Текст книги "The Monster Wheel Affair"

Автор книги: David McDaniel

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Finally all was ready. The outside lights were doused; the cabin lights were set so a radio signal from above could turn them on to light the returning travelers home. Both agents slipped their packs on over their wet-suits. Napoleon crawled into the airlock and sealed the inner hatch behind him. In the yellow illumination of his underwater torch he adjusted his face-mask, and touched the button beside the hatch. With scarcely a sound, a cool pressure began rising about him. The black surface crept up and surrounded him as he hung in the three-foot cylindrical airlock.

When the lock was full, he swallowed several times as the weight of a hundred feet of sea water squeezed his eardrums and his chest. The pressure was high, but if they got to the surface with reasonable dispatch there would be insufficient time for nitrogen to dissolve in their bloodstreams necessitating gradual and tedious decompression. The inside of the sub was kept close to surface normal pressure for just this reason.

He let himself float to the top hatch, worked the dogs, and pushed it open. Then he was out, looking down at the dimly visible shape of the submarine. He waggled his fins, and swam around to the front.

Peering back in through the port, he could see Illya standing, masked and finned, next to the lock entrance, watching the indicator lights. The bottom one flashed green, and he followed Solo. Napoleon swam back to meet him.

It was almost a minute before the hatch opened and the Russian pulled himself out. His light swung around and joined his partner's, and side by side they swam along the bottom as it slanted upwards.

It was shortly after dusk when they broke the surface. The sub had been grounded at the opposite end of the island from the volcanic cone, and the U.N.C.L.E. agents surfaced quietly a hundred yards off-shore for cautious reconnaissance.

Their eyes, accustomed to the underwater darkness, could see the shore easily by the last of the sky glow. It looked deserted.

Treading water, they conferred in whispers. "No reason to think we might have been spotted. I'll go in first—signal you if it's all clear."

Illya nodded and submerged again. Napoleon replaced his scuba mouthpiece and began stroking steadily along, a few feet below the surface.

In a matter of minutes, he felt the tug of surf about him and rose again. The half-moon overhead showed him lines and curves of white froth against black sand. The surf was low, and except for the passage of the foam, his black wet-suit would be nearly invisible against the beach. He ducked under a wave and started his landing.

Water surged about him and spun him once while he fought to recover his balance, and then the sand scraped against his knees. He grabbed for it and pushed himself erect, then stumbled up the slope towards the trees some ten or fifteen feet before dropping flat.

He spat out the breathing valve and took his first lungful of natural air in several hours. Next he slipped the mask off his face and rubbed at his eyes. They itched from the pressure and a little sea water that had got in through the not-quite-perfect seal around his face. And he listened.

He listened while he continued removing his gear, and heard nothing. A few insects chattered, and a nightbird screeched, but the noises were natural and reassuring—the presence of alien intruders in the area would have damped the sounds.

After three minutes he pointed his flash out to sea and waved it in a circle. There was no answer. A minute later he repeated the signal. This time a spot of light flicked twice.

Two minutes later Illya was standing beside him in the shelter of the trees. In silence they shucked out of their wet-suits, slipped on the camouflage coveralls from their packs, and blacked their faces. A few more minutes' work concealed their scuba gear under a foot of soft earth at the base of a distinguishable tree, and they were ready to complete their invasion.

Three cautious hours later they lay on their bellies in the brush and looked up at the side of the volcano. It rose up from beds of old lava, where a few hardy bushes had already managed to take root, and stood black and jagged against the moon-blue sky.

They had seen no signs of human habitation—if this island had been the launching site of a space missile, it was kept quite secure. No tracks, no cigarette butts, not even a smell of anything but the highly pungent Kerguelen's Land cabbage which grew in profusion among the scattered trees.

"There we are," said Napoleon in a whisper. "And it looks as if nobody's home."

"It seems a shame to come all this way and then leave without seeing them," said his partner. "Let's look for a door."

"They may be trying to avoid us—what if they don't answer the bell?"

"We sneak around and go in the window?"

Napoleon nodded, and they began moving off around the mountain, scanning the rock walls for openings of any kind.

