Текст книги "The Radioactive Camel Affair"

Автор книги: Peter Leslie

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Chapter 9

The Retreat of Napoleon

THE RENDEZVOUS WITH the cavalry was outside the south gate of Wadi Elmira. From here, the pilgrims continued along the left bank of the river, while the pack train negotiated a ford and climbed up into the hills on the right.

Napoleon Solo kept his head well down as Ahmed rode up and down the long line of camels and horses with a Sudanese officer, separating the travelers and their beasts into two sections. The dromedary with the red, yellow and black striped blanket roll was one of a string of three led by a paunchy Bedouin immediately behind the head of the column. The camel-master’s heavy features were set in their usual scowl as he maneuvered his horse in among the throng of riders, roughly shepherding them into the correct line.

Solo kneed his camel as unobtrusively as he could towards the file of pilgrims, hoping to escape notice while Ahmed’s back was turned. But the army officer saw him move and called out, “Hey! You, there! Where do you think you’re going?” He spurred his horse towards the agent, cursing freely. Fortunately Ahmed was disputing some point with a burly pilgrim and did not come with him.

“I was but joining my fellow pilgrims,” Solo said meekly as the soldier reined up beside him.

“You wait until you are told. And that is a strange manner in which you speak, my friend,” the officer said.

“My speech is not as yours by virtue of the fact that I have traveled far,” Solo said. “I come from Al Khuraiba in Saudi Arabia.”

“Hmm. Well, see that you do not get out of line again.”

The cavalryman wheeled his mount and rejoined Ahmed.

When his turn came, Solo showed his papers with bent head and suffered himself to be pushed into the line of pilgrims. The camel with the striped blanket, as he had expected, was with the other train.

A few minutes later, the pilgrims and their escort moved off along the river bank while the baggage train with its attendant squadron splashed across the ford and began climbing the rocky trail on the far side. Solo deliberately lagged, hoping that he would have a chance to break away from the caravan and somehow rejoin the other train undetected. After a half mile, his chance came—the trail wound through a twisting gorge—and all the escorting soldiers were up at the head of the column. He reined in his beast behind a group of enormous boulders and allowed the others to move slowly around the corner out of sight. Then, turning about, he rode back up the trail as fast as the dromedary would go.

Fording the river, he urged the animal on up the steep path followed by the baggage train. The road mounted steadily past tiny squares of cultivation planted with millet, maize and sorgho, through a belt of trees, and across an exposed slope of bare rock before turning unexpectedly to the right and following a dried-up valley towards the crest of the ridge. A huge natural tunnel through the porous limestone led beneath the ridge itself—and on the far side he could see, far down the slope, the long line of horses and camels he was trying to join. If he could manage to link up with the caravan without being noticed, there was a slim chance that he could stay with it at least until nightfall. The track, although it was dry, produced very little dust from the passage of the camel’s feet. He rode on down, steering his swaying mount behind the shelter of every rock outcrop and pile of boulders that the terrain offered.

An hour later, he was within a quarter of a mile of the caravan. Clearly around the bends in the trail he could hear the sounds of its progress. He took the chance to close up when the route was following a tortuous path between an alternating series of dried-up alluvial deposits. If only there were no cavalrymen riding at the back when he tagged on…

But when he rounded the last corner and caught up, he saw that his luck had changed: two horsemen in uniform were riding behind the last pack camel.

Before he had time to withdraw, one of them turned around and saw him. There wasn’t a chance of escape: the men were carrying rifles across their cruppers, and anyway a horse could run rings around a camel. Fuming inwardly, he rode straight ahead until he caught up with them.

“What the devil do you think you are doing?” the man who had seen him said roughly. “Show me your papers at once.”

While the other soldier kept him covered, Solo reached inside the folds of his robe and produced the documents. “But you should be with the other train!” the soldier exclaimed. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I got lost. I was wandering about when I heard the sound of your caravan and thought it might be the one I missed—”

“Impossible. The others are miles away on the other side of the river. You couldn’t have got here by mistake. Here, Ali: ride up to the front of the column and fetch Ahmed and the captain while I keep an eye on this man.”

