The Hungry World Affair
Page 8
The princess darted backward, but Marlene matched the movement.
The corner of the room shit off further retreat for the princess. She was hemmed in.
“All right,” Solo said with quiet acceptance of the situation. “Hold it.”
He opened his sweating hand. Gould leaped to his feet, working his arm to ease the pain. The two guards pounced on Solo and jerked him upright.
One of them ripped the knife from Solo’s hand. The other glanced at his commander with eyes that were evilly gloating.
“How about we turn on the suits, Commander, and give this U.N.C.L.E.’s nephew a nice, friendly bear hug?”
“Not yet,” Gould said. “You, Karistan, take the two of them to A-three and stay on guard outside the door. I want them handy to the upper deck when we get the ready signal from the Iaclasco unit.
“I want the pleasure of knowing they’ve had to swallow the final bitter pill. From the upper deck they’ll be able to see a couple of shooting stars moving in reverse---our missiles in their way to points zero!”
Gould smoothed the wrinkles from his disarrayed slacks and turtleneck with quick flicks of his hands. He smiled thinly. Afterwards, we’ll have a little game on the upper deck. We’ll let Solo and the Aztec queen see how long they can dodge around in a closing circle of hot togs!”
TWO
Illya Kuryakin came out of the total blackness of the sea into the blackness of a night jeweled with a million stars.
His frogman’s suit gave him the look of a glistening seal. He had left one of the locks of the U.N.C.L.E. submarine Dolphin twenty-five minutes ago. Although he could not see the vessel, he knew the Dolphin was behind him, due west, lying off the natural harbor just under the surface.
Ahead, against the backdrop of the forbidding palisades that towered up where the sea ended, the Benevolence lay at anchor. She was totally blacked out, but Kuryakin could guess at the beehive of life going on behind the covered portholes.
He settled his air tanks a bit more comfortably on his back, finished taking his bearings, and slid again beneath the surface.
Five minutes later his face mask, in the feeble night glow, was a faint glint bobbing beside the anchor chain that snaked down from its port in the prow of the ship.
A gentle in-coming tide was running, and he let it steady his body against the giant chain links. From the plastic case strapped against his chest, Kuryakin removed what appeared to be a flat round tin with a foot-long tube projecting from its edge.
He lifted the tube skyward, aimed, and depressed a button. With a whir from the released energy from a coiled spring, a metal rod shot out of the nylon tube, dragging in its wake a nylon line.
As the rod limned against the starry sky, it sprang open into three prongs.
Kuryakin watched the line quiver against the sky as it played out of the metal drum in his hand. He saw it sweep over the deck rail of the Benevolence. He jerked his finger from the depressed button. The extended metal prongs hit the end of the line and fell on the deck, out of sight.
Kuryakin crouched in the water beside the anchor chain, eyes and ears straining. But nothing happened above to indicate that the soft bump of the nylon-sheathed prongs had attracted attention.
He pulled the line slowly, felt the pronged hook snag on the deck rail. He put pressure on the line to test it. The hook was caught securely.
He shrugged out of his tanks and face mask to lighten his weight. Then he began the slow, difficult, hand-over-hand ascent to the deck of the Benevolence.
The edge of the deck was finally at eye level. It was quiet, deserted. Then Illya ducked as a THRUSH guard came into view.
Illya’s muscles began to cramp. The line felt as if it were cutting in the very bones of his hands. The dark water below rustled hungrily.
Then the THRUSH man’s footsteps faded, going aft in a pace that was leisurely in the total absence of any visible sign of danger.
Illya’s frogman suit squeaked softly as he slithered onto the deck. He slipped out of the suit quickly, removing sneakers from the plastic case. Sitting on the deck, he donned the shoes and stood up clothed in the slacks and turtleneck he’d worn beneath the underwater suit.
With deft motions, he folded the frogman suit into a small bundle and slid it in the shadows of a hatch cover.
