The fire storm was sweeping higher toward them. The flames were so wide spread that it seemed to Slate, looking down, that they were forming a human chain to lower April Dancer into a seething volcano.
The tiny pellet had been enclosed in a ball of damp earth before she descended. It needed weight to throw so far.
“Ready?” Solo called down to April.
She steadied herself and drew back her hand. Her face was drawn by utter fatigue, but her eyes sparkled with that genuine pleasure she always felt in moments of extreme danger.
“Ready!” she cried.
“Ready up above, Mark?” “Ready!” Slate said.
“Then brace! This is it! Go, April!”
A jerk went up the line of hands as April's body twisted with the effort of hurling the bomb. Solo was watching. The second the ball of dirt left April's hand, he yelled: “Pull!”
But April's feet slipped in the loose dirt. She fell. The jerk of her body was transmitted up the outstretched arms of the men from U.N.C.L.E.
Mark Slate could see it coming and braced himself. The rough concrete tore into his fingers, but he held on grimly. Blood welled through his lacerated fingertips, making it still more difficult for him to hang on.
The roar of the fire storm was so great that they scarcely heard the crash of the exploding bomb. The chain of men was moving back, pulling April Dancer, since she could not get on her feet.
Above them the hill bulged and started to slide. Napoleon got back on the tilting floor and grabbed a hold before Slate's bloody fingers slipped.
Together they pulled Kuryakin up. They didn't quite make it with April. The cascade of dirt swept across her legs. Solo let go his grip on Kuryakin's hand. He leaned over, oblivious to the huge rock that bounced over his head. He grabbed April's other hand. Together he and Illya heaved to drag the girl from U.N.C.L.E. out of the dirt before she was covered.
The avalanche continued to build up. It had almost completely blocked the opening now. A flame-cloud was hurled against the barrier. It licked hungrily into the small breech remaining.
As the sliding earth blocked off the broken side of the shelter, it posed a new danger. It started spilling into the room, driving the U.N.C.L.E. quartet back against the opposite wall.
“There is no danger of covering us,” Solo said. “But the more it fills the room, the less air space there is left for us. We could suffocate.”
“How long do you think we must stay here?” April asked. “Every moment lost is moving us close to disaster. This---”
She paused to sweep her hand in an arc to include the disaster area about them.
“This will be repeated in fifteen of the world's greatest cities,” she went on. “Millions will die and the rest will be crushed under the heavy hand of THRUSH.”
“I don't know how much time has passed,” Solo said. “It seems like a century, but I doubt that it has been more than twenty minutes since that smoke exploded in Pierce's face.”
“We probably have not more than two hours at the most,” April said. “We've got to get out of here.”
“We'd never, make it,” Illya Kuryakin insisted. “Being on this side of the hill, we were protected from the greater part of the blast and heat. There is nothing to stop radioactive debris from falling however. Once outside we will face increasing deadly radiation as more and more particles fall out of the mushroom cloud.”
“I think civil defense authorities in the States figure that the worst of the fallout happens within the first hour after detonation,” Mark Slate said.
“But lighter particles keep falling for some time,” Solo said. “It is not really safe to go out of here for two weeks.”
“How long do you think we could live if we rushed it now?” April asked. “Our job is not to stay alive, but to wipe out this terrible THRUSH threat to the world.”
“I know,” Solo said. “And we're going to have to make a move within the next hour regardless of the danger. If it kills us before we make it, then we did the best we could.”
“What about Mr. Waverly?”
April asked. “I know he said to keep a radio silence, but could we call him and see if he can't convince the U.S. authorities to hit this place with an Intercontinental ballistic missile?”
“I doubt if he could convince anyone in authority to take the risk,” Solo said. “Even if he could, we would have to give a more precise location of the control and tracking station. All we know is that it is fifteen miles or so down river. Then there would have to be time to reprogram the missile's guidance system for the new target. That takes time. Most missiles, I understand, are set in advance for predetermined targets.”
“Then it is up to us,” Slate said. “So let's do something, even if it is wrong,” Illya cried. “I have an idea where that tracking station is.”
“Where?” April asked.
“Do you remember back there in Taipei when we first learned our destination?”
“You mean a million years ago?”
April said. “It seems that long anyway.”
“You and I looked over the Chinese intelligence maps of this area,” Illya went on.
“Yes,” April agreed. “We were looking for escape routes.”
“About fifteen miles downstream the river narrows to a rapid through a very deep gorge. You suggested that being a good place to go if we were pursued. It would be next to impossible for anyone to scale those cliffs against determined opposition.”
“You may be right,” April said. “But you frighten me. If the tracking station is located in that wild area, our chances of knocking it out are one degree below the impossible mark.”
A deep silence followed her words. It was totally dark in the shelter. April could not see her companions' faces, but she realized the consternation that must be mirrored there.
FOURTEEN
DOWN RIVER
After a long silence, Solo said, “I don't think fallout is our problem. Most of the vaporized radioactive material is still rising in the cloud. It is being sucked up by the hellish fire storm and winds. Our greatest barrier is the firestorm and it should pass quickly right in here for it has only the river debris to feed on.”
