The Dolls of Death Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  Sabrina was already through the ragged hole in the concrete. Jackie Woznusky’s fat belly was preventing his rapid passage.

  “Pull Sabrina!” Solo shouted, giving Jackie a shove in the seat with his right foot.

  Like a fat cannonball Jackie shot through. He staggered to his feet on the other side. Solo climbed after him, dragging Brocade along.

  Sabrina pointed to a stairway. In a moment they reached the top. Solo tripped a lever on a control panel and they were outside on the quadrangle in the dawn light.

  In seconds Solo assessed the situation and found it very bad indeed.

  He and his water-soaked friends had no weapons. Solo had Brocade for a hostage, but that was his only edge. The explosion had attracted attention. Across the quad to the left, a unit of soldiers drilling in quick-step rhythm were called to a halt by there officer. The officer peered toward the escapees, trying to identify them from a distance.

  Directly across the huge expanse of concrete a crew of mechanics was rolling one of the SLAVs out of the large hangar. One mechanic handled each of the vertical legs which bumped across the cement on their special rollers. As the saucer craft rolled from the shadowy hangar into the light, the mechanic nearest Solo and his friends shielded his eyes against the glare of the rising sun.

  Down a line of concrete buildings immediately to Solo’s right, gunfire rattled.

  Brocade was squalling and kicking. Her language was crude, colorful and full of outrage. Solo decided he couldn’t tolerate the dangerous distraction of the girl’s kicks and scratches.

  “My apologies, dear.” He clipped her a second time.

  Brocade folded into a manageable package. Solo hoisted her over his shoulder. Her head hung down his back. Right then, an oddly familiar figure in a THRUSH uniform burst from the cover of one of those buildings down on the right.

  Napoleon Solo let out a wild whoop. “Illya!”

  Crouched on one knee and spraying every soldier in sight with his automatic-fire rifle, Illya Kuryakin didn’t hear. Solo yelled his name a second time.

  Illya glanced around, did a take. And suddenly Solo had the answer.

  There across the quad was their one chance for escape---the SLAV with the mechanics clustered around it.

  Illya Kuryakin broke in Solo’s direction as the THRUSH soldier behind him fanned out into a long line, began firing. Illya had to run in a zig-zag pattern.

  “Head for that hangar,” Solo bawled. He pushed the corpulent cabbie with his free hand. “Jackie, you watch out for Sabrina.”

  Illya Kuryakin was halfway to them now. Solo pointed toward the SLAV outside the hangar. Illya changed direction, making a path that would intersect theirs. But more soldiers were massing. Bullets kicked up puffs of cement dust only inches behind Illya’s racing heels.

  The crackle of gunfire dinned in Solo’s ears as he ran along behind his companions. Wheezing and panting, Jackie Woznusky still did a credible job of helping Sabrina stay on her feet. Over his shoulder Solo heard Brocade mutter or groan.

  Illya Kuryakin came running up. His dirt-smudged face broke into a weary grin. “Fancy meeting you.”

  “It may be a very short reunion. Keep running.”

  They pounded ahead. All of a sudden Napoleon Solo realized that only a few shots were coming their way, and those few were falling short. Sharp cries of THRUSH officers reached his ears. He thought he caught something about not hitting Dohm’s assistant.

  With Brocade hanging over his shoulder, they might make it after all.

  Solo panted as he ran, “This young lady I’m lugging knows how to fly the saucers. Let’s try to get aboard the one ahead.”

  Illya’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll encourage the spectators to give us room.”

  He got his rifle into firing position, depressed the automatic control, sprayed several bursts into the concrete just this side of the saucer craft. The mechanics scattered for cover. One leaped to drag down the wrist of another who’d located a pistol.

  The mechanics too had recognized Brocade. If Dohm suddenly appeared on the scene it would be different. The egg-headed little madman wouldn’t scruple about killing his second in command. But as long as the peons of THRUSH didn’t know that---

  “Get the landing stairs down!” Solo shouted at the mechanics. “Give ‘em another burst, Illya.”

  Illya’s rifle blasted. Two of the mechanics hopped to obey the command. In a moment the folding stairs had telescoped open.

  In the aftermath of Illya’s shots he heard Brocade mumbling again, talking to herself, probably semi-conscious. She was growing heavy.

