The Dagger Affair - McDaniel David. Страница 32

"I think they're into your car. Can they start it?"

"No," said Irene. "They'll have to be satisfied with Mr. Horne." She shook her head sadly. "It seems a shame for him to leave so soon — we should have taken him out to Sutro's and Golden Gate Park before ending the tour. But it was rather late, and we did have business to transact with him. Perhaps we may persuade him to come around again...."

Something arced over the top of the car and burst with a pop just outside the door. In a moment dense dark smoke filled the alley. "You see," said Irene through her mask. "What did I tell you?"

"I think it's just a screen laid down so they can get Horne out without our getting a clear shot," said Napoleon. "I'm going outside. Here's your derringer." He tossed it to Irene and ducked out into the smoke.

Then he was blind. He could breathe, slowly, but his eyes burned and he wanted to gasp. Squinting against the stuff, he felt his way forward until his outstretched hands hit the side of the car. He groped along it until he found the front door handle, and wrenched it open.

The smoke followed him inside the car, but he could breathe more normally, and he could see out the opposite window. The figures already several yards away were carrying a limp figure between them and hurrying down the alley. They were passing under the streetlight by the overturned trash bin when Napoleon saw them, and one turned to look. He almost dropped the feet he was carrying, and turned away quickly. Napoleon wondered what he had seen.

He opened the window, cupped his hands, and called. "Okay, you two. Put him down and your hands up."

Startled, the two men dodged sideways into a narrow space between two buildings, and Napoleon sent a shot whining down the alley past it to ensure they would keep their heads in. Then he leaned out of the car into the thinning smoke on the other side. "Illya, they're cornered. Come on and we'll rout them out."

From somewhere a slug snapped past his head and he ducked back. A back-up man they'd missed! He hoped the Rolls was armored. Those DAGGERs had thought of everything.

From the direction of the shot, Napoleon guessed him to be at the other end of the alley, away from the light, but the echoes among the walls were confusing and contradictory. He rose cautiously and peered through the back window. There was no sign of the gunman.

This was getting more annoying. Now there was nothing to do but wait for the rescue group from U.N.C.L.E. to...

A fusillade of shots broke out from the far end of the alley, and a moment later a tall man came hurrying toward them, making no attempt to cover himself. "Solo — Kuryakin — you all right?"

"Next time announce yourself," Napoleon called. "You're right on time, but I wish we'd known when to expect you," he added as the U.N.C.L.E. agent came up to the car.

Baldwin stood in the doorway, an irritated look on his face, and something small and metallic in his hand. With a slight shock Napoleon recognized the capacitor-bomb from the workbench.

"Mr. Solo, you could have saved me an awkward job disarming this thing. It is now in a condition where it will have to be treated with special care. I had intended to throw it to the second-string sniper and damage him severely enough we could overpower him without assistance from your fellows."

"Well, I'm sorry," said Napoleon with a slight edge to his voice. "If I'd known they were coming, I'd have arranged for you to meet them."

He turned quickly to ask the next approaching U.N.C.L.E. agents about the condition of his attacker, ignoring whatever reply Baldwin might choose to make.

Illya and Irene came out to the Rolls and made ready to leave. As Illya got into the back seat, he patted Napoleon on the shoulder. "That's all right, Napoleon. We love you anyway."

He looked at the Russian agent without any expression at all. At last he shook his head. "I think I'll just give up the whole dirty business," he said cheerfully. "I'll turn in my gun, change my name, retire to a village on Minorca, and breed wombats. I just can't keep up with things anymore. In one day I have had to be rescued twice; I have lost one gun and one car; I have been insulted an average of twice an hour by our host. My heart is just no longer in my work."

Illya shook his head sympathetically. "Napoleon, perhaps you need a long vacation, as Mr. Waverly would say. Why not go home, sleep for six hours, and then report back for work?"

* * *

Dawn filled the eastern sky as they returned to their base on Fulton Street, and it was full day outside when they finally went to sleep behind drawn curtains. Field crews had taken over the routine jobs of identifying the bodies left in alley in Oakland and South San Francisco, disarming the electronics store and checking it for any possible clues.

Illya's first action on returning, even before seeking his bed, was to check his directional receiver. As was his habit, he had planted a tiny transmitter on Mr. Horne, so subtly that not even Napoleon had noticed. And the transmitter was still signaling the location of their late guest.

Sometime past noon, when they met for breakfast, Waverly announced, "It's a good thing someone got some sleep last night. Mr. Kuryakin, your little tracer has been rather busy in the last few hours. It apparently remained stationary until about ten o'clock, but since then he has awakened and begun quite a round of activities. His present whereabouts are being monitored by our equipment at headquarters, and his routes are being charted. I presume you will want the honor of running him down again?"

"Yes; thank you, sir."

By two-thirty, they were back in the Rolls and following, with Irene at the wheel again. Baldwin had opted to remain home and discuss the situation with Waverly, so Illya and Napoleon shared the front seat of the big black Thrush car.

The last report on the tracer had shown it crossing the Bay Bridge into Oakland. It had stopped downtown, and was still there, as near as any instrument could tell.

They were on the bridge before Illya's portable detector registered the signal. He listened carefully and nodded. "There he is. Moving north."

He lost the signal briefly as they passed through Yerba Buena Island, and fiddled with the knobs as they came out the other side. "There seems to be some interference from the upper deck of the bridge," he said. "The signal is spotty. No, there it is." Suddenly he snorted. "He's coming right toward us! He must be westbound on the top level. Irene, how hard will be to turn immediately when we come off the end?"

"Illegal, but not difficult if you hold on tight. Will you fix the ticket if we're stopped?"

"Under the circumstances I think Mr. Waverly will allow it."

"All right, then. How far away is he now?"

Illya shook his head. "Hard to tell with all this steel between us. But he's getting closer."

Irene accelerated, and Illya focused his attention on the receiver. "Here he comes," he said at last, slowly, and then — "There he goes! He just went over us. Time check."

Napoleon looked at his watch and fixed the time in his memory. "Was he going any unusual speed?"

"About the limit, I think."

"Then we'll have his location pegged."

Two minutes later they came off the end of the bridge and out onto a long sweeping access ramp which swung them gently down toward land again. Irene hugged the left side, and slowed. Then a small U-turn curve opened in the low concrete divider. She cut the wheel hard, and the Rolls rocked as she touched the brake and throttle. Then they were back on an access ramp leading them to the upper deck and back to San Francisco.