The second cavalryman spurred his horse and rode away after the disappearing caravan while Solo remained motionless under the other’s watchful guard. In a few minutes, four horsemen galloped into sight around a bend in the trail: the soldier, Ahmed, the officer who had spoken to Solo before the trains separated, and a tall, dark man on a splendid gray mount. It was the stranger Solo had seen talking to Ahmed in the square the previous night.

“What is the trouble?” the dark man asked curtly.

“This man was attempting to join the train, Excellence.”

“But I have seen him before,” the officer said. “I had trouble with him when we were separating the two caravans.”

“So have I seen him before,” Ahmed snarled. “I knew the face was familiar!” He leaned across and twitched the enveloping headdress from the agent. “Aha! So the foreign thief is revealed! Foreign thief…and, perhaps, foreign spy, eh?”

The cavalry captain was looking inquiringly at the dark man. “I suppose so,” the latter sighed. “It was planned otherwise—but, in the circumstances…At least it seems we now know the mystery of the radio transmissions from the caravan. We can search his baggage afterwards.” He nodded imperceptibly at the officer.

“Get down,” the captain ordered Solo curtly.

The agent slid from the dromedary, his mind racing. The homer and his tiny two-way radio were safe in the money belt around his waist; the Mauser was in its improvised holster under his robes; and on his other side a pair of powerful binoculars were slung. The rest of his gear would have to be sacrificed along with the bedroll on the camel…assuming he could get away at all. Unobtrusively, he grasped the big automatic through a fold in his burnoose.

As his feet touched the ground, Solo heard the chilling sound of a rifle bolt being drawn back and slammed home. He knew that he was very near to death: the soldier behind him was preparing to shoot…

Exploding into motion, he ducked under the camel’s belly and fired at the cavalryman through his robes. The soldier toppled forwards over his horse’s neck, his rifle clattering to the ground. Before any of the others had time to move, Solo bobbed up on the far side of the animal and the Mauser roared again. The second man, winged in the act of raising his rifle, clutched at his shoulder and sagged in the saddle.

An instant later, in a smooth, continuous flow of motion, Solo had bounded across the space between the camel and the first soldier’s horse, hauled the dead man clear of the harness and vaulted into the saddle. Then, driving his heels into the animal’s flanks, he rode straight at Ahmed, the officer and the stranger, scattering them before they could draw their guns, leaped the horse over a four-foot thorn hedge by the side of the trail, and galloped away into the scrub.

From behind him, Ahmed’s revolver boomed. The report was followed by the sharp crack of an automatic and a duller, flatter explosion—probably someone had snatched up a rifle from one of the fallen soldiers.

Solo rode like the wind, zigzagging among the stunted trees. He was thankful that the soldier’s horse—unlike most Arab steeds—was harnessed and saddled. Crouching low over the animal’s flying mane, he glanced back over his shoulder. Ahmed and the officer had jumped the hedge and were galloping in pursuit; the dark man had stayed behind. His head and shoulders were visible over the line of thorn bushes, one eye squinting along the barrel of a rifle. Four more shots rang out. Then for a long time there was no sound but the drumming of hooves on the hard ground.

Solo was making a big circle through the scrub, trying to come back on a course parallel with the trail but about a mile away from it. He hoped to gain a range of low hills some way ahead and keep watch on the caravan for as long as he could before relying on the homer. In the meantime, there was the pursuit to be disposed of. Next time he looked back, Ahmed had dropped half a mile behind—but the cavalry officer was only about a hundred yards away and gaining fast. There was a puff of smoke from in front of his chest and a bullet sang over Solo’s head. Regretfully, the agent fumbled inside his robes until he reached the money belt. From a back compartment, he drew out a small, lozenge-shaped metal object. As he rode, he twisted a pointer on the face to the mark 5 SECONDS. Then, deliberately reining back a little, he waited for a straight stretch between the thorn trees and dropped the thing to the ground. The Sudanese was firing again—but after three shots a heavier detonation roared out and drowned the noise of horses’ hooves as the grenade Solo had dropped went off.

He looked behind him again. Horse and rider were lying in a grotesque tangle among the trees. The bare earth, and parts of some of the tree trunks, glistened redly in the mounting sun.

Half an hour later, Solo reined in the horse between two monolithic rocks on the crest of the range of hills he had seen. From the shadow he watched through his binoculars as the caravan wound its way around the far end of the spur on which he stood. The camel with the striped blanket still walked just behind the posse of cavalry at the head of the column. It would be twenty minutes or a half hour before the last riders had passed the foot of the slope immediately below him.

