Текст книги "The Copenhagen Affair"

Автор книги: John Oram

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A few yards along the street he found, as he had hoped, a narrow passage. Slipping in, observed only by a prowling cat, he was able to study the back of the house. The lower regions were cut off from view by a brick wall, in which the builder had thoughtfully inserted a door. Solo tried the lock and felt it give slightly. He pushed gingerly until there was space between door and frame.

All he could see was a small shed, sometime whitewashed, and the beginning of a flagged path. It was enough. On general principles it was an even bet that the path would be short, leading probably to a half-glazed kitchen door. The shed door sagged open, hanging on one hinge. Inside Solo could see the rear wheel of a motorcycle.

It was no use straining the lock. Solo released the pressure and let the door in the wall settle back in place. There was nothing he could do until dark.

It was around eight at night when he returned to the alley. He stopped and listened before getting to work on the lock. The door opened easily and he slipped through into the tiny courtyard.

He flashed the beam of his pencil flashlight around the shed. There was nothing much to see: a broken stove in the rear angle of the walls, a few fruit crates, a collection of empty lager bottles and noisome crusted tins under the window on the house side, and of course the motorcycle, a big Honda. Gasoline fumes dominated the smells, but he could pick out whiffs of moldy sacking, paint, onions and just plain filth.

He took the Mauser from the shoulder holster, pressed a full clip into the butt and slid the first shell into the chamber. The jacket moved sweetly and easily. He tucked the gun into the waistband of his trousers, leaving the safety catch up.

The path led to a door that was solid and not glass-paneled as he had hoped it might be. There was a window at ground floor level on each side of the door. No light showed from either or from the two on the floor above, but that meant nothing.

Solo took a black rubber sucker from his pocket and pressed it against the window to the right of the house door. He ran a glass cutter in a wide circle around the sucker, tapped gently and then pulled. The circle of glass came away. He put his hand through the hole, found the catch and opened the window. No lights went on. There was no sound from inside the house. He lowered himself gently into the room.

It was unfurnished, which made things easier for quick and silent action. He moved carefully over the bare floorboards and into the dark passage beyond.

In the passage he risked another quick flash of his torch. It showed him the front door, a lot of blank wall and a narrow staircase with a one-in-two gradient. The oilcloth on the treads was the first sign of civilization he had seen and all it did was depress him. When he was prowling he liked a lot of thick carpet under his feet

He made for the staircase, treading as lightly as an Indian. With his foot on the first tread he listened again. Then he grasped the handrail and started up.

Something jabbed him in the small of the back and a voice spoke pleasantly:

“All right, mister. Keep going!”

Feeling a gun sticking into the vertebrae seems to affect different people different ways. Movie stars, for instance, just laugh it off—a wisecrack, a double back flip, and ping! another miscreant bites the dust and it’s hey, nonny, and away with the banker’s daughter.

But Solo felt that the barrel prodding his spine probably wasn’t loaded with blank. He kept right on going.

When they were halfway up a door opened, throwing light onto the landing. A man came out and leaned over the balustrade. He said, “Ole? What’s up?”

The man behind Solo said, “We’ve got company. It got in through the back window.”

The room they shepherded Solo into was furnished halfway between an office and a lounge. There was a white wood table with a portable typewriter on it, a bookcase  filled with directories and reference books, a couple of shabby armchairs and a sofa to match. A large scale map of Denmark was pinned against one wall, with a calendar flanking it. Light was provided by a bulb depending from a center-fire ceiling fixture. It was all as innocent-looking as a Boy Scout’s clubroom.

Lounging against the bookcase was one of the handsomest men Solo had ever seen. He had blue-black hair that came in tight, almost negroid curls, a nose and chin like the boys in cigarette commercials, and big eyes that were almost violet. His six-foot frame was beautifully neat in a sweater, riding breeches and laced knee-boots. Solo wondered where he kept his horse.

