[Magazine 1966-­06] - The Vanishing Act Affair - Lynds Dennis (читать книги онлайн полностью .TXT) 📗

"Cut me loose, damn you!" Maxine shouted.

Solo turned, grinned. "Sorry Maxine dear. You didn't turn out to be a very helpful partner. I think you'll be cosy right where you are."

Maxine squirmed in her bonds. "Napoleon! You wouldn't!"

"But I would," Solo grinned. "Have patience. We'll probably be back for you."

"Napoleon!" Maxine screamed. "Damn you! I'll kill you for this! I'll—"

The beautiful Thrush agent squirmed in her bonds, cursed, flopped on the floor like a furious seal. Solo laughed as he went out through the opening into the dim light of the corridor. He followed Illya and Dabori along the corridor at a slow trot, the hunchback limping valiantly to keep the pace.

Behind them Maxine's curses echoed like the wail of an outraged banshee.

FOUR

THE THREE men moved as fast as Dabori could trot. The hunchback led them down the new corridors with the softly purring air vents. Again they saw no guards, but this time they could hear noise and voices somewhere in the distance toward where the long dining room was.

"It is a conference," Dabori said. "That is where they meet. And that is why we have met no guards."

"How much farther before we can get out of the new part?" Solo said.

"Not far, but they will discover our escape at any—"

The sudden clanging of the alarms drowned the next words of the hunchback. Their escape had been discovered.

They began to run, Solo helping Dabori along the dim corridors. Two morlocks appeared from a side corridor. Solo and Illya fired at the same instant. The morlocks went down.

They jumped over the fallen enemy and ran on; no more need for care or silence.

But the search for them was at the other end of the secret shelter. Once they heard the boom of Morlock The Great's voice from the distance, urging his men to find them, but they saw no more guards before they reached another door that led into the old dungeons and the sewer.

Dabori had a key to this door, too.

"I think they will be watching the other way," Dabori said. "They do not know about this way."

The door led into a storeroom piled with food for the survival of the morlocks, and, across the room, behind giant cases of canned water, Dabori indicated a loose stone in the wall. Together they pulled it out, crawled through, and replaced the stone.

They were in another low room that had not been seen by human eyes for centuries. The dust lay a foot deep on the stone floor. Dabori pointed to the far end where there was a low archway. They went through the archway and down a circular stone staircase. At the bottom there was the last door.

Solo burned the door open and they emerged again in the sewers of London. Ten minutes later they came out into the mud at the edge of the river. The Thames stretched dark in the night. Together, the three climbed up the embankment to dry land.

"We must get the police!" Dabori said.

Illya shook his head. "No time now. With us loose, Morlock will move even faster. We don't know what he plans or where it will happen."

Dabori was desperate. "But what can we do then? We must do something. We are out, but.. ."

Solo smiled in the night. "We follow Morlock, right, Illya?"

Dabori blinked under his mop of shaggy morlock hair. "Follow? But how—"

"I think Illya has arranged that, eh, Illya?" Solo said.

"Of course," the small Russian said. "Come on."

Illya led them through the streets and past the now dark and silent pub with its blazoned sign, The End Of The World. When they reached a building a block past the public house, Illya stopped and looked at Solo.

"There?" Illya said.

His hand pointed to one of the ruins still left from the second world war. It had been a church, and was now only rubble and jagged walls against the night sky. Solo nodded.

"By distance from the river, and general location, that should be right above the Cult shelter," Solo agreed.

"It would be just the place they would pick," Illya said. "I don't imagine anyone in the whole city knows what is down there. And we don't have any time to waste, do we? Napoleon, you better get us a helicopter, and quite fast. I'm getting a signal!"

In the hands of Illya Kuryakin a miniature gauge had appeared. Paul Dabori looked at the gauge, and at Illya. The gauge had a white dial with black numbers and a black pointer. Closed, it seemed no more than a cigarette lighter, and there was a small receptacle attached that was empty now.

Illya smiled. "When I tackled Morlock, I managed to plant the sensor on his trouser leg. A radioactive sensor. This gauge picks it up as far away as fifteen miles. You see, we don't know where he is going, so I thought we would probably have to follow him."

"The gauge is moving!" Dabori said.

"Yes," Illya said. "Morlock is coming out."

Bent over his ring transmitter-receiver, Solo called for help. "London Control, this is Sonny. Come in, London Control. Sonny and Bubba, Mayday. Come in, London Control!"

The ring seemed to speak. "London Control. Go ahead, Sonny."

"Request helicopter. Repeat. Request helicopter immediately," and Solo gave the location.

"Helicopter at the river near The End Of The World. Roger, Sonny. Helicopter already in area; will be there in two minutes!"

"Over and out," Solo said.

Illya watched his gauge. "He's out!"

The three men ducked down in the shelter of a doorway. From the ruins of the church across the street four men appeared as if by magic. Three were morlocks, armed and wary, and the fourth was Morlock The Great himself. The four walked quickly to a long black car that suddenly glided down the street.

Solo pointed upward. "There!"

The helicopter circled the area, keeping well away until the black car had pulled away and vanished toward the west. Then the helicopter swooped down toward the river. Illya, Solo and Dabori hurried down the dark city street to the river. The helicopter floated on the river.

"Paul," Illya said to Dabori, "this time you must stay here. Watch the old church until we get back."

Dabori nodded. The hunchback stepped back and smiled at Illya and Solo as the two agents waded through the mud and swam to the helicopter. Aboard, the helicopter lifted off at once.

"Where to?" the pilot said.

Illya looked at his gauge. "West, about fifty miles an hour, make a zigzag and stay ten miles back. I'll guide you."

"Roger," the pilot said.

The helicopter swung off to the west across the great city. Illya and Solo bent close over the gauge that tracked Morlock The Great.

ACT IV: NOT WITH A BANG BUT A SCREAM

THROUGH THE dark English night the chase continued. Hours had passed and still the dial of Illya's gauge showed Morlock and his men driving west. The car, some ten miles ahead, was driving fast. In the helicopter, by the light of the instrument panel, Solo and Illya bent over a map.

"He's heading in the general direction of his Salisbury house," Solo said.

"Where he most surely has another atom bomb shelter," Illya pointed out.

"But how does he plan to start a war out here?" Solo said.

"The naval base at Portsmouth?" Illya said.

"Not near enough."

"Some installation at Southampton?"

"Possibly, but—" Solo began.

"He's turning off!" Illya said, his eyes on his gauge.