Текст книги "[Magazine 1967-­11] - The Volacano Box Affair"

Автор книги: Robert Hart Davis

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Then Napoleon Solo, shaking his head, staggered out of the third.

In a glance he realized what had happened and rushed back into his cell to get Dacian. April, meanwhile, went to the fourth cell but it too was empty.

The corridor was filled with acrid smoke and the alarm bell made an intimidating din. Kae Soong stood passively, doing all he could to resist his captor without risking his murder and waiting for a chance to outsmart them. Napoleon came out of his cell bearing Dacian in a fireman's carry.

April Dancer pressed into Napoleon's free hand another vapor bomb and a teargas capsule and, shoving the reluctant Kae Soong ahead of them, went back up the stairs. But they were halfway up when the door at the top opened and they were confronted by an arsenal of machineguns. The tapping of footsteps behind them meant that Kae's goons had come down the other stairwell and would soon be behind them.

Napoleon Solo threw his teargas capsule down at the foot of the stairs and it burst into foul-smelling fumes. April shoved her gun deep into Kae's back and ordered him to tell his men to clear a path or she would shoot him at once.

Kae Soon called out, but his command brought forth an explosion of gas that felt as if a rod had been shoved into their brains.

April saw Napoleon's knees buckle, and realized that Kae had ordered his men to gas them all, including himself, but before she could pull the trigger the sickly sweet odor carried her off into a world of nightmares.

ACT VII

LAST ANSWER

WHEN WAVERLY told Illya Kuryakin to forget about Napoleon, the agent's throat constricted as if' he was going to cry. "But, sir—"

"Mr. Kuryakin, I'm quite well aware of his value to this organization, but like any other member he is expendable if circumstances call for his sacrifice. The reason I enjoined you from teaming up is that I cannot afford to lose both of you.

"It would be a pity if we have lost him and Miss Dancer, but it would be calamitous if we tossed you into the bargain too. You must leave them to fight their way out of imprisonment alone. But I want you free to act on an instant's notice in a matter infinitely larger. I expect news from our satellite momentarily. So please stand by and do nothing about Mr. Solo or Miss Dancer. That is an order."

Illya Kuryakin collapsed into an armchair. It was almost dawn and he'd been awaiting a signal from Napoleon or April for three hours.

This perhaps was the ugliest aspect of the work he had to do. In U.N.C.L.E.'s struggle against those who would diminish the value of human life, it was sometimes overlooked that an U.N.C.L.E. agent had to hold life cheap indeed in order to protect the interests of order. What value was law and world tranquility if those defending it had to stand by helplessly as their closest friends were thrown without compunction into the breach?

He was desperately tired, and took advantage of his momentary inactivity to close his eyes and catch some sleep. It seemed as if only a few moments had gone by when the strong sunlight of morning and an insistent signal from his communicator awakened him. He was also conscious of the sounds of shouting and running outside. He switched on his communicator, as he spoke into it, he sidled to the window to see what the commotion was about.

The scene was one of incredible confusion. People were scurrying in every direction, screaming and shouting and shoving each other down.

The voice on his communicator was that of Alexander Waverly. "Our satellite has picked up an infrared disturbance on the island of Singapore. This is it, Mr. Kuryakin."

"Evidently the populace knows something's going on. There's a riot here."

"The Boruvian Federation has issued a twenty-four hour ultimatum. Singapore must join or it will be little more than a pool of lava."

"Have you pinpointed the volcano box?"

"Yes. It's located on a high point at the center, a hill called Bukit Timah. I'll give you the coordinates now."

Waverly read a precise set of longitudinal and latitudinal figures, then added, "The best way to reach it promptly is by helicopter to the north. There's a plateau about half mile away from the summit. The rest must be covered by foot. If you get any closer by helicopter you risk being shot down—if there's anyone there to shoot at you."

"Do you think they've just left the device there and abandoned it?"

"It could be. They don't know we have a way of detecting their device, so they may feel they can switch it on and leave it unattended without fear of discovery until it's too late. On the other hand, if they've issued an ultimatum they must reason that a capitulation by Singapore will make destruction of the island unnecessary.

"So, unless they can shut their device off by remote control, they may remain behind to stop its operation manually. That makes more sense anyway, because if Singapore does capitulate, THRUSH will want to dismantle the device and remove it. So I think you can expect a welcoming committee. Arm yourself accordingly."

"Yes, sir."

"One last point. We still don't know if THRUSH has the formula for the reflecting elements or not, so it is still in our interest to capture someone who can tell us. Therefore you must not destroy the volcano box site wholesale if there are important personnel there. In brief, you've got to stop the device from going off, but at the same time learn if the formula has fallen into their hands."

