The Diving Dames Affair - Leslie Peter (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗

"Tufik!... I mean O'Rourke," Illya cried. "What the devil are you doing here, you old rascal?"

His face broke into a smile, he gestured the girl to join them, and he ran across the road. Behind a screen of flowering shrubs, the huge Irishman sat in his wheel chair at a table which had been erected in a space beneath the frees. On the white cloth covering it were plates, cutlery, glasses and plastic containers filled with food. Behind, the tal1 moustached man called Raoul busied himself with a silver bucket, bottles and a portable icebox laid out on the top of a suitcase. Four folding chairs were pulled up to the table.

"As to what we're doin' here," O'Rourke said, "well, you got the invitation, did you not? Sure, of course you did, for here you are! Well then - we're entertaining some friends to luncheon, that's what."

"Yes, but... It was surprising enough to hear from Waverly, but to find you here..." Illya shook his head, "Oh, I'm sorry - of course you don't know each other," he added as the girl pushed through the bushes to join them. "Manuel O'Rourke – Miss Simone. And this is a colleague of Manuel's, Coralie, whom I know only as Raoul."

"Ortiz," the moustached man smiled as he bowed and shook hands. "It is agreeable to see that now you are together and not one in pursuit of the other, eh?"

"I remember you, of course," Coralie exclaimed, "In Rio! You're the man who was following Mr. Kuryakin too, aren't you?"

"I am desolated to contradict a lady," Raoul said. "But I was actually following you."

"Come on then, let's start; let us begin," O'Rourke said. "We cannot offer you too exotic a meal, for this is peasant country, not like the coast. But there is mungunza, acaraje, a cucumber salad, a cold fish from the Pireneos not too unlike salmon, and vatapa - a Bahia dish made from manihot flour cooked with dende oil and pimentos, with slices of fish in between. Also there is a local white wine which is drinkable so long as you chill it enough to kill the flavor."

"So what about Waverly, then?" Illya asked as they sat down a few minutes later and prepared to eat.

"Waverly?"

The Russian gestured to the vacant fourth chair. "Aren't we going to wait for him?" he asked.

O'Rourke chuckled throatily. "The vatapa would be congealed to hell if we did," he said. "That not Waverly's chair. That's for Rafael - he's away in the forest finding some local leaf for the salad. It's a deal of a job, you know, for 'tis not like the old country, where it's all green grasses and moss and I don't know what-all. You have to go searchin' for your greenstuff in this dried-up hole!"

"Yes, but where is Waverly?- if we're to take the message seriously at all."

Waverly? Sure he's in Rio."

"Well then…"

"If we'd waited for him, stayed there until he reached us from New York, we'd not have left until this morning. So we decided to drive up yesterday and last night - its not over six hundred miles - for the times of the planes were not convenient and anyway the car's rather – er - special."

"I'm afraid I still don't see..."

"Your Mr. Waverly's safe in my place. Joana and Consuela will look after him. Now come on and eat. We're not due to speak to him until two."

And not another word of business would the Irishman talk until that time. Rafael - who turned out to be the boy from the auto rental company in Brasilia - arrived with a fistful of thin green leaves. They ate and drank their way solidly through an excellently prepared and served meal, and at five minutes to two, O'Rourke pushed back his wheelchair, dabbed his mouth delicately with napkin, and said, "Right, me boyo! While Rafael and Raoul entertain the lady and prepare some coffee and Izarra, let's you and me cross the road and get to work, eh?

The enormous trunk of the Cadillac was entirely filled with electronic equipment - transmitting, receiving and recording. As the electrically operated lid rose, Kuryakin drew in his breath with a gasp of astonishment at the sight of the valves, transistors, condensers, selectors, tuners, spools and knobbed chassis packed in there.

"Ruddy old tin can," O'Rourke said, slapping the car on one of its huge fenders. "I'd rather have an Iso Rivolta, an Aston or a Maserati. But where else would you get about ninety cubic feet of stowage and enough motor to haul all this weight?"

"It's certainly most impressive," Illya said. "But isn't this a bit public? I mean, we're right on the side of road -"

"Have you heard any traffic while we've been eating? Did you see one single vehicle going in either direction Tell me."

"Well, no, now that you mention it. Even so -"

"Could happen there's a roadblock a while up the road. Just a routine check, no doubt. But these things do take time... and sure there are so many uniforms in Brazil that it's a bold man can tell the genuine from the spurious," the Irishman said innocently.

"O'Rourke! You haven't... you didn't... Actually, you did, didn't you? You really take the cake! You seal off half a state just so that you can make a private radio contact without inconveniencing yourself! I don't see too much difference between your setup here and in Casablanca. Talk about having your cake and eating it…"

O'Rourke merely smiled broadly as he wheeled his chair to the rear of the car and leaned in over the open trunk, twiddling knobs and dials.

"That must be a pretty powerful combination in there," Illya said conversationally.

"Powerful? Wait'll I show you, boy. It was built for me by a fellow he got drummed out of the CIA. electronics research department for helping radio hams with G.I. stores. Listen…?"

Through a burst of static a calm voice enunciated: "This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the eight o'clock news.... The rail strike is to go on as planned. Britain's balance of payments problem was described last night as 'chaotic' by the President of San Marino. In the county cricket championship -"

Chuckling, O'Rourke twirled his dials. "C'est ici Radio Monte Carlo," a voice said loudly. "Voire programme de vedettes. Et voici l'heuro: troisieme dop, ii sera exactement…"

Kuryakin looked at his watch. The minute hand was just beginning to coincide with the second hand over the hour. The hour hand stood at two.

"Hoe laat is het ontbijt? Wat hebt U klar? Wat is de specialiteit van het land?" the loudspeaker intoned. "Vandaag, morgenochtend altijd-het is de Corn Flakes van…"

"I don't wish to seem discourteous," Illya began as a lilting German voice began to croon of loves lost and regained, "but if Waverly is expecting us to call at two, don't you think perhaps…"

"You're right, boy. You're absolutely correct," O'Rourke said. "Here, wait'll I get the call sign going and you can speak privately on this." He handed the agent a radio telephone receiver shaped very like the normal domestic instrument. "It's scrambled at both ends. Not to worry!"

He spoke into a microphone in the trunk, adjusting knobs. Illya heard a girl's voice speaking in Portuguese and then, after a pause, Waverly's well-known dry tones: "Mr. Kuryakin? Are you there?"

"I'm here, sir."

"Good. We have very little time. I shall try to come out there myself later today, since I've come this far. But you'll have to act on your own. At once."