[Magazine 1967-­11] - The Volacano Box Affair - Davis Robert Hart. Страница 16

Her right arm was stretched to its limit, but now with the boost of her other hand she managed to get some leverage. April's calves and knees and heels pushed downward until she was reasonably certain a second swipe with her left hand would not be unsuccessful. In one motion she let go of the trunk and grabbed for the limb.

She felt the satisfying thump of the limb in her palm, then pulled with all her might until her torso had cleared the branch. Then April collapsed on it and hung there to catch her breath, looking like a rug placed over a clothesline to be beaten.

As soon as she was able to clear a deep breath, she dropped into the backyard of the house. There was a flagstone patio connected to the house by means of a kind of thatched walk. Stealthily she approached the door at the end of the walk. It was a French door with brass handles, and heavy shades in front of the glass made it impossible for her to see inside.

She tested the knobs, but the door was locked. To an agent teethed on the art of burglary, a locked door presented no problem, and reference to a tool kit skillfully concealed around her waist produced the antidote readily enough.

April Dancer pushed the door open slowly, but as soon as she'd ascertained she was entering a dark room she plunged inside and shut the door behind her. After a few seconds she could ascertain the outlines of a laboratory. She tiptoed to the door on the other side of the room, peeked out, and saw two armed guards outside a door.

From behind that door April could make out the unmistakable voice of Napoleon Solo. At length it opened and he was led out down a corridor, and, from what her ears could tell her, down a stairway.

She waited a few minutes and was about to decide on her next move when an acquired sense told her she was making a mistake The entry into the house had been too easy. It just didn't make sense that an operation of cataclysmic magnitude would be so shoddily protected.

April tiptoed back to the French doors and peered out. Her heart thumped violently as she saw that her suspicions were correct. There was a veritable cordon of white-clad orientals around the house.

She reasoned that the room from which Napoleon Solo had been led away was an interrogation room and possibly the office where a key THRUSH agent—possibly even Kae Soong himself—was ensconced. If so there was only one possible way of getting out of this place with Napoleon. She'd have to take a high-ranking hostage.

The move was daring. Its beauty was in its very audacity. The interrogation room was guarded by two big men with sub-machineguns, and heavens knew how many men were behind the door. She would have to rely on the element of surprise.

April Dancer fitted a silencer over a .32 pistol, and in her left hand she clutched a teargas capsule of the kind just issued by U.N.C.L.E.—instant and potent.

She flung open the door and squeezed off two shots in one deadly fluid motion. The two guards scarcely lifted their guns before her bullets slammed into their vitals. Even as they were crumpling to the floor April was charging across the corridor and bursting through the door they guarded.

Kae Soong was sitting behind his desk, and behind him stood a minor assistant in the process of unfurling a chart. As she charged into the room Kae's hand darted automatically for an automatic on his desk, but April's gun was blazing and kicked up a hail of splinters that made him pull back in fright. He turned to his assistant, but this diminutive Malaccan was already reeling from a bullet in the chest.

Kae Soong glared at her. "You are mad!"

"Never mind the formalities. Take me immediately to my friend or I'll drop you right now."

"This is a futile gesture," he sighed, edging from behind his desk. "We've admitted you intentionally, but the doors have shut firmly behind you. You cannot escape. Do with me what you like."

As she stepped over the bodies of the guards in the hail she said, "They need you, Kae Soong, and without you this operation is going to fall on its face."

"I'm afraid nothing could be further from the truth. You people never comprehend how lightly we weigh an individual life against the survival of the organization. Nothing would be impaired, nothing delayed by my removal."

"Then suppose I remove you right now," April said, thrusting the snout of her gun's silencer in his spine.

"You're welcome to do so, but I don't think you will, since I am your passport."

They passed through the door to the stairwell, where she'd seen them take Napoleon.

The stairs curved away to the left, and she cautiously made her way down with her hostage in front of her.

At the foot of the stairs was a corridor with four doors of heavy steel facing on it. At the end of it was a guard, and April could assume that just inside this doorway there would be another. A beam of light across it told her an electric eye would set off an alarm as soon as she crossed it.

She poked Kae Soong and pointed at the beam.

As he called out to the guard nearest them to turn off the beam she quickly reloaded her gun and removed from her kit four sodium vapor explosive charges. The guard acknowledged Kae Soong's order and the beam went out. April shoved her captive forward and as soon as he was clear she squeezed a bullet into the near guard, then into the one at the far end of the corridor.

As the latter spun around from the impact he fell across a beam at that station and an alarm bell sent strident signals throughout the building.

"Which one?" she demanded of Kae Soong, pointing to the four doors of the cells. The THRUSH agent looked at her stonily. "All right, we'll do it this way." She slapped a charge on the lock of each door, then triggered an ignition mechanism.

A few seconds later the corridor was rocked by four blasts like the sound of a wrecker's ball failing on the beam of a ship. The metal doors were blown off their hinges and hung from their frames at bizarre angles. For a moment no one emerged from any of them. April Dancer peered into the first two, which were empty.

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—"