The Monster Wheel Affair - McDaniel David (серии книг читать бесплатно .TXT) 📗

"By the way, what about our guest downstairs? Have you found out his home port?" He listened, and nodded slowly. "Local boy, hired through channels for a routine kill. Not a chance of back-tracking him, either, I suppose. Okay—call me if anything comes up." He replaced the handset.

"My partner will be here in a few days," he said. "Then we will go off to Rio and Hong Kong, and see if Kurt may have told his erstwhile shipmates anything that could lead to his being found." He shook his head. "It's going to be quite a search if he didn't. The world is an awfully big haystack to lose one needle in."

Chapter 3: "What Did You Expect—Big Ben?"

The jet thundered down out of the deep blue South African sky. Below, Napoleon Solo and Suzie Danz stood in air-conditioned coolness listening to the muted sounds of airplanes outside the double glass windows and the metallic voice of a loudspeaker announcing the arrival of the flight from London. Illya was on that flight, and tucked in his bags were enlargements in full glorious color of a mysterious ICBM that had been launched a few weeks before.

Wheels smoked as braked tires vaporized against rubber-scarred concrete, and thrust-reversers drove the engines to an anguished scream. The BOAC jet rolled into the taxiway, slowing gently now, and crept at last into its berth. With a final sigh, the engines whined down to a stop.

Napoleon and Suze met Illya at the gate as he checked through customs. The sight of the diplomatic passport he wielded won instant cooperation from the guards, and a small trolly with a rather remarkable assortment of bags wheeled past them unchallenged.

Solo looked from the cart and the sweating redcap who propelled it to his partner. "What did you do," he asked under his breath, "bring all of Section Three with you?"

"Just a few necessities," said Illya casually, directing his native bearer towards the line of taxis with a wave of his hand. "In this uncertain world, you never know what you might need."

It took two taxis to get them back to the hotel. Determined not to involve local U.N.C.L.E. operations any more than necessary, and certain that the center of the enemy's interest had left Capetown with the departure of Kurt Schneider, they had assumed the roles of normal tourists. Almost normal—Suzie was under armed guard at all times, courtesy of the Solo Personal Protection Bureau.

The three of them huddled over Illya's briefcase, which he had hand-carried rather than leave with the rest of the luggage. Unstrapping the trick fasteners, he gently raised the lid and withdrew a large manila envelope.

"Here are your prints," he said, handing it to Suzie. "Sorry I couldn't bring back the original slides, but they're in a safe place. Perhaps sometime we can get them back to you."

She carefully undid the meal clasp and slipped out a thin stack of glossy color prints, eight by ten. In the center of each frame was a long thin white object which grew shorter, print by print, as well as less distinct. She examined them, one at a time. Then her face lightened. "Oh, of course. Foreshortening as it went higher. And that's why it gets grainier. Bigger enlargements."

Illya nodded. "These are blown up as much as possible without an inordinate loss of detail." He turned to Napoleon. "Section Three was most interested in the design of this missile. They say it's roughly two hundred feet long, diameter in proportion. If the frames were shot about a second apart, it was accelerating at some 300 feet per second, or a bit less than ten gees. But what really aroused comment were the differences here"—he pointed to the main stage of the rocket, clearly visible in the third picture—"and here." He pointed to the second stage and slid his finger up to the nose.

Napoleon looked at them closely, and knitted a thoughtful pair of eyebrows. "That's odd," he said finally, and Illya nodded.

"That's what they said, too."

Suzie put down the pile of prints she held, and looked over their shoulders. "What's odd?" she asked. "It looks like a common, ordinary ICBM to me."

"How many ICBM's have you known personally?"

"Not that many. But I've watched them on TV, and I've seen pictures of them. What makes this one so unusual, outside of being where it shouldn't be?"

"Can you tell the difference between, say, an Atlas-Agena and a Saturn Five?"

"Not unless I can see their license plates."

"Okay. These upper two stages are very much like the Agena—not exactly, but very much. Close enough that it's probably a patent infringement, if it matters. But this bottom stage is, as near as anyone can tell without poking around in the plumbing, the main stage from a Russian T 3-A, which is, frankly, more powerful than anything but our Saturn-V."

Illya nodded agreement. "Somebody has taken the best of both cultures and combined them. This may have been only a test, or it may have put something into orbit. Whichever it was, this combination is most practical, and potentially dangerous as a weapon."

The doorbell rang across the moment of silence that followed this statement. On the other side of the door, a winded team of bellhops was discovered standing beside a pile of luggage. Illya beckoned them in, watched while they bore their burdens into the room and set them about on the floor, on chairs and on the bed, and finally rewarded each of them with a crisp note of unseen but generous denomination.

Napoleon looked around at the stuff as the door closed again. "Well," he asked, "do we start to unpack, or do we divvy up the gear into portable lots before we take off for the far corners of the earth? Or do we just leave it here to startle the maid?"

"Golly," said Suzie, counting. "Ten, eleven, twelve bags. What all is in them, anyway?"

Illya's eyebrows raised slightly, and his gaze traveled smoothly around the room, checking the count. "I can tell you what is in eleven of them," he said. "Because that is how many I left New York with."

"Somebody else's bag must have gotten mixed in with yours by accident."

He shook his head. "In this business there are no accidents." He walked slowly among the luggage, looking at each item closely. He stopped by a small blue canvas bag, and put his ear up to it. A slight smile teased the corner of his mouth. "Marvellous," he said. "It's ticking."

Suzie gasped slightly, and cowered back against the nearest wall. "What are you going to do?"

"Disarm it, of course."

"Don't worry," said Napoleon reassuringly. "He's quite competent at this sort of thing. He's only had one bomb go off while he was working on it."

It took a moment for her to consider this, and then she looked hard at him. "And what happened? I suppose you'll tell me he was blown to bits?"

"Oh no—nothing happened. The bomb turned out to be a dud."

"It's quite true," said the soft voice from across the room. "But I can assure you I had a very bad fraction of a second there watching the detonator spark."

Suzie waited what seemed like a decent interval and then asked, "What are you going to do with this one—dunk it in water?"

"That went out several years ago. All the better time bombs these days are made with sodium metal in the detonator. Water will set them off before it renders the explosive harmless."

"In fact," said Napoleon, "it is quite possible to make a bomb so constructed that whatever you do to it in attempting to disarm it will set it off. Fortunately we haven't run into one yet."