He decided to rest the horse and call Illya on the radio. He had not contacted him at all, and Kuryakin must be wondering what had happened—besides which, he himself wanted to know how the Russian had fared on his journey in from the other direction.

Sheltered by the rocks from the fierce heat, he sat down, took out the transmitter and, turning the pointer to RECEIVE, pressed the button actuating the automatic call sign on their wavelength.

At the end of the half hour—the last outriders of the caravan had passed below him some time before—he was still pressing it.

There was no reply from Kuryakin.

Chapter 10

The City Which Was Off the Map

THE RECEIVER in Illya Kuryakin’s breast pocket began to bleep after he had been arguing for nearly two hours with the officer in charge of the detachment of soldiers who had prevented him from resuming the road after his night in the Landrover.

Colonel Ononu was short and bulky, with fierce, bright eyes in a very dark face. He was a volatile man, speaking in a declamatory fashion and constantly throwing out his arms and then smoothing down the creases in his rumpled bush shirt and shorts. Every now and then he would snatch the French paratroop beret he wore from his head, as if to emphasize a point, and then cram it back again on top of his close-cropped hair. The issue between them was simple: Illya wanted to go on; the colonel wanted him to go back. Either that or submit to arrest—for he was not entirely satisfied with the Russian’s credentials, he said.

“What do you want to go for, man? What for?” Ononu said. “This is dangerous country. We got a civil war on our hands, man—you could say the whole place is under martial law. Okay, technically the province is still ruled by the Arabs. Technically, I say. But possession is nine-tenths of the law, even martial law, and we’re here…and we’re in possession of you, man.”

“Granted, granted, granted, Colonel,” Illya said patiently. “For the tenth time, I have pictures to take, and in my opinion the only place I am likely to get them is further on here—”

“Where further on? How far you goin’? There’s nothing to take around here—unless you want shots of villagers murdered by the Arabs.”

“As I said, I’m taking this road as far as the fork for Halakaz, and—according to my map—the Halakaz road crosses a range of volcanic mountains and then skirts an enormous forest before it reaches the town a hundred miles further on. There are no roads through the forest—indeed, I understand it is hardly explored at all, and certainly not by Europeans. And it is here that I hope to be able to get the animal photos I want.”

The colonel Hung out his arms in a theatrical gesture. “Pictures, animals, photographs!” he cried. “I tell you there’s a race war going on here, man! You’d do better to photograph some of the atrocities—”

At this moment the call sign on Illya’s transceiver began sounding insistently.

“What’s that?” Ononu demanded suspiciously.

“A transistor radio,” Kuryakin said innocently. “I must have left it on…”

“Give it to me.”

“But it’s my personal property!”

“There’s no personal property in a war, man,” the colonel exclaimed, dragging off his beret and slapping his thigh with it. “When will you Europeans realize that this is Africa? Give it to me, I say.”

As one of the ring of soldiers surrounding them moved a step forwards, jerking up the barrel of his automatic rifle, the agent drew the radio reluctantly from his pocket and handed it over. Ononu dropped the red beret back on his head and examined the compact device, turning it over and over in his hands. As the bleeping continued, a hot, dry wind stirred eddies in the dust at their feet and agitated the stiletto-like spikes of the thorn trees.

“But this is not a music radio,” the colonel said at last. “This is a talking radio. Somebody is talking to you, calling you. Who?”

“My partner.”

“Partner? What is his name? Where is he?”

“His name is Waverly,” Illya said easily. “He is supposed to be somewhere up in the forest area already. He is probably calling me to say that he has found a suitable place for photographs.”

“Answer him, then.”

The Russian took back the radio and turned the pointer to TRANSMIT. “Hello, Waverly,” he said, his mouth close to the microphone grille; “this is Kuryakin. Hello, Waverly—come in please…Hello, Waverly…”

He turned the pointer back to RECEIVE. But only the bleeping continued. No voice answered from the tiny speaker—which was not surprising, for he had kept his thumb firmly on a small button at the side of the casing. Unless the button was released, the radio would not transmit.

“Try again,” Ononu ordered.