Then he was a shadow flitting across the deck. He reached a door on the side deck, took a breath, hesitated. But, he supposed, any door that one must open onto the unknown was as good a bet as any other. With that thought, he depressed the handle and eased the door open.
He slipped into a companionway that glowed with diffused light. It was deserted at the moment, but from an open room off the corridor up ahead came the clicking of poker chips, an occasional curse of guffaw. A rec room Kuryakin decided, where standby guards gambling.
Kuryakin took a deep breath and continued along the passageway. The open portal of the recreation room was to his left. As he reached it, he flicked a glance inside. Five men, as he’d surmised, were huddling about a card table.
One of them glanced up and saw him. He man bumped the table as he snapped to attention. “Commander! Is something wrong?”
The human impulse to bolt surged up in Illya. But he broke stride casually, shook his head, and with a gesture of his hand indicated the guards might go on with their game,
The guard began to reseat himself slowly, staring at the likeness of his chief out there in the corridor. Illya’s pulse skipped a beat. Something was wrong. But with easy, unhurried motion, he continued on his way.
The open doorway of the rec room fell eight, ten, twelve paces behind, Illya eased out his breath. He’d counted on his superficial likeness to Dion Gould as an ace in the hole. Apparently luck was with him.
Then from behind him came the voice of the guard who’d first noticed him. “Commander!”
Illya’s shoulders chilled. He stopped, turned with a smooth motion.
He coughed, lifted his hand, and in the midst of a second cough, mumbled a muffled, “Yes? What is it?”
“How did you get up here so quickly, Commander? You called us from D-twenty just moments ago and told us to be prepared to take Solo and the princess on the main deck when we get that signal from Iaclasco that---“
The THRUSH man’s words broke off in an explosion of breath.
Illya felt his body go nerveless. He suspected what he would see if he turned from the guard and followed the direction of the guard’s gaze.
And he was quite correct. A small elevator had whirred to a stop far down the corridor. And Dion Gould had stepped out, flanked by three more of his hot-togged thugs.
THREE
The cabin to which Gould had consigned Napoleon Solo and Princess Andra was much more like a stateroom than the cell in which Solo had shaken off the effects of the nerve gas.
It was a bed-sitting room with comfortable modern furnishings. But it was also an interior cabin without a porthole. It was air-conditioned and offered no exit except the door, outside of which a THRUSH man was stationed. So it was, in effect, as secure as Solo’s previous cell.
Princess Andra was pale and calm. She had accepted the fact of death and faced it without melodramatic display.
She sat regally erect in a chair covered with white satin, the clutching of her fingers on the arms of the chair the only sign of her inner feelings.
She watched Solo as he prowled the room. He started. He stopped. He touched various objects. And her eyes were pained as she read the tension in him.
She gave a shake of her head, swirling the glistening black hair about her shoulders, and dropped her gaze to the carpet.
“Strangely enough, Mr. Solo, I can’t even recall my previous state of mind. When my father was butchered, I blamed politics. Politics had killed him. And I saw his death as worse than wasteful. The human race had deprived itself of a man who was not only brilliant---but who was genuinely good. So I would have nothing to do with politics or political factions---“
Her nails ripped into the white satin. The suffering in her eyes deepened intolerably. “I made the common mistake of so many so-called intellectuals. I thought it was possible to pretend there was no evil or good, merely truth. I believed in neutrality. And blindly went ahead to the inevitable result, put myself and my work in the hands of those who---“
Her words trailed off. Her eyes came into bewildered focus on Solo, as the strangeness of his actions got through the barricade of her own thoughts.
He had dashed across the room, jerked the wire from a bedside lamp. Now he was nibbling the end of the wire, baring the copper strands.
He caught the look on her face and smiled tightly.
“No,” he murmured, “the imminence of death hasn’t caused me to flip. It merely occurs to me that we might have some slight chance of getting out of here!”
She didn’t understand, but his words brought her to her feet. She watched as he took hold of the bare wire from its sheathing of insulation. The naked wire was about six feet long. He rolled about three feet of it into a hard, small ball of copper.