Eventually it was a spark of light against the shadowed rocks that showed the door they were after. Illya spotted it first, tapped Napoleon, and pointed silently. Solo nodded, and they turned up the slope towards it, rubber-soled shoes soundless on the lava sheet as they climbed.

Then they saw another light—a match that flared in the darkness ahead of them. They froze in their tracks and sank flat against the harsh surface of the bare rock. The match illuminated a man's face as it touched the end of his cigarette, and dimmed as he drew the flame into the tobacco. A moment later a voice was heard, softly, in English:

"God, but it's good to get out in the fresh air once in a while. I feel like a ruddy prisoner in there."

The match was blown out and the second smoker muttered agreement. "Sometimes I think they're a little crackers on security. There's nobody in a thousand miles that's not been checked and cross-checked by Thrush six ways from Sunday. But we're supposed to act like we're under siege every minute. Practically have to twist arms to get a blinkin' surface pass." He snorted. "In six months, what have we ever seen on radar? Three planes and one ship. And we sank the ship."

The two smoked in silence for a time, while the two U.N.C.L.E. agents huddled in their own shadows not fifty feet from them. Only a small portion of Napoleon's mind appreciated the irony—most of his attention was occupied in an attempt to make himself invisible.

After several minutes one of the glowing butts arched away into the darkness and burst in a shower of dying sparks. It was followed by a muttered curse. "Forgot again!" said the voice, and he started down the hill towards where the cigarette had fallen.

Napoleon and Illya lay very still and watched the silhouette of the Thrush moving diagonally, somewhat closer to them. But his attention was focused only on his error. Apparently nothing was allowed to be thrown where it could be seen from outside.

He struck another match and searched for the dead butt. When it burned down to his fingers he swore, dropped it, swore again, lit another, and picked up the first one. Then he found the butt and hurried back up the hill to his companion. "Got it," he said. "I don't know whether I'll be able to get the hang of this security nonsense or not. Force of habit keeps taking over."

The other one laughed shortly, stubbed his cigarette out on the rock wall, and said, "Well, we've had our freedom for tonight. Let's get back inside."

The two men faded back into blackness under an overhang of rock, and were gone.

After a few moments, two blobs of shadow rose cautiously from the ground and crept up to the overhang. Even close up the U.N.C.L.E. agents could distinguish no back to the cave it formed. They stepped in.

There was a feeling of space ahead of them, and a breath of warm air smelling of oil and people moved gently past them. They nodded to each other in the darkness, and slowly and silently began to move down the long tunnel into the heart of the mountain.

Chapter 11: "Get Those Intruders!"

Eventually the last of the tropical moonlight faded behind them, and Illya brought out his pocket flashlight. Putting his mouth to Napoleon's ear, he said softly, "I'm going to try the light for a second. Get ready to run."

He aimed the slender cylinder at the floor and pressed the button, tensed and alert for the sound of a guard who would probably shoot at the light. A few seconds passed, and nothing happened. He swung the dim beam up and along the wall, dilated pupils straining to draw in the faint images.

The walls were natural stone, only slightly smoothed in the excavating that had formed the tunnel. Not a door nor a side passage nor a ventilator broke the rough stone as far as he could see. After a few seconds they both moved forward again.

The diffused glow of the pocket light slipped along the lava floor and danced up the walls as they continued their stygian way for what seemed like several minutes. Then an answering glow became visible ahead, and they stopped.

"Well," murmured Napoleon, "I think we've arrived."

"Do we burst in without knocking?"

"I think not. Scarcely polite, not to say probably suicidal. Let's practice our sneaking technique."

"Fine. Keep that quiet pistol of yours handy; we may need to hush someone quickly, and I still haven't seen you use it."

"You've got a silencer—you can be just as quiet as I can."

"Yes, but you went to so much trouble bringing that rocket pistol it would be a shame not to let you use it."

"All right. If we have a choice, I'll go ahead. But if we don't, please don't stand on ceremony."

"Do I ever?"

Napoleon had to admit it was not one of Illya's characteristics, and they moved on.

