[Magazine 1967-­12] - The Pillars of Salt Affair - Пронзини Билл (электронные книги без регистрации TXT) 📗

"Well it happened," Dillon said. "You can see for yourself."

"I would be willing to wager," Illya said, "that this is not a natural phenomenon."

"Hmm," Solo said thoughtfully. "Some new kind of chemical, most likely. Synthetically made. But for what reason? What purpose would it serve to turn a small mountain reservoir like this one into salt?"

"I don't know," Illya said. "but I'm beginning to get an uneasy feeling."

"I think I know what you mean," Solo said pointedly. He dropped to one knee and swung the knapsack from his back. He took a small geologist's pick from inside and chipped a piece free from the surface. He picked it up, sniffing it, and then touched the tip of his tongue to it.

"It doesn't taste or smell any differently than common rock salt." He said. He put the chip in the knapsack and stood again. "I think we had best get this off to U.N.C.L.E. as soon as possible. Maybe our laboratory scientists can—"

The bullet missed him by inches.

He heard the crack of the high-powered rifle a split instant before the bullet struck just to his left, sending splinters of salt flying, and he had no time to react then. But before the echoes of that first shot had died amongst the trees, both he and Illya had hurled themselves forward, in a low running crouch, towards the cover afforded by the growth at the bank of the reservoir.

The high-powered rifle barked again and Barney Dillon, slower to react than the two trained U.N.C.L.E. agents, staggered and pitched forward. Solo cursed, reversing himself, and grabbed the fallen man under the arms, dragging him into the growth. Illya Kuryakin lay flat on his stomach behind a gnarled tree stump, his U.N.C.L.E. special held in his right hand.

"Did you see where the shots came from?" Solo breathed.

"Up there," Illya said, pointing off to their left, some one hundred yards further down and another hundred up the slope.

As if to confirm his words, the rifle sounded again, and another spray of salt kicked up near them at the shore line. Solo saw the flash of the shot, and caught a quick glimpse of sunlight glinting off a rifle barrel.

He looked at Barney Dillon. The big man groaned. "Are you all right?" Solo asked him.

"My leg," Dillon said between clenched teeth.

Solo saw the blood on the trousers of his khakis. The bullet had caught him in the fleshy part of the right thigh. The wound did not appear to be serious.

Illya was peering off into the dense growth of the firs high on the slope. "Apparently somebody doesn't want us investigating his handiwork," he said.

"Did you see anybody when you were here this morning?" Solo asked Dillon.

Dillon shook his head. "We were only here for a minute before we started back."

"You were probably being watched through field glasses," Solo said. "Whoever it is must have orders to stop anybody who tries to take a sample of that salt. You're lucky you didn't try that before."

Illya said "Napoleon."

Solo looked at him. Illya pointed directly above them to where a bank of juniper grew. "If I can get through there, I can cut across to the blind side from the top."

Solo nodded. "I'll take the shoreline." He turned to Dillon. "Can you handle your rifle?"

Dillon had somehow managed to hang on to the Winchester when he had fallen. "I can handle it," he said.

"I hope you're a good shot," Illya said.

Dillon managed a little grim. "Good enough," he said. He rolled onto his stomach, putting the stock of the Winchester to his shoulder. He squinted along the sights. "Any time you're ready."

They waited for a moment. It was very quiet. The earlier, incessant chatter of Oregon towhees and blackbirds nesting in the trees had halted completely now, and the woods were still and silent, waiting.

"Now!" Illya whispered.

Barney Dillon opened up with the Winchester, squeezing off a volley of shots. Illya scrambled to his feet and started up the slope, running in a zigzag crouch, legs driving for footholds on the slippery bank. The high-powered rifle cracked, and Illya halted, diving headlong into a thick pile of ferns and waxy Indian Pipe.

Solo felt the muscles in his stomach constrict, thinking perhaps his friend had been hit, but then he saw Illya come up again, running, almost as quickly as he had gone down. The rifle whanged again and Illya ducked into the safety of the juniper.

Solo let out a breath. He moved then, running as Illya had in a zigzag, keeping well into the protection of the scrub fir that grew at the shoreline. Behind him he heard Dillon's Winchester, and above and ahead of him the echoing answer of the high-powered rifle. A limb on a small white fir to his left splintered as he ran, and he felt the tug of an angry hornet at the sleeve of his lumber jacket. But he kept moving forward, body tensed, muscles in his legs and back straining.

He saw a large outcropping of rock ahead of him, and veered toward it. He threw himself forward, skidding onto his stomach behind the rock. A pair of rifles, firing almost simultaneously, flashed above him, and a bullet ricocheted off the rock, whistling shrilly in his ears. A shower of dust fell on his neck.

Solo lay there for a moment, trying to get his breath. Two of them, he thought. He looked out around the side of the rock, peering upward. He could see nothing through the trees. He wondered where Illya was.

Behind him, Dillon squeezed off another shot from the Winchester. Two shots answered him almost immediately. Solo knew he must be almost directly beneath them now. And he knew as well that he could not stay where he was. His position was too vulnerable, the outcropping of rock affording only minimum protection.

To his left, he saw the long thick hulk of a felled Douglas fir. I was some thirty yards away, and further up the slope. Between it and the outcropping of rock was open ground. But if they were hidden in the trees higher up, it was just possible he could cross to the tree before they had a clear shot at him. He decided to change it. The U.N.C.L.E. agent got to his feet, bending in a low squat. Then he straightened and began to run.

He had gone fifteen of the thirty yards he needed, swiveling his body like a halfback threading his way through tacklers on a broken field run, when he saw them.

They had come down through the trees from their earlier position, and were moving towards him, two men in dark khakis. They noticed him at the same instant he saw them. They dropped to one knee, bringing his rifle up.

Solo was trapped. He knew he did not have enough time to reach the fallen tree before the man above him fired and his U.N.C.L.E. special was ineffective at this range. He did the only thing he could do.

In mid-stride, he allowed his body to go limp, dropping immediately, like a puppet with its strings cut. He brought the special up, knowing the uselessness of it, waiting for the shot and the bullet to plow into his body.

A shot rang out.

Solo, squinting upward from his prone position, saw the man with the high-powered rifle lean forward. He saw the rifle slip from the man's fingers, clattering down the spongy bank, and finally come to a halt only a few feet above where he lay. The man did not move.

Illya! Solo thought. The shot had come from above where the two men had been. He had made it around to them across the top of the slope.

The second man looked over his shoulder wildly, hesitating, and then began to run diagonally along the slope upward and to the west. Solo steadied his gun on his left arm and fired after the running man.