Illya Kuryakin shook his head at the incredibly delicate maneuvering he'd have to do to accomplish both goals, and accomplish them alone, and accomplish them within less than twenty-four hours. "Will do," he said, concealing his lack of conviction from his superior officer.

TWO

AS CLOSELY AS he could figure, Napoleon Solo awoke from his gas-induced sleep about four hours after his attempt to break out of the prison beneath the laboratory. The sun was thirty degrees up into the eastern sky, from what he could gather looking out of the slit in a wildly bouncing panel truck. Beside him, jammed awkwardly into a corner on her stomach, was April Dancer, her hair tousled. At his feet was the half-broken body of Edward Dacian.

The truck was progressing uphill over unpaved land, and sometimes soared so high over a bump that the three bodies hung suspended for a moment before striking the metal floor. The ride lasted another half hour. Then the truck stopped and the rear doors were opened. Two guards menaced them with sub-machineguns while two more entered and dragged them out, testing the stiff cord that bound their hands behind their backs.

As the guards set them on their feet they observed their surroundings. They were about fifty yards below the summit of a high hill from which rose, as if out of a chimney, a geyser of steam. The steam was discolored grey, but from time to time as they gazed at it, it would bear up in its midst some vividly colored cloud of vapor, like a metal being subjected to the flame of a Bunsen burner. The odor was sulfurous, the sound at once a humming, a hissing, and a roaring that grew louder even as they stood still.

The guards appeared somewhat awed and frightened, but they prodded Napoleon Solo and April Dancer upwards, while a third helped Dacian.

After a few moments they had made their way through the scrub at the top of the hill, and saw the volcano box site. At the center of course was the scaffolding and box, but these were almost entirely obscured by steam and smoke. Near them, a couple of helicopters stood with rotors whirling, fanning the steam into hideously lovely patterns. Opposite, a couple of rough huts contained what Napoleon surmised were electrical generating equipment and monitoring systems.

And directly in front of them was the smiling face of Kae Soong.

"My colleagues revived me early so that I could be present at the start of the performance. But you will have the envious distinction of being present at the end of it, while I will be far away. Place them there," he instructed a guard, pointing at the huts.

The guard led Dacian and the two U.N.C.L.E. agents, and made them stand in front of one from which came the throaty sound of a generator. Cables led from it to the steam-shrouded scaffolding. Kae Soong issued some commands, then entered the other hut, which was presumably where the monitors were housed.

When be came out he said, "Another half day and this island will be no more. And after that, who knows? We are so excited with our toy, we don't know what to do with it first."

The wind shifted momentarily and they were drenched in pungent mist. When the breeze abated, Kae Soong was gone and could be seen walking towards one of his engineers. Then Napoleon Solo felt a rough hand on his shoulder. A guard was ordering them to sit against an outcropping of rock near the generator hut. They did so, and the guard took a stance against a tree, watching them intensely and muscles tensed as if eager for an excuse to cut them down.

Napoleon sat between April and Dr. Dacian. He murmured to April, hoping the guard wouldn't make out what he was saying in the hiss and roar of the volcano box.

"If the wind blows that steam our way again we may have a chance."

"I've been thinking the same, but we still have to get our hands free."

"We can rush the guard with our hands tied. A couple of well-placed heads and knees will take care of him. Then I'll tell you what to do."

Napoleon whispered the rest of his instructions, then braced his legs for a leap the moment the wind shifted. Dacian lay inert, eyes glazed and barely comprehending. Napoleon realized it didn't matter how the scientist came out of this ordeal, dead or alive; his spirit had been broken, and Napoleon had rescued him as much for humanitarian as for strategic reasons.

"What if the wind doesn't shift again?" April asked, thrusting her nose into the fairly stiff prevailing wind that carried the smoke of the blossoming volcano away from them.

"Then we pray that the earth under Singapore is made of green cheese."

Suddenly one of the guards shouted and pointed at the northern sky, and other guards joined in the commotion. Kae Soong came running to a vantage point on the hill and peered across a valley. Napoleon craned his neck to see, but the smoke and steam obscured his view.

"It's a chopper," April said.

"Huh?"

"I hear a helicopter. And I don't think it's one of theirs."

THREE

ILLYA KURYAKIN hovered over a ridge half a mile north of Bukit Timah. The problems were manifold. The only approach to the hill, on the ground, was from the north ridge. All other ground lay below the summit, putting him at an impossible disadvantage since he wouldn't be able to see the device's scaffolding and would be an easy target for marksmen commanding the heights. Air attack was out of the question, because he couldn't get close enough to use his weapons effectively without risking ground fire that would knock him out of the sky.

