“Just in case,” Illya breathed, checking his assembled pistol. He was interrupted by a sudden, softly-thundering chuff-chuff from behind.
In the mirror Solo saw gouts of flame and white smoke belch from the round openings in the front of the van. “Rockets!” He spun the steering wheel wildly to the right.
With a lurch the black sedan hit the shoulder. Solo straightened the car out, trying to keep it from hurtling into the ditch as the two missiles sped down the center of the highway with an eerie whine. Seconds later the rockets hit a slight rise in the road. There were two tremendous explosions. Columns of white smoke shot skyward.
Solo watched the speedometer. Still at eighty. He was having the devil’s own time steering. He shot the sedan back into the center of the road, then whipped the wheel alternately left and right, so that the sedan S-curved, tires screaming.
Illya leaned from the right window. Snapped off a shot to the rear, another. Chuff-chuff. The van’s rocket ports belched again.
Solo’s cheeks ran with sweat. He aimed the sedan’s hood at the left shoulder and floored the pedal. The rockets streaked by, whining and leaving trails of smoke. This time the angle of aim had been slightly different. The missiles plowed into a tobacco field and erupted thunderously, flinging dirt high.
The sedan was roaring down the left shoulder now, Solo still fighting for control again. Another loud report---
“Blowout!” he yelled as the sedan’s left front tire went, probably ripped by a rock.
They were heading straight for the ditch.
Solo let up on the accelerator, fought to maintain a steady course. Illya leaned from the right window, pistol chattering.
The dun-colored van raced up behind them just as the sedan started to nosedive into the ditch. Illya saw two men riding in the cab, managed to get in one more shot.
The world spun. Solo heard a faint metallic whang, then Illya’s oath of disgust. “Dented their rear bumper, that’s all.”
The black sedan plowed down into the dirt. To slow their velocity, Solo slammed the brake pedal. The sedan bounded up the other side, front right wheels high in the air. These came down with a tremendous crash. Solo’s head flew against the windshield. Colored patterns danced behind his eyes.
Moments later the U.N.C.L.E. agents, aching but alive, crawled out of the twisted wreck of the sedan and pulled Felix Corrigan after them. Corrigan looked too shocked and shaken to speak. Steam rose from the car’s crumpled radiator, obscuring the highway. Solo shook the fog out of his head. He climbed the shoulder in the sweltering sun and peered ahead down the heat-hazed asphalt.
The over-sized dun-colored van had vanished. All that remained to mark the incident were two smouldering holes, each about two feet across, where the road crested about half a mile ahead.
Solo lurched back down into the grass, dabbing with a handkerchief at a bloodied bruise on his forehead.
“I don’t know much about the wildlife of Arkansas,” Solo said, “but there is at least one THRUSH in this neck of the woods.”
Felix Corrigan goggled. “Thrush? What’s going on? I don’t understand---“
“Don’t try.” Disgusted, Illya stood up. He peered up the road. “Well, Napoleon, we’ll simply have to walk to the Fairgrounds if we’re going to try to catch the brass ring.”
With a grim nod Solo said, “Before it catches us. Come on.”
Three
The Spoon Forks county fairgrounds shimmered in the heat. A small breeze rippled canvas tent flaps here and there. Solo, Illya and Felix Corrigan entered the gate and stopped, surveying the scene.
Ahead, deserted concession tents receded into the distance along both sides of a dusty avenue. Kewpie dolls and stuffed animals on the prize shelves of the little tents stared at nothing, at silence, at emptiness. Solo consulted his watch. Apparently Crackerby’s Combined Shows & Mammoth Motorized Midway did not open for business until noon at least. The whole area had an air of eerie desolation.
Up a sparsely-shaded hill to the left the U.N.C.L.E. agents noted a group of carny roustabouts drinking beer and playing cards in their undershirts. Behind the concession tents white-painted, green-roofed grandstand loomed. Two attendants were sweeping out yesterday’s debris with push brooms.
A couple of tough-looking girls in satin jackets drifted around the corner of one of the small tents and began arranging lead-weighted milk bottles and racks of baseballs. One of the girls whistled at the three men, laughed when Solo whistled back.