Illya repeated the charade. And again the high-pitched pips provided his only reply. After a time they ceased.

“Something must be wrong with it,” Kuryakin said; shaking the set vaguely.

“I will take charge of it,” the colonel said, holding out his hand.

“But it will be of no use to you. It cannot be tuned to different wavelengths: you can only use it in conjunction with similar sets which have been synchronized with it. It is useless by itself.”

“Radios are always useful in guerrilla warfare.”

“But I tell you it is useless to you. Besides, it is broken.”

“Then you will not be inconvenienced by the lack of it.”

Ononu took the transceiver and put it in his own pocket. He said, “I have decided to permit you to proceed and seek your friend—but only because of what you told me earlier: that you had received General Mazzari’s personal accord. This will be checked—and I must warn you that if it should prove to be untrue you will regret it.”

“It is true.”

“Good. Then, apart from one small formality, I need not detain you further. As underground forces, you understand, we must not remain too long in the same place. More normally, we keep to the mountains—however, the day is at hand. The Nya Nyerere will soon be marching openly, the acknowledged force for law and order in the land.”

“And the formality?”

“We must search your effects, lest there might be something dangerous to us—or of use to us.”

Illya shrugged angrily and gestured towards the Landrover. He stood fuming in the searing sunlight, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead, as the soldiers expertly unrolled his baggage and handed up the contents to be examined by Ononu. The mercurial colonel “requisitioned”—as Kuryakin had feared—the collapsible U.N.C.L.E. gun and its ammunition. He also took a parcel of miniature grenades, a bundle of phosphorus lockdestroyers, a rifle with a telescopic sight, and a pair of homing devices in a case, similar to those used by Solo.

“You appear, Mr. Kuryakin, to anticipate some hostile reaction from your subjects,” he said dryly.

“The area is far from any human habitation and practically unexplored, as I said. One has to prepare for anything.”

“You will be able to move the better without the excess weight—for you will be unable to take your car the whole way, you know. It is a rare thing to see a vehicle at all in these parts. Which being so, we will relieve you of one of these also.” He motioned one of his men to take out one of a pair of 14-gallon drums filled with gasoline which were housed against the fiat back of the Landrover.

“But I shall not be able to replace them,” Illya expostulated. “The tank needs replenishing now—and I have perhaps two hundred miles to go. Plus at least another four hundred before I find a gas station on the return journey…”

“As I said, you will not be able to take your vehicle the whole way to the forest,” Ononu remarked smoothly. “The scarcity of gasoline now will ensure that you do not stray into regions where you have no business in your attempts to find alternative routes. Besides, you have the pleasure of knowing that you are advancing the Cause.”

Kuryakin raised his arms and let them drop helplessly by his sides. There was no point in arguing: there was nothing he could do; and if he provoked Ononu too much, the soldier was quite capable of taking the whole car and abandoning him in the wilderness. At least they had left him his field glasses and his three cameras—one of which was a dummy and fired eight .32 bullets in rapid succession from what appeared to be a range-finder. The cigarette-lighter pistol, with its sleep darts, remained in his trouser pocket, too.

After two and a quarter hours’ driving, he reached the fork where the roads for Wau and Halakaz diverged. There had once been a settlement at the junction, but all that remained now was the familiar patch of blackened and seared ground, pock-marked with the jagged stumps of walls. From a horizontal branch jutting out over the road, a scorched tree dangled the bodies of five hanged men—naked, decomposing, the eyes plucked out by vultures. Illya’s eyes narrowed grimly as he swung the Landrover around the grisly spectacle to take the right hand track towards Halakaz.

The scrub had given place to a mean variety of bushes and squat trees as the road had mounted. Now the trees thickened and the angle of incline grew more steep. Soon the Landrover was laboring in low gear up what appeared to be a channel carved in the solid bedrock. After several miles of this, the trail flattened out—although it grew no smoother—and Illya saw that he was crossing a plateau of bare volcanic rock surrounded on all sides by steep, sugar-loaf hills covered dense vegetation. The foliage was brownish-gray in color and could by no stretch of the imagination be termed rich; but it was a welcome change from the eternal monotony of the thorn tree desert. At least there must be some water about somewhere…

