Текст книги "The Monster Wheel Affair"

Автор книги: David McDaniel

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The Monster Wheel Affair

By David McDaniel

A Gigantic Space Station Orbiting The Earth...And No One Knew Who Put It There!

United States officials knew the monstrous space satellite was not theirs. The Russians could not claim it either...nor England, nor France. It was an enigma, an awesome weapon of war hanging over the entire world...waiting...

Waiting for what?

Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin had to uncover the mystery behind the Monster Wheel before it was too late—and with each clue they uncovered, the threat became more horrifying.

THE MONSTER WHEEL AFFAIR

Dawn was a ghostly tint of gold separating the sea from the sky. The stars were lost behind the brightening glow of the coming day, and the horizon was a flat circle with only a misty lump of distant island to break its perfection.

The tramp steamer Paxton Merchant extinguished her running lights as morning began to overtake her from astern. A new day of work was beginning for her crew, and a new day of pleasurable boredom for her half-dozen passengers.

Suzie Danz, 26, American, stood at the after rail on the bridge and checked over her camera. Three years' savings had gone into this trip, and she intended to capture everything possible on film. She had a plentitude of studies of shipboard life taken since their departure from Perth, but she had chosen this morning to rise early to view the Indian Ocean dawn, reputedly the most beautiful in the world. The weather had been inclement the last few days, but this morning the sky was as clear as could be imagined.

She took a last light reading and set her camera towards the horizon above the fantail. Her long telephoto lens would magnify the first bright sliver of the sun, and her wide-angle lens stood ready to catch the splendid panorama of golden clouds and angel-eye blue which would herald the morning. She cocked the shutter.

Behind her, at the forward rail of the bridge, John MacKendricks squinted suddenly through the powerful binoculars which were at that moment focused on the nameless island some twenty-five miles ahead of them. Something was happening there. A cloud of smoke rose from the haze-shimmering mountain peak, and a flickering light illuminated it from below. A volcanic eruption?

He turned and called to the pretty photographer, whose attention was half a horizon away.

"Miss Danz! Come forward and look. There's a volcano going off up there!"

She only took a moment to react. After all, dawn happened every day, wherever you were. But volcanoes were a special treat, and took priority. A glance at her light meter, and her telephoto-magnified viewfinder centered on the island as she braced the camera on the rail. She snapped the first shot, and then looked again.

"Look, Mac!" she said. "The smoke's getting thicker in the center. No..." She gasped, wound the film and fired again. "There's something coming out of the volcano!"

She got a third shot as something did indeed rise from the smoking crest of the distant mountain. To MacKendricks it seemed for a moment of disbelief like the neck of some impossible monster, rising straight up from a prehistoric hillside. Then the shape resolved into a shining cylinder. A fraction of a second later its base was clearly visible, and he squinted against the brilliance of the ravening waterfall of flame that drove it upward.

Suzie crouched, tilting and firing her camera at the thing as fast as she could wind and shoot. Then the sound began to reach them, faint over the watery distance. It was a familiar sound to a girl of the city, where jets crossed the sky dozens of times a day, but an alien one here, halfway around the world from her home. It was the roar of a continuous explosion—a rocket blast driving an intercontinental ballistic missile either on a test flight, on a sudden atomic attack, or on a space voyage. Whatever it was, it had no place here, far from the world's centers of international conflict and scientific research.

The rocket left a rising white track behind it as it drove up through the stratosphere, and became no more than a glittering speck in the camera's viewfinder, catching the sun. Suzie wound one more time, and felt the advance lever stick as it pulled at the end of the film. She looked up at last and was slightly surprised to find she could hardly see the vapor trail a few miles above them. She started to rewind the film as she looked around for MacKendricks.

Mac was no longer there. He was inside the wheelhouse in excited converse with the steersman, Kurt Schneider.

"Did you pick that up on the navigational radar?"

Kurt nodded. "Ja. It was a missile. Did you see it?"

"Sure did, and I think Miss Danz got some pictures of it. What island is that, anyway? Got it on the chart?"

Kurt turned and bent over a large map. "I make our position here," he said slowly. "This would be the island." His closed dividers touched their slightly bent points to a speck on the chart. "There is no warning notice here—but this is an old chart. Perhaps I should suggest the Captain write it in himself."