Used air was still blowing softly in their faces, and they were hoping for a ventilator shaft to give them access to the interior of this sub-volcanic antheap. But it was beginning to appear that ventilation passed in and out through the same passages as personnel in search of a breath of fresh air and a cigarette. This meant a likelihood of guards and similar unpleasant phenomena in the immediate offing.

They stopped.

Napoleon shook his head thoughtfully. "It doesn't seem reasonable," he said, "to have all the foul air in the place blowing out from an inhabited area. Either there are blower vents between us and the lighted area, or the lights are leaking in from adjoining rooms where inhabitation is going on. I think it's worth looking at, anyway."

"Why not?" said Illya. "It's your idea—you go first."

"You've got the light."

"You don't need it now."

Napoleon proceeded, hand on his pistol.

The light did indeed grow stronger—the blue-green of fluorescent tubes somewhere. Then there was a corner in front of them. Both stopped, and Napoleon, who was still in the lead, extended an eye around the end of the wall.

There was a double-width steel door some ten feet farther down to the right of their passage, with eye-level glass panels in each half. Only light could be seen through them. The passage ended there.

He drew back and motioned Illya forward. "We're here," he said. "Take a look."

His partner did, and nodded, then moved cautiously around the corner. A moment later the two agents were looking through the glass panels of the doors into a steel-walled corridor, painted a soft green, lined with single doors, and apparently deserted. The corridor ended at a crossing passage about a hundred feet away.

Very gently, Illya tried the door. It remained closed. Napoleon raised one fist and pantomimed knocking. Illya shook his head, and began looking around the walls. Napoleon knew what he was thinking—that stale air had been blowing from somewhere.

They found the opening almost immediately—no great feat, since it was three feet square and set in the ceiling a few feet above their heads just at the corner of the tunnel.

It was the work of a few moments to undo the bolts at the four corners and lower the grille gently to the floor. Then Napoleon boosted Illya up into the hole overhead, tied a length of nylon rope from his pack around a corner of the grille and handed it up to his partner, who tucked the end in his teeth, leaving both hands free to pull him up into the air duct.

Together they hauled the grille back up from the floor, and used short lengths of rope to fasten it in place. A cursory examination from below would spot the change, but few people normally look over their heads, especially when bad air is blowing down upon them. Adding to this the dialogue they had heard outside, indicating that use of this passage was fairly uncommon, they felt reasonably secure in their jury-rigged arrangement.

Air-conditioning ducts are one of the most popular literary devices to enable the passage of persons, things and sounds from one point to another within a building, and as such have practically replaced the secret passages popular with another generation of novelists. But in actual practice, their very popularity has tended to defeat them. Most modern buildings include in their ventilating designs long verticals, baffles, internal grilles and occasional driving fans, all of which present moderate to severe problems for the casual tourist.

It was therefore a stroke of fortune that this particular installation had none of these internal protective devices. Napoleon didn't think to comment on it, feeling that his partner would share his conclusion that under the circumstances it was probably the Thrush builders had gone for efficiency rather than absolute safety. The island itself was certainly well enough protected, and the intake of the system was probably hidden quite well high above them on the mountainside. So there should have been no need for the usual security measures. And this was only reasonable—they couldn't have foreseen the positive brilliance of the U.N.C.L.E. technical staff and agents that had not only found the secret island base, but managed to evade all the other protective devices and carry the conflict home to the enemy.

Napoleon Solo was feeling perhaps a little too confident as he crept along the metal tunnel. There was a constant humming, a deep-pitched vibration that came to them through the steel walls and shook the air around them so gently it had to be listened for consciously. Somewhere machinery was working—probably an electrical generating plant.

Small grilles opened occasionally beside them, and smaller side passages branched off. But there was no secondary tunnel, and they stayed with the main route. Each grille had to be checked carefully—if anyone happened to be looking at it as they went by, he might justifiably become curious.

The first two dozen rooms they looked into were empty. They appeared to be private quarters—small rooms, with a desk, a bed and a washstand, like a college dorm or the cheaper rooms at a YMCA. A small loudspeaker on the wall above the bed was the only standard decoration, but some of the rooms exhibited prints of widely varied types. Some sported pinups of assorted nationalities, some favored abstracts, and some preferred subject matter of a more technical nature. Three walls carried large representations of a von Braun-type space station, reinforcing the theory that the Monster Wheel had indeed been launched from this site. But only residential areas passed the view of the two U.N.C.L.E. agents.

