Текст книги "[Magazine 1966-­07] - The Ghost Riders Affair"

Автор книги: Harry Whittington

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Illya nodded. "Right. Once they gander us on their monitors we're marked pigeons. Even the blind men will recognize us in these clothes."

"Clear enough why they dress everybody alike. It makes them easier to keep in line."

Illya said, "Could work against them, too."

Solo inched closer to the mouth of the corridor. Sighing, he whispered across his shoulder, "Will you be the decoy, or shall I?"

Illya drew a deep breath, set himself. "I make an elegant decoy—classic profile and all that stuff, you know."

He darted from the corridor, ran out into the tunnel almost to the place where the mole-round men were loading the cars.

Workers yelled, and the fat guards reacted. They moved in slow motion, but they did move. By the time the two nearest guards wheeled around and got their guns to their shoulders, Illya had already raced back into the corridor.

"Here they come!" he said to Solo as he passed.

The heavy treads came nearer, like elephants charging.

The first guard bounded into the corridor. He was only inches from the place where Solo was pressed against the tile wall. Solo let him pass, but reached out and deftly jerked off the guard's thick-lensed glasses.

The blinded guard cried out, a sound of guttural terror as he toppled past Solo. Solo smashed the glasses against the wall and turned back, waiting for the second armed guard.

This one lumbered into the corridor, gun raised against his fat chest. He tried to slow when he heard the cry of his fellow guard.

Solo drove his fist wrist deep into the fat stomach. The guard cried out, doubling forward. Solo judo-chopped him across the neck. The gun was flung into the corridor and the guard went sprawling after it. Solo snagged off the glasses, smashing them.

The he half-lifted the guard and tossed him beside his unconscious partner.

Illya wasted a moment blowing on his fist. Solo was already undressing and Illya followed suit. Solo unzipped the coveralls, worked them off the porcine bodies. They donned the guards' suits, took up their guns.

Solo broke the lenses from the black-rimmed glasses, gave one pair to Illya and set the other on his nose. They took up the rifles and moved along the corridor toward the tunnel.

Illya strode ahead of Solo, until Napoleon's voice lashed out after him. "You look wrong when you walk that fast; you look to restless to be a native."

At the very brink of the corridor, Illya slowed and grinned across his shoulder. "Right."

"Just remember that," Solo warned. "We walk like fat men, no matter what happens. We won't get anywhere down here by hurrying."

THREE

Carrying the weapons in the sluggish manner of the other guards, Solo and Illya sauntered along the walks past the loading train cars. Workers kept moving without glancing at them. Other guards leaned against the walls. None gave Solo and Illya more than brief, myopic glances.

Illya said, "Everything's going fine, but I feel like I'm carrying a target on my back."

"Just keep moving."

"They must have seen me on those monitoring screens."

"I've an idea we'll find out about that at any moment. They likely have their own ways of handling situations like this."

"You don't fill a guy's day with sunlight, do you?"

Solo was almost breathless. He longed to look over his shoulder, yet did not dare to. "It's just that I won't really relax until I get out of here."

By now they had moved in that lumbering pace to the head of the long train.

Solo slowed, touch Illya's sleeve. He nodded, indicating the cab of the engine. Two dun-clad men slouched at their places in the cab, the engineer and his assistant. The powerful engines, breathing, smoked, waiting a signal to roll.

Solo jerked his head upward. Illya nodded and moved ahead of him, swinging up into the cab.

The engineer and assistant turned in that leaden way. The engineer spoke coldly: "What do you want?"

"This train," Illya said. "Do you mind?"

The engineer squinted, peering more closely. He saw the slack dun-colored uniform, the lense-less glasses. The rotund man shuddered visibly, crying out: "You're not one of us!"

Illya nodded, smiling. "Nicest thing anybody's ever said to me."

Solo stepped close beside Illya, raising the gun, fixing his finger on its trigger. "I got the word for you. Never mind who we are. Get this train moving!"

"We're waiting for our orders!"

"You just got 'em," Illya said. He thrust the barrel of his gun into the engineer's fat belly. "Move it!"

The engineer nodded, turning slowly.

He engaged the gears. The train shivered, then inched forward. His voice rasped with contempt. "Where do you think you are going?"

Illya prodded him harder with the gun barrel. His voice was soft, "Miami's nice this time of year."

Solo watched the stout guards falter to attention, jerking up their guns as the train ground into motion. He spoke warningly over his shoulder. "The important thing for you, friend, is to get this train moving."