MacKendricks grunted agreement, while privately reserving his opinion as to the public knowledge on any chart concerning this little island. The Paxton Merchant was a good many miles north of the regular shipping lane, as their course from Perth was not directly to Capetown, but to Tamatave. This island might not be seen by a ship from one year to the next.

He looked again at the little green screen of the radar, where the shape of the island glowed near the top. Then he looked more closely and pointed. "What's that?"

"That" was a speck of green that had detached itself from the larger mass and was moving directly down the face of the tube towards the central dot that represented the ship. Kurt watched it for a few seconds while the pale green radius swept once around the face of the tube. Then the spec was visibly closer.

"Donnerwetter!" he said as he jumped for a panel high on the wall. His fingers flipped aside the red metal cover and his palm slapped against the red button. Instantly a clangorous alarm went off all over the ship. Kurt grabbed the log book from its case and ran for the door of the wheelhouse.

"In the absence of Captain I take command," he barked to three sailors who appeared, unshaven and half dressed. "Lower boats—right now!"

MacKendricks grabbed his arm. "What was that?"

"Either a jet plane or a rocket launched from the island. In two minutes we could be blown out of the water!"

The emergency alarm hammered its hysterical monotone as the nearest boat was swung out over the water. MacKendricks grabbed Suzie, who grabbed her camera case, and threw her into the boat as it was being lowered. One by one sleep-dazed heads began appearing as crewmen stumbled on deck. The Captain himself stepped out, struggling into a bathrobe.

"Schneider," he bawled, "what the hell is all this?"

"We are under attack, sir, and may be hit in a minute or two. There is not time to explain."

"Take command here—I'll rouse the passengers." The Captain turned and dived down a hatch.

The first boat, with Suzie in it, hit the water. Mac and three other sailors were in it with her—how they'd got there, she couldn't tell. Someone started the motor, and they began to pull away from the ship.

Suddenly the Captain reappeared on deck, as a second boat rocked out on its davits, and he ordered Schneider in along with several people Suzie recognized as her fellow passengers.

Then Mac pointed and shouted. Suzie looked up.

Something fat and stubby-winged appeared in the distance, growing larger. "Everybody lie down flat and hold onto something," Mac commanded. "And pray as hard as you ever did in your life."

Suzie had to look over the side of the boat, and as she did so she was the only one to see clearly what happened.

The rocket struck high, well above the waterline, but directly in the center of the ship, aft of the bridge. For an instant there was only a ragged hole. Then from the depths of the ship came a puff of flame, and a wave of concussion pounded her face. It was followed by a muffled roar, and a billow of fire swept up from a great tear across the center of the ship. A moment later it had broken in half and was already starting to sink. Of the men who had stood on her decks a few seconds before Suzie could see nothing. Part of a shattered lifeboat hung from one burning rope, and as she watched, her eyes fixed on the horrible scene by shock, the rope parted and dropped the wrecked prow of the boat into the water.

A series of explosions came now from both halves of the hulk as the waves rose swiftly around them. The motor of the little lifeboat chattered desperately as it drove away from the sucking swirl of water that tried to pull them down with the ship.

At last the great bubbles stopped and the roiling surface calmed. And only wreckage remained, gummed and surrounded in a wide and spreading black oil slick—the life blood of the ship, gushing forth as she sank into the endless night below.

Section I: "The Sailor Told Me Before He Died..."

Chapter 1: "A Dollar A Round."

Chapter 2: "An Awfully Big Haystack."

Chapter 3: "What Did You Expect—Big Ben?"

Chapter 4: "You Know A Party Named Kropotkin?" Section II: "They Built Themselves A Monster Wheel..."

Chapter 5: "Neu-Schloss? Where's That?"

Chapter 6: "I'll Show You A Magic Trick."

Chapter 7: "Sing For Us, Rameses."

Chapter 8: "A Message From Space." Section III: "Round And Round Went The Monster Wheel..."

Chapter 9: "This Is Your Submarine—Keep It Clean."

Chapter 10: "Island Ho!"

Chapter 11: "Get Those Intruders!"

Chapter 12: "Head For Home, James!" Section IV: "Is There No Way Of Stopping It?"

Chapter 13: "The Highest Con In The History Of The World."

Chapter 14: "We'll Have To Ditch!"

Chapter 15: "Accidental Misfire."

Chapter 16: "Dauringa Island Calling The World!"

Section I: "The Sailor Told Me Before He Died..."

Chapter 1: "A Dollar A Round."