The Landrover had plunged into several valleys and climbed the steep slopes on the far side before Illya saw any, however. Then suddenly the trail, instead of ascending after it had crossed a dry riverbed, turned and followed the watercourse along a twisting defile which opened out into a wide, shallow valley four or five miles across. And in the middle of the valley a trickle of brown water flowed sluggishly in a deep wadi. Birds flapped in the air and a herd of deer-like creatures—there must have been several hundred of them—galloped off in a cloud of dust as the vehicle approached. They were the first living creatures Illya had seen since he had left Colonel Ononu and his detachment that morning. He stopped the car at the bottom of the wadi, replenished his radiator with some of the brackish water, and poured fuel from his remaining gasoline drum into the tank. Then, after eating some cold food from his pack, he drove on towards the hills on the far side of the valley.

The topography was different here—the slopes gentler, the vegetation lusher and more verdant. To balance this advantage was the fact that, among undergrowth, the trail was at times very difficult to find. Several times he had to stop, get out and search around for some time before he could identify the route.

Towards the end of the afternoon, he found himself emerging from an area of dense forest into a small glade floored with plants which had bright violet flowers. The trail vanished among the trees on the far side of the open space—but across the middle, a chasm barred the way. Illya pulled up and walked to the edge of the fissure. Some gigantic upheaval eons ago had split the earth open as though it had been cleft with a vast axe. On either side, the trees closed in and lined the gorge as far as he could see. Far below, a thread of water glistened in the shadows—and among the smooth rocks he could make out the splintered remnants of what had been a plank bridge. The sheer faces of the cleft overhung at the top and the gap was no more than four or five feet where the bridge had been; a child of ten could have leaped it with ease. But for the Landrover it was an impassable barrier.

For minutes, the Russian pondered. To go back was hopeless: he had no means of knowing how far around he would have to go. And in any case, no alternative route was marked on the map. Equally, without the right kind of tools and tackle it would be impossible to fell trees and fashion any kind of makeshift bridge. There was no choice: he must abandon the vehicle and continue on foot.

Once more he consulted the map. So far as he could make out from the undetailed markings, he was still more than thirty miles short of Halakaz. He would have to sleep somewhere in the jungle and walk there tomorrow. It was an awkward predicament: it could be dangerous—but on the other hand, it could have been much worse. Perhaps he would be able to hire a mule or a camel in the town.

He backed the Landrover into the trees and bumped a hundred yards off the track among the undergrowth. It was quite invisible from the trail and there was just a chance it might remain undetected. Making a compact roll of his sleeping bag, a couple of sweaters and the remainder of his provisions, he slung field glasses, Hasselblad and the gun-camera over his shoulder and returned to the chasm. After pitching the roll across; he retreated a few paces, ran up and jumped lightly over the gap.

The trail twisted and turned among the giant trees. The undergrowth was now positively luxuriant and long strands of creeper hung down from branches far above his head. It was airless and somber, the atmosphere moist and humming with invisible insects, but from what he could see of the sky through the treetops he estimated that there was still an hour or more of daylight. He must press on as far as he could.

For half an hour he trudged through the forest—and then, to his astonishment, he heard voices. Cautiously rounding a thicket, he found himself face to face with a woman in riding breeches carrying an elephant gun.

At first he was irresistibly reminded of General Mazzari, for her accouterments gleamed from the tips of her knee-length leather boots to the lenses of the sunglasses masking her eyes. But there the resemblance ended. Although deeply bronzed, she was a white woman, small-waisted, about thirty-five years old, and wearing, incongruously, a Sam Browne belt. She wore lipstick and her ash-blonde hair was absurdly gathered on the nape of her neck in a black velvet bow.

“And from where have you suddenly sprung, young man?” she inquired in English. Her voice was deep, husky, overlaid with a trace of accent—Swiss, perhaps?—that he could not quite place.

Illya dropped the roll at his feet with a sigh of relief and explained about the chasm.

“Yes, the Arabs destroyed the bridge six months ago,” she said. “I suppose they thought it might hinder the Nya Nyerere. But there are dozens of places further down where they can cross. However, that doesn’t help you: you had better stay with us tonight and tell me all about it while we eat.”