He looked up incuriously, then went on filling his pipe from a thin plastic pouch.

The other two men filtered in. The one who had stood on the landing was a stocky, nondescript type, the kind that fills the balcony at the movie theater or the unreserved seats at the football game. He flopped into one of the armchairs and started to make a meal of his nails, shooting sidelong glances at Solo all the time.

The man they called Ole kicked the door shut, came from behind Solo and sat on the edge of the table. Solo took a specially good look at him. He was always more than a little interested in people who stuck guns in his spine.

He was about middle height and weight and he had a face more like a rabbit’s than any human face had a right to be. It was crowned with lank blonde hair. His eyes were very pale blue, with a thin darker circle between the iris and the white, and they held the depth of warm human sympathy you are liable to find in a horned toad. He wore a gray flannel suit, tight-waisted, and his shirt was lavender silk. A primrose tie and ultrafashionable ice-calf shoes completed the outfit. He sat there smiling gently and his right hand pointed a Smith & Wesson .38 police special unwaveringly at Solo’s belly.

The handsome man had his pipe going. He took it out of his mouth and asked, “Who is this fellow, Ole?” The creamy voice went with the blue-black curls and the eyes.

Rabbit Face said, “Search me. He came through the window.”

Solo said, “A stork brought me. Now it’s your turn. You say ‘So you won’t talk, huh?’”

It didn’t get his goat, which was what Solo wanted. He said in the same even tone, “You’ll talk before we get through with you. Hold the gun on him, Ole. Here, you, Per—search him.”

Without another glance at Solo he crossed to the table, slipped a sheet of paper into the portable and began typing.

Per came out of the chair reluctantly. He looked as if he resented having his meal interrupted. He muttered, “Don’t try any funny business,” and started to frisk him.

Solo said, “There’s a gun in my belt and three hundred kroner or so in my right-hand pants pocket. No letters, no papers, and I don’t mark my linen. So get it over with. You give me the creeps.”

There was a sudden clatter outside the house. It sounded as if somebody had kicked over the fruit crates in the shed.

Ole said, “Blast! Get his gun, Per, and leave the rest.” Without taking his eyes away from Solo he said to the handsome man, “One of us had better get out and see if that row meant anything.”

The big boy nodded, pushed his chair back. “You stay with him. Come on, Per.” It seemed like Per was the maid-of-all-work.

Solo’s spirits lifted. It looked as if the breaks were coming his way at last. With Handsome busy elsewhere he was prepared to tackle Peter Rabbit, gun or no gun.

Ole must have guessed his thoughts. He said quietly, “Ten feet is quite a jump, mister.”

“What?”

“I’m trying to tell you I’d probably drill you about three times before you reached me. Honestly, friend, I wouldn’t try anything.”

With his free hand he fumbled in his jacket pocket and brought out a pack of Queens. “Cigarette?”

“Why not?”

He shook one out of the pack, stuck it between his lips, found a lighter. He removed the butt long enough to say, “Sorry I had to do it this way but you’ll see why I don’t offer you the pack.”

“Sure,” Solo said. “Oh, sure.” He was getting ready for the fleeting chance he could see coming.

As Ole brought the lighter flame up to the cigarette he dived.

Ole fired once, the slug seared Solo’s shoulder, and then he had him by the ankles. He jerked his feet back and down. His head smacked the flooring, but he didn’t drop the gun and he didn’t lose his nerve.

As Solo twisted to grab him he lashed out viciously and his heel took a piece out of Solo’s ear. The pain and the force of the kick set Solo back on his haunches. In a fraction of a second Ole had squirmed onto his back and Solo saw the gun coming up again.

He lunged forward, threw his whole weight on Ole’s gun arm, pinning it. Then he started to work his knee into Ole’s midsection while Ole lambasted his groggy ear with his free fist. He looked like a rabbit but he had the guts of a mongoose.

It was too bad the big fellow chose that moment to return.