To the right, past the ramshackle Agricultural Pavilion, the steel-and-light-bulb skeletons of an inactive ferris wheel, loop-the-loop and child-sized roller coaster stood out against the blazing blue sky. The faded pennons on a merry-go-round flapped. An empty popcorn box went blowing past the polished tips of Solo’s $70 hand-lasted shoes.
“That’s showbiz,” Solo said, indicating he grounds with a gesture. “Glittering glamour all the way.”
Not very sinister looking, is it?” Illya commented. “Where do we start?”
Solo shielded his eyes against the sun. “Let’s just drift around for a few minutes.”
Felix Corrigan massaged his cheeks and jowls with an oversized linen handkerchief. “If you fellas don’t mind, that shooting on the road kind of shook me up. I’d like to find a tree and sit down in the shade for a few moments. I’ll see you later.”
Solo’s smile flashed wide. “Splendid idea, Felix. Rest all you want.”
“We’ve been over this ground a dozen times with the local authorities,” Corrigan complained as he started away. “We really have. I bet you two won’t find a thing.”
“Probably not,” Solo answered, grin fixed in place. “But we’re beavers for effort.”
With another mutter Corrigan trudged away to the left, wandering up the brown grass on the hillside and slumping down under a tree near the card players. He pulled his fedora down over his eyes. Solo watched the proceedings with cold-eyed amusement.
Illya stuck his tongue in his cheek. “If that man is a top-level agent, I’m Lady Godiva.”
“And I’m Lady Godiva’s horse. He couldn’t be that incompetent. Could he?”
“He didn’t ask a single question about the truck that attacked us,” Illya said as they started down the midway between the tents full of kewpies and ring-toss games. “Beyond burbling a few generalities to indicate his surprise, he didn’t seem the least bit interested. Alarmed, but not interested. What do you think it means, Napoleon?”
Solo shrugged, cutting right between two tents toward the area where the shut-down rides loomed. They passed the gaudily painted façade of DR.WINSTON’S HORRIFIC HOUSE OF THRILLS: Admission 25 cents. A fat lady fiddling with the microphone at the barker’s stand gave them a vacant stare.
Solo said, “It either means Corrigan is a loser, draws dead-end assignments like Spoon Forks, or---“
At that point Solo bit off the sentence. He had been thinking aloud, uncertain. Was Corrigan over-playing a part? In the past Solo and Illya had occasionally encountered operatives of the other side who were new to a station, a country, an assignment. Usually these operatives gave themselves away by over-playing their cover role. Of course they didn’t last long on the job. If U.N.C.L.E. didn’t finish them off, their masters did.
This enigma of Corrigan did nothing to settle Solo’s nerves. And he disliked the dead, forlorn atmosphere of the carnival grounds. He and Illya passed the monster ferris wheel and approached the front of CONGRESS OF THE UNUSUAL---15 Freaks and Startling Oddities 15.
A series of rain-faded canvas posters was strung out along the tent’s front. These depicted a bearded lady, a sword swallower, a fire eater, Philo the Amazing Frog-boy and other bizarre amusements. But it was toward a poster second from the left that Napoleon was staring raptly. The poster’s colors looked fresher, less faded than the rest. The poster depicted a fierce-looking, round-eyed wizard in formal attire. The painted gentleman stared out hypnotically at the midway, hands extended and fingers s
pread in a Svengali-like gesture. Behind the painted figure there were images of various pieces of phony-looking electrical apparatus.
What struck Solo, jogged a haunting memory in his mind, were the figure’s bright blue-marble eyes and disorderly shock of reddish hair.
The gentleman was according to the poster legend, DR. A.C. CURRANT---Secrets of Cosmic Electro-energy Revealed! Can a human being absorb 150,000 volts and live?
Illya noticed the concentration. What’s wrong, Napoleon?”
“Look at the poster for Dr. Currant. It’s newer than the rest! And that crazy face almost looks like a caricature of someone I’m sure I’ve seen before.”
Solo closed his eyes. In his mind little black photos went clicking along one after another. At last he concentrated on one, held it. The features were indistinct, but he was able to see the shock of carrot-colored hair and the pale slightly maniacal eyes.
Solo saw them as they existed on microfilm identification in U.N.C.L.E. files. The sound of him snapping his fingers was like a shot.
