The Unfair Fare Affair - Leslie Peter - Страница 30

Light flooded into the dark interior as the doors were jerked open. Facing him by a roadside police post were half a dozen German militiamen with leveled rifles. Behind them, he could dimly see an officer and Bartoluzzi, waving his arms.

"There you are!" the Corsican was shouting. "Stowing away in my van, he was! There he is. That's Kurim Cernic, the murderer who escaped from Prague… I'd know that face anywhere. Arrest him! Take him away! He was trying to get across the border in my van!"

Keeping out of the line of fire of the rifles, the officer motioned Kuryakin to descend. Cold steel embraced his wrists as handcuffs clicked shut.

Still stupefied with astonishment, the Russian allowed himself to be led into the guardroom. What had happened? What had given him away? For if Bartoluzzi had denounced him as the killer Cernic, it could only be for one reason—because he had in fact discovered that Kuryakin was an imposter!

At that moment he caught sight of himself in a mirror hanging over an old-fashioned mantelpiece behind the duty officer's desk. And at once he realized what had betrayed him to the Corsican.

Soaked by the storm of sleet, the dye that had darkened his blond hair to Cernic's color had run—and now his face was grotesque, streaked from one side to the other with the stain!

Chapter 15

Ambush In The East!

NOW THAT THE mechanics of Bartoluzzi's one-man escape network were known, now that he was morally sure that he had in fact been approached by THRUSH on the lines that Waverly had feared, Kuryakin felt justified in throwing the Corsican, as it were, to the wolves. On the other hand, he could hardly do this in his role as the Czech Kurim Cernic, for the wily Corsican would probably manage to talk his way out of it—especially since the military would be unlikely to take the word of an escaped convict, and Illya had no proof of his allegations. Moreover, as a recognized criminal rather than a political refugee, Kuryakin himself would probably simply be handed over to the East German authorities, who would in turn send him back to Czechoslovakia. Establishing his true identity then might take days, for he was deliberately carrying no papers, and in the meantime Bartoluzzi would have vanished and the trail would be cold.

He would therefore have to come out into the open and tell them now who he was. But this turned out to be more difficult than he had anticipated.

As soon as the Corsican had gone outside the guard room, Illya turned to the officer and said in German: "Now I can speak. You have the opportunity of pulling off a personal coup that will undoubtedly gain you much prestige with your superiors."

The young man stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

"I am not Kurim Cernic. I am an enforcement agent of—"

"Be quiet. Of course you are Cernic."

"I tell you I am not. I am impersonating Cernic—why do you think there is dye running down my face?—and this man thinks he is illegally taking Cernic out of reach of the authorities."

"You are talking rubbish. If he was doing that, why would he call us in and hand you over to us? Why would he seek the help of the military, of all people?"

"Because he discovered I was an impostor; that I am not Cernic."

"Now you are talking in riddles. That is enough."

"He is running an escape service for criminals. Now that he knows I am not a criminal, his organization is in danger so he wants me out of the way—don't you see?"

"I see it is time you were taken to the cells. Sergeant!"

"But you are making a mistake. I tell you—"

"Silence!... Sergeant, take this man to the cells and place a close guard on him. Transport will be arriving soon with an escort to take him to the East German frontier. Until then he is not to be left alone."

And so, until some time after midnight, Illya languished in a brightly lit room with barred windows and a peephole in the door through which young soldiers curiously and constantly peered. Judging from scraps of dialogue he could hear through the door, the place was an adjunct to a big frontier post some way down the road. But his escort was clearly coming from farther afield.

At last, nevertheless, he was once again standing handcuffed before the shabby desk in the guardroom. The stain on his face had dried, and now, in the mirror over the fireplace, he looked like nothing so much as a Maori warrior!

An escort of half a dozen soldiers with machine pistols— Belgian FNs, he thought—was drawn up outside the door, and beyond them he could see a vehicle like an Austin Gypsy, its canvas top silhouetted against the lamps bordering the road. The young lieutenant in charge of the escort was receiving his orders from the officer Illya had seen before.

"You will proceed directly northeast through Bayreuth after you have reached Nurnberg. It has been arranged that an escort of East German militia will rendezvous with you at the frontier post just north of Hof, on the new Autobahn. You will deliver this envelope to the officer commanding at the same time as you hand over the prisoner. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Captain."

As the young lieutenant saluted and reached out for the brown manila envelope, Illya exploded into action.

He had caught sight of the baton transceiver, which had been taken from him when he was searched. It lay on the desk next to the briefcase containing the remainder of the money that was to have been paid to Bartoluzzi as soon as they reached Zurich.

The Russian twisted away from the guards on either side of him and dived for the table. Snatching up the baton in his manacled hands, he hurled himself into the corner of the room as his fingers felt for the controls.

"Channel open," he gasped. "Listen, Napoleon... listen: the plan has misfired... Bartoluzzi has spotted me, and I have been handed over to the authorities as Cernic—"

Men flew at the Russian from all directions. Gun butts thudded into his back, hands tore at his shoulders, and an arm encircled his neck from behind as he crouched down facing the wall in a desperate attempt to reach his teammate. "…taken with military… East Germany... back to Prague..." he panted between efforts to beat off the soldiers.

But the sheer weight of numbers was too much for him. The transceiver, wrenched from his hands, fell to the ground and was smashed under a heavy boot; Kuryakin, heaving manfully against the overwhelming odds, was finally subdued.

A few minutes later, bruised, bloodied and only half-conscious, he was dragged out to the truck and pushed into the back with the escort, and they took off for Munich, Nurnberg and the north.

Napoleon Solo was worried. Having failed to find anyone to talk to in the office of the junkyard, he had traversed the chalet-and-pine-tree fringe of the Vosges, cut through the bare slopes on which in summer the magnificent vines of Alsace grew, and sped down the long, shallow Rhine valley between Strasbourg and Mulhouse. He was now approaching the outskirts of Basle... and he didn't know what to do.

He had waited until eleven o'clock for Illya's call, and nothing had happened. He had, on the other hand, been a few minutes late coming in himself; he hadn't turned the tiny indicator to RECEIVE until ten or eleven minutes after the hour, and it was possible that Kuryakin had transmitted during those few particular minutes.

But unless he was certain that the Russian had in fact reached Zurich, it would not be worth going through the customs and immigration formalities and entering Switzerland via Basle; any other rendezvous would be quicker to make driving around the back of the mountains. Since he had no idea where such a rendezvous would be, however, there was no point actually starting in that direction. Nor was it worth heading for Zurich if he was going to have to waste time coming back again.