The cablegram from Capetown was addressed simply UNCLEHQNYC. It arrived in the east-side Manhattan offices of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement on a Tuesday morning, and was brought directly to the desk of Alexander Waverly. The message was terse and cryptic:

IMPORTANT BUSINESS DEAL. SEND NEPHEW IMMEDIATELY. PHOTOGRAPHS FOLLOW. MACKENDRICKS.

Waverly read it again. The return address was the Voortrek Hotel, Capetown, South Africa. The meaning of the cable was clear enough, but...He touched a panel at his elbow.

"Do we have a file on anyone named MacKendricks who might be sending us a report from South Africa?"

The voice answered immediately. "Yes, sir. A Mr. MacKendricks has supplied us with information from several quarters of the world almost a dozen times in the last fifteen years. I'll bring his file in."

"Very good. And page Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin."

"Yes, sir."

The little pistol looked like a toy made of stamped tin, and felt like one in his hand as Napoleon Solo leveled it at the brightly-lighted target fifty feet away. Trigger's a little stiff, he thought as he squeezed it gently. There was the slight jar of the hammer striking, a burst of fire from the vents along the barrel, and a puff of heat over his hand, arm and face. With a sound like a starched handkerchief being ripped, amplified many times, a faint trail of smoke zipped out of the gun and ended half way to the far wall. The noise echoed around the concrete walls of the basement range for a few seconds before vanishing into the acoustic tile.

The range master squinted through the little spotting scope. "Not bad," he said. "Five ring at seven o'clock."

Napoleon squinted. A terrible shot, considering his usual accuracy. He consciously relaxed his hand, which had tensed to receive the recoil which had never come, and centered his sights on the blank circle.

Another sharp spitting shot, and another puff of heat. And the laconic voice saying, "Seven ring at six o'clock."

He was shooting low; time to apply Tennessee windage. He drew a careful bead a couple of inches above the distant bullseye and fired a third time. This time there was a pause as the rangemaster searched the target. "Just outside the five ring at one-thirty."

Napoleon set the safety, lowered his right hand and flexed his fingers after laying the weapon on the bench. A soft voice spoke behind him.

"I see you found the new toy. What do you think?"

He turned to see Illya, hands in the pockets of an acid-stained lab smock, regarding him and the Gyrojet pistol.

He started to speak, but Illya continued: "Tell me on the way upstairs. We have been summoned to Mr. Waverly's office. Save the rest of the magazine," he added as Napoleon started to reach for the rocket pistol. "At a dollar a round, someone else can use the practice."

In the elevator, as Napoleon ran a quick comb through his hair and straightened his tie, Illya said, "I tried the Gyrojet as soon as it came in. A good idea, but the pistol is quite inaccurate."

"Accurate enough," said Napoleon, as he checked his appearance in a polished metal panel. "Even at fifty feet all three of those slugs would have connected. And at close range accuracy wouldn't matter."

"But at close range it has no striking power," said the Russian. "It takes twenty-five feet for the rocket projectile to achieve maximum velocity. I prefer the more traditional 9 mm parabellums we use."

"There's no recoil at all," said Napoleon. "If the barrel were longer, or the burning time shorter, it'd be more accurate."

"The whole reason for a gun," said Illya flatly, as the door slid open and they stepped out, "is to put a little piece of metal exactly where you want it when you want it there. Anything that fails in this purpose fails as a gun."

"But suppose you want to put it there without attracting undue attention," said his partner. "The rocket pistol is a lot quieter than an ordinary gun. And suppose you wanted to shoot something underwater—the Gyrojet works as well there as in the air."

"Yes, and every bit as accurately, too," said Illya. "If I ever go shooting for whales, I may take one."

"I tell you what," said Napoleon. "Next assignment we go on, I'll carry the Gyrojet and you carry your U.N.C.L.E. Special. And we'll see which one comes in handier."

They stopped at Mr. Waverly's door, and he added, "And come to think of it, it's not a bad murder gun—no ballistic marks on the bullet."

"I don't think they'd stop to look for them," said Illya, with his slight smile, "if you are the only man in the country who owns one."

Napoleon looked at him consideringly for a moment, and finally said, "Are you going to take off that lab coat, or do you want to impress him with your tireless industry?"

Illya glanced down, startled, and the corner of his mouth twitched in mild embarrassment. He quickly slipped out of the coat and handed it to the secretary, who accepted it without a flicker of reaction.