“Volta!”
“Volta?” Illya echoed, still in the dark.
“Let me see whether I can get the rest of it. Yes! Dr. Leonidas Volta. He was reported killed at a research station in Iceland a year ago. I remember reading the report, noticing the I.D. shots. Illya, if that poster isn’t a picture of one of THEUSH’s top research people---and one of the nastiest, as I recall---then I’m not only Lady Godiva’s steed, I’m its nether end. His specialty was electrical research.
Illya said, “And you think Volta is really alive? Might have joined the carnival under an assumed name in order to be with the show when it played the town where Martin Bell was vacationing?”
“Stranger things have happened.” All at once the dead, deserted midway folded an atmosphere of danger, hidden threat, close around them. “Particularly since THRUSH has virtually unlimited funds, can buy or bribe its way in practically anywhere. Come on. Let’s see whether Dr. Currant is still with the show. I’ll bet you a month’s expense account he isn’t.”
Now Illya’s eyes flicked over the deserted sideshow tent. Solo crept around to the side. Illya followed. In a moment both agents had unlimbered their pistols, held them at the ready.
Cautiously Solo peeked around the big tent’s rear corner. He saw a jumble of large and small house trailers parked every which way. A small sign over the door of one said Philo the Frog-boy. Inside, a radio played country music.
Solo and Illya stole forward again, down the chromed side of the nearest trailer. They circled around the Frog-boys domicile. From the window a curious croaking drifted out along with the recorded guitars. Then Solo pulled up short, pointing with his pistol muzzle.
Directly ahead was a blue-painted house trailer with the legend DR. A.C. CURRANT, Practitioner of Electro-physical Marvels painted gaudily along one side. The blinds were carefully drawn.
Once more Solo started forward. But this time it was Illya who did the double-take. He had just spotted something large, dun-colored looming behind Currant’s mobile home. With Solo at his side, Illya crept along past Currant’s trailer until both the U.N.C.L.E. agents saw a sight that made them literally catch their breaths.
A service road from the far side of the Fairgrounds led up to the rear of the trailer area. Parked near the trailers at the head of this service road, cab empty, stood a large dun-colored van. The headlights caught sun, reflected it in silver dazzles. Except for the absence of the front-end rocket ports, it was the van that had attacked them on the road.
The two U.N.C.L.E. agents had worked together long enough to require no words now. Illya led the way, cat-footing down alongside the van and around to the rear. His mouth quirked. He used the muzzle of his gun to tap the rear bumper.
The bumper still showed the deep indentation of Illya’s bullet.
Solo and Illya stole back to the van’s head end. Solo pressed his palm over the motor cowl.
“Still warm. I suggest we pay a surprise visit to Dr. Currant’s---“
“There you are! Thought I’d never find you!”
The voice boomed. Solo spun around, dropping into a crouch as his finger constricted on the trigger. He just managed to check the pull a second before actually shooting.
Illya Kuryakin scowled. Felix Corrigan had come up behind them around the corner of another of the trailers.
“Sneaking up on that way almost cost the U.S. government an accident insurance claim, you utter idiot,” Illya whispered.
“What do you mean? Hell, I was just---“
“Keep your voice down!” Solo rapped out. “We think there’s a chance that some of the people responsible for Martin’s disappearance may be in there.” He indicated Currant’s trailer. “Or at least it’s their headquarters. This, in case you aren’t capable of recognizing it---“ Solo patted the side of the dun-colored van in whose shadow they crouched. “---is the truck that fired at us on the highway.”
It’s wrong, Solo was thinking. It’s all wrong.
The burly Federal man blinked, surveyed the drawn blinds of Currant’s trailer, shook his head.
“If you’re going in there, Solo, we need more men. Let’s go back to the gate. I’ll telephone my boys at Bell’s place. They can be here in ten minutes.”
“Not necessary,” Solo said. His face had turned stony, emotionless. “Let’s go.”
Corrigan caught Solo’s arm. “Wait! We haven’t got enough men, I tell you. You listen to me! I’m in charge of this investigation!”
Very quietly, Solo said, “You’re not in charge of anything, Corrigan, except trying to bollix us up.”