"I don't think there's any real misunderstanding. Is there?" Illya lifted the gun and let it bite into the engineer's flabby neck.

"No. None." All protest seeped from the engineer's voice. He and his assistant turned their attention to heading the train out.

Guards fired from the walks. They waddled forward, running as the train gathered speed. Bullets ricocheted off the metal of the cab. The two engine men crouched low, but kept working. The train moved faster.

As if reacting to delayed messages, workers in the train cars straightened, belatedly realizing the train was moving. They ran, leaping from the cars, striking the walls, or rolling along the walks like helpless bugs. Firing, the near-sighted guards stumbled over the fallen workers or collided with those still jumping from the faster rolling cars.

Solo fired his gun, aiming high, hoping only to keep the guards back until the train picked up momentum.

The engines struggled; the spinning wheels clicked on the railings. Corridors, cavern houses, white tubes of lights raced past.

Solo leaned out of the cab window, watching the loading yard and the guards receding in the distance. He stayed a moment as the train swayed on its braces.

Finally he turned, walked close to the engineer at the throttle.

Solo said, "I heard your trains can do a hundred miles an hour—"

"More!" The engineer straightened, showing his pride in this underworld rolling stock. "Much more!"

Solo grinned coldly at him. "All I want out of you then—is the very best this train can do."

Solo and Illya braced themselves in the swaying cab as the train moved with incredible speed, like a bullet through the white-glowing tunnels. The whole length of the monstrous train shivered. There were sudden turns in the runs, but the engineer did not slow.

Solo moved to the bulkhead of the cab, bracing himself. But Illya did not move. Strange fires burned intensely in the blue depths of his eyes. His wheat-colored hair fluttered on his forehead.

His mouth pulled across his lips. He shouted at the engineer: "Faster! Man, you can go faster than this!"

Solo stared at Illya, realizing that he didn't even really know this wild man who had been closer to him than any other.

"Move it, man!" Illya shouted at the engineer. "I told you, we're anxious to flake out of here."

The stout head turned on the fat shoulders. "Sure, I can give it more speed—"

"Then do it!"

"Do you think it matters? It doesn't matter how fast you run, how fast you force this train; you cannot escape the master."

Illya raged with laughter. "That old boy really has got you brainwashed, hasn't he?"

Stiffening, the engineer thrust the throttle forward. The train shuddered, seeming to lie on it side as it slid around a hairpin bend. "You'll see!" He concentrated on his instruments. "I'll tell you this—and we have learned it is true down here—no one escapes the master."

Illya laughed. "Your master says we can't escape." He pressed the snout of the gun into the thick jowls. "This gun says we'd better. Now who are you going to believe?"

Solo stared through the cab window as the fantastic underworld fled past the screaming train. Incredible formations whipped by, like nightmare fragments.

He spoke, awed: "Finnish didn't lie about one thing. There are whole valleys down here, three mile river beds. It's like a domed world."

"It's the master's world," the engineer said. "And the master controls it. As you will find."

The train whipped into a tunnel that seemed to press along the sleek exterior, and through it into a canyon of incredible depth and width. Underground towns loomed ahead, red lights flashing.

The engineer shouted, "Those warning signals! We've got to obey them."

"Negative." Illya said. "You keep moving."

People raced, like frantic animals on the walks, pressing close to the tracks. Guards knelt, guns at their shoulders, fixed on the train.

They fired as the streamliner wailed past.

The engineer spoke coldly across his shoulder. "It should not be long now. The word is flashing ahead to stop you."

Illya grinned at him wolfishly. "Just see that they don't."

"You don't understand," the engineer began.

"I know," Illya said. "It's like a broken record by now—"

"—no one can defy the master."

FOUR

With his three ministers waddling at his heels, Leonard Finnish plodded toward the control room. He held his signal-disc out before him, pressed it, and doors slid open before them.

The control room was frantic with activity, static with the tensions that seemed to rise from the television monitoring screens and from the automated control devices banked in the walls.

Silent men hunched on stools before the banks of flickering monitoring screens. Though they did not speak, their myopic eyes showed their sense of panic. Only the screen showing the stolen streamliner racing away from the center had any meaning at the moment.

Followed by his ministers, Finnish padded through the banks of control panels. He looked neither left nor right but went directly to the screen showing the stolen train.

"Racing at top speed, master," one of the monitors said to Finnish.

Finnish gave the man the briefest nod. He stared for some moments at the screen, the train whipping through tunnels, across wide valleys.

