The Thousand Coffin Affair - Avallone Michael - Страница 24

His enthusiasm and logic were contagious. His three listeners dared not interrupt lest they break the chain of his magic.

“Now, Stew knew that I knew he was a fanatical mystery fan. Above all an Ellery Queen fan. So he did the one thing to point the finger at what he had discovered. He had found the drug, stuck a pellet between his toes, but in case that was discovered, he had told us as surely as if he had written it in black letters a foot high exactly where to look. It was a long shot, a long, long shot but I feel sure it’s paid off.”

Waverly coughed. Napoleon Solo smiled.

“I’ll keep you waiting no longer. In case you don’t know, the most famous Ellery Queen mystery of them all begins with the corpse of a man found—on which all the clothing has been reversed. The killer did this to conceal the fact that the man had been a priest. Therefore the absence of the tie was not immediately apparent as it normally would have been—”

“Solo,” Waverly demurred. “Priest, tie—I fail to see—”

“Let me finish. As I say, that book is Ellery Queen’s most famous. Been reprinted a thousand times and people all over the world who go in for mysteries remember it. That’s the important point that Stew didn’t want me to miss. The title of that very famous book.”

Jerry Terry suddenly said in a very clear voice, “Well, I’ll be damned. The Chinese Orange Mystery.”

“Exactly. The Chinese Orange Mystery. Pointing to one stockpile that has to be destroyed at all costs.” There was a new silence in the room.

“Orange,” Kuryakin said, almost ruefully. “What a gamble.”

“Orangeberg Cemetery,” Waverly said with grim finality.

Oberteisendorf.

Darkness in the village. A few scattered lights. The livestock lowing in the sheds. A rural solitude dominated the hamlet at five o’clock in the morning. The sky was moody black, pierced only by an occasional star.

There was a light gleaming in Herr Burgomeister’s house—a lone bulb shining steadily through the drab, linen curtains. Herr Muller was busy with a visitor: the awesome, terrifying man he knew only as Herr.

“Bitte, what you want of me now?”

“A friend of mine has passed away,” Golgotha said. “He must be buried immediately.”

Herr Muller’s face in the harsh light of the bulb, reflected fear.

“Ach. Another?”

“Yes. The poor fellow died of a tumor. Brain tumor. There was no chance. It is better this way.”

“Ja, ja.” Herr Muller sipped his glass of Rhine wine. He did not like these conferences with this strange, cloaked man. The money was fine, one hundred thousand of the new marks, but Gott in Himmel!—was it worth it to have to talk with this man from hell each time?

“The coffin will be at your friend’s mortuary in the morning. You will see to it that all the arrangements are satisfactory. You must arrive at Orangeberg Cemetery no later than twelve o’clock noon. It has been agreed on that way.”

“Ja, I do. Same as ever.”

Golgotha chuckled dryly.

“You are sweating, Herr Muller. Are you warm?”

“Ein bischen,” muttered the Burgomeister. “A little. I feel—tired. Makes me sweat.”

“Certainly.”

“You must not misunderstand, mein Herr,” the scrawny mayor cried. “My devotion is—strong.”

“It had best remain so.”

The unspoken threat lingered in the. closeness of the room.

“I do the job.”

“You must. We have other coffins. Many, many coffins. Sometimes we actually do use them as they were intended to be used. Remember that, Herr Muller.”

The Burgomeister paled. “Ja, I remember.”

Golgotha stood up, a towering, dark shadow which cast a ghostly silhouette across the floor. He seemed all of seven feet high and as palpable as a nightmare.

“Oberteisendorf will become famous, Herr Muller. People will point to it one day and say ‘There. There is the place and there is where it happened.’ Greatness will come to Oberteisendorf, Herr Muller. And fame. And exalted memory. Remember that.”

“I will remember,” Herr Muller whispered, wishing his frightening visitor would go as silently as he always came. The man completely destroyed whatever soul he had left.

“Good. Twelve o’clock then. One coffin. Orangeberg. Gute Nacht, Herr Muller.”

“Gute Nacht, mein Herr.”

With his cloak wrapped about him like a shroud Golgotha left. Herr Muller crossed himself again, as he always did, and then reached once more for the bottle of Rhine wine.

The ghastly business would begin all over again on the morrow and there was not a thing he could do to stop it.

Verdammt! What in God’s name were they burying in that lovely cemetery just beyond the rimrock?

Herr Muller did not know. He was only certain of one thing. The coffins he had delivered for the Herr had never contained dead bodies. He did not care what the Death Certificate claimed nor how many headstones they put up with all the lying inscriptions.

Orangeberg was not a place where dead men slept.

A NICE LITTLE PLACE TO BOMB

THE PLAN WAS daring. It had to be. Events had worked to that point where no other plan of action was feasible. Waverly had consulted with whomever he had to consult and the answer had come down from on high: Find out about Orangeberg. When you are certain, blast it off the face of the earth. We’ll take the consequences, whatever they may be.

So it was that on a foggy night later that week, a United States Air Force C-47 roared through the heavens over Europe, bound for Oberteisendorf.

Napoleon Solo sat in the passenger compartment. He was no longer sartorially elegant or well-groomed. Indeed, he was completely outfitted for a drop behind enemy lines. His flying suit was complete: helmet, goggles, fur-lined parka. His most vital possession, however, was X-757, the specially devised U.N.C.L.E. fire-explosive which produced so much heat that it could fuse an area to a depth of ten feet. Judiciously placed at Orangeberg, X-757 would reduce the cemetery to a pit of molten lava in which rock, earth, wood coffins and those hellish little capsules and their contents would lose their identities as separate substances.

Solo’s entire wardrobe was built for combat operation; map, pistol and complete detonation kit. This included five pounds of nitro jelly spread harmlessly about his person. It was only when the mass was put together like butter for a cake and frosted with blasting caps that it would take on a different, far more deadly character.

Seated across the aisle from him, beside a very worried looking Jerry Terry, was Illya Kuryakin, attired in exactly the same costume. The Russian’s face wore a blissful smile. Inactivity dulled him. This investigation of a cemetery in Orangeberg was more to his liking. He patted the entrenching tools fastened to his pack. Jerry Terry was busy making adjustments on a two-way radio before her. Each man had a walkie-talkie hand set which could make instant contact if they remained within a five mile radius of the plane.

“Ten minutes,” the intercom from the forward cabin crackled.

Jerry flung a worried look at Napoleon Solo. He smiled at her, trying to make her feel better. He knew he was wasting his time. She was too intelligent not to know how ridiculously short the odds were. It all boiled down to suicide, even on U.N.C.L.E.’s humanitarian terms.

Waverly had remained in London long enough to prepare the details of the plan. “Remember,” he had cautioned in his usual fatherly way, “You paradrop in as close as possible to your target, dig up one coffin. If it contains anything other than a corpse, radio the plane to make a fast pick-up and get out of there. You know what you have to do. Failing that, the bomber will carry a pay load. That could help.”