He got up. They could hear him shuffling in the dark.
“Give me a hand,” he said. “The dirt won't be so thick at the top of the pile. I want to see if the firestorm has passed us by.”
They went to work with him, digging at the soft pile of dirt near the ceiling. It took only about fifteen minutes for them to clear an opening.
As Solo had predicted, the combustible material on the water had burned itself out. The wild flames were no longer sweeping up the hill.
“A Geiger counter is the one thing the lab never put in with our protective devices,” April Dancer said. “It is the one thing we need now.”
Solo looked down at the luminous face of his watch. The minutes were ticking away rapidly. Where before time dragged, now it was moving more like a drag race.
Except along the river banks, where material was exhausted, the fire-storm was still raging through the doomed city. From ground zero the huge column of the radioactive cloud was continuing to rise. The wind was being sucked into the column with gale fury.
April thought as she looked down on the carnage that it was a scene from the end of the world.
Napoleon Solo broke in on her thoughts. “When that cloud drops its fallout, we'll be completely trapped. It's move now or never.”
“Who's arguing?” Illya asked. “Get going!”
“Our greatest danger is between here and the river,” Solo said. “Once we get past the ground initial fallout the river should be fairly clean. The swift current should have swept its radiation downstream by now.”
“I don't know how much radiation we'll have to plow through between here and the water,” Slate observed, “but we can take up to about three hundred Roentgens without fatal results.”
“Without a Geiger counter to tell us how much radia
tion we are being exposed to, we can only take a chance,” Solo said. “It's a blind gamble.”
“Wait!” April cried as Solo started to climb out the hole for the dash to the river. “Wait! There may be a way. I thought of it when you mention about the river sweeping its radiation downstream. I think we can sweep a clear path for ourselves to the river!”
“That is going to take a mighty big broom, April,” Illya said.
“I think the word is big boom!”
April replied. “We'll start another slide. The radioactive material will not have had time to penetrate very far. The fallout will be mostly on top of the ground. A slide will sweep us a clear path directly to the river.”
“I see nothing to prevent it from working---unless we bury ourselves,” Solo said.
“We'll get some radiation,” Illya said thoughtfully. “I doubt that it will exceed the maximum dose.”
“We'll have to move fast before the really heavy fallout comes from the mushroom cloud,” Slate said.
“Then let's go,” Solo said. “You can't live forever--and the way things have been going lately, I'm not sure I'd want to! Brace yourselves. I'm going to throw the bomb. This shelter is unstable now. There is no telling how it will stand the shock of another explosion.”
Solo did not try to throw the bomb close to the shelter. He figured that if the slide started below, it would pull down the loose dirt above it. This would minimize the chance of the remaining concrete shelter walls collapsing on them.
He leaned far out the hole in the dirt barrier and threw the bomb, ducking back in as soon as it left his fingers. There was a breathless moment's wait and then the ground shook with the explosive shock. A huge crack broke across the ceiling.
The blocked dirt poured down hill. The floor heaved and split. Dirt flushed through the ceiling break. The ceiling sagged, held off them only by its strained steel reinforcement. A block gave way and almost crushed them before they could jump back to safety.
The floor buckled wildly. It shivered and started to slide. The entire structure had jarred loose from its anchoring foundation.
The dirt fell away from the open end. A corner of the structure dug deep into the soft dirt. It spun around, throwing the four from U.N.C.L.E. hard against the wall.
They were sliding faster now. A huge slice of the hill was going with them. The concrete room teetered dangerously.
“Get ready to jump!” Solo called.
“If it turns over, we'll be crushed!”
When the room spun around again, he caught the edge of the broken wall and threw himself out. He tried to jump up as soon as he hit, but Illya Kuryakin, just behind, somersaulted into him.
“Mark?” Solo cried.
“Here behind you,” Mark Slate said pulling himself out of the hole he plowed in the earth.
“Where's April?”
“There!” the Englishman said, pointing down the hill. “You didn't expect to get ahead of that stick of dynamite, did you?”
The concrete bunker---what remained of it---was plowing its way down the soft slide left by the previous avalanches. April Dancer was running along in the groove it left, heading for the river.
The three men started after her. The ground was more solid under the furrow left by the present slide.
The bunker plunged all the way to the river and into the water. The U.N.C.L.E. quartet followed, swimming out to the center of the river where the strong current caught them.
At this point the river made a half circle to slip around the hill whose blocking bulk saved their lives when the H-Bomb went off. While they were swept around the curve the sight ahead sickened them.
They were the first people they had seen affected by the wanton bombing. Corpses littered the banks of the river, where people aflame had run for relief. Milling, screaming groups staggered aimlessly, pushed and mauled by the gale-force winds still being sucked into the towering mushroom cloud.
The wind was also kicking up high waves on the river. Water splashed continually over the heads of the U.N.C.L.E. quartet as the current swept them rapidly downstream.
April was still in the lead. The others saw her turn and wave her hand back frantically at them. The river was curving slightly and they couldn't see what had disturbed her.
