department XX3. They say no trace of fallout has been reported anywhere. The cloud disbursed completely about ten miles off Jutland."
"Any wreckage found?"
"Nothing. It —"
"Wait!" Solo grabbed his arm and pointed to the door. The handle was turning gently.
Illya unshipped his Luger and flattened himself against the wall. Solo, gun in hand, crossed swiftly to the bedroom.
The door opened.
There was a second's pause; then Solo heard Illya gasp, "Well! If it isn't the fairy off the Christmas tree."
Solo stepped back into sight.
"Two!" he echoed delightedly. "And one complete with magic wand."
Karen was lovely in a black cocktail dress under a short Danish mink coat. Her pallor, the only visible evidence of her experience in the "maternity home," accentuated the glory of her red hair. She held up the slim ivory stick on which she had been leaning.
"I'm sorry," she smiled. "It doesn't fire bullets or take pictures or transmit. It's not even a swordstick. I just need a little artificial support, still."
Gütte's dress was in silver lamé, with a scarlet rose tucked into the point of the low-cut bodice. Her ermine wrap might have started life on a rabbit farm, but she wore it like a Birger Christensen exclusive. Her gloves were silver and she carried a little scarlet bag.
She said, "Glaedelig Jul. Do you always greet your girlfriends with heavy artillery?" She peeled off the wrap and flung it on to a chair. "When do the drinks arrive?"
"They're on their way," Illya said
.
"Good! You want to know why we're here? Simple. The doctors said okay for Karen to travel, so why should she spend Juleaften in hospital? I went and got her. We both know this can be a lonely town for visitors on Christmas Eve, so—naturligt!—we come to cheer you up. We shall eat Christmas dinner together."
Solo said, "Great! But shouldn't you be with your own families?"
A shadow passed across Gütte's face, to be superseded at once by a wider smile. "We travel light," she said.
A waiter appeared with a trolley bearing bottles, ice and glasses. Illya busied himself with the cocktail shaker. He asked, "You want to eat here? The food is excellent."
"Here? In a hotel?" Gütte looked shocked. "Of course you come to our apartment. You think we have slaved all day for nothing? Right now, I hope, Knud is laying the table."
"Sorensen is there?"
"Of course. Could we leave him out? A bachelor all by himself in that creepy old town of his?" She grinned. "Karen, you think we were wise to leave him alone in the apartment with Lise?"
"Don't worry. They'll cook the dinner first." Karen explained to Solo. "Lise is a ceramic artist. She lives in the apartment below. Her family lives abroad, so we asked her in to make up the number. You'll like her—but not too much, I hope."
* * *
The apartment was in an ancient, pink-brick house in a tiny square tucked away behind Nyhavn. Above the door of the house hung a sheaf of wheat.
"In Denmark we like the birds to have their Christmas, too," Gütte explained. "You think that's crazy?"
They climbed the stairs to the second floor and Gütte turned the key in the apartment door. She and Karen went first into the little hall, turned and suddenly formal, shook hands with the men. They said, "Glaedilig Jul og velkom!"
Sorensen appeared in the sitting-room doorway, incongruously domesticated in a woman's frilly apron and waving a basting spoon.
"Come in! Come in!" he shouted. "You must meet the charming Lise. Would you believe it, Karen? She has even provided a marzipan pig. I tell you, she is wonderful."