Watching the picture, Finnish pressed fat fingers against his throat, wheezing. A man thrust a small oxygen flask to him. Finnish took it, pressed its cone over his nostrils, never taking his gaze from that flashing picture.

He stared for a long time. It was as if he could see within the train cab itself where those arrogant young adventurers were in control, actually believing they could defy him, escape him—and live.

Finnish's pouting lips twisted. He sucked air deeply from the flask.

"What orders have you given?" he gasped.

"We've sent orders to all towns on that line to halt the train. But three cities now have failed to stop them, even to slow them."

Finnish sucked a deep breath from the oxygen cone. His voice was cold. "I'll take over now."

The monitor bowed, moving away from the screen and the microphones.

"Yes, Master."

Finnish draped himself painfully upon the monitoring stool. He peered some moments at the flashing screen, his face the gray of ashes. "I've not come this far to be stopped now. By anyone. No, not anyone!"

* * *

Lights flashed on the instrument panel before the engineer.

The stout assistant reached out toward the panel switches, but Illya leaped forward, snagged his wrist.

"What are you doing?"

"It is the signal from the control room," the engineer said. "We are being told to switch on our intercom receivers for a top priority message."

Illya released the assistant's wrist. "Ah? The master himself, eh?"

"That's right," the engineer said flatly.

The assistant flipped a switch on the instrument panel. The receivers crackled.

Leonard Finnish's wheezing voice suddenly filled the engine cab: "Mr. Solo? Mr. Kuryakin? Do you hear me?"

Illya glanced at the engineer. The fat man nodded. "Speak. The master will hear you."

"We're here," Illya said.

The speaker crackled a moment. "This is Leonard Finnish speaking, Solo. And you, Kuryakin. Listen carefully. I shall warn you but once. Stop my train instantly. Return to the yards."

The engineer's voice rattled with a pleased laugh.

Solo moved near the cab speaker. "Sorry, Professor. You must know we're not going to do that. We're on our way out of here."

Illya laughed. "That's right, Professor. I say that our agents probably have located your Indiana elevator shaft, your secret spur-line. But if they haven't they'll hear from us."

Finnish's voice wheezed through the crackling speaker. "You remain arrogant, eh? You're wasting time."

"Time's running out on you, Professor," Solo said. "Not us."

"That's where you're wrong again, Mr. Solo. For your own sake, I urge you to listen to me, and stop throwing away your last chance to stop that train before I am forced to destroy it."

For a moment the engineer's sharp, cutting laughter was the only sound in the cab.

Illya stared at the engineer, he spoke to Finnish. "Afraid you're missing an urgent point, Professor. You may well destroy this train or this whole rail pattern in order to stop us. But it doesn't really matter, Professor, whether we die in your train or at the hands of your soldiers, does it?"

Finnish said, "But I know your idealistic souls too well, Mr. Kuryakin. You will face peril. But will you force others to die with you?"

Illya glanced at Solo. He said into the speaker, "Go on. I'm listening."

"There are many other people aboard that train at this moment. Innocent people caught aboard it when you stole it. Will you sacrifice them to a foolish attempt to escape, an attempt doomed to certain failure? Must these people die with you? That is your decision, gentlemen. Clearly, I will permit them to die—I can look only at the greater good. But will you doom them?"

Neither Illya nor Solo spoke. The train whipped through a tunnel so narrow that the white light tubing was only inches from the cab window, an endless glow worm wriggling eternally through this maze of caverns.

The speaker crackled. Finnish's voice deepened the tension inside the cab. "I must ask you to make your decision quickly. Your time is running out."

The engineer turned, his jaws sagging. "Listen to the master! Do as he tells you, before it is too late for all of us."

Finnish spoke. "The engineer gives you wise counsel."

Solo drew a deep breath. "Sorry, Professor. I can't make a decision. I think you're bluffing."

Finnish wheezed, gasping, the sounds magnified on the speaker: "You're a fool. That river you saw through the glass wall in my quarters should have warned you."

Solo drew a deep breath, remembering the raging waters, the blind marine life.

"I'm listening."

Finnish said, "That's it, Mr. Solo. I neglected to mention to you that we down here live in constant threat of underground rivers breaking through shallow crusts and flooding. We've had to equip every tunnel with many steel, watertight doors. We can slam these doors closed every few miles, in every tunnel, making watertight compartments. Now. In seconds, Mr. Solo, I am pressing a button on a control panel in this room that will close and magnetically seal, through the use of our atomic power, steel doors.