He stepped through the door after his partner and felt rather than heard it slide closed behind him.

Waverly looked up from a file folder as they took their seats at the round table which dominated the office. "A cablegram arrived from South Africa this morning," he said, as Solo picked up the yellow flimsy and held it so his partner could read.

A moment later Illya looked up. "Who's MacKendricks?"

"John Calvin MacKendricks," said Waverly, "is third officer on the Paxton Merchant, a tramp freighter which sailed from Perth about a month ago. He has no official position with U.N.C.L.E., but has been the source of useful information to us a few times in the past. A trustworthy man, with neither home nor family outside of his ship. Now he is an orphan and a widower—the Paxton Merchant was reported sunk a week ago by a ship which picked up a single lifeboat. MacKendricks, four other crewmen, and an American girl who had been a passenger were the only survivors. They said there must have been a boiler explosion.

"It now appears something of extreme importance is involved. If I did not trust MacKendricks' evaluation, I would simply turn the data over to the African office—either the local branch in Capetown or the Continental Office in Addis Ababa. But they lack the facilities for a problem of international scope, and are fully occupied keeping the African situation from getting any worse. Because of this probable importance, Mr. Solo, you will fly to Capetown via London tomorrow morning. You, Mr. Kuryakin, will follow him in a few days with the information contained in the photographs which are supposed to be on their way here. Any questions?"

"Several," said Napoleon. "What am I supposed to do in Capetown?"

"Evaluate the situation. Meet Mr. MacKendricks and find out what he is being so secretive about. If the problem warrants our action, proceed at will. If not, turn it over to U.N.C.L.E. Capetown. We have problems enough in our own bailiwick to occupy our attention."

"Ah, one more thing—I would like permission to add an extra weapon to my kit."

"What?"

"The Gyrojet. Any weapon that radical should be extensively field tested by trained personnel before thought is given to its adoption into the armory."

"And you want to play with it for a while. Very well. But remember it is still untested. Don't trust your life to it in a tight spot." He turned to Illya. "By the way, that reminds me. How did your experimentation with the smaller version of the rocket work out?"

Napoleon glanced at his partner with a slightly raised eyebrow, as the Russian said, "Inconclusive. The Fin-jets seemed to have a great deal of potential; easily concealable, fairly accurate, and quite deadly. In fact, I have one concealed here." He pulled the older model communicator out of his coat pocket and opened the side of it which doubled as a cigarette case. He selected the end cigarette, and held it out. It was a filter-tip, indistinguishable from the others.

"The fuse extends to the front," he said, pointing, "where it is concealed behind a quarter inch of tobacco." He placed the cigarette between his lips and pantomimed striking a match. Talking around the filter, he continued, "The fuse ignites when the cigarette has burned to this point. Five seconds later it has burned the length of the Fin-jet, inside the tobacco, and the little missile fires. The filter tip protects the user from the back-blast, and sighting is not difficult."

Napoleon murmured, "Caution: cigarette smoking may be hazardous to the next guy's health."

Waverly smiled. "This interest in technical advances in our weaponry is heartening, but don't be tempted into finding excuses to try them out. On an ideal mission, not even a temper is ruffled. The ends of secrecy are best served by stealth."

"Now about Capetown..." said Napoleon.

"Everything is here," said Waverly, placing a small manila folder on the table and giving it a turn towards his agent. "Address of the hotel where MacKendricks is staying, picture of him—it's ten years old, but I don't imagine he'll have changed much—passport, proper visa, and tickets."

Napoleon looked at the items, checking them over, and tucked them into various pockets.

"One last thing," added his superior. "I would appreciate a call at your earliest convenience regarding your decision on the matter. We could save Mr. Kuryakin a trip to Capetown."

Chapter 2: "An Awfully Big Haystack."

Under the circumstances, Napoleon did not check in with U.N.C.L.E. Capetown as soon as he arrived. He caught a cab directly from the airport to the center of town and the Voortrek Hotel. The desk clerk gave him a room number and a house phone, and a minute later a cautious voice said, "Yes?"

"Uncle Mac? This is your nephew, Napoleon Solo, from New York. I was told you might be able to use my help in a business deal, so I flew right in."

"Good. We've been expecting you. Come on up and..." MacKendricks paused suddenly as if listening for something, then added, "... and hurry!"

