The Power Cube Affair - Phillifent John T. - Страница 19

"Close!" he panted. "Not a nice man, our Mr. Green."

"I can't say I care for his assistants, either. Mustn't let them get at Miss Thompson. You ready?"

Solo dragged in two more enormous breaths, shook his head testingly, and nodded. "Fit enough. Come on!"

Over at the door he put his forehead against it while he eased the catch free. There were vigorous noises coming through. He pulled the door just a fraction to make sure, nodded to Kuryakin, and hurled it all the way open, to go through with a rush. Just in time he saw the couch, up turned, right in his path. He leaped over it, landed catlike and whirled. Donovan stood over in one corner by the record player, a glass in one hand. At sight of Solo he froze, mouth open. Solo wasted no time but leaped on to the upside-down couch, sprang from it straight at Donovan, and the pair of them crashed into the record player.

With no time for finesse, Solo caught at the first thing at hand, a bottle, and slammed it down on Donovan's head. He scrambled to his feet, pressed a palm to the wall a moment as the room spun around him.

Over in the other corner he saw Kuryakin dance away from a swung chair and grab it, pull and drag Flanagan off-balance, then wallop him with a savage chop as the man went staggering by. Poised deliberately, he chopped again and Flanagan plunged face down to the floor. Feeling a certain amount of righteous satisfaction, Solo shoved away from the wall, then froze for a moment as a scream came through the half-open door of the bedroom and then cut off suddenly. Solo's momentary satisfaction was swallowed in a blind fury. He hit the bedroom door with his shoulder and went straight on through into dim light, onto a white sheepskin carpet, to see Ponti holding Miss Thompson down on the bed.

The crashing entry made the Italian let go instantly, heave up and spin, but Solo was already on him, throwing a piledriver punch with his right and grabbing with his left hand at the man's loosened coat. Unbalanced, Ponti tottered, sideways. Solo heaved to help him, dug in his heels and swung the Italian around like a weight on a chain, then let go and watched him arch away and slam in a heap in a corner. But Ponti was no novice in rough and tumble. He bounced up like a ball, square on his feet, and in his right hand a knife glittering. The snarl of his white teeth split his dark face. Solo, who could hear the shocked sobbing of the girl at his back, waved him on.

"Come on!" he invited. Ponti wanted nothing more. Tensing, he sprang like a cat, right arm forward. Solo turned a shoulder to meet him, slid around the blade, laid both hands savagely on that wrist and arm, lifted up and down viciously bringing up his knee. There was an audible crunch as Ponti's wrist broke and a strangled scream as the Italian tried to let go. But Solo was not in a letting go mood. Ducking, using his shoulder, he heaved and hoisted, and Ponti flew. His short flight terminated at the bedroom door, with him upside-down and his flailing heels driving clean through the panel. He hung there, limp. Breathing hard, Solo spun back to the bed again. Miss Thompson crouched there, cringing, the shreds of her filmy housecoat clinging to one shoulder and trailing over the white counterpane behind her. Her violet eyes were wide and senseless in the half light as he stared at her.

"Are you all right?" he demanded, and she shivered.

"No, don't!" she choked. "No, don't! No, don't! No, don't!" Solo extended a protective hand, and then came a resounding crash from the room he had just left. He turned, sprang for the door, and it was jammed. He heaved frantically at the handle, wrenched at it, and the entire door creaked away from its hinges and sagged under Ponti's inert weight. With no time to be delicate, Solo heaved madly, shoved it through and ran over it as it fell. He was in time to see Kuryakin fling himself backward over the fallen couch as Flanagan flailed wildly with a chair leg.

"Hould still, ye murtherin' devil!" he roared, as Kuryakin rolled into a corner and came up. The timing couldn't have been better. As Flanagan hoisted himself up and over the hurdle, Solo took him from behind and added a powerful boost. The Irishman shot forward, Kuryakin leaned to one side, took hold and heaved, and the double impetus sent Flanagan arrowing forward, to meet the solid wall over the fireplace head on.

"Thick head, that one!" Kuryakin panted. "Was just going back into the kitchen to get the rope, when he came alive all at once."

"He won't do that again!" Solo stated, looking down.

"What—?" Kuryakin started a question and forgot it as a bottle burst on the wall between them. They fell and parted by reflex, then peered cautiously, to see Donovan entrenched in the corner between the sideboard and the ruined record player. There was blood all over his face, and he had a bottle in either hand. As Solo raised his head above the protective barrier of the couch, one of the bottles flew for him and he ducked again, fast.

Hold it!" he whispered urgently to Kuryakin. "I'll try to winkle him out of there. You grab him. Here goes!" Seizing Ponti's limp form, he got a good hold, then hoisted the inert Italian and ran forward, using the limp figure as a shield. Donovan snarled and lashed out with one bottle, but Solo fended it off with his burden, felt the crushing impact, dropped his shield and grabbed as fast as he could, before his opponent could regain balance. Clinging ruthlessly, he hurled himself backward, fell, got his feet up and under, kicked, and Donovan sailed over and out of the corner. There came a fiendish crash and clatter and then silence. Picking himself up, Solo turned, to see Kuryakin standing and looking down at the body, its head rammed into the bars of the fireplace.

"How is the Italian?" he asked, kneeling to investigate Donovan. Solo crouched, made quick exploratory touches with his fingers, then stood again.

"He's taken his last voyage, Illya. How about those two?"

"Same ship. Frankly, Napoleon, bearing in mind what they were going to do to us, I can't say I feel any remorse. How's Miss Thompson?"

"She was in shock a moment ago. Let's go see."

She had moved. She was now sitting on the edge of the bed. As they went in her eyes, huge in the gloom, followed them fearfully. The rag that remained of her garment was now wrapped around her wrist. She put it to her mouth and mumbled, again, "No, don't! No, don't!"

"It's all right," Solo told her. "Nothing more to worry about. All over. We're friends." Her mumble grew fainter but was still there. Solo scowled, shook his head. "I'm not getting through. Miss Thompson!"

"Louise!" Kuryakin reached out to touch her hand gently, took hold of it. "No one is going to hurt you now. You're safe." It may have been his touch or the casual way in which he sat himself beside her on the bed, but all at once something seemed to snap in her and she turned to him blindly, reaching out to cling to him like a small child. As his arm went around her shoulders she thrust her face against his chest and began to shake. Solo sat and stared, then caught the chill gleam in his partner's blue eyes and nodded silently.

"That's all very well," Kuryakin muttered, "but what do we do now?"

EIGHT

IT WAS a good question, Solo considered it.

"We can't blow headquarters for help," he stated. "We've no transmitters—no clothes, come to that, although they will be about somewhere—and I hope they aren't awash with alcohol. But in any case we are not officially on a job, and they wouldn't be at all pleased with this mess."