Solo saw his boot coming a shade too late; he tried to roll with it. Lights exploded inside his skull.

CHAPTER FIVE

WHEN SOLO CAME TO he was lying on the sofa, looking like a fowl ready for roasting. His arms had been yanked behind him so tightly that his shoulder blades were grinding on each other. The lashing around his wrists had stopped the circulation enough to make his hands feel like boxing gloves. His ankles were tied equally tightly and there were a couple of turns of rope just below the knees. It had all the earmarks of a Rabbit Face job. He had that kind of smooth efficiency.

Solo decided there was no point in struggling. It might do some good to have the men think he was still out. He lay still and took a quick squint through his eyelashes.

Handsome had gone back to the typewriter and Ole was relaxing in one of the chairs. It warmed Solo’s heart to note that he had mussed him up more than a little. The gray flannel had lost its chic and the lavender shirt was a ruin.

Per was jittering in the middle of the floor. Solo reckoned his nails would last out maybe half an hour, with care.

A new man had joined the party, a man with the kind of face lady novelists usually mean by saturnine. He could not have been there long, because he was still wearing a duffel coat. He was sitting on the table, talking to Rabbit Face.

Per took his fingers out of his mouth long enough to ask, “How’s the time going, Eiler?”

Handsome glanced at a wristwatch. “Nearly eleven.”

He went on clacking the keys and Solo wished he would stop. His head was splitting.

Per munched some more, flicking suspicious glances from Rabbit Face to the new boy, then back to the big fellow. Suddenly he burst out, “Where the hell’s the Boss? He said he’d be here around nine.”

Ole grinned cynically. “Probably caught up with a new chick.”

“Chick be damned!” Per Hung himself into the other chair, lit a cigarette after two attempts. “He said he’d be here at nine and he ought to do what he says. I don’t like it. Something’s gone wrong.”

Ole said, “Don’t be a fool. Something’s held him up. He won’t be long.”

Eiler stopped pounding the typewriter; he rested his hands on the table and said quietly, “Control yourself, Per, or I’ll give you something to moan about. Nothing’s going wrong.”

The clacking started again and every thump of the keys seemed to drive a red-hot hammer into Solo’s brain. Involuntarily he groaned.

The man in the coat said, “Your friend there is coming round.”

Per jumped to his feet again, his voice quavering like a soprano at a village charity concert.

“Okay, okay,” he squealed. “Everything’s fine. So what’s he snooping around for?”

Eiler kicked his chair back. He crossed the room and swung a right to Per’s jaw with all his two hundred pounds behind it.

Per folded. His worries were over for awhile.

“Just the same,” Rabbit Face said thoughtfully, “he’s got something there. Perhaps—”

The coated man broke in: “Listen!”

Somewhere in the recesses of the house a buzzer was purring.

Rabbit Face said, “I’ll go.” He opened the door. Solo heard him descending the stairs.

Eiler picked up Solo’s Mauser, which had been lying on the table. The safety catch snicked as it went up. Despite his poker face Eiler was worried.

The dark man’s hand slipped inside his duffel coat and came out holding a black snub-nosed Walther. Both men were watching the open door like a pair of cats at a mousehole.

There were voices below and then a confused shuffle of feet as several men ascended the staircase.

The footsteps reached the landing. The dark man raised the level of the Walther an inch. His face was taut, set-lipped.

Rabbit Face came in, looking serious. Behind him walked Garbridge and his lovable henchman Charles.

As far as Solo was concerned that was all that was required to round off a nice friendly evening. The jig, he felt, was definitely up.

The major nodded briefly to Eiler and the duffel-coated man, raised his eyebrows at the display of artillery, glanced around the room with the air of an officer inspecting dirty barracks. Lying there trussed like Tutankhamen’s mummy, Solo could not be missed.

The amber eyes narrowed. Solo managed a sickly grin.

“A-a-ah!” said Garbridge. “You have company.”