Mac dropped the phone in its cradle, picked up a lumpy old revolver and stepped to the door into the next room. He listened there closely, then turned to the window. He teased aside the edge of one drawn drape and looked out. No one there. Now, had he heard a footstep, or hadn't he? He checked the door into the corridor, feeling like a foolish old man looking for burglars.

Out in the corridor were four burglars. All stamped from the same mold: large, husky, and mean-looking. One of them tapped lightly on the next door—Suzie's. They didn't look as if they were selling encyclopedias, Mac decided, but if they were, you'd better buy.

He closed the door very softly and slipped on the chain, then hurried to the adjoining door. He opened it, saying, "Suzie girl, don't open..." But her hand was already on the knob and turning, as she looked back over her shoulder with mild surprise. And then it was too late.

A broad shoulder slammed against the door, tearing it from Suzie's grip and throwing it wide open. The first pair had bulky automatics in their fists and were already looking around for something to use them on.

As the door burst open, Mac yelled, "Get down, Suzie!" And then the room was filled with the thunder of his revolver and the sharp sweet smell of gunpowder. Suzie felt something pluck at her hair as she dived for the slight amount of cover afforded by the sofa, and the slamming bark of an automatic made her ears ring.

Napoleon Solo heard the gunfire as he stepped out of the elevator. His own U.N.C.L.E. Special was in his hand as he sprinted the length of the hall, and it took him only a moment to decide on which side his loyalties lay. One dark-suited man sat against a wall, an automatic near his limp hand and a spreading stain across his chest. Napoleon fired twice, and had the satisfaction of seeing another pistol fall to the floor as its erstwhile owner ceased to care about anything.

The two remaining men leaped behind things as Napoleon ducked back behind the doorframe. He should have used the two shots he'd had time for to wing two instead of killing one, he thought belatedly. But his momentary survey of the scene of action had also shown him an old man lying in an open doorway, and he had been a little upset. He also wondered what had become of the girl.

He found out a moment later, as a rough and heavily accented voice called, "Hey, Mister! We got the girl, and she's coming out with us. You hear?"

Napoleon hoped the girl was small—it's hard to hide behind someone much smaller than you, and he could get in one shot that would count if he had half a chance and just a piece of target.

"Keep your gun down, and stand away from the door, hear me?"

Solo gave back a reluctant monosyllabic acknowledgment, and let his pistol hang at the end of his arm as he stepped back a couple of paces.

A moment later an angry little figure, unmistakably feminine, was rudely propelled into the corridor at the end of an anonymous arm which gripped her wrist firmly. She looked both ways, and saw Napoleon. Before either of them could say hello, she was joined by her chaperone, dark-visaged, moustached, and armed. He pulled her tightly to him as a shield, and directed the snout of a still-smoking automatic over her right shoulder. Napoleon suppressed a slight smile as he saw she only came up to the man's chin, and his wrist muscles tensed slightly as he estimated the placement of the single shot he would have time for.

The next moment a second man, almost a twin of the first but thinner, stepped out of the door. He too held an automatic, its muzzle directed steadily towards Napoleon's center of gravity. Solo cursed his hesitation—he should have dropped the first one before the second came out. But then the girl might have been shot from cover. Valuable to U.N.C.L.E. she might be, but at the moment she was a definite liability to one particular agent. Helpless females were fun in their place, but encountering one on the job was certainly not....

Suddenly the helpless female under consideration became a brief blur of action. She brought her heel down violently on her captor's instep and jabbed her free elbow halfway to the wrist in his stomach. As his face contorted and he doubled over, his automatic exploded beside her ear and the slug tore a gouge in the wall inches from Napoleon's gun hand—or where his hand would have been if his reactions had been a little slower.

He snapped into action the moment he saw the girl begin to move, and had evaluated the situation in the fraction of a second it took him to bring his pistol level and squeeze the trigger. The big one was doubling over, his mouth open like a beached fish. The second one had turned his head and started to swing his gun towards his companion. It was perfectly simple, and Solo took advantage of it.

The second assassin probably never knew what hit him. Under the circumstances Napoleon knew better than to try circus stunts like shooting him in the hand. He drilled him once through the chest, and without a twinge watched his body leap back under the impact and flop against the wall before sliding to the floor. Before he hit, the U.N.C.L.E. Special was centered on the last of the invaders, who was doubled over against the other wall, his face an interesting shade of purple behind the moustache.