Finally the duct branched and they stopped. "Now where?" asked Illya. Their choices angled vertically—one up and one down.

"Down, I think," said Napoleon. "The laboratories will probably be the deepest level, for security reasons, as well as protection of delicate gear against blast-off vibration and possible explosions."

"A properly-regulated launching site wouldn't have any explosions," said the Russian, as they started down the tube on hands and knees.

It was a long time before a duct opened into a room on either side of them. But when at last a square of light showed in the darkness, it proved to have been worth waiting for. Below them were rows of drafting tables, with work still in progress taped neatly to the slanting boards and T-squares hanging ready at their sides for the next day's work. Only a few lights were on here—presumably a skeleton staff might appear, or occasional guards wandered through.

Illya, straining his vision through the wire mesh, could make out electronic circuitry on some of the drawing boards and construction designs on some others. He set about removing the screen.

At length both of them dropped lightly to the poured concrete floor, landing with flexed knees and falling into crouches behind the newest tables. They waited thus for a minute or more, expecting the sounds of alarm to warn them of some detection system tripped or guard alerted by their presence. But silence remained about them.

As they waited, Illya's trained eyes scanned the walls and ceiling in his range of vision for concealed television lenses and found none. Napoleon, on the other side of the same table, examined his half of the room—standard procedure when breaking and entering an area as dangerous as a major Thrush base.

Finally, feeling as safe as they could in such a position, they stood up and set to work. Illya, the technician, produced a tiny camera and began snapping photographs of each drawing board, working methodically up one row and down the next. Napoleon, the instinctive hunter, began going through drawers.

Pencils, rulers, stacks of paper, jars of ink—nothing of value was to be found in that particular room. With a signal to Illya, he went to the door.

It was not locked, and the corridor was deserted. So far they had not seen a sign of any personnel since the two truant smokers had disappeared from the entrance to the tunnel. Either the place was severely understaffed, or everyone was attending compulsory lectures in the main hall. Or had been ordered to stay out of the area where two intruders were known to be....

Nevertheless he took the chance and stepped out into the corridor. It looked like the one they had peeked into upstairs—apple-green, long, and lined with doors. But these doors had signs on them. Polylingual signs, with English on the second line. Napoleon's eye unconsciously selected his native language from the set and read it automatically.

DESIGN ENGINEERING was on five or six doors, each with different numbers and far enough apart to imply fairly large rooms behind them—probably equally as large as the drafting room they had landed in.

VEHICLE SYSTEMS was on the door to the room where Illya was busily taking pictures, and continued on other doors out of sight down the hall.

Across the corridor, sets of double doors led to an area called MATERIALS TESTING, and Napoleon followed his hunch.

Each door had a small panel of glass set about eye-level, and through this went a cautious look before the door was gently tried. It opened without complaint.

A huge barn-like room lay within, filled with all the massive and delicate impedimenta of a test area. He recognized strain gauges capable of pulling a steel bar in half, and others that would measure the stretch of a hair; shake-tables and vacuum chambers, ovens and cryogenic chambers sat about the floor—a torture chamber for the entire range of physical matter. Farther away other doors showed the CHEMICAL and ELECTRONIC divisions.

But time was short. Napoleon Solo returned to those traditional methods which have served spies well for centuries—he started going through the wastebaskets.

Wads of paper containing scribbled calculations went into his pack, as did memos in various languages, mimeographed bulletins and a letterpress instruction sheet, neatly imprinted with the Thrush letterhead. Then he moved on to a waste bin beside one of the testing devices.

It was empty. Odd, he thought, that they should leave the wastebaskets full and clean out the remains of tested gear. Oh well, economy begins at home. He moved on to the next bin—and the next. In the fourth he found something.

It was stuck to the side of the bin, and would have escaped a hurried inspection. Only the fact that it was dull in the soft light of the humming fluorescents caught his eye, and he started to reach for it when a bell chimed softly in the distance.