  Illya Kuryakin let out a shout, near the saucer stairs. He scowled at the mechanics gathered in a little group. One of them fingered a wicked big wrench. But the presence of Brocade hanging over Solo’s shoulder held them at bay.

  Jackie Woznusky half-carried, half-pushed Sabrina up the stairs. Solo turned around, surveyed the quad. Platoons of soldiers were converging, all fully armed. No one was firing.

  Illya Kuryakin backed up the stairs. Napoleon Solo followed. In a moment they were inside the dome-ceilinged control chamber with its circular wall of display panels and sequencing lights.

  Without ceremony Solo dumped Brocade into one of the two black leather seat buckets in front of the main control board. He pinched her chin very lightly and shook her head at the same time.

  “Time to come back from dreamland, dear.”

  Brocade’s dark eyes opened, full of hate. She stared at him for a long moment. She said nothing.

  “Illya,” Solo said, “stroll up here with the rifle. That’s good. Miss Brocade sweet, my friend’s rifle still has sufficient ammunition to do you some harm. If you want to save your pretty skin, get to work on those controls and take us out of here. Fast.”

  In the ensuing silence Brocade bit her lower lip. The gleaming pearl in her pierced left ear caught the reddish gleam of a row of sequencing lights that flashed on and off. Finally Brocade smiled. It was a peculiar, contented, contemptuous smile Napoleon Solo didn’t quite understand.

  The girl flicked a switch in front of her. One of the TV screens on the wall lit up. It showed a profusion of soldiers racing around in front of the saucer craft, peering up at it, puzzled. Obviously they didn’t know whether to shoot.

  Brocade threw another Switch. The hatchway slid shut. More switches and levers and the powerful, whining roar of the craft’s power plant made the control chamber vibrate.

  “We are going up at full power,” Brocaded said.

  Brocade still looked bemused. Solo turned to warn Sabrina, Illya, and Jackie to get into the trio of bucket seats at the rear of the chamber. Brocade threw three levers in succession. The SLAV craft rose straight up with a sudden thrust that hurtled Solo clear across to the other side of the cabin.

  Illya Kuryakin let out a shout, went tumbling. Jackie Woznusky bleated, Sabrina clutched for support, couldn’t find any, fell.

  Solo smacked into Illya. Both of them went head over heels in a tangle, like a couple of low comedians.

  The compartment floor tilted sharply. Solo had a dizzying glimpse of one of the TV monitors. It showed the quad, then the whole Lobba-Lobba complex including the smoke-belching volcano falling away at tremendous speed. The picture tilted as the saucer went angling obliquely upward into the bright Pacific sky.

  “Slow down, Brocade!” Solo tried to crawl up the angled floor toward the controls. “Do you hear me? I said take this thing down to a normal speed or---“

  “Miss Brocade will handle the controls, Mr. Solo. In the meantime, I shall deal with you.”

  The voice made Solo’s neck crawl. From behind the row of three bolted-down bucket seats at the cabin’s rear he ugly, mis-shapen head of Dohm rose from concealment.

  The little man had a gigantic pistol clutched in his baby fingers. He stepped around from behind the seat buckets. He looked a bit taller. He had extra-thick soles on his shoes. The soles glinted like dull metal.

  Dohm swa
yed with the motion of the craft. Brocade was see-sawing it back and forth through the sky, reversing thrust without warning to keep Solo and the others off balance. But Dohm did not fall. Solo realized that the thick metal soles must be magnetized.

  Illya did not know who Dohm was, of course. But he sensed the awful peril of the moment, went crawling toward his rifle which had lodged against the kick-plate of a compact computer.

  Dohm’s ugly mouth pursed. “No. Do not reach for it or I will kill you.”

  Illya hesitated, clinging to the floor as best he could. Dohm lifted a ponderous right foot. He set it down with a clank. In that way he advanced to a position near Napoleon Solo, who was on hands and knees and desperately trying to keep from sliding as the saucer craft pitched.

  Dohm looked down, his lunatic’s brown eyes glittering.

  “You have nearly undone us, Mr. Solo. It was rather fortunate that I was inspecting this craft this morning, don’t you think? I was aboard when Brocade’s message came through. She said you planned to force her to take off. I slipped into hiding back there to wait for you.”