The girl was getting slowly up from the floor, shaking her head weakly and rubbing at her right ear. Napoleon knelt beside her and slipped a supporting hand under her arm.

"You all right?" he asked.

"I think so," she said hesitantly, "except it'll be a while before I'll be able to hear clearly again. Golly, that thing makes a racket!"

"Before we get any more involved in mayhem, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Napoleon Solo, from New York. Do you happen to know...Excuse me a moment."

The lone survivor of the attack group was moving feebly across the floor towards an automatic. Napoleon slipped the magazine out of his own pistol, fumbled in an inner pocket, and popped something into the open chamber. He pointed the weapon at the man as the girl screwed her face up and turned her head away.

There was a chuff, and the man stopped moving. A moment later the girl looked around hesitantly.

"Oh, he's not dead," said Solo. "But he'll sleep peacefully until we decide what to do with him. It may be a problem—his type does not usually respond well to rehabilitation and retraining. But as I was saying," he continued as he replaced the magazine in his U.N.C.L.E. Special and worked the slide to bring a cartridge into the chamber, "do you know a gentleman named MacKendricks? I came here to meet him."

Her face changed suddenly. "Oh dear heavens! Mac!" she gasped, and jumped for the door of the room.

Napoleon looked up and down the hall, and shook his head slowly. He would never cease to be amazed at the things one could get away with in public places without attracting attention. Well, it was all right with him if people didn't want to get involved. He wedged his automatic back into its cozy holster and set to work clearing the corridor of corpses.

The sleeping one he dragged by the legs into the room, and looked around for the girl. Then he dropped him and stepped quickly to where she knelt by a gray-haired man who lay on the floor, a great dark stain oozing slowly through the rug around him.

Napoleon knelt beside her as the old man opened his eyes. "Mr. MacKendricks—my name is Solo. From U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters."

The eyes turned to focus on him. "Have y' seen th' pictures?"

"No—I started as soon as your cable arrived. The film hadn't come in yet."

"Somebody's got a rocket base in the Indian Ocean—a big one. I thought you'd better know. Somebody else thought you'd better not, I guess." He chuckled a little, and coughed. Flecks of red appeared around his lips.

"Oh, Mac, don't talk!" said the girl desperately. "We've got to get you to a doctor!"

"Hush now, Suzie girl. I haven't got more than a bit of time, and I've got to think. I knew the location of the island—I can't think. You, Mr. —"

"Solo."

"Of course. You, find Kurt. He was navigator. He was with us. He and I—we knew the coördinates. We were a long way short of Madagascar—twenty-something-something south.... Can't think."

Suzie stifled a sob, and Mac lifted a hand to touch her shoulder. "Now stop that, girl. It doesn't hurt at all, now. And I've done just about everything else in this world. But I've got to tell you—stay with Mr. Solo. He's one of the best men in the world, and he's got a gold card to prove it. Ask him what U.N.C.L.E. means. You'll be safer with him than anywhere else. As for you, Mr. Solo—find Kurt Schneider. He was going to hide someplace, but you can find him before those others. And just one last thing—a favor I ask of you."

Napoleon nodded.

"Have me buried at sea. I've spent my whole life cheatin' the ocean, and it wouldn't be fair to let the land take me away from her forever."

"I promise."

"And take care of Suzie—she's as dear to me as a daughter. She can tell you everything but the location of that damned island." His face drew up into a vague frown. "One of us knew besides me—who was it?"

"Kurt," said Suzie gently. "Kurt Schneider."

"That's right. Kurt. A brave man, staying on the ship like that until the Captain took over. I remember that. The ship blew up just after his boat got off. We thought he was killed. A brave man he was. Find him, Suzie, and find that island." His eyes closed, and his breath rasped in his throat as his hand gripped weakly at her shoulder. Her lips paled, but she held her emotion in.

Napoleon saw her eyes shine with tears a moment, just before the hand slipped from her shoulder and fell across the old man's chest. Her whole body was quivering as Napoleon slipped a comforting arm around her.

Then she turned suddenly to him, tears streaming down her cheeks, and released her anguish. Her hands on his shoulders, her face pressed against his chest, she sobbed convulsively for some time.

Solo guessed that some of her reaction was to the violence she had been a part of only a few minutes before, and decided it would be a good thing for her to clear it out of her system. But on the other hand, there were a few more things to be done.