So it would have to be the north ridge, but that's precisely where the pall of steam and smoke was being blown. Visibility from that approach was almost zero, meaning he'd have to make his way practically to the scaffolding itself to destroy it. It was certain he'd have, as Waverly put it, a welcoming committee long before he got that close.

If only they'd let him blast the summit indiscriminately!

But that might be a fatal mistake. U.N.C.L.E. had to learn with certainty whether THRUSH had the formula for the chief component of the device, and the only way that could be done was either to capture a THRUSH agent or rescue Dr. Dacian.

Illya Kuryakin had no idea whether Dacian was dead or alive, but he was haunted by the realization that the scientist, along with Napoleon Solo and April Dancer, were alive and being held hostage on the summit of Bukit Timah. So he had no choice but to try threading the needle—destroying the volcano box, capturing a THRUSH agent, seeking and rescuing his friends if they were there at all– and keeping himself alive in the bargain.

He shrugged, as if the mission was so ridiculous it had to succeed.

Then Illya set the helicopter down on a granite plateau and stepped out, keeping the rotors whirling against the likelihood of a fast getaway. He was quickly enveloped in a sweetish, yet acrid and dense steam. Just as serious, a series of whizzes and pings told him he was being shot at. He wasn't worried about small-arms fire damaging him or the helicopter at this range, but he knew now he wouldn't even have the element of surprise to assist him.

Illya reached into the cockpit and dragged out a metal tube about a yard long and a trigger mechanism that looked vaguely like a snub-nosed machine-pistol. Then he pulled out a canister and a weapon that looked very much like a snub-nosed machine-pistol—and in fact it was.

Then he dived for a clump of greenery as bullets whistled un comfortably near. He realized he'd underestimated their fire power. Somebody over there had a .50 caliber machinegun. He feared for the helicopter, but a slight shift of wind sent billows of smoke over his position. Now they were at an equal disadvantage—they couldn't see him and he couldn't see them.

Illya took the tube and trigger mechanism and fitted them together. They formed a one-man bazooka. He reached into the canister and withdrew a small but potent rocket and fitted it into the chamber. Then, slinging his machine-pistol over his shoulder and carrying the bazooka in one hand and the canister in the other, he scampered over the ridge until he was about seven hundred yards away.

He still could see nothing through the pall, but waited for a shift of wind which might momentarily reveal the layout and enable him to draw a bead accurately.

Everything seemed now to depend on a shift of the wind. Perversely, an hour went by before he got his chance, and when he did, he blew it. It wasn't so much a shift as simply a cessation. The steam rose straight up, disclosing the scaffolding directly behind some trees a hundred yards in front of the device. Illya could see a gun emplacement off to one side, and beyond it some helicopters and huts. He might have focused his aim on those, but the scaffolding was of primary importance, and he didn't know how much time he had left or whether the wind would ever give him another chance.

He set the crosshairs of the telescopic sight between the trunks of two trees and hoped to squeeze his shot between them. But as his finger closed around the trigger the wind started up again and rolled the steam towards him.

He pulled the shot off hastily and the ground was rocked with one, then a second explosion. The first was Illya's bazooka, defoliating the clump of trees.

The second was Illya's helicopter. They'd hit the fuel tank.

As the wreckage rained about him he wondered what it would be like to be carried off to heaven on waves of molten lava.

Then he got angry and rushed another hundred yards closer to the target under the obscurity of the smoke. He loaded another charge into the bazooka and waited.

When the wind finally shifted, blowing the steam back over the camp site, Illya was greeted by a hail of machinegun fire that sent him rolling off into some brush. They had him pinned down and he couldn't poke his head up without getting it shot off.

FOUR

AT THE SHIFT of the wind Napoleon Solo and April Dancer moved as if launched by catapult. The steam curled over them like a gigantic white hand as they charged the guard with heads lowered. Napoleon's skull rammed his throat while April's struck his solar plexus.

The guard slammed against a tree, his head smacking violently against it, and he crumpled to earth soundlessly. April, hands behind her back, stooped and picked up the sub-machinegun and held it precariously, aiming it where she thought trouble might come from.

Napoleon Solo rushed for the generator hut, which was unguarded as Soong had sent all available manpower to the north side of the hill to try to get Illya Kuryakin.

The reed door of the hut gave easily, and Napoleon saw the throbbing generator, painted bright orange, at his feet. He turned his back to it and held his bonds away from his body, then started backing towards the whirring rubber fan belt. Delicately he placed the cords around his wrists against the belt, then pressed them harder and harder until the rubber whined on the cord.

The smell of burning fiber added its pungency to the foul odors coming from the volcano rig. Ten seconds passed, and then the cord frayed and snapped so suddenly Napoleon almost thrust his hands into the generator itself.

