[Magazine 1966-­08] - The Cat and Mouse Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 10

"Which army officers?" Illya asked.

"Primarily Colonel Julio Brown, who just happens to command the second motorized regiment," O'Hara said. "Our only fully-trained and crack regiment. The first regiment is largely made up of ceremonial units based in San Pablo. The third, fourth, and fifth are all garrisoned at various parts of the island, and are rarely in full training. The second motorized regiment is stationed ten miles from San Pablo, is always in full training."

There was a silence in the sound-proof, hidden room in the heart of O'Hara's mansion. Illya broke the silence.

"In short, if anyone wanted to take over Zambala, it would be good to have Colonel Julio Brown on his side," Illya said.

"I'm afraid that is it," O'Hara said.

Solo nodded thoughtfully. "Well then, I think I had better have a talk with Miss Jezzi Mahal."

"And I will do a little reading on the background of Colonel Julio Brown, Max Steng and Jemi Zamyatta," Illya said.

"Have fun," Solo said.

The handsome, boyish agent raised an eyebrow and walked from the room. In the corridor, he took time to look into the other rooms in search of the fine female voice he had talked to over his radio. He found her at her communications desk.

Her stare was withering as he smiled at her.

Solo departed.

The Silver Dunes was a cabana in name only. A vast, low, ranch house on a small cliff at the edge of the dazzlingly blue sea, it spread far and wide and must have contained at least twenty rooms. There was movement in the two rooms that faced the wide open terrace and the sea.

On the beach below the small cliff people lay on the sand in the afternoon sun, and swam in bursts of white in the blue sea.

Solo parked his car on the edge of the highway above the house and out of sight from the house. There was a wide gravel drive down and around from the coast highway to the house below on its low cliff. Solo decided on the short route down the sandy hills. He slid and skidded swiftly but silently down, and approached the house itself from a deep gully in the sandy earth.

At the corner of the house Solo paused. His keen eyes were puzzled. There was no sound from inside the house. He could see directly into one of the two rooms that faced the terrace. The room was empty. Solo moved closer. But again, he paused before he reached the house.

Something else was odd, wrong.

Then he knew what it was. There was no sound at all.

There were no voices from the beach below. This close he should have heard something down there, where the people plunged in the surf. He turned quickly and walked to the edge of the cliff in front of the house.

The beach below was empty.

Solo turned and looked back at the silent house. There had been someone in the house when he looked down from the road. He had watched the house the whole way down and no one had left. But there was no movement in the house now and no one on the beach. Had he been seen?

It looked very much that way, but the U.N.C.L.E. agent had to investigate more closely. He recrossed the terrace to the house itself. Using a small picklock, he unlocked the French doors and went in. He stood for a time in the large living room and listened. Then he moved on into the house and came to a small study. A picture of a man in a colonel's uniform stood on the desk.

Solo began to search the room. In a bottom drawer of the desk he found a secret compartment. In the compartment there was an envelope. In the envelope there was a series of dates and the signature: Z. Napoleon Solo stared at the list and the scrawled Z. One of the dates was the day the Security Chief Mura Khan had been killed, and the premier had shot the Stengali!

The light step came from the living room.

Solo quickly replaced the list in the compartment and closed the drawer. He glided into the corner of the room behind the door. The woman stepped into the study.

She was a beautiful woman, dark and exotic. She wore a deep red dress that left none of her curves hidden. Her hair was long and she wore earrings to her shoulders. But she could have been the masked woman in black who had killed Tembo.

She turned and stared straight at Solo. The agent grinned.

"Miss Mahal, I presume?" Solo said.

The woman showed no expression. "Who are you? What do you want here?"

"Who I am isn't important," Solo said. "What I want here is to return your matches."

He held out the matchbook. The beautiful woman looked at the matchbook. She stepped to Solo, took the matchbook, and dropped it onto the desk. Her green eyes stared at Solo.

"I don't recall giving you any matches."

"No," Solo said. "You forgot them. I hate to see a lady without her matches."

"Forgot them?"

"When you called on Inspector Tembo."

Solo watched for any sign of surprise, or any other sign. Jezzi Mahal showed nothing. The beautiful woman was either very innocent or very controlled.

"Inspector Tembo? I'm afraid I don't know the inspector very well. I certainly haven't seen him in months. And now, will you leave, or must I call for help?"

"You wouldn't really?" Solo said. "After all, I returned your matches. They could have been awkward."

"Awkward?" the woman said. "Because Tembo was murdered? Really, whoever you are, do you know how many of those matchbooks I have? How many people take them from my house?"

"How did you know Tembo was dead?"

Jezzi Mahal laughed. "I have many friends. The inspector's murder happened last night. Zambala is a small country. Now, must I become obnoxious?"

"I'll bet you could," Solo said.

"I could and will."

"I'll bet you'd even get me in trouble with Zamyatta," Solo said.

For the first time the woman showed a reaction. Almost imperceptibly her eyes glanced toward her desk, toward the drawer with the hidden compartment. She recovered so quickly Solo could almost have believed he had not startled her into the glance. But he had seen the faint motion.

"Mr. Zamyatta and I are not exactly friends," Jezzi Mahal said.

Solo raised a surprised eyebrow. 'No? How stupid of me. I meant Colonel Brown. The man in the picture there."

"The colonel is not a man to have for an enemy, whoever you may be," Jezzi Mahal said. "If you wish him for an enemy, it can be arranged."

"I'll bet it could," Solo said. "I better leave, hadn't I?"

"I strongly suspect it."

Solo grinned again and left the woman in the study. He walked easily across the living room, opened the doors—and closed them again. He jumped back into the cover of a large chair and crouched low. Unseen, he saw the woman come to the study door, look, and immediately go back. He heard her lift the receiver of the telephone.

Solo moved quickly to the doors again, opened them silently this time, and went out. He ran across the terrace and into the gully in the sand hills. He climbed up the hills to his car as fast as he could.

At the edge of the highway he looked carefully in all directions. People were on the beach again—men who carried weapons. Other men moved at a run through the sand hills below.

Solo grinned and ran for his car. He jumped in and started the engine. A long, black car appeared up the highway from the direction of San Pablo. It was coming fast. Solo threw his car into gear and drove off away from San Pablo.

The black car did not stop at The Silver Dunes. It came on at a fast pace.

Ahead there was a curve. Solo went around the curve and swerved off the road into a side road the instant the black car was hidden behind him. Moments later a jeep came around the bend from the opposite direction. The jeep and the black car raced together, passed, and both screeched to a halt. The two cars backed toward each other.