Then as they made the turn, they saw that a wooden span bridge had collapsed across the river. Thermal heat from the initial fire ball had set it afire.
It was partially burned away and had collapsed all along the span. However large sections were jammed along the banks where the river current had rammed them into the mud. Portions extending above the water were still flaming. The wild wind was whipping flame, ash, cinders, and sparks into a cloud that fogged completely across the river.
April slackened speed to let them catch up with her.
“That ash must be radioactive!” she gasped. “It is flying everywhere! The river is covered with it!”
“You can bet your sweet---and probably short---life on it being poisonous with radiation,” Slate said.
“Damn the radiation! Full speed ahead!” Illya yelled. “It is suicide to get out of the water. We've got to go on and take our chances on living long enough to knock out that control and tracking station. I knew it before, but I never realized what stopping those H-bombs really meant until I saw these poor devils in this man-made hell!”
“I don't know how far that ash extends down river,” Solo said. “All we can do is duck under the water and swim as long as our breaths hold out. We'll come up when we must. Maybe we can get past the worst of it.”
April looked across the water at the pitiful mass of dying humanity. “Let's hope so, for a lot of people's sake,” she said softly.
They let the river current carry them down almost to the zone where the radioactive ash was being whipped on the water. April took a deep breath and ducked under the water. She did not try to swim hard and fast. She knew that useless struggles would only exhaust her held breath that much faster. The swift current was carrying her along at a good clip.
Her lungs started to burn. She had no way of knowing how far she had come under the water. She didn't dare rise up until she reached the point of drowning.
Her oxygen-starved heart was hammering frantically. She was growing dizzy. Her chest felt as though it was going to explode any second.
But still she went on, forcing her tortured body to hold out just a bit longer. Finally she knew she could stand it no longer. Blood was pounding so badly in her head that she could scarcely think.
She threw up her hands as she kicked up with her feet, threshing out wildly to knock back any radioactive debris that might be floating above her.
Hastily she gulped in air. It was hot and smelled of smoke and charred flesh.
She looked around. She saw Solo not far from her, but the others were out of sight.
“We're safe!” Solo shouted. “Keep moving!”
“Where's Illya and Mark!” she yelled back.
“Take care of yourself!” Napoleon Solo shouted back. “We've got a job to do and that job isn't to worry about each other!”
It sounded heartless, but she knew that it wasn't. It was a simple exposition of the U.N.C.L.E. creed. Nothing personal mattered. The job had to be done!
Solo moved over close to her. “We've got to make better time,” he yelled above the roar of the fires on the shore. “Time is slipping away from us. We've got at least thirteen miles to go yet.”
April took another deep breath. It made her lungs, still tortured from the long underwater ordeal, burn with a painful fire.
“What about the heavy fallout?” she asked.
“It's coming and it's coming soon. The gamma radiation is what we have to fear. There is no way to shield ourselves from it except to get into a shelter. And there are no more shelters.”
She swam alongside of Solo for about a quarter mile, constantly looking back in hope that she would see the other two men from U.N.C.L.E. Then, as they rounded another bend in t
he snaking river, she saw a sampan directly ahead. It was bobbing on the choppy water---a flat-bottomed boat with a plaited reed cover.
As she swerved to avoid it, a head stuck out from under the canopy.
“What kept you?” Mark Slate said with a grin. “Illya, here's a hitchhiker. Give her a hand.”
Kuryakin leaned over the gunwale and helped April into the little boat. Slate did the same for Solo.
“Where did you get this thing?” April gasped.
“What do you mean 'this thing'?'' Slate said with high good spirit. “If you don't like our transportation, get out and swim!”
“There was a concrete dock just below the bridge. This thing, as you call it, was moored under it,” Illya Kuryakin explained. “The heavy concrete blocked the thermal blast and it was one of the few things that didn't burst into flames from the heat of the fireball.”
“The concrete must have blocked much of the radiation as well,” Solo said.
“We thought so,” Illya said, “but we didn't take any chances. We splashed water all over to wash off any fallout particles that might be radioactive.”
“A good job,” Solo said. “The canopy will stop a lot of fallout if we start getting any.”
“And we can keep washing it off with river water,” Slate said “It looks like we are getting a break at last.”
“Just a lull before the worst storm of an,” Napoleon Solo said. 'We still have to storm a mountain stronghold and stop the firing signal to those cluster bombs in space.”
He looked back at the destruction behind them. He shuddered as his mind transported that scene to the middle of every major world capital on earth.
“We've got to make it!” Solo said through clinched teeth.
FIFTEEN
FIVE SECONDS TO ETERNITY
After cutting through the urban area, the river swept on through a range of stepped hills. Squeezed by high gorges upriver, the current was swift. The land they passed was a checkerboard of lush greenness and seared destruction. The hilly nature of the land protected large sections of rice land. They could see streams of burned refugees streaming into these green oases from the destroyed areas pitiful groups headed for lingering radiation deaths.
The Sinister Satellite Affair Page 8