There was a quick, ugly flash in Corrigan’s eyes, instantly hidden. Solo felt that the time for game-playing had ended:
“No Federal agent I’ve ever met has been as stupid as you pretend to be, Corrigan. You’re overplaying.” Abruptly he jammed the muzzle of his pistol into Corrigan’s midsection. “Maybe that’s because you’re running a rear-guard team whose job it is to see no one picks up the trail of Martin Bell’s kidnappers. Would that team be from THRUSH, perhaps?”
Like melting wax Felix Corrigan’s face changed. Illya shouted, “Napoleon! Watch out!”
Corrigan brought a powerhouse knee up into Solo’s groin. The blow doubled Solo, sent him smashing against the side of the dun-colored van. Before Illya could shoot, Corrigan snatched up a handful of midway dust and threw it straight in Illya’s eyes.
Illya was blinded. Losing all traces of lethargy, Felix Corrigan raced back around the corner of the van.
As Solo straightened up, he caught a glimpse of Corrigan pulling out a pocket transmitter as he darted out of sight.
In the stillness of the carnival grounds, Corrigan’s voice cracked out loudly, sharply. He was hiding behind the van and signaling, “Blue signal. All agents. Repeat, all agents. Shoot to kill. Shoot to kill U.N.C.L.E.”
ACT II
ROCKET TO DOOMSDAY
A hand, Corrigan’s, popped around the rear corner of the oversize van. In that hand was a pistol with an immense snout. Napoleon Solo saw that the pistol which Corrigan aimed would take Illya’s head off with its first shot. Solo dived.
He hit Illya at the knees, knocking him into the dirt. Corrigan’s pistol burped. Something went plop against the van’s side, where Illya’s head had been a moment before.
White smoke frothed up from the point of impact. A hole appeared in the solid steel of the van. The hole fumed and hissed at the edges. It widened swiftly, three inches across, now six, now nine---
“Acid bullets!” Solo breathed.
Scrambling away from Illya, he jammed his right elbow into the dust and triggered a shot at Corrigan’s left foot, which was sticking around the end of the van. He fired again. Not hit, Corrigan jerked his foot back out of the way in time.
Up the service road raced a shabby gray sedan which Solo had seen before. Footfalls also hammered behind them, moving in between the tents. Out on the midway a woman’s voice demande
d to know what in profanity was happening. A shot cracked. The woman’s cry burbled into a wounded scream of pain.
Illya had regained his feet. He braced himself against the van wall, just beneath the huge hole eaten by the acid from Corrigan’s gun. Illya’s pistol popped softly twice. The left front tire of the approaching sedan blew apart.
The sedan wheeled over and crashed into a tree, but not before a quartet of THRUSH agents had leaped free, guns popping. Bullets chewed up the dust at Solo’s feet as he dragged on Illya’s sleeve.
“We’ll have a better chance back in among the trailers,” he said, giving Illya a sudden shove as Corrigan leaped into sight again. The U.N.C.L.E. agents raced into strategic retreat a second before Corrigan’s next projectile hit the van fender and ate it half away.
Solo and Illya pounded into the temporary cover afforded by Currant’s trailer. In Solo’s mind flickered a ghastly picture of an U.N.C.L.E. agent who had once been struck in the face by the splatter from a THRUSH acid projectile. The man had died shrieking, flesh and cartilage eaten away down to the cheekbones.
Solo and Illya crouched on the far side of the deserted Currant trailer, listening. Footsteps slithered through the dust. To their rear Philo the Frog-boy croaked unintelligible syllables of alarm. His voice faded rapidly. Suddenly two men raced into view at the front end of Currant’s trailer, turning to fire at the crouched agents.
Illya shot with teeth bared. Solo’s shot blended with his. The first THRUSH agent was bowled backwards into the second, both out of action.
Swiftly Solo checked the loads in his pistol. The outlook was not encouraging. “If those two came from the midway, that still leaves at least four of them. Plus Corrigan.”
“We can play ring-around-roses for an hour in this maze without getting another one of them,” Illya whispered back. “And that will give them time to bring up more reinforcements.”
Solo wiped a trickle of perspiration from the point of his chin. Out among the trailers footfalls shuffled again, stealthily, ominous.
The Deadly Dark Affair Page 4