  Solo’s mouth wrenched. “What message? She never had time to signal you.”

  Brocade glanced back, laughing. “Ah, but I did. While you were carrying me.” With slim white fingers she touched her ear. “I hoped you would think I was merely groaning or muttering, Mr. Solo. Actually I was calling Dohm. It’s necessary that I stay in contact with him, so I carry a little sending and receiving set. Decorative, isn’t it?”

  She laughed and flecked the pearl glowing in her pierced left ear.

  Fear knocked Napoleon Solo’s belly like a hammer blow. Victory had seemed so close.

  Now Dohm’s muddy brown eyes fixed on Solo in a glare of fanatical fury. With the saucer pitching violently from side to side, Solo couldn’t get a secure foothold. Dohm licked his lips. His trigger-finger turned white with pressure.

  “I see no reason to prolong this, Mr. Solo. We have quite a busy schedule on the ground this morning. Brocade my dear, keep Mr. Solo off balance a moment longer while I shoot him. Au revoir, Solo. A valiant effort. But second-best after all. Typical of U.N.C.L.E.

  And he pulled the trigger.

  Solo flung himself wildly away to one side. What saved him was the blur of something flying through the air---

  Illya Kuryakin had snatched his rifle. With no time to aim and fire it, he’d flung it like a spear a split second before Dohm fired. The rifle smacked Dohm’s right temple just as he pulled the trigger.

  The bullet intended for Solo caught Illya in the left rib cage. Giving a cry, Illya dropped. Dohm’s finger worked by reflex action.

  Two more bullets blasted a hole into the metal cabinet of the compact computer. Metal twisted. Sparks began to shoot from damaged wires inside. Suddenly flames shot out of the hole in the computer’s case.

  By that time Napoleon Solo had reached Dohm’s legs, wrapped his arms around them and given a terrific tug. With a snap both of Dohm’s magnetized boots came loose. He spilled over backwards. Solo pulled his fist back to smack Dohm’s jaw. Another sudden reversal of the direction of the saucer sent him flying the other way. He rolled into the bulk of Jackie Woznusky, who had been floundering helplessly on the floor for some time now.

  Dohm turned over on his side, braced his free hand under him, managed to get his magnetized boot-soles on the floor again. Standing, he fastened both hands around the butt of the pistol.

  Dohm’s eyes shone crazily in the spit and glare of flame from the computer. His head seemed like something out of a nightmare.

  Jackie Woznusky kept floundering. Every time Solo tried to rise, the ship pitched again. This, plus Jackie’s flying, ham-like hands, knocked Solo askew four times. Dohm’s forearms were shaking, so violent was his rage as he tried to get the pistol sighted on Solo.

  Brocade reversed the controls again. Illya’s rifle came sliding toward Solo. He lunged for it. Dohm shrieked mindless syllables of rage. He shot.

  The bullet missed, plowing a channel in the metal floor. Solo’s sweating fingers caught the rifle stock, slid off. Dohm aimed again---

  Solo threw all his strength into a last hurtling roll towards the rifle. He clutched the stock against his mid-section as something livid-hot ripped into his left thigh.

  Dohm had hit him.

  Solo’s rifle banged and banged. The echoes of the shots blended thunderously into one another.

  Riddled, Dohm died on his feet.

  He dropped his pistol. His eyes dimmed as he realized the finality of his failure. His mouth went slack. He could not fall because the magnetized soles of his boots held fast to the floor. But his upper body went slack, twisted. He wobbled there, head and hands touching the floor, a grotesque corpse in the shape of a U.

  THREE

  Clutching the rifle, Napoleon Solo staggered toward the front control chairs. Jackie helped Sabrina to her feet. Illya’s uniform blouse was smeared with blood on the left side. He was unusually pale. But he’d managed to locate an extinguisher, was spraying chemical foam over the compact computer. The last of the fire went out drowned in a billow of white.

  “Now,” Solo said to Brocade, his face wolfish, “I trust there are no more stowaways. Fly this thing straight, my dear, or you’ll be as dead as your friend.”

  “V---very well.” Brocade was clearly very frightened all at once.

  The TV monitors showed that the saucer craft was making a low, sweeping pass over the plateau installation. Illya limped up beside Solo. Solo stared at the peculiar bulge of Illya’s blood-soaked coat.

