The Hollow Crown Affair - McDaniel David - Страница 29

"Wasn't your San Francisco house adequately defended?" asked Illya.

"Yes, but its neighbors were not. I should not have wanted to bring damage or destruction to the other five old homes around Alamo Square."

"So you closed it and left."

"Certainly not! I was forced to leave many valuable things behind, and given unlimited time King's vandals could have sacked the place. No—concealed within the building is a shaft, roughly six feet on a side, so well placed that only the most precise series of measurements could detect its existence. I had it lined with armor and spent some time ensuring the security of its entrance. Here everything concerned with my para-legal activities is stored. The building itself has, since my departure in June, served as the campaign headquarters for an incumbent state senator. Thus it is constantly occupied by alert people, and the local police are particularly aware of any attempts at illegal entry or surveillance. Needless to say, none of them have the least idea of what they are guarding."

A buzzer forestalled the continuance of his remarks, and Irene slid back one panel of the end table to reveal a compact control board with a single yellow light flashing. She touched a switch and turned a knob, and the faint mutter of a motor, distinctly recognizable among the grotesquely amplified sounds of the woods and breeze, rose from concealed speakers. Illya rose as well.

"Do you mind if I watch?"

"Not at all. That's our easternmost sound detector on the road. I'd say the car is more than a mile away and proceeding slowly."

"You have the alarm rigged to trip on low frequencies only, right? So it ignores the background noise?"

"Very good. Yes, anything under 500 Hz continuing more than ten seconds at 0db." She tapped a button and part of the wall slid back to reveal a tastefully built-in television screen. "This is a commercial television set," she said, "equipped with ultrasonic reed remote controls." She touched another button several times and the set whirred. "Connected to an unused channel..." The screen brightened to an oddly luminous picture in what appeared to be diffuse low-angle sunlight: the front gate as viewed from across the road. "We have the output from a modified remote-controlled vidicon camera which has been fed through a three-stage image multiplier. The camera is controled by this cluster." She pointed. "These control tilt, pan, zoom and focus. The camera is set for the present level of moonlight, filtered through the trees."

Napoleon gaped as she touched one more button and the bushes piled high beside the gate swung gracefully and silently down, intermeshing and utterly concealing the entrance. "That," said Irene, "I put together from two garage door openers." She pushed a tiny lever left and the camera panned to look up the road. It seemed to be in a tree directly across from the gate and capable of at least 180? coverage.

It was nearly four minutes before the sound of the engine picked up on the middle microphone, and another minute before the car appeared on the screen. At an electronic command the camera zoomed in and the image of the car expanded. The dash lights supplied more than adequate illumination to show five grimly identical men scanning the roadside intently.

"Apparently King has called for help," said Baldwin bitterly, and fumbled for his pocket watch.

"Checking his time?" asked Solo.

"No—his wavelength," said Baldwin. He studied his large antique double-hunter turnip watch, flipped open the front face to check the time, then turned it over. "The original works have been replaced with an ultra-thin self-wound Patek-Phillipe movement. The remaining two-thirds contain my communicator. It was done especially to my specification." The second face flipped open to chrome steel and delicate knobs. He twisted the winding-stem and pulled up a fifteen-inch aerial, then scanned across several bands. "They have nothing to say at the moment."

The car crept past the camera, which panned to follow. Something moved in the interior and Irene zoomed in to catch the near man in the front seat lift something to his lips. Baldwin scanned again and a tiny voice spoke.

"... ignboard to the left of the road with a deer's head in gold and silver—looks old. No place to turn off."

Irene zoomed back and followed them off right. Before they were gone another voice said, "... there somewhere. Leave a beacon and we'll send a recon plane over in the morning."

"He was on another channel, the slyboots," Baldwin exclaimed sarcastically. "Mr. Solo, Mr. Kuryakin, I understand you have had a trying day, but the evening is relatively young. The moon is setting, and you might do something to earn your keep for the duration of the siege."

"You want us to take out that car full of armed men and plant the transmitter twenty miles away, don't you?" said Napoleon.

"Your grasp of the situation is perfect. Mr. Kuryakin, your transceiver, if you please; I can follow your progress and guide you to the spot where, I believe, the car is now stopping."

The second west sound detector picked up the dying gurgle of an engine, followed by the ragged slamming of four doors. "If you leave at once you will have more than adequate time to find them; they are less than half a mile away—a mile along the road."

"We'll go through the woods," said Illya. "You don't really want that transmitter planted twenty miles away, do you?"

"Ten would probably suffice."

Napoleon rose reluctantly. "Do you think we could get through all that at night?"

"Don't worry, Napoleon. I was a Junior Woodchuck."

"I'm afraid all our sophisticated equipment is built in," said Irene.

"That's all right. We'll settle for a couple of old-fashioned flashlights."

* * *

"Where did you leave the car?" Baldwin asked them shortly before three o'clock the same morning.

"About fifty feet from the transmitter," said Illya.

"Which is on the far side of Debsconeag Lake," Napoleon added. "If Irene hadn't offered to pick us up we would've been home about dawn."

"I presume you neutralized the scouting party?"

"Effectively. We put them to sleep without a murmur, and packed everything they had in the car before we took it away."

"Including their trousers," said Illya.

"Oh!" said Irene. "They'll freeze!"

"Probably not," said Napoleon. "We piled them together so they'd be warm until they woke up. They'll still have to walk to East Pomfret—is there a telephone in East Pomfret?"

"There are five," said Baldwin. "I hope you remembered to turn on the beacon before you left it?"

"Of course, sir," said Illya. "May we go to bed now?"

"By all means. We may yet have work for you tomorrow."

Chapter 15: "I Think He Was Scrooched."

At nine-fifteen Ward Baldwin was seated in a sunny breakfast room listening to his pocket watch. It spoke tinnily of an airplane and a ground controller whose control did not extend to his voice, which grew harsher over a period of time.

"The men who were on the spot say there was no lake in sight. As soon as they have been picked up and treated for exposure they will be sent back. Look for the road."

"I can't see any road, I tell you! Everything is either trees or water or rock. There's just a few cottages and a lodge or two—and I can see the Appalachian Trail..."