Hands free, he rushed outside, took the gun from April and ran back to the generator with her. He cut her bonds the same way, then ordered her to drag Dacian to a safe place. As she rushed out, Napoleon Solo trained his gun on the cables leading to the rig and fired.

The cables snapped and the hot ends, closest to the generator, began writhing like electric eels. He moved to the door and, trying to shield himself from ricocheting bullets, fired at the generator itself, cutting the fan belt and sending slugs into the machine's vital elements. It sputtered, faltered, and whirled to a stop, cutting off the electricity to Dacian's device.

He ran out of the hut in time to see April dragging Dr. Dacian into a clearing on the south side of the bill. From the opposite side he heard the chatter of machineguns. Cautiously he made his way to wards it until he could make out the shapes of half a dozen white– clad men training their fire on an outcropping.

Napoleon Solo automatically leveled his gun on them and raked their position with fire. Four of them slumped over their guns. One whirled around to confront Napoleon but was chopped down instantly. The last flung himself over his entrenchment and disappeared, presumably to seek a better position. '

A bullet winged close to Napoleon. It came from the helicopters.

Four men, of which Kae Soong was one, were rushing for the machines and spraying fire at Napoleon to cover their escape. He dived for the ground, and just as he did he was lifted bodily from the earth by the impact of a tremendous explosion, then slammed down again, his ears ringing.

All about Solo were falling hot pieces of metal. He rolled to his left under the truck that had carried him to the top of the hill. The truck echoed resoundingly as it was struck a dozen times by fragments from the explosion. Napoleon peered out and saw a mass of tangled rigging where the volcano box had been. Steam swirled around it, but it seemed to have diminished over its previous intensity.

Then he heard the whirling of helicopter motors. He rolled out from under the truck and swore. One of the THRUSH choppers was lifting off the ground. He raised his machinegun and fired, aiming for the pilot, but it faded quickly away from the hilltop.

The other chopper was waiting, rotors whirling, while a burly man, limping perceptibly, was assisted inside. It was Kae Soong. The man had either received a superficial leg wound during the late unpleasant ness or had sprained his ankle in the process of fleeing.

Without hope, Napoleon Solo trigger a blast at him, but the bullet-proof door had slammed closed. Already the whirlybird was leaving the ground in a swirl of dust.

Out of nowhere, he remembered what Waverly had once told him.

"Bringing down one of those with ground fire is an act of God, plus a lot of luck," Waverly had said. "But if you ever have to try, forget the men; aim for the base of the rotors. You've got one chance in maybe a thousand to hit it. But if you do, it's big casino."

For a moment the slanted angle of the copter's rise had the exact base of the rotors out of sight and by the time it had veered back again a lot of distance had come between them.

Grimly, Napoleon Solo sighted for the slim base and poured the last of his clip out into the empty air.

He was shaking his head in futile rage when he heard Illya's shout. What he saw made him tense, unbelieving.

Directly under the whirling rotors a spot of flame, no bigger than a tennis ball, had flowered. While he watched, it spread to the size of a soccer ball, turned bright scarlet.

Whoosh!

Like an evil flower, the entire machine was enveloped in that scarlet curtain. Through it Napoleon Solo could see the men inside leaping around in panic. And directly after that the world exploded, so violently that he could feel the concussion of the blast even at that distance.

The copter was no more. And of the men in it, scattered bits of clothing and worse were plummeting down through the flames.

Illya Kuryakin said, "I've seen worse shots, Deadeye."

Napoleon nodded. He felt very tired, very humble. Together they went across the plain to see what was left.

The four of them gaped into the still-steaming shaft. Then they walked to the other side of the hill and awaited the rescue copters, which Illya Kuryakin had called in on his communicator, to arrive.

Napoleon was grinning, but Illya looked dejected. "What's the matter?" he asked his Russian companion.

"Everything. That other copter got away and maybe with the formula. We're quite possibly worse off than before.

"Now it's not just Singapore. It's anywhere and everywhere. They'll be planting these devices like rice grains."

"No they won't," said Dr. Dacian weakly.

"Why not?" April Dancer asked.

"Because I gave them a false formula."

They sighed, then lay back and looked at the sun breaking through the steam-cloud over the hill. Suddenly April sat up, her eyes round with horror. "Oh gosh!"

"What is it?" they asked all at the same time.

"It's the end of the world!"

They looked at her gravely, as if they'd left out some vital factor in their considerations.

"I left poor Don Wirts watching that car," she exclaimed. "He must still be there. We must get to him right away."

They laughed, and turned their eyes south as the black specks of friendly helicopters materialized on the horizon.