The Thousand Coffin Affair - Avallone Michael. Страница 20

Once, Solo had completed in the hundred-yard dash at college. He had come in first, a stride ahead of the number two man, but he had never forgotten the fever of the lungs from such a run, the flying spurt of the body as it strained for the tape. Even as he had plunged across the finish line to the cheers of the stadium, he had never forgotten the almost drunken exaltation of success.

It was something like that now.

The meadow grass disappearing beneath his heels, the plane looming closer, the expectation of a burst of gunfire, the fierce straining of his muscles. He was only dimly aware of Jerry Terry’s figure somewhere behind him. He could only keep his eyes to the left and right, a periphery of perhaps ninety degrees. There was nothing to alarm him from the front. The ship was unprotected. It was only the area behind them that disturbed him.

The first shot came, a singing, whining crack of sound across the flatlands. Dirt geysered somewhere near his heel. Another crack, two more.

He reached the ship and turned, just in time to catch Jerry Terry stumbling before him, falling to the earth. He stilled the alarm in his chest and picked up his targets.

Two uniformed men, rifles leveled, were stationed in the rocky recesses of the lowlands before the mountain. Too far away for his pistol to be of much use. Yet he blasted away all the same and had the extreme satisfaction of seeing them both duck back frantically.

Quickly, he helped Jerry up the wing, practically hurling her into the cockpit. It was only designed to accommodate one person but they were not about to concern themselves over such trifling matters just now. She fell in. The cloak caught on a rivet screw but she was all right as far as he could tell.

“I don’t know if I can fly one of these—” she panted.

“You won’t have to,” he said. “I’ll do it. Scrunch down and away we go.”

He found the controls, emptying the pistol as he clambered in. But the men were up and running now, coming on fast as they realized how close the quarry was to getting away. Solo had a bad few seconds trying to decipher the Russian words on the instrument panel but a plane was a plane be it a Flying Jenny or MIG. The rocket starters were going to be the big question mark, never mind the basic principles of aerodynamics. Solo found the release buttons, blessing Korea, where he had acquired skimpy knowledge of the MIG fighter plane, from one that had come down on the banks of the Yalu River ten minutes away from Solo’s reconnaissance patrol.

Crack!

Crack!

Two rifle shots were lost in the budding blast of the takeoff. The rockets whooshed with noise. He dug out the Luger, sighted quickly and got a shot off. One of the running soldiers suddenly dropped his rifle and rolled crazily on the turf. The other kept on coming.

From that moment on, getting off the ground was his only consideration. With Jerry Terry cramped into the narrow space between him and the floor of the ship, Solo eased back on the controls. With a powerful rush of speed, the MIG nosed forward, sending leaves flying before the tremendous backwash. The thunder of the engines drowned out all else.

The ship shot forward, thrusting like a rocket. The wheels lifted, the sun flooded Solo’s face, and the wide, clear sky stretched before them.

Below, the soldier aimed a final futile shot that died on the wind.

“Jerry, see if you can work that radio. We’ll contact NATO radar before they send some flyboys up to shoot us down. Not too sure about the border flyers around here. Jerry—”

It was only then that he saw the girl was bleeding. A streak of scarlet was painting her right hand. “Hey,” he began. “What gives?”

“Oh, that smarts,” she murmured drowsily, closing her eyes in pain, exhaustion and shock.

The thundering blast of the MIG drowned out Napoleon Solo’s fluent curses.

Golgotha sat before a short-wave radio set, complete with amplifiers and headphones. He had found another cloak. Such expression as his face could show registered extreme hatred. In his fantastically unreal voice he spoke of his displeasure.

It was exactly one hour since he had recovered in the dungeon room to find himself shamed and disgraced. By the reckoning of the account from the guards, the man Solo and his lady confederate had escaped in the MIG, sometime in that elapsed period of sixty minutes. Even the intricate network of alarm bells had been fruitless. Obviously, this Solo was a resourceful man. There was some vindication at that. Golgotha had warned the Council repeatedly that U.N.C.L.E. was not to be dismissed so lightly.

“I repeat, most strongly, we must continue with Plan M. I see no reason to delay. It is imperative that we move now if we are to convince the democracies that we have a weapon which will make them heed our demands. U and S should have sufficed—but they were so small scale, they served only our test purposes. Now, we must move ahead to the larger considerations. Therefore I respectfully advise that Plan M go into effect immediately.”

A voice spoke up from the amplifier.

“The corpse of Stewart Fromes?”

“They will gain nothing from it,” Golgotha chuckled with deep satisfaction. “A skeleton will reveal little, I see no reason to worry on that score.”

“You are certain he had none of the element secured anywhere on his person?”

“None whatsoever. In dying, he had only had time to dress himself. A small curiosity there—and one our research department might well explore. The element had confused him so thoroughly and upset his mental processes, that he attired himself in reverse.”

“Repeat that. I do not understand.’

Golgotha clarified the subject of how Stewart Fromes’ corpse had been attired when claimed by Napoleon Solo.

“Excellent, Golgotha. Excellent! Council will be pleased. Another successful residue of your element. Perhaps you are right.”

Golgotha’s cavernous eyes gleamed. “You will recommend Plan M, then?”

“Yes, I think I will. We are ready to make our move now, I should say.”

“You make my day,” Golgotha crowed. “Never fear about Napoleon Solo—I will exterminate him as soon as it is feasible. At best, he is no more than an efficient enemy agent.”

The voice on the amplifier didn’t care one way or the other.

“Do as you see fit. I will contact you at the same time tomorrow.”

“Farewell.”

“Farewell, Golgotha.”

The man with the skull removed the headset from his twisted stumps of ears. His mouth parted, uttering a noise of inner ecstasy. The moment would come when all the world would know of his genius. And Thrush itself must elevate him to the Council.

Plan U had been Utangaville.

Plan S had been Spayerwood.

Plan M would be Munich.

Napoleon Solo eased the MIG down in a short approach, mindful of the twin patrol planes hugging his tail. As he had expected, they had been intercepted barely twenty minutes out of Orangeberg. There was no use arguing. The MIG could have easily outdistanced the two patrol planes—they were no competition in the speed department, being mere monoplanes of the Cessna design. But there were two considerations. First, they could call out the whole air force, and second, Jerry Terry was unconscious. She needed doctoring fast. Therefore when the harsh, guttural voice broke in on his radio set, which he had left open intentionally, he saw no other course but swift cooperation.

The landing strip was a long, concrete runway set down somewhere in German territory. Solo lowered his landing gear, cut his flying speed and waited grimly. Landings were far trickier than takeoffs. Coming in at better than a hundred and twenty miles an hour would be no picnic.

It wasn’t.

The MIG bounced like a rubber ball, tires screaming and burning. But Solo had the satisfaction of bringing it down in one piece. After that, the rest would be gravy. Once he had explained his position to the NATO officials it ought to be fairly simple. He climbed stiffly from the cockpit, easing Jerry Terry to a standing position. He kept his eyes open, anxious to evaluate the amount of interest his strange appearance had fostered. A MIG had to be trouble in this day and age.