"The door immediately ahead of you will close. It will be like driving that train over a hundred miles an hour into a solid wall. Don't take my word. Ask the engineer there in the cab with you."

The engineer cried out in panic. "We'll slam into that steel wall, the whole train! Demolished!"

Finnish said, "Your engineer doesn't lie to you, Mr. Solo. And I do not bluff."

"Listen to him!" the engineer raged, trembling.

Finnish said, raspingly: "Your time is running out, Mr. Solo. I will no longer tolerate your interference."

Solo drew a deep breath. He glanced at Illya, but Kuryakin did not speak. His face showed nothing.

Solo lowered his gun. He nodded toward the engineer. "Stop it."

He waited but there was no sounds of triumph from the control room. There was no elation, no astonishment expressed. There had been but this one answer from the start.

"It was as I told you," the engineer said.

Illya gazed at the fat man, but did not speak. Solo stared through the cab window as the train slowed.

"The door!" The engineer whispered.

Holding his breath, Solo thrust his head out the cab window. Gleaming steel plates reflected the headlights of the engine.

He did not speak even when the train rolled to a stop only inches from the watertight wall of steel.

The engineer cut the engines to idle. The train gasped, sounding almost like the master himself.

Soldiers ran along the walks, dun-clad men with guns held at ready. They came up the steps. The engineer took the guns from Illya and Solo. Neither of them protested.

With smug smiles the soldiers surrounded them.

ACT IV: INCIDENT OF THE INCREDIBLE EARTHQUAKE

Professor Leonard Finnish remained crouched over the television monitoring screen in the control room, until the stolen streamliner had been returned to the loading yard.

He sighed heavily then and stood up.

A minister spoke at his shoulder. "Are the soldiers to slay the prisoners, Master?"

"No reason to permit them to live any longer, sire," another suggested.

Finnish lifted a pudgy hand, palm outward. "I want those men bound and alive, aboard two of the atomic warhead trains. My plans for them have not altered."

"They've caused you much grief, Master."

"That's right," Finnish wheezed, held out his hand for an oxygen flask which was instantly supplied him. He placed the cone against his nostrils, inhaled hungrily. "I want them alive when the atomic warheads explode. This will be a warning to any who might come after them, even from the ranks of the ambitious, or foolhearted, among our own people."

A minister exhaled heavily, "A wise decision, Master."

Finnish laughed flatly. "Wise or not, the point is, it is mine."

Lights flared red from every monitoring panel, from the walls.

Finnish straightened. He said, "Red alert. A message from our THRUSH contact!"

"It's here, Master!"

A monitor lifted his arm, waving it.

Finnish pressed the oxygen cone over his nostrils and waddled through the aisles of control machines to the instant-bulletin screen.

The screen flared brightly red. Finnish shoved the monitor aside, pressed a button. "Finnish speaking. What is the message?"

A woman's voice crackled in the room. "Top priority urgency. Red alert. THRUSH advised seconds ago that United Command agents on earth's surface have discovered your Indiana below-ground train elevator shaft, and the secret spur lines. Red alert. All plans to this moment must be altered to operation Four Strike. Repeat. Delay of even hours will jeopardize success of Operation Four Strike. Repeat. Red Alert. Repeat."

Finnish slapped the off-switch, silencing the speaker.

The bulletin screens continued to flicker brilliantly red.

Finnish leaned a moment against a machine, breathing deeply of the oxygen. Then he pressed control button panels on inter-com boards.

He spoke slowly, wheezing, but his voice was cold, without emotion: "Operation Four Strike now activated. Leonard Finnish speaking, activating Operation Four Strike. Load atomic warheads for immediate dispatch. Repeat. Load warheads for immediate dispatch."

TWO

The stone door slid open upon the sodden mass of human beings in the many-tiered chamber of zombies.

At gunpoint, Solo and Illya were thrust into the chamber. The door slid closed behind them.

Almost at once, Solo pressed his fingertips to his temples, the throbbing inside them immediately intolerable.

Illya pressed close to him, pushed one of the small oxygen flasks into his hand. "Use it secretly. Our half-blind friends are watching every move we make in here."

Solo nodded, but slumped heavily against a wall, burying his face against it. He breathed deeply through the flask nose cone.

After a moment, Solo felt the pressure of Illya's hand on his shoulder. "I've been thinking, Napoleon. Why didn't they just kill us? Why did they return us here? Why did they let us live?"