He stood now with three feet of wire that stood on its end.
“As the old saying goes, princess, we’ve nothing to lose but our lives. Game to chance a gamble in which we have no more stakes?”
“Certainly, Mr. Solo. But I don’t understand---“
“You just get that guard to open the door and step inside. Then I’ll either grab us a fighting chance or kill us quickly.”
He looked toward the closed door. “Pretend I’m suddenly ill? But no---“
“But no,” Solo agreed, looking steadily at her. “He wouldn’t open the door for that. But he would certainly jump at the chance of buttering up his commander.”
Her eyes questioned.
Solo crossed to her side and spoke quickly in low tones. “These birds think in one direction. Intrigue. Double dealing. Unholy bargains they can welch on later. So we feed him some food for thought. Rather, you do.”
“Yes, Mr. Solo?”
“You tell him there’s one additional and vital piece of information about your process you managed to hold back. You tell him you’ll trade it for your life. Not both of ours. Just yours. He’ll comprehend and believe it if he thinks you’re ready to sell me out, do anything to save just your own skin.”
“All right,” she said, “I’m ready, Mr. Solo.”
Napoleon Solo moved away from her, taking a position not too close to the door. He would be in full view of the guard if the door should open, and apparently harmless. He lifted his hands behind his head, holding the end of the weighted naked wire in his right hand. The wire dangled down his back, his body concealing the wire as he faced the door.
He nodded at Princess Andra. His heart felt as if it were fluttering in his throat. “On stage, my lady,” he murmured.
She took a moment to compose herself, to project herself into the role of a person slavering with fear of death.
She moved to the enameled metal portal, sagged against it, her nails grating on the surface.
“Guard! Guard, please!”
“Keep it quiet in there!”
She moaned. “I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me die!”
“So it’s getting to you!” The guard’s voice brightened with pleasure.
“I won’t go on keeping it to myself.” Princess Andra looked at Solo for approval and got it from a quick wink of his right eye.
The guard let a moment pass. Then his voice came as if his lips were almost against the other side of the door. “Keeping what to yourself?”
“One thing.” She began giving an excellent imitation of ragged sobs. “I was able to hold it back---One vital thing. But dying isn’t worth it. If I told you, on condition that you help me---“
“I might speak to the commander,” the guard said gruffly.
“Yes, yes! Please---think how generous he would feel toward you if you could go to him and reveal the one thing I was able to hold back. You could influence him. For my sake---“
Princess Andra let her voice fade. She moved back and crumpled on the carpet in the middle of the room.
Good girl! Solo thought.
“You lousy female fink!” Solo snarled. “I’ll fix you so you’ll never tell anybody---‘
“Lay off, Solo!” the guard rasped through the door. “Stand clear and put your hands behind your head! I’m having a look, and if you’ve got a finger on her, I’ll blast you.”
The latch was rattling, the door cracking cautiously. The sight that met the THRUSH man posed no threat to him, but it was not altogether reassuring. He saw Solo standing abjectly, hands behind his head as ordered. He saw the form of the princess several feet away, apparently unconscious.
The THRUSH man came cautiously into the room, “If you’ve silenced her for keeps, you just don’t know how dearly you’re going to buy your own demise!”
The guard reached to his shoulder and flipped the hot togs control on full power. A grin slit his face. “I almost hope you make a move, U.N.C.L.E.’s boy, and manage to grab a handful of my shirt-tail!”
Solo stood merely quivering, looking meekly impressed. The guard cautiously skirted him, watching him closely.
Then the guard made his inevitable mistake. He took a quick look at Princess Andra to make sure she was still breathing. Solo’s right hand came from behind his head. His arm snapped around. The guard jerked his head just as the weighted end of the wire whipped in a single coil about his neck. He yanked his pistol up to fire. But he had time to only half-way complete the motion.
