[Magazine 1966-­05] - The World's End Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 20

"At forty thousand feet above Red China in a THRUSH aircraft, I am inclined to agree."

"I thought you were dead, Mr. Kuryakin."

Illya's Words raced ahead of his thoughts: "It's Napoleon, sir. He's the one who didn't make it. General Weng of THRUSH captured him and I'm afraid he - I'm dead?"

"Mr. Kuryakin, evidently there has been a breakdown of communications between you and your cohort." Waverly cleared his throat, "Only moments ago I spoke with Mr. Solo in Hong Kong. He informed me THRUSH had liquidated you. Mr. Solo is attempting to find and destroy the THRUSH Weather generator, which is already causing a storm of catastrophic proportions. A difficult task, since we don't know where it is."

Illya allowed himself a grin. "Sir, I know the whereabouts of the generator. I can't raise Hong Kong on the plane's radio but I should be able to contact Napoleon on the communicator. I thought that he had been -"

"Brevity is the soul of survival for Hong Kong, Mr. Kuryakin," Waverly interrupted. "We shall open and clear all channels at once. I suggest that you get busy relaying your information to Mr. Solo."

"At once," Illya said, thumbing off the D band. Simultaneously, Dr. Dargon began to burble and bleat:

"Gulled! Gulled and deceived! You'll pay for tricking me -!"

Before Illya could whip round to fend him off, Dargon fastened his hands on Illya's throat and at the same time thrust forward with all his strength.

Illya tore at the fingers biting the flesh of his neck. Dargon slammed Illya's head against the instrument panel. Various switches and controls were knocked out of adjustment. Warning lights blazed and blinked. The fighter-bomber began to veer and tilt downward toward the cloud bank.

Illya struggled. Dargon was panting like an enraged bull. He pounded Illya's head against the console with a thud, and another, and another.

The edges of Illya's mind grew stained with darkness. The fighter-bomber was into a dive, its altitude dropping alarmingly. Once more Illya tried to rip the murdering fingers from his neck but couldn't get a grip on them. His mind was getting fuzzier by the second…

Two

Another power line came whipping down like an electrified snake, directly in Napoleon Solo's path.

Blue fire danced and hissed over huge puddles of water. Solo jerked back from the puddle into which he had almost skidded.

Two ambulances passed at the next intersection, sirens going at full. One raced on out of sight. A mammoth gust of wind picked up the other and drove it into the wall of a building where it crashed and burst into flames.

Solo staggered into the cover of a shop front, which was already beginning to totter. He pulled the frantically beeping pocket communicator from his sodden shirt.

"Mr. Waverly?" he shouted into the box, "I haven't had time to find it yet -"

"If you would kindly stop bellowing, Napoleon," said a tinny voice, "I know where you can locate the generator."

"Illya! Where are you?"

"Sitting with a headache in a THRUSH airplane. Never mind that. I thought you were dead."

"I thought you were dead."

"The reports of our deaths have been greatly exaggerated. Dr. Dargon told me the location of the generator because he thought it was impossible for me to communicate with Hong Kong. I called Waverly on the communicator. He said that you had escaped Weng's tender mercies. I was in the process of calling you when Dargon tried to throttle me. I apologize for the delay, but it took Mei a minute or so to work up enough nerve to put a bullet into Dargon's stomach. He has designed his last unpleasant device for THRUSH."

More citizens went streaming by in the torrential rain. Their screams of fear trailed behind them. Solo said, "The city can't last much longer in this storm. Where's the generator?"

In thirty seconds Solo had left the shop front a block behind. It promptly collapsed.

A bolt of lightning lit the rain-swept foot of Smiling Fish Quay. The air smelled of ozone and decayed fish. Solo went sliding and skidding along the drenched cobbles to the quay's edge.

The only human being in sight was a fisherman kneeling in a cul-de-sac a few yards away. He was praying to be spared from the impromptu typhoon. Solo bent over. His back kept the rain off Miss Fong's pistol, which he pulled from his belt and checked.

The lightning fizzled into darkness. Thunder pealed so loudly it hurt his ears. Visually Solo tried to sort out the hundreds of wildly pitching junks and sampans moored in this part of the harbor. No lights showed anywhere, except on the distant mainland where they gleamed dimly through the driving rain.

Solo jumped aboard the nearest sampan, which was damaged, but still afloat.

It lurched terrifically under him. A monster wave washed over the deck and nearly pitched him into the water. The rain was coming at him almost horizontally because of the wind's force.

Lightning flared. Solo spotted a whopping sail on a half-broken mast. The sail displayed a large, crudely painted storm cloud. The craft was the third vessel beyond the one on which he was fighting for balance.

With big leaps Solo crossed the nautical stepping stones. He had to grab ropes or a mast as he landed on each boat, because the decks were tilting back and forth through an arc of almost ninety degrees.

The distance between the sampan and the junk with the torn storm-cloud sail was a good seven to eight feet. Besides, the sampan was tilting violently. So was the junk. Solo waited until he thought his timing was right. Then, gun in his right hand, he jumped.

He missed. A wave rolled the junk back out of the way.

Solo hit the water and went down, thrashing and flailing, into the customary waterside Hong Kong garbage.

The moored junk tossed back toward him and the hull smacked him in the head. Dazed, Solo grabbed the rail.

He tossed his right leg up and pulled himself aboard. Bits of refuse clung to him. A stream of water ran out of the barrel of his now useless pistol.

Two-thirds of the junk's deck was covered with a bamboo framework over which a tarpaulin had been draped. Inside the improvised deckhouse a spot of amber light glowed and wavered. Solo crept forward.

The deck pitched again. Solo fought for balance. He fell, making a loud, hollow thud during a lull in the thunder.

Part of the tarpaulin whipped aside. An ugly Oriental in a mud-spotted white suit thrust the muzzle of a big pistol into the dark. Beyond the man, Solo glimpsed General Weng's heaving bulk and the black generator box. Its sides glowed with red highlights from a

small charcoal brazier.

"I do not see anyone -" the gunman began. Solo's shoulder hit him in the belly.

Solo and the gunman careened inside the tarp shelter. General Weng leaped up from a packing box. He wore the sinister switch-belt around his waist. A faint hum rose from the generator box. Solo saw all this in a wild blur as he went crashing to the slick deck.

The gunman leaped and landed, knocking the wind out of him. The gunman fastened one hand on Solo's throat and, gun in the other, took aim.

Solo brought his own gun hand lashing up behind the THRUSH agent's head. He cracked the man over his left ear. The agent made a loud, gulping sound. His grip loosened momentarily. Solo rammed his knee into the THRUSH agent's groin and lifted him off.

As Solo lurched to his feet, General Weng struggled to pull out a pistol. The gunman was up again too, aiming at Solo from behind. Solo spun and flung his useless gun.

It smacked the agent's nose. Solo had a split second to find another weapon.