[Magazine 1966-­10] - The Moby Dick Affair - Davis Robert Hart. Страница 3

Something crashed softly against the ridge rock near Naglesmith. A rock thrown by Illya Kuryakin? The THRUSH sub-sector chief twisted around and fired his pistol three times. Solo got to his feet and scrabbled wildly up the sloping side of the ridge. He could hear Illya's boots pounding from the other direction, though he could not see him.

Naglesmith let out a shrill cry of rage. His foot must have slipped. He landed on his chest, his face sticking out over the ridge edge, not six feet above the place where Solo was clinging.

Naglesmith's muddy eyes lighted with killing hunger. Solo was caught in the open, absolutely unprotected as he hung on the slope of the ridge. Naglesmith jerked his right hand forward. He aimed his automatic pistol down at Solo's damp forehead.

Solo whipped his own gun-hand up to beat Naglesmith if he could. But the swim had left his palm slippery. The pistol wriggled, slid against his skin. The muzzle dipped. The aim was disastrously wrong—

Naglesmith leaned down.

His trigger finger turned white.

Something cracked. Naglesmith exhaled, a long, startled, "Ahhhhh!" He flopped over on his back.

Solo fought for purchase on the rocky slope. Cautiously he edged upward and looked over the lip of the ridge.

In the distance the black-painted THRUSH jet 'copter stood silent in an open, relatively rock-free area. Nearer, a thin, altogether innocuous sandy-haired man of fifty or so huddled with his hands in the pockets of a raincoat two sizes too large. And just a few feet away, Illya Kuryakin slipped out from behind a large boulder.

In his hand he held his small auxiliary close-range weapon. The zipper on his left suit leg was open; he'd gotten it out of there. He'd lost his regular pistol in the plane.

Illya stared down, his face devoid of expression, his bangs a damp dark line across his forehead. Newsom Naglesmith lay with one arm crooked under his face. His back showed a darkish widening stain where Illya's bullet had pierced the scarlet windproof fabric directly below the left shoulder blade.

"Stop mumbling," Solo said. "And thanks for the assist."

"You're welcome. And I'm not mumbling."

Solo jumped forward then, using his boot toe to lift Naglesmith's chest and flip him over.

The THRUSH agent groaned. His teeth were clenched. His face was formed into a hideous, glare-eyed expression of pleasure. And Napoleon Solo saw that a false face on Naglesmith's watch stood upright at a 90 degree angle from the real face, which incorporated a small transmitter unit of familiar design.

Solo bent, tore the bogus wristwatch off Naglesmith's arm. Illya raced up.

"How long has he been talking on that thing, Napoleon?"

"Long—quite long—enough," Naglesmith said. His puffy face convulsed into what could only be called black humor. A dying man's humor. His eyes seemed to grow very large. "Quite long enough to signal—"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen—look!"

The reedy voice belonged to Dr. Artemus Shelley. He was flapping his arms and pointing wildly off the coast of the island. Solo turned.

An ominous rumbling filled the air. Both Solo and Illya gaped in horror.

A gigantic wall of foaming water had risen in the space of three heartbeats, from the surface of the ocean.

Solo couldn't believe the evidence of his eyes. The monstrous tidal wave reached higher, higher, cresting up and up with every passing second, flying at the tiny island with incredible speed.

Out of nowhere it had come. And now it foamed and thundered straight at them, twice as wide as the rocky little island and four times as high.

It seethed, it roared like thunder, it crashed—

And over it all sounded Naglesmith's hysterical laughing.

ACT I

WHITE WHALES AND PINK POISON

NAPOLEON SOLO was not a man to expend effort on ceremony. He did not bother to inquire whether Thrushman Naglesmith wished to be evacuated. A dousing spray from the tidal wave was already trickling down his neck as he signaled Illya with a quick nod. Illya at the head, Solo at the feet, the U.N.C.L:E. agents bent to lift their prisoner.

Beneath their boots the little island quaked. Over his shoulder Solo glimpsed the mountainous gray water-wall rising and rising. When it finally splashed over upon them, it would do so with a billion-ton force. Nothing would be left. Solo grabbed the ankles of Naglesmith's boots.

For his pains he got a vicious kick under the point of his chin. Though wounded critically or fatally, Naglesmith had strength left. He cracked Illya Kuryakin's cheek with a flailing elbow and began to scrabble away.

"You worthless fool!" Illya shouted. "Unless we get you into that 'copter, you're finished."

The words could barely be heard above the grinding, rumbling sea roar. Naglesmith kept crawling away from them. Solo saw the man's danger, pointed. He flapped his arms, ran forward shouting. The sea-thunder drowned him out.

Naglesmith's cheeks blanched; all at once as he realized there was nothing in back of him. With a squeal of fright he half skidded, half fell into a narrow crevasse. When Solo and Illya reached him his whole body below his rib cage was wedged tightly underground.

They grabbed his arms. They tugged, swore. Water pelted them in heavy sheets. Naglesmith's face had acquired a wild look. Seawater streamed over his cheeks. He knew he couldn't be pulled free. Somehow he didn't seem to care.

Solo glanced uneasily back. His belly churned at the sight of the fantastic tidal wave nearing the island. Dr. Artemus Shelley was running back and forth next to the THRUSH 'copter, obviously terrified that they wouldn't escape.

"We have to leave him," Solo mouthed the words. Illya, drenched, nodded.

"Go on, go on!" Naglesmith yelled, with such maniacal lungpower that the U.N.C.L.E. agents could hear something of what he was screaming. "Go on, run, yellowbellies. Run while you can. THRUSH has the secret. We'll squeeze the world's throat and the world will surrender! Go on, you ridiculous cretins; save yourselves for a few more days. But beware Project Ahab."

Naglesmith was shrieking in the mindless abandon of a man doomed. "Beware Project Ahab, you—" He howled foul, hateful names.

Napoleon Solo had as few scruples about the enemy as the next U.N.C.L.E. operative. Perhaps fewer. Yet he still rebelled at the idea of leaving a human being to die. Illya dragged his arm, signaling some trouble more immediate than the tidal wave. Solo spun around.

Dr. Artemus Shelley lay sprawled on the rock below the open hatch of the THUSH 'copter, unmoving.

Dr. Shelley had apparently been trying to climb into the machine. Damp footprints showed around the hatch edges. Solo raced for the 'copter, mind made up. In all the graying darkness of the nightmare, one blob of color leaped out, a bright crimson smear on the fallen man's forehead. Dr. Shelley had struck his temple on a sharp stone.

"Can you fly this thing?" Solo bawled as he and Illya fought the battering wind.

"If there is the usual simplified THRUSH manual on board."

"That's what I like," Solo yelled. "Confidence."

"––beware, beware," came the gibbering voice of Naglesmith, shredded into snatches by the roar of wind and water. "––beware the white whale, you despicable, crawling sons of Solo and Illya picked up Dr. Shelley, lifted him inside the 'copter hatch as Swiftly and ––" More verbal filth, mercifully blown away by the noise.

Solo and Illya picked up Dr. Shelley, lifted him inside the 'copter hatch as swiftly and gingerly as possible. Solo gave Illya a boost, then leaped up himself. He slammed the hatch and dogged it down just as the first down-pourings of the cresting tidal wave struck the island.