Eiler said impatiently, “We’ll deal with him. Are the ’copters fixed for Horsens?”

The major said, “We should take off in an hour. Meanwhile, this man is a complication.”

“You know him?” Eiler asked.

The major looked surprised. “Yes, indeed. And so would you if you did your homework. Napoleon Solo is the inquisitive young man who has already disrupted several of Thrush’s projects. Now, since he has been good enough to put himself into our hands, no doubt we’ll be able to persuade him to tell us quite a few things that will be useful.”

Eiler laughed unpleasantly. “He’ll talk, all right.” He went toward the sofa, bunching his fist. Solo braced himself to take it, though he felt in no shape for playing rough games.

Garbridge put a hand out. “Not yet. We have things to discuss. We can deal with Solo at the other place. He’s a stubborn fool and breaking him down may be a long job.”

“You can say that again,” Solo grinned, hoping it sounded more confident than he felt. He had an idea these boys would not draw the line at rubber truncheons. Thrush operatives had something of a reputation as torture aficionados.

Eiler thought for a minute, then turned to Rabbit Face.

“Get him out of here. Bjorn will give you a hand. Take him down to the cellar.”

Neither of them looked as if they wanted the job, but Charles pushed forward eagerly. “All right. I’ll ’andle ’im.”

His gorilla arms coiled around Solo, hoisting him as easily as a child picks up a kitten. Solo tried to butt him, but a short-arm jab dampened his enthusiasm. It rattled his teeth but it didn’t put him out. After that he quit struggling. He was not going to provide any more fun for these thugs if he could help it.

Rabbit Face went ahead with a flashlight, and Charles was not too careful how he followed. Solo’s head hit the banisters every second step.

At the foot Rabbit Face opened a door under the staircase. His flashlight beam showed a flight of stone steps.

Charles shifted Solo so that he was tucked under one arm. He extended the other arm for the flashlight.

“All right, chum,” he said. “You go on up to the meeting. I can manage by meself.”

Rabbit Face grinned. “Don’t mess him up too much. I want a crack at him later.”

Charles stood listening until he heard the other man reach the upstairs room and close the door. Then he carried Solo slowly down the steps and dumped him quite gently on the concrete floor.

“All right, chum?”

“Never felt better,” Solo said dryly.

Charles chuckled.

“Blimey! You ain’t ’alf mucked it,” he said cryptically. The beam of his flashlight went in front of him up the steps. Solo was left in darkness that smelled wet and cold.

For a few minutes he just lay still and relaxed as much as the ropes around his wrists and legs would let him. Waves of pain were pulsing through his skull, and his ear, where Peter Rabbit’s heel had caught it, was throbbing horribly. The rest of it wasn’t so bad, because there was no feeling left in his hands and the ache in his arms was so continuous that he hardly noticed it.

With his cheek resting on the chilly concrete, which seemed to help a little, he lay there and thought. If Charles had left the cellar door unlocked there was more than an even chance of making a getaway. Given a certain amount of time and no interference, getting out of a few ropes is no particular trick—provided the man who does the tying neglects to put a couple of inches of gut or silk around the thumbs. That little bit extra would immobilize Houdini himself.

Solo gave himself a minute or two more, then squirmed around until he found the bottom of the steps. As he started to move, his knees hit some small, hard object that clattered metallically as it shifted, but Solo was too busy to wonder what it was.

Finding the steps in the pitch blackness was not too easy. When he finally made it he had to take time out to recover again. Eventually, using the steps as a fulcrum, he succeeded in getting to his feet.

The next move was to bend forward, working his arms down over his hips until his hands were behind his knees. It hurt plenty, and so did the concrete floor as he levered down into a sitting position.

Solo rested again and then went to work on the hard part, which was bringing his knees up to his chin and working his feet between his arms. He did it at last, and with his hands in front of him again the rest was easy. Rabbit Face or whoever it was had used only simple knots on the wrist tie and Solo had excellent teeth.

