The Dagger Affair - McDaniel David - Страница 14

Napoleon lifted his head and saw the plane climbing into the blue dome of the sky. It rose higher and higher, turning toward the northwest. Before it was out of sight, he was in radio contact with the U.N.C.L.E. branch office in Las Vegas.

Sure enough, Garnet was still under the dash.

"Oh, there you are," said Napoleon brightly.

She looked up at him doubtfully. "Where should I have been?"

He sighed. "Never mind. There'll be a truck from town here in half an hour or so." He looked at Illya, who was coming back from a walk across the desert gathering up guns — both his and Napoleon's would need a good cleaning before they'd be safe to use again.

"All right," he said. "You wouldn't be smiling that inscrutable smile if you hadn't just done something very dirty to someone. Let us in on the secret. I thought you were pretty agreeable to our feathered friends. I suppose the bag is full of rocks and the E/D is under the back seat?"

"Napoleon!" said Illya, shocked at the very idea. "I'm shocked at the very idea. That would have been misrepresentation. And besides, they would have looked in the bag as soon as they could and then come back. I just gave them what they wanted."

Napoleon didn't say anything. When Illya was like this it meant he was terribly pleased with himself, and would eventually tell the whole story without prompting. He just enjoyed being prompted.

After a while Illya gave up waiting and went on. "In fact, I gave them a little extra. Down in the crack where the strap joins the body of the case there is a little bonus. I suggest as soon as we get back to Las Vegas we take advantage of their sensitive receivers to check on the signal from our tracer — which Thrush is presently carrying directly to their nearest headquarters, where we can reclaim the merchandise at our leisure."

Napoleon nodded. "That's very good, Illya. You'll win your stripes yet, at this rate. I'm proud of you."

Illya made a face at him, and the two of them settled down in the car to clean their guns.

* * *

An unsteady tone came whispering out of the large speaker above a rack of electronic equipment. There was a roaring and hiss of highly amplified random noise surrounding it, and the muted thunder of electrons boiling off cathodes and spattering through grids rose and fell around the tone like surf around a seagull's cry.

On the huge map table a straight line of grease pencil lay across a plastic overlay which projected a map of Nevada, Arizona and California. A second line was being laid in along a straightedge.

The man plotting it extended the line until it intersected the first, then straightened up.

"Still going," he said. "Same speed, same course. I wonder if San Francisco has picked them up yet." He stepped back and motioned to Illya and Napoleon. "We'll be losing the signal in a few minutes. They're over Kings Canyon now." He checked the wall clock and wrote a time beside the intersection point. "They must have changed planes in Death Valley. This one's got about 35,000 feet, and the one you described probably wouldn't be able to handle that."

A phone buzzed, and he answered. "Foss.... Yeah? What?...Oh well, not surprising. Thanks." He hung up. "Air Defense reports they have a routine flight plan filed for the bird we're tracking — it's a private plane and it's bound for Vallejo. Everything perfectly regular."

"That's Thrush," said Napoleon, philosophically.

The tone was fainter, but still definite. A teletype clicked in the corner, and Illya looked at it. "San Francisco has them, faint but clear."

"Course, speed, location?"

Illya read off a string of numbers, and the plotter nodded. "Good. Will you want to fly to San Francisco tonight? If so, you'd better arrange for tickets as soon as — "

The signal stopped.

"— you can."

"I guess so," said Napoleon. "We just lost the signal."

The plotter was looking at a couple of meters and frowning. "Yeah...they probably went behind a mountain."

The teletype rang a little bell and began to natter to itself. Illya looked, and raised an eyebrow. "They want to know if the subject has turned back. They lost the signal suddenly a few seconds ago." He smiled a secret smile.

Napoleon looked at him oddly for a moment, then broke into a grin. The plotter looked puzzled, and spoke, "Uh...they were right about here when it cut off," he said, circling an area on the map in blue. "Somewhere south of Shaver Lake. Do you think..."

"We're sure of it," said Napoleon Solo.

About ten o'clock the next morning an unmarked helicopter took off from Fresno and clattered northeast into the mountains. At the controls sat Illya Kuryakin. Operating a small directional receiver in the seat next to him was Napoleon Solo. And straight ahead of them some thirty miles was Shaver Lake.

The receiver in Solo's lap was already starting to pick up the signal from the tracer Illya had planted in the camera case the previous afternoon, but the battery was beginning to weaken. It took a lot of power to broadcast a signal readable for 500 miles.

Conversation was difficult over the noise of their flight. Napoleon tapped Illya on the shoulder, gave him a thumbs-up signal, and pointed ahead and down.

The blue waters of the mountain lake appeared ahead of them as the little community of Pineridge slipped beneath. Napoleon waved the directional antenna in his hand over the horizon, and tapped Illya again. Under his control, the 'copter swerved a few degrees toward the east and began to descend. They passed over the lake and over a craggy hill.

The signal grew stronger. Napoleon felt a bit of relief — there had been a chance that the signal source might be under water, and it would cost them some time to retrieve it. Apparently it was back in the woods, and their luck was holding.

Some distance ahead the pines were interrupted by blazes of white — freshly broken treetops, shattered as if by some huge scythe. Illya shouted over the roar of the motor. "There it is!"

Napoleon nodded.

The helicopter racketed over the spot and went into a tight circle. Below was the crumpled wreckage of a light plane — not the one that had attacked them the day before, but a sleeker, faster model. Both wings had been sheered off by trees — probably the same ones that now stood shattered to mark the last meteoric moments of the airplane.

Illya gunned the engine and began to climb. At five thousand feet they could see no convenient clear space for a landing. Napoleon got the rope ladder out while Illya brought their craft down to treetop height and adjusted it to hover.

The ladder uncoiled its length through the door and fell, jerking and twisting in the downblast from the whirling blades, to the ground. As it came to rest, Napoleon backed out the door and started down some fifty feet.

The rope ladder swayed and swung him about like an ornament on a light cord, and the wind whipped at his clothing as he clambered down the wooden rungs. The helicopter hung above him, bouncing and slipping to either side in the wind as Illya fought to keep the machine steady.

Coat flapping, Napoleon leaped the last few feet to the ground, about twenty yards from the wreckage of the plane. He knew about what he expected to find as he looked through the shattered glass of the door — there were three bodies, and not neat ones. The crash had been bad. He looked away and took a couple of deep breaths, then planted a foot on the side of the fuselage and jerked at the door with both hands.

It gave a little, but not enough. He kicked hard at the frame around the latch, jarring it loose, and tried again. He gripped the latch handle and strained back against it; it gave a little, then with an ear-aching screech of strained metal the whole door came away in his hands and he fell backwards across the carpet of dirt and pine needles that made the forest floor. The door landed on top of him, with a painful crack across the forehead. Napoleon considered the situation, and decided that anyone with less patience would probably swear.