The Monster Wheel Affair - McDaniel David. Страница 33

Beyond and to the right, down a short, precipitous canyon, a small patch of beach could be seen, where lights were strung about with a carnival air. And out to sea the aircraft carrier was likewise illuminated—a floating island of light in the vast lonely darkness of the South Atlantic Ocean.

"Looks like a festival," said Illya.

"It is," said Napoleon. "The colorful natives of...what is this island, anyway?...are celebrating the arrival of the ship which bears all that their simple hearts could desire."

"Yes. Two billion dollars in gold."

"Well, that would be all my simple heart could desire."

"You have a point, Napoleon." He smiled slightly. "I wonder if the celebration will extend to drinking themselves into a stupor?"

"It would be handy," Solo agreed, "but knowing Thrush I'm inclined to doubt it. There are only certain specifically designated times when one may drink oneself into a stupor, and they do not include the moment when the biggest con game in the history of the world is in the process of paying off. But don't let it worry you—if the two of us can't take on a whole flock of Thrushes without getting them stinkered first, it's time we turned in our Hero badges and left the game."

"Now, Napoleon, I didn't say it was necessary, I just said it would be convenient. Besides, as long as our luck holds, we can slip in there, plant our little mementos, and slip out again. Then while Thrush is fluttering its feathers we sneak back aboard ship, take the Captain at gunpoint, tell him our whole story, and suggest he contact his headquarters."

"Very good, Illya. You remember the plan I outlined for you last night."

"Quite well. I also remember you didn't say anything about how we get back to the ship, how we capture the Captain, or how we convince him not to order us shot as soon as our gun hands get tired."

"Oh, we'll work that out when the time comes. I always like to leave myself room enough to play around with a plan to suit the situation. Flexibility is the key-word, my boy—flexibility."

"Spare me the lecture. We have some flexing to do right now. With only enough high-explosive here for a couple of those buildings, which ones do we hit?"

"Search me. Let's go take a look while the colorful natives are all down at the dock welcoming the tourists."

Illya shook his head. "Security," he said. "Shameful."

Apparently the natives were indeed all down at the docks. The two U.N.C.L.E. agents found themselves in the shadow of the big radome without so much as a sound from a guard. They had met one guard, but he had hardly had time to make any sound, except for a soft thump as his body hit the ground. And he seemed to have been alone. At any rate, they were here, and unchallenged.

They peered in the window of one of the side buildings, and saw the squatting, buzzing bulks of a pair of sturdy electrical generators, both in operation. A good target for destruction, if they could find no others—but it would be better to cost Thrush as much technical equipment as possible, and generators were easily replaced.

Then they came to the base of the bulging white dome, and to a window in its base construction. They peered in, and up.

A single unshielded light bulb cast a distorted shadow on the inside of the heavy fabric—an intricate shadow of the steel and wire gridwork of a gigantic directional antenna which at the moment was pointed almost directly overhead. But even as they watched it tilted ever so slowly towards the north, as slowly as the minute hand of a clock, or slower.

It took Napoleon a moment to realize what it as. "It's tracking the Monster Wheel," he whispered. "Probably sending up whatever the crew is supposed to be saying for the next eighteen hours."

Illya nodded. "And the whole world will be hearing it. What a shame it can't tell the world it is a hoax."

Napoleon looked at his partner, and a deep and satisfied smile began to spread slowly over his face. "Illya," he said, "you may just have something there. Let's check these other buildings."

One was filled with bunks, all presently unoccupied. But the next was full of ranks of electronic gear, most of it readily recognizable. It included three tape decks, two running at different speeds.

The door was locked, but not seriously; they were inside in a matter of moments. It was Illya who spotted an acetate-sheathed sheet of typing headed EMERGENCY BROADCAST PROCEDURES, but it was Napoleon who located the cabinet where a microphone waited.

"You know," he said, "this is even more fun than hijacking a shipload of gold."

"It may be for you," said the Russian, eyeing the microphone uneasily, "but personally I always get nervous with these things."

"This is not time to get mike fright. You'll have to broadcast in the languages I don't know. Look, I'll go on first, and all you have to do is translate what I say. Then we'll plant our bombs and get out of here."

He scanned the instruction sheet, and quickly made the necessary adjustments. Now it took only the flick of a switch and the touch of a button to replace the recorded voice now coming from the Monster Wheel with their own voices, admittedly coming from the Earth. He paused. "Say, did we ever figure out what island this is?"

Illya shook his head.

Napoleon shrugged. "Okay, I'll identify us as Dauringa Island, then. When Egypt discovers they've been conned, they may decide to use an officially uninhabited island for bombing practice, and I'd prefer it to be one I wasn't on."

He took a deep breath, flicked the switch and pushed the button. The voice coming out of the speaker stopped in the middle of a word, and as replaced by a whistle of feedback that grew rapidly in intensity until he found the knob to kill the monitor. Then he spoke, and saw the needle on the VU meter dancing across the dial.

"Hello, hello," he began tentatively. "This is Dauringa Island, calling the world. Dauringa Island, calling the world."

In a dimly lit room at Cape Kennedy, Alexander Waverly sat up in his chair and listened. An unpleasant electronic shriek had just come out of the speaker which was monitoring the transmission from the Monster Wheel, and then, after a moment's silence, it was replaced by a familiar voice.

"Hello," it said. "Hello. This is Dauringa Island, calling the world."

Waverly leaned back in his chair, and his face folded up on itself in his finest and deepest smile in three weeks. Solo had come through.

The voice continued: "The supposed space station called the Monster Wheel is a hoax. It is nothing more than a gigantic balloon with a radio inside, broadcasting threats which are as empty as itself. Soon it will be destroyed, as final disproof of its claims of strength. Those who were taken in by it are warned to be more careful in the future."

Alexander Waverly leaned back in his chair in the cool dimness of the blockhouse, and surrounded himself with a cloud of aromatic blue pipesmoke, as Illya's voice took over, repeated the message in Russian. Not only complete success in pricking the balloon of threats, but with timing that could not have been better arranged if every step had been centrally coordinated. Napoleon's voice returned in French, followed again by Illya, this time in Chinese. The flashing lights of the automatic sequencer display on the control console across the blockhouse were flashing off the last minute as Napoleon spoke in German and Illya's voice finished the final statement in the language affected by the Monster Wheel itself.