The Monster Wheel Affair - McDaniel David - Страница 23

Small grilles opened occasionally beside them, and smaller side passages branched off. But there was no secondary tunnel, and they stayed with the main route. Each grille had to be checked carefully—if anyone happened to be looking at it as they went by, he might justifiably become curious.

The first two dozen rooms they looked into were empty. They appeared to be private quarters—small rooms, with a desk, a bed and a washstand, like a college dorm or the cheaper rooms at a YMCA. A small loudspeaker on the wall above the bed was the only standard decoration, but some of the rooms exhibited prints of widely varied types. Some sported pinups of assorted nationalities, some favored abstracts, and some preferred subject matter of a more technical nature. Three walls carried large representations of a von Braun-type space station, reinforcing the theory that the Monster Wheel had indeed been launched from this site. But only residential areas passed the view of the two U.N.C.L.E. agents.

Finally the duct branched and they stopped. "Now where?" asked Illya. Their choices angled vertically—one up and one down.

"Down, I think," said Napoleon. "The laboratories will probably be the deepest level, for security reasons, as well as protection of delicate gear against blast-off vibration and possible explosions."

"A properly-regulated launching site wouldn't have any explosions," said the Russian, as they started down the tube on hands and knees.

It was a long time before a duct opened into a room on either side of them. But when at last a square of light showed in the darkness, it proved to have been worth waiting for. Below them were rows of drafting tables, with work still in progress taped neatly to the slanting boards and T-squares hanging ready at their sides for the next day's work. Only a few lights were on here—presumably a skeleton staff might appear, or occasional guards wandered through.

Illya, straining his vision through the wire mesh, could make out electronic circuitry on some of the drawing boards and construction designs on some others. He set about removing the screen.

At length both of them dropped lightly to the poured concrete floor, landing with flexed knees and falling into crouches behind the newest tables. They waited thus for a minute or more, expecting the sounds of alarm to warn them of some detection system tripped or guard alerted by their presence. But silence remained about them.

As they waited, Illya's trained eyes scanned the walls and ceiling in his range of vision for concealed television lenses and found none. Napoleon, on the other side of the same table, examined his half of the room—standard procedure when breaking and entering an area as dangerous as a major Thrush base.

Finally, feeling as safe as they could in such a position, they stood up and set to work. Illya, the technician, produced a tiny camera and began snapping photographs of each drawing board, working methodically up one row and down the next. Napoleon, the instinctive hunter, began going through drawers.

Pencils, rulers, stacks of paper, jars of ink—nothing of value was to be found in that particular room. With a signal to Illya, he went to the door.

It was not locked, and the corridor was deserted. So far they had not seen a sign of any personnel since the two truant smokers had disappeared from the entrance to the tunnel. Either the place was severely understaffed, or everyone was attending compulsory lectures in the main hall. Or had been ordered to stay out of the area where two intruders were known to be....

Nevertheless he took the chance and stepped out into the corridor. It looked like the one they had peeked into upstairs—apple-green, long, and lined with doors. But these doors had signs on them. Polylingual signs, with English on the second line. Napoleon's eye unconsciously selected his native language from the set and read it automatically.

DESIGN ENGINEERING was on five or six doors, each with different numbers and far enough apart to imply fairly large rooms behind them—probably equally as large as the drafting room they had landed in.

VEHICLE SYSTEMS was on the door to the room where Illya was busily taking pictures, and continued on other doors out of sight down the hall.

Across the corridor, sets of double doors led to an area called MATERIALS TESTING, and Napoleon followed his hunch.

Each door had a small panel of glass set about eye-level, and through this went a cautious look before the door was gently tried. It opened without complaint.

A huge barn-like room lay within, filled with all the massive and delicate impedimenta of a test area. He recognized strain gauges capable of pulling a steel bar in half, and others that would measure the stretch of a hair; shake-tables and vacuum chambers, ovens and cryogenic chambers sat about the floor—a torture chamber for the entire range of physical matter. Farther away other doors showed the CHEMICAL and ELECTRONIC divisions.

But time was short. Napoleon Solo returned to those traditional methods which have served spies well for centuries—he started going through the wastebaskets.

Wads of paper containing scribbled calculations went into his pack, as did memos in various languages, mimeographed bulletins and a letterpress instruction sheet, neatly imprinted with the Thrush letterhead. Then he moved on to a waste bin beside one of the testing devices.

It was empty. Odd, he thought, that they should leave the wastebaskets full and clean out the remains of tested gear. Oh well, economy begins at home. He moved on to the next bin—and the next. In the fourth he found something.

It was stuck to the side of the bin, and would have escaped a hurried inspection. Only the fact that it was dull in the soft light of the humming fluorescents caught his eye, and he started to reach for it when a bell chimed softly in the distance.

He straightened up suddenly as he heard footsteps in the corridor, and looked around for cover. As the steps stopped outside his door, he made his decision and jumped for the bin he had been examining. The box was quite large enough to hold him, and he peeled the thing off the side as he crouched there.

It was a scrap of plastic fabric, silvered on one side, and flexible. The shiny side had adhered to the side of the wastebin, and somehow been missed by the cleaning crew. But he didn't have time to look closely at it now—the door opened.

Quickly and quietly he pulled out his little transceiver and thumbed the transmission button. "Illya," he whispered, lips touching the microphone. "Chiggers, the cops!" A moment later there was a single, soft click, a wordless acknowledgment of receipt.

He tucked the little radio back in his inner pocket, and as an afterthought added the scrap of fabric. There were footsteps in the room now, and the hesitant sounds of a search. Then a voice broke the silence, harsh and metallic.

"This one is hiding in number twelve trash bin. The other one is behind the door in Vehicle Systems Drafting Room Four. Get those intruders. They've seen enough. But be careful—they're armed."

A fusillade of shots echoed from somewhere else—probably across the corridor. Illya would give a good account of himself. Not wanting to be left out or forgotten inadvertently, Napoleon selected his U.N.C.L.E. Special, since circumstances called for accuracy rather than circumspection, and stood up in his bin and began shooting, as coolly and accurately as on the target range. He dropped four rifle-equipped men before they had time to react to his presence, and then dropped himself back into the moderate protection of the sheet-steel box as their companions sent a hail of lead through the space where he had been standing. So much for that gag, he thought. Now what'll we do for an encore?"