He straightened up suddenly as he heard footsteps in the corridor, and looked around for cover. As the steps stopped outside his door, he made his decision and jumped for the bin he had been examining. The box was quite large enough to hold him, and he peeled the thing off the side as he crouched there.

It was a scrap of plastic fabric, silvered on one side, and flexible. The shiny side had adhered to the side of the wastebin, and somehow been missed by the cleaning crew. But he didn't have time to look closely at it now—the door opened.

Quickly and quietly he pulled out his little transceiver and thumbed the transmission button. "Illya," he whispered, lips touching the microphone. "Chiggers, the cops!" A moment later there was a single, soft click, a wordless acknowledgment of receipt.

He tucked the little radio back in his inner pocket, and as an afterthought added the scrap of fabric. There were footsteps in the room now, and the hesitant sounds of a search. Then a voice broke the silence, harsh and metallic.

"This one is hiding in number twelve trash bin. The other one is behind the door in Vehicle Systems Drafting Room Four. Get those intruders. They've seen enough. But be careful—they're armed."

A fusillade of shots echoed from somewhere else—probably across the corridor. Illya would give a good account of himself. Not wanting to be left out or forgotten inadvertently, Napoleon selected his U.N.C.L.E. Special, since circumstances called for accuracy rather than circumspection, and stood up in his bin and began shooting, as coolly and accurately as on the target range. He dropped four rifle-equipped men before they had time to react to his presence, and then dropped himself back into the moderate protection of the sheet-steel box as their companions sent a hail of lead through the space where he had been standing. So much for that gag, he thought. Now what'll we do for an encore?"

"You, in the bin," said the voice. "There are a dozen men with rifles pointed at you. You cannot escape. If necessary, we can place a small grenade in there with you, but the concussion could damage delicate equipment. You may have protection against tear gas, but we will try it first. On the other hand, if you wish to surrender, stand up slowly."

He heard no more shots from across the hall, and regretfully decided that a few minutes more of life was better than less. He stood up slowly, hands in the air.

"Take the pack," said the voice. "He has papers that should have been destroyed."

One of the gray-uniformed guards stepped forward, covered by his half-dozen fellows, and relieved Napoleon of the burden he bore. Glancing over their numbers, the U.N.C.L.E. agent allowed himself a slight smile. "I thought you said there were a dozen."

"If we had said half a dozen, you might not have surrendered. You Americans will fight great odds, but you are not suicidal," the concealed speaker answered him. "Now climb out of that bin and accompany your guards. We have a number of questions to ask you."

Chapter 12: "Head For Home, James!"

Napoleon obeyed, handing his automatic over to the guard who extended a hand for it. "Take care of it," he said. "Every one of those I lose is paid for out of my salary."

With exaggerated care, the Thrush tucked the pistol into his belt and then beckoned to him. The rest of the group kept their rifles on point and maintained a distance of at least fifteen feet. Docilely Solo followed his guide to the door.

Outside he scanned the hall for a sign of Illya. If his partner was still free he could stage the usual daring last-minute rescue. And it began to look as if he would have to.

The door up the hall opened, and two guards came out, a limp figure with blacked face and a camouflage coverall slung between them. Napoleon sighed. So much for that approach to the situation. He began looking at the guards, sizing them up, and trying to figure the odds that Illya was bluffing and was actually ready to explode into action at the first hint of a fight. He looked critically at his partner, and decided it wasn't worth the risk. If he started something now, he might have to leave Illya behind—or carry him. Better to wait until he could carry himself.

He didn't have long to wait. One of the guards broke a capsule of something under the Russian's nose, and in a few seconds he was at least partly conscious. He was also under complete control.

Well, thought Solo, here we are. Ten armed guards, and two of us. And there I stood with my rocket pistol. At least they hadn't searched them thoroughly yet, and the Gyrojet still rested in the long holster in the small of his back. How could he get at it? Pretend to itch? And with only six rockets in the magazine, what about the other four guards? While he thought about it, Illya was pulled to his feet and shaken a few times until he looked able to stand and move about a little under direction. Then they were started off together.