She led the way back to a clearing where a fair-sized encampment was laid out. Two orderly lines of flysheeted tents faced a charcoal fire from which drifted an agreeable smell of cooking. At one side, bales and crates of stores were neatly stacked. Among them, Illya saw, was a theodolite on a tripod. There seemed to be about a dozen Negro bearers in the camp, and at least three white men.

The woman’s name, she told him, was Rosa Harsch. She was a geomorphologist, surveying and mapping the great triangle of uncharted forest which lay between Halakaz, Wau and Wadi Elmira on behalf of a development corporation—which she did not name. “There’s thousands of square miles of jungle here practically unexplored,” she said. “Underneath, most of it’s limestone—but the strata are still with unconformities and there are igneous intrusions all over the place and probably veins of anything you care to mention. It is a most interesting area.”

“It seems surprisingly poorly provided with rivers, when you consider how rich the vegetation is,” Illya said.

“Ah, that is because they all run underground: the limestone is riddled with potholes and caves and subterranean channels, like the Département of Haute Savoie in France. Most of them drain into the Bahr-el-Arab, the Bahr-el-Homr or the Soueh—and thus eventually into the Bahr-el-Ghaza river.”

While they ate a surprisingly sophisticated meal, Illya extended the story of his photographic expedition, mentioning the fictitious Waverly that he was supposed to meet. He was getting increasingly anxious about being out of touch with Solo and wondered if perhaps Rosa Harsch might have come across him.

“No, we have seen nobody except refugees from the burned villages,” she said. “And the forest is full of them. Trying not to starve, poor devils, and wondering all the time what is going to happen to them. So far as hiring animals at Halakaz is concerned, forget it. Halakaz is a six hundred year old mud fort with one street of tumbledown hovels leading up to it. If the inhabitants had seen a spare beast in the past ten years they would have cooked and eaten it. Where is the actual place of the rendezvous with your partner?”

“It was supposed to be somewhere near Gabotomi—only we were to keep in touch by radio, and mine was taken from me by an irregular colonel named Ononu…Speaking of Gabotomi, I believe that is a most interesting place, although it is not on the map. These so-called forbidden cities often are. Perhaps you could give me more explicit directions how to find it?”

But Rosa Harsch, whose replies had until then been detailed and specific, suddenly appeared to succumb to an attack of vagueness. She wasn’t quite sure, she said, where the place was—if it existed at all—and as far as she knew they had been nowhere near it. A few minutes later she rose to her feet and clapped her hands. “If you will excuse me,” she said, “there are two matters of a disciplinary nature which must be attended to before we retire. Mustapha! Ibrahim! Prepare things for the punishments, please.”

Two tall Nubians, who seemed to be in charge of the bearers, started shouting orders and the camp suddenly buzzed with activity. A trestle table was set up in the firelight and a bearer wearing only a pair of shorts was led up to it. He leaned forward over the end of the table. The Nubians spread his legs and tied the ankles to the table legs, binding his wrists and attaching them with another rope to the far trestle, so that he was stretched forwards across the length of the table.

The woman walked into her tent and reappeared with a peeled switch. “This man was discovered helping himself to more than his share of the liquor ration,” she said unemotionally. “Six strokes.”

She approached the table, measured her distance, and raised her arm. The switch hissed down and raised a livid weal. Illya watched in astonishment as the following five strokes fell in metronomic precision. Apart from a sharp intake of breath at each blow, the pinioned man uttered no sound. Nor was there any comment from the rest of the party, who watched in a grave-faced circle around the fire. As soon as the last stroke had fallen, Rosa Harsch turned her back and the Nubians rapidly released the victim, who limped back to his tent. A minute later they led a thin, bearded white man of about twenty-six to the table.

“This man, by his carelessness in his duties as clerk, caused us to lose a rucksack containing notebooks filled with irreplaceable data,” Rosa Harsch said. “Ten strokes.” And the process was repeated exactly as before.

When it was over, the members of the party dispersed to their various sleeping quarters and the woman returned to Illya by the fire. The flickering light smoothed out the network of fine wrinkles around her eyes and softened the contours of her face. From a certain rigidity about the waist and the twin bulges of flesh at each side of her back just below the arms, he guessed that she was wearing a laced corset beneath the shirt. But for all that she was still remarkably attractive.

“I see you have no color bar in your expedition,” he said lightly as she unbuckled the Sam Browne and dropped to the ground beside him.