[Magazine 1966-­10] - The Moby Dick Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 4

"All burners active," Illya called turn the cockpit. "Now if we can only get lift—"

The 'copter's roof sounded as though a ton of pebbles rained on it. Counterpointing this came the thin whine of the turbines. Solo crouched on the damp ribbed floor beside the lightly-breathing Dr. Shelley. He felt the 'copter shudder, strain as more and more water poured down, a torrent of water, a thunder of water that hammered his ears pitilessly. Suddenly, there was lift.

"We're up," Illya called from in hunt. "Up, but not out."

Nothing could be seen through the cockpit glass except streaming torrents of gray-green water. The 'copter began to lurch and pitch. Illya fought the controls. Using his knees, Solo tried to brace Shelley's body against one wall to prevent additional serious injury. The wound on Shelley's temple had slowed its flow. But a dark, sinister bruise was forming.

Illya Kuryakin was wrenching the control rods and levers back and forth, adjusting the pitch every second as the rotors sought to lift the craft up and away from the torrent.

The jet 'copter shuddered another time. Metal whanged. Insulated cables broke loose from the wall, lashed wildly. Solo was thinking up a prayer. He figured it would need to be brief if he was to get it all in. The 'copter gave one last awful buck and pitch, then went zooming upward with a speed that almost dislocated Napoleon Solo's stomach.

Panting, Solo crawled into the cockpit seat beside Illya. The jet 'copter was lifting smoothly into the slate, blue sky. They had pulled up through the worst. Solo ran his moist tongue over strangely parched lips.

Illya banked the 'copter. Out the window to port Solo saw an awful sight. There was a boiling cauldron of white water where the tidal wave had collapsed upon itself, a foaming area of churning fury nearly a mile wide. Nothing of the rocky island, nor any of its nearby companion islands remained.

"Such tidal waves are an oceanographic impossibility," Illya breathed, as if to convince himself of the truth of those words.

"That's nice," Solo said. "I'm really asleep in the hotel in London, having nightmares?"

"Let us sincerely hope that's it, Napoleon. Otherwise THRUSH has scored a march. Tidal waves do not simply generate themselves spontaneously, in seconds."

Solo tried to push the gnawing fact out of his mind. From where had the wave come? Naglesmith had given some sort of signal. But to what? To whom?

"Shelley's seriously injured," Solo said, jarred back to matters of the moment. "Try to cram more speed into those chopper blades. We'll land on the seacoast and radio for a paramedical squad to meet us." He felt exhausted, thick witted. Dr. Shelley hardly stirred on the wet cabin floor.

As Illya piloted the 'copter away from the maelstrom, Solo watched it drop behind. He licked his lips again. His expression grew stark as he gazed out over the ocean at the devastation still bubbling whitely back there. Cold sweat slicked his face.

Illya glanced over. "What are you thinking, Napoleon?"

In a croak, all Solo could manage to reply was, "Well, actually––I'm thirsty."

TWO

BEWARE THE white whale?" said Mr. Alexander Waverly.

"That's what the man said," replied Napoleon Solo.

A raised eyebrow from Mr. Waverly. "Project Ahab?"

Up went Solo's right hand, Scout-honor sign. "Illya heard it too."

Illya Kuryakin had his slippered feet up on an ottoman before the fire in the grate. Both he and Solo, twenty-four hours after their encounter with the bizarre tidal wave, looked somewhat gritty around the eyes but otherwise not much worse for the experience. Their scars were mostly on the inside.

The paramedical plane had flown Dr. Shelley and the two agents swiftly to London. U.N.C.L.E.'s oceanography expert was now in a London hospital, the victim of a severe concussion. He had fallen into a coma. Both agents had managed to catch about an hour's sleep apiece before the arrival of Mr. Waverly, via transatlantic jet, in response to their signal to New York that something large-scale and fishy was up.

Pondering, Mr. Waverly strolled to the window. He tapped his empty pipe against the sill. Outside, though it was midafternoon, fog lamps gleamed on the Thames Embankment. Chimes rang somewhere.

This conference room, a part of the U.N.C.L.E. London complex, was decorated in Victorian style. The only jarring note was the recessed bank of signal lights in the ceiling. Things were quiet. Only two lights flashed, one a standard blue showed that all security circuits surrounding the building's perimeter were operating correctly, and another, an intermittent orange flash, indicated cable traffic coming in from overseas.

"I don't know what to make of it." Mr. Waverly sighed. "I'd say it calls for an answer from a student of literature, or a psychiatrist, or both. Obviously, gentlemen, Naglesmith must have become mentally unstable when he realized he would die on the island."

"That's the easiest explanation." Illya did not sound convinced.

"Unfortunately it also is too simple for us to enjoy the luxury of adopting it," Waverly replied.

"Besides," Solo said, "we saw the evidence. Felt it. That tidal wave."

"A double hallucination is out of the question," Illya said.

"Um, quite right, quite right." Mr. Waverly sucked noisily at the cold briar. "Unfortunately we are faced with a dilemma. THRUSH may have succeeded in harnessing the tremendous destructive energy of the sea. But we are balked just there. We cannot question the one witness who might put us onto the right route of inquiry. Dr. Artemus Shelley's condition is not terminal. On the other hand, the physicians aren't certain just exactly how soon he'll come out of the coma."

Waverly consulted a gleaming gold wristwatch. "Perhaps I might check again, though—"

As the chief of one of the five sections of U.N.C.L.E.'s top level Policy and Operations division, Mr. Waverly showed his burdens in the slope of his shoulders and the pouches beneath his eyes. But he bore the burdens with dignity. As he walked across the carpet, he might have been starting out to pick up the phone to call his tailor.

Flopped into a huge and supremely comfortable easy chair which ministered to his assorted aches very nicely, Solo peered through two fingers of his left hand, which was propped under his chin. He'd had to run out and buy a top coat for the trip to the airport to meet Waverly. He kept recalling the saucy little girl who had waited on him. The girl had a pert, fetching figure, a charming Cockney accent, and an easy to recall phone number.

Too bad.

There was an air of tension in the room, born of frustration. Illya sat up. "Beg your pardon, sir, but Napoleon and I still don't know exactly what role Dr. Shelley plays in all this. What does he really do for us?"

Waverly turned. "Didn't I cover that? Forgive me. My mind's been a lot overworked in this affair."

"We didn't see illusions," said Solo. "That was certified water. A mountain."

Waverly said, "Project Ahab. It of course refers to Melville's magnificent book about the white whale, Moby Dick. Captain Ahab was the whaling vessel's maniacal captain dedicated to the whale's pursuit. Now the only context into which I can put the words Project Ahab is one which includes––no, no, it won't do. We had a report two and a half years ago that he went down in a THRUSH weapons bathysphere off Rio."

Memory surged back to Solo then. "Of course. Commander Victor Ahab."