  Illya Kuryakin unfastened the jacket buttons. He reached under.

  “I just remembered these. I took them when I was temporarily cornered in the armory.”

  Solo looked at the cross-hatching of the grenade in Illya’s palm. Suddenly the corners of his mouth curled up.

  “Brocade dear, you are going to make one more pass over the base. You’re going to go right over that volcano, which shows every sign of being active. My friend Mr. Kuryakin will hold the rifle at your pretty little head so you don’t try to fool us. Fly level. Go as slowly as you can. And keep the craft steady.”

  Solo’s grin widened in spite of the bone wariness he felt.

  “Jackie? Are you in good working order?”

  The cabbie said he thought so. “You’ll have to hold on to me. Sabrina will pass the grenades.”

  It was tricky. The saucer craft hatchway was open full, Solo clung to the doorframe with one hand. The wind howled over him, threatening to pluck him out and drop him through the air to die.

  Jackie had his feet braced around a stanchion. Both hands were fastened on Solo’s waist. One after another, the grenades were passed from Sabrina to Solo. He dropped them straight down into the curling white smoke.

  Brocade was flying low over the slaggy crater. Solo could see dull, smoky redness bubbling down in its heart. The first grenade tumbled in lazily. Then the second. Only one missed.

  “Take her up fast and shut the hatch!” Solo cried, dragging himself back out of the grip of the wind.

  The hatchway slid shut on the blaze of blue sky. The saucer craft tilted. Solo and the others rushed to the TV monitor. Brocade watched too, in a kind of horrified fascination.

  The top of the giant volcano literally blew apart.

  Tidal-waves of lava washed forth. As the saucer craft made its final pass over the island of Lobba-Lobba ten minutes later, nothing remained of the plateau complex. The buildings, the quadrangle and the immense hangar containing the twenty-three SLAVs were already inundated beneath broad rivers of burning molten rock.

  It was not a pretty sight. From the ever increasing height, Solo could see little dots running from the wave of death, only to become engulfed in the stream of fire that devoured everything in its swift lethal path.

  Nothing escaped.

  Solo uttered a long, tired sigh. “Our people will be very interested in going over this ship, Brocade. Put it on a heading for Hawaii. Bu
t treat the ship carefully, dear. Don’t bang it up. Don’t try to crash-land in the ocean. You’d die right along with us. And that wouldn’t be a nice end for a pretty girl like you, would it?”

  “You filthy---“ Brocade began.

  “Tut-tut,” Solo said. “Ladies present.”

  Brocade bit her lip and obeyed him.

  The lady Napoleon Solo had in mind leaned limply against him. Sabrina’s lovely face showed the ravages of her experience. There was very little left to her red cocktail dress. Rips, oil stains, big smudges of dirt had completely ruined it. She gave him an oblique, tired smile.

  “I will say, Napoleon, that when you take a girl on a date, you show her some sensational sights.”

  Solo’s old, raffish grin looked almost normal. “I try.”

  Illya Kuryakin was weaving on his feet. Solo helped him to one of the rear bucket seats, examined the wound and satisfied himself that it was not so severe as it had first looked.

  “How long will it take us to get to Hawaii, Brocade?” Solo asked. “We’re at full power,” she answered sullenly. Sabrina was covering her with the rifle. “About seven and a half minutes.”

  Illya nodded. “I’ll live until then.”

  Solo thought of something. “I’d better get on the radio, if there is such a thing aboard. I don’t want the Air Force jets in Hawaii to come up and shoot at us. From the outside we probably look like the Martian advance guard arriving to conquer the earth.”

  Leaving Illya, he started back to the control chairs. He passed Jackie Woznusky. The porky cabbie was staring into space, blinking his eyes faster than ever and muttering to himself:

  “Finally. They’re going to believe me. They’re really going to believe me now when I tell them I rode on a flying saucer.”

  With a grin Solo said, “I wouldn’t bank on it, Jackie.”

  “Huh.”

  “I’m not sure I believe that whole thing myself.”

  “You’re absolutely rotten,” Brocade said.

  “Yes, but you’re glad you’re alive. Aren’t you?”

  He’d caught her off guard. She flushed deeply. The fanaticism didn’t run as deeply in her as it had in Dohm.