When the blood had pounded into his hands sufficiently to make them usable Solo got the lashings off his legs and ankles.

His pencil flashlight was still in his pocket. He sent the thin beam over the floor, looking for the metal thing he had hit with his knees. He hoped it might be a sizeable bolt or some other blunt instrument that would help on the way out if he met with opposition.

It wasn’t. It was a squat black automatic pistol. And, as Solo could see by the marks in the dust, it was lying within inches of where the major’s plug-ugly had dumped him.

Solo went over and picked it up, examining it carefully. The steel gleamed dully and there was the thinnest film of oil on its surface. The butt was clean and polished. It had not been on that filthy floor long.

There was only one answer. Charles must have left it there.

Solo pressed the button in the heel of the butt and slipped out the magazine. It was fully loaded with 9mm shells.

Ramming the clip home again, Solo began to wonder about Charles. There was that rap on the jaw he had administered. It had jolted Solo more than a little, but even a half-hearted tap from that hamlike fist should have put him to sleep for a week.

Why had he been so anxious to lug Solo down to the cellar himself? And what had he meant by the cryptic crack about “mucking” it?

On the other hand, if he were anxious enough for Solo’s welfare to leave him a gun, why hadn’t he completed the job by cutting him loose?

Solo gave up. Brooding on problems like that, he figured, was what brought good men into the psychiatric wards. Besides, he had more urgent things to think about. Instinct was telling him forcibly to get out while the going was good, and his flashlight, in sympathy, was ranging the cellar walls for a second exit. Pigheadedness was urging him no less strongly to get upstairs and listen in to the conference on the off-chance of hearing something useful.

The thought of getting into the clutches of the gang up there was not inviting. He had been battered around enough for one evening. He was paid for just that sort of thing—but there was no law that said he had to enjoy it.

Then, for no reason at all, he thought of Norah Bland. He sighed and started up the steps.

The cellar door swung open when he twisted the handle and he stepped cautiously into the hall. This time he got to the landing undetected, though there was a bad moment when a rickety tread creaked beneath his weight. Keeping close to the wall, he edged along to the room where the meeting was in session.

The major’s voice came clearly through the door. He was speaking very slowly, repeating his sentences.

“Come in, Hades…Come in, Hades…”

Something came in, all right. There was a gigantic, shuddering blast that sent Solo staggering, and then he was in the middle of a shower of plaster and dust. Judging by the rumble that followed, the entire front of the house was caving in.

Inside the room, the boys had lost their calm. Solo heard Eiler yell, “Put on the light, why can’t you? Switch it on!”

Someone else snarled, “How the hell can I? The fuses have blown!”

The door of the room was wrenched open and the glare of a flashlight blinded Solo. He didn’t know who was behind it and he didn’t wait to find out. He dropped and fired in one movement. As he squeezed the bigger Rabbit Face shouted, “Solo!”

Then the light went out. A body slumped to the floor. Solo flattened against the wall near the door. Stabs of flame came out of the blackness. Bullets smacked the opposite wall and ricocheted with a zinging whine. Then there was silence.

It looked like stalemate. Solo couldn’t get in and they couldn’t get out. Neither side felt like risking a light that would draw a shot.

The lull could not have lasted more than a few seconds, but it seemed like hours. It was broken by a crash of glass and the major’s shout: “The window!”

Guns of different calibers chattered briefly. Then, with a rush, men piled through the door. Solo emptied his gun in the direction of the stairway, never having been trained not to shoot at running birds.

From below came three shots. Then silence again.

Solo lay where he was, pressed against the wall. It was not heroic—but an empty gun makes for prudence.

Footsteps sounded inside the room. The beam of a flashlight danced toward the doorway. It swung around the plaster-carpeted landing, and came to rest on Solo as he got set for a flying tackle.

Illya Kuryakin’s voice said mildly, “Mousing?”