The loose end of the wire brushed against his hot togs. A crackle of bluish-white flame welded the wire to the suit as the full power flowed from the hot togs into the guard’s un-insulated neck.
Solo had flung himself to one side as the pistol had started its jerky motion. He had but a glimpse of the guard straining on tiptoe, eyes bursting from their sockets, face turning black.
The glimpse was enough to give him nightmares for several nights to come.
Catching his breath against the sudden odor of scorched ozone and frying flesh, Solo scooped up the guard’s fallen pistol. Princess Andra was already scrambling through the open doorway.
Solo joined her in the corridor, yanking the door closed. From a distance a sound emanated. A whine. Like the whispered echo of an elevator rising to an upper level on the other side of the ship. But corridors on the other side of the ship didn’t concern Solo at the moment, not as long as this particular passageway was empty.
He grabbed Andra’s hand and they ran to the corridor’s end. Solo cracked a door, peeked out, then motioned to the princess.
They raced across the dark foredeck, toward the prow. The shadow of a hatch loomed. Solo cut around it. His feet caught in something soft and yielding. He tripped and fell.
The princess heard his grunt, drew up, and returned to his side, dropping to her knees.
“Are you all right, Mr. Solo?”
“Yes,” he gasped, sitting up. He began disentangling his feet from the wet, rubbery substance.
“Frogman’s outfit,” he said. “Still wet. Wait a minute! Still wet and hidden here---means somebody must have sneaked aboard.”
He spread the suit flat on the deck with quick movements of his hands.
Hid breath grabbed tight. On the left breast of the suit, he could make out the outlines of the imprinted insignia of a triangular U.N.C.L.E. badge.
His body jerked into a crouch. He caught Andra’s arm.
“Over the side you go,” he ordered. “I hope you swim well.”
“I won medals in college,” she said, not boastfully. “But you, Mr. Solo?”
“Our people have uncovered the secret of the Benevolence and sent somebody in to assist u
s. I’m afraid I have to linger aboard. But you are the prize, you and the contents of your brain. So don’t hesitate. Don’t look back. We’ll give you every chance possible.”
Four
Illya Kuryakin had that one moment of grace in which the THRUSH guards were suspended, staring from one image to another of their commander.
The U.N.C.L.E. pistol in Illya’s hand coughed. The guard beside Gould grabbed his midsection and crumpled. The others followed their leader as he fell back in confusion into the elevator.
“Get him, you fools!” Gould screamed.
Kuryakin turned just as the first guard from the rec room bore down upon him. He didn’t have time to bring his gun to bear. He twisted desperately aside from the THRUSH man’s bulk, pitching one of the anti-hot tog jell capsules with a side flip of his hand.
At the close range it was impossible to miss. Illya heard the soft plop of the capsule against the guard’s suit even as he tumbled away from the guard’s shadow.
He got a blurred impression of the guard straining rigidly upright and smoking like a side of scorched beef as the suit shorted out.
“They’ve found a defense and turned our hot togs into death traps,” Gould screeched from the elevator. “Don’t get close to him---but kill him, kill him!”
And kill me they shall, Illya realized. Caught between two fires, both ends of the corridor plugged with THRUSH guards---
He flopped, skidding on his chest, escaping the first fusillade from the guards pouring out of the rec room. He flipped a shot to drive them back, swiveled his arm to fire in the direction of the elevator.
He flung himself to the other side of the corridor as bullets whined off the enameled steel walls.
He heard a man cry out and knew that a slug from one end of the corridor had hit a man at the other end. Stroke of luck, that.
But he knew the last grain of luck was about to run out. He had already exceeded his average life span under these circumstances. But he kept moving, firing, making a flat, small target of himself. A bullet burned across his ribs. Another nipped his shoulder.
Then he had the crazy sensation that Napoleon Solo was calling his name from the far end of the corridor. He swiveled his head. The bodies of two guards from the rec room lay slumped on the floor. And there in the doorway that opened onto the deck stood a figure that looked amazingly like Napoleon Solo---