After a minute or two of silence, Napoleon politely tried to start a conversation. "This is kind of awkward, isn't it?" he began. "I'll bet you don't have any really proper interrogation rooms set up here. You'll have to question us informally."

Nobody deigned to answer him. Illya shot him a glance, then returned his silent gaze to the floor ahead of them.

But he continued. "Of course, the really awkward part will come when you try to explain how we got in here. Top security base, huh? Questions will be asked all the way up to the Ultimate Computer over this little business." He shook his head. "I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when responsibility for this gets shifted around. I'll bet the whole guard staff here gets purged." He chuckled affably. "About the best thing you could do for your own sakes would be to let us go and pretend it never happened. We sure aren't going to tell anybody."

The first guard finally spoke. "Easier just to kill you and drop bodies down vulcanole, then pretend it never happened."

Napoleon thought about this for a minute, then nodded thoughtfully. "Easier from your standpoint, perhaps," he said, "but what about ours?"

The guard didn't bother to say any more, and they marched into an elevator at the end of the hall. One of the Thrushes pushed a button and they started to rise.

Napoleon had been using the idle conversation as a cover for his increased rate of breathing. He was drawing air deeply into his lungs and using it to talk with while the additional oxygen filtered into his bloodstream. He was, in fact, hyperventilating—preparing his body for a period without breathing. Expecting that the offices to which they would be taken would not be on the same level, he had been looking forward to this elevator. Now it was up to Illya. His equipment had included the necessary....

There was a subtle signal—a glance, accompanied by an almost imperceptible twitch of one eyelid and a slight wrinkling of the nose. None of the guards caught it.

The Russian's hand slipped casually to this belt, and fumbled briefly with something there. Napoleon took the cue, grabbed another lungful of air and held it. Since he was listening for it, he heard the faint hiss.

It was another twenty seconds before the elevator stopped and the door opened on another deserted hall. The two U.N.C.L.E. agents stepped over the slumped bodies of their guards, picking up a rifle each, retrieved their automatics, and looked up and down the corridor.

"All right," said Napoleon, after catching his breath, "you've got the sense of direction. Where did we come in?"

"The steel walls are interfering with my natural compass, but I think it's this way."

They ran. They were halfway to the end of the corridor when the loudspeakers came to life.

"All personnel," the voice resonated, "clear level two. Intruders at large. Secure all doors. Guards, converge on level two, corridor six. Observe caution—they are armed and extremely dangerous."

The first contingent of guards came running around a corner a short distance ahead of them, failing to observe the ordered caution. Two rifles set on fully automatic thundered in the echoing corridor, and the survivors fell back in disorder. Napoleon and Illya discarded their empty weapons and picked up fresh ones.

The loudspeakers rattled again. "Guards—load rounds of Alpha ammunition. Do not shoot to kill."

"Alpha?" asked Napoleon. "What's that?"

"I don't know about you," said Illya, "but I do not intend to wait around and find out. The local announcer said we were on level two. I'll bet the exit shaft we came in by opens off level one—top level."

"How do you know level one wouldn't be the bottom level?"

"Because we came up four levels in the elevator from where we were captured. You should pay more attention to things, Napoleon."

"All right. Where are the service stairs?"

"Over there. See the sign that says stuparo? That means stairs. But the door is probably locked. Let's get back to the elevator."

"What makes you think it'll be working?"

"They have to get more men to our floor."

They pushed aside the sleeping guards, whose bodies had been left blocking the door open, and sniffed the air. The gas had already dissipated. They jumped in as the door slid closed and pushed the top button.

The loudspeaker was behind the times when they stepped out. "Seal level two," it said, a note of anger in the voice. "Corner them and capture them."

Napoleon and Illya smiled triumphantly at each other, and started up the corridor. After a couple of intersections, Illya suddenly turned right and pointed to a large pair of doors across the hall some hundred feet away. Each half had a glass panel in it, and a red sign above the door said something about unauthorized personnel keeping out. Napoleon pointed this out as they trotted towards it.

"Fine," said his partner. "If you want to go back and get a surface pass, you go right ahead. I won't wait for you."