"I don't know. Except that means, Finnish is insane enough that he means to have his vengeance because we stole his precious train—"

"Exactly! And we almost escaped. He can't let his people believe such a thing can happen. Not that it's feasible, or worth attempting—"

"He means to use us as horrible examples. He means to have us die the most appalling way his mind can conceive—"

"Perhaps on the warhead train."

"Right. He gets rid of us and demonstrates to any dissenters in his ranks what can happen to them if they defy him."

"That's his plan, if we stand still for it."

"You don't really think we can get out of here again, do you?"

"I don't know. Maybe that depends on how big a diversionary action we can stir up."

Solo moved along the wall until he found one of the nerve gas valves. With material torn from a litter, he blocked it. He went running along the wall, looking for the next one.

Illya ran after him. He caught Solo's arm. "They're watching us on monitoring screens."

"Sure! That's it. They've got to kill us to stop us! If they shoot us in here, they lose us as horrible examples. That's up to them. Suppose we got enough oxygen into this place that the zombies woke up, or even came half awake?"

Illya laughed suddenly. "Oh, I'm with you."

"Then find these valves, block them."

Illya was already moving away from him, going along the walls. He located a head of an oxygen hose. He smashed the nozzle. Pure oxygen gushed past him through the broken valve.

By the time they'd blocked the nerve gas valves and smashed the nozzles on the oxygen pipes, some of the zombies nearest the oxygen lines were stirring, straightening, crying out.

"I hope their cameras are picking this up," Illya shouted.

Solo moved between the rows of waking people. He found Harrison Howell squatting like a Buddha.

Solo knelt before the philanthropist. He pressed the cone of the oxygen flask over Howell's nostrils.

Howell stirred, shaking himself. He straightened, gazing blankly at Solo.

Solo caught him by the arms, shaking him.

Howell tried to slap the oxygen flask from his face. Solo pressed it more tightly over his nostrils.

As Howell returned to consciousness, Solo spoke to him rapidly, giving him a quick picture of where he was, why he was here.

At last Howell shook himself, like a wet dog.

"I know now," he said. "I was on the train. It suddenly plunged down into the earth."

"A man named Finnish," Solo said, voice urgent. "He's gone mad. He means to attack the U.S. with four atomic warheads, unless we can stop him."

Howell nodded. "Leonard Finnish. Yes. I know that name. So that's why I'm here. I've read everything I could find that Finnish wrote before he disappeared. It made a pattern to me—insane, but there it was.

"Finnish believed a world existed in the core of the earth. I figured that he'd found that world. I was on that train, on my way to Death Valley. I believed I could find the way down here. I believed I could find Leonard Finnish. But I had no idea he was hatching a nightmare plot like this."

"Did you tell anyone your suspicions?"

"Sure. Told everybody who'd listen. Some who wouldn't. Word got down here to Finnish, all right. That's why I'm here. He had to stop me before I wrecked his plan."

"We've still got to stop him."

Howell nodded. "What can I do?"

"Plenty. We want to give Finnish and his fat madmen fits. As these people revive, get them stirred up; cause as much confusion as you can."

Howell stood up. "I understand. Leave it to me."

Illya came through the slowly waking crowds of people. He and Solo moved toward the stone door. "I've one of these door controls left," he said, holding the electronic device in his hand.

But they did not reach the door before it slid back into the wall.

The wailing of whistles, continuous and ear-splitting, washing into the chamber. Along the walks people ran, shouting. Trains idled in the yards; everything was a milling mass of activity.

Only one person seemed calm, controlled, self-contained. Mabel Finnish came through the door. Her face was chilled, her pace unhurried. She fixed a gun on Solo and Illya.

"Stay where you are, Mr. Solo," she said.

"Friend of yours, Napoleon?" Illya inquired.

"We've met," Solo said, watching Mabel's chilled face.

"My grandfather is to busy at the moment to bother about two such unimportant obstacles as you," Mabel said. "But I'm not. I mean to keep you checkmated until grandfather is ready for you."

"Well, I'm pleased you found your grandfather," Solo said in irony. Beyond Mabel, the frantic people rushed along the walks. Solo ignored the fevered activity as Mabel did, and his flat tone matched hers.

Mabel's mouth pulled bitterly. "I found my grandfather, Mr. Solo. Five years ago."

"I suspected you probably had," he said. "You weren't really worried about him, and you seemed to know where you were going better than I did."

She shrugged. "Why not? I've been traveling these routes for almost five years."

"Your grandfather's contact with THRUSH," Solo said it for her.

"Who better?" she asked.

Solo nodded. "Who indeed? I figure it had to be that way."

"You're not that clever, Mr. Solo."

"You wrong me. I am. Just that clever. I put nerve gas antidote in your coffee on that mountain trail, but you pretended to be knocked out by that gas, though it barely affected me at all. It was a little late, but I realized what your chore was at that ranch—to keep me, or anyone, from interfering before your grandfather got his deadly plan into operation."

"That's still my only objective, Mr. Solo."

"Only it won't work."

"If you move, I'll kill you," she said.

"With that gun?" Solo inquired.

Something flickered in her eyes. Then she straightened. "Test me, and see."

"Isn't that the gun you threatened me with in Wyoming?"

Scowling, Mabel nodded.

"You should have used it on me, then," Solo said. "I removed the lead from your cartridge because I was afraid to trust you, even then. And you know what? I still am?"

Mabel's voice rose slightly. "You're bluffing."

Solo glanced at Illya, nodded, then moved forward. Point blank, Mabel fired.

Solo kept walking. Illya followed him. Panic washed across Mabel's eyes. She fired again, pressing the trigger. The gun exploded but nothing happened.

Solo snagged her arm, removed the gun from her hand. Expertly he reloaded it with clips from her own jacket.

He pressed the gun into the small of her back.

"Let's go see grandpa," he told her.

The wailing whistles continued screaming through all the caverns. Guards ran ploddingly along the walks. Solo saw the four trains, idling, ready to move out in four directions.

But they did not go near them. With Mabel walking just ahead of them, they moved upward to the control room.

Two guards barred their way. Solo pressed the gun against Mabel's spine. She jerked her head at the guards and they went inside.

Leonard Finnish heeled around from a control panel when Solo spoke his name.

All the people in the control room came to attention, peering in desperate, near-sighted concentration at Illya, Solo and Finnish's granddaughter.

Finnish squinted, gazing at them, locating the gun in Solo's hand. He breathed deeply from an oxygen flask, then laid it aside, laughing.

He wheezed with laughter. "So you have broken free again, have you? Very commendable. But you are too late. Perhaps Mabel was unable to stop you, but it doesn't matter."

"I'm sorry, grandfather," Mabel whispered.

Finnish laughed again, in wheezing exultance. "It doesn't matter, my child. You have done well. You delayed our enemies just long enough!" He swung his arm toward a bank of monitoring screens. "Look at them! There they go! Racing on our own underground freeways! Four atomic-laden trains! Four trains on automatic pilot—four trains set to explode simultaneously. So you can see, Mr. Solo, you're late. Much too late!"

Stunned, Solo and Illya stood watching the atomic-loaded trains rush toward their targets.

Finnish peered at them, drinking deep satisfaction from their defeat. The he pressed a button. The guards rushed in from outside the control room.

"All right!" Finnish said, breathing painfully. "They've seen enough. Take them out into the city where all can see and kill them. Put their bodies through the hatches into the river."

The guards raised their guns, advancing.

Illya grabbed Mabel, arm about her waist, using her as a shield between himself and the armed guards.

He retreated, holding Mabel tightly against him. The guards ran forward, then paused, hesitant.

They stared at Finnish, uncertainly.

The huge man yelled at them, "Shoot!"

Still the guards hesitated, unable to believe they heard.

"Shoot!" Finnish raged, wheezing.

Illya backed between the panel boards, searching.

"Stop him! Shoot!" Finnish shouted.

Mabel screamed, shaking her head. "Grandfather! No!"

Finnish seemed not even to hear her. She no longer existed for him, except as a temporary obstacle.

"Shoot! Stop him! I don't care how! Stop him!"

The guards advanced, but still they hesitated. Gasping for breath, raging, Finnish lumbered toward the nearest guard, jerked the gun from his arms.

Finnish turned, quivering, holding the gun in his fat hands.

As Finnish fired, Solo lunged toward him, slapping the gun upward.

The gun exploded, the sound reverberating in the control room, the sensitive machine reacting, lights flaring.

Mabel sagged forward. Illya stared at her a moment, unable to believe the old man had shot her. He released her and she sank slowly to the floor. She did not move. She was dead.

Solo ripped the gun from Finnish's arms. The rotund man staggered forward, falling against a computer.

The guard whirled toward Illya, but Solo fired. The guard dropped the gun. He took a forward step, then fell as if he tripped over unseen rope.

He toppled against a machine, clutching at it as he slid down it to the floor.

Illya ran along the banks of panel controls until he found the one he sought.

Finnish stared at him, his eyes magnified behind their thick lenses. Gasping for breath, the rotund man could barely speak.