The Dagger Affair - McDaniel David (читать хорошую книгу полностью .TXT) 📗

Baldwin murmured, "We have them entirely by surprise. The day is ours. Pardon me...." And he opened the door into the shop.

He stepped forward two paces, allowing Napoleon and Illya to stand flank to him, guns drawn. Then he rapped his cane on the floor twice. The thumps echoed through the chamber, and heads turned.

"Attention, please," he announced. "Put down your tools and raise your hands. You are all under arrest, and anything you say may be taken down and used as evidence. Everyone come off the scaffolding and out of the machine; line up here on the floor before me."

A few of them started to move, and then a distorted metallic voice rang from over their heads.

"Stay where you are. Before you try anything, Baldwin, look up and look around."

There weren't many men on the roof of the little office room, no more than half a dozen. But each of them had a heavy caliber rifle pointed downward toward the three invaders.

As they looked up the office doors slammed behind them, cutting off their only retreat. The man with the bull-horn aimed his voice at the machine. "Don — Leo. Come over here. Some people you should say goodbye to."

Two men, the only ones wearing white coats, appeared and approached. One was husky and blond, the other slight and slender, with a vague face. There was a rustle and a thump, and the tall, slender young man with the cold glittering eyes was standing beside them, loud-hailer by his side.

"Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin. You will remember me. So will you, Mr. Baldwin. Now would you please put your guns away? Any sudden moves would result in your untimely death in a much less pleasant manner than you have earned."

Napoleon and Illya replaced their automatics, and Kim Keldur continued, "Too bad you came tonight. Tomorrow the Energy Damper will be ready for its final tests, and you should be allowed to see it. But we can't keep you very long. You are very hard to capture or kill, so we will take advantage of our position while we have you.

"Get them back to the corner," he said to the men on the roof. Three of them shouldered their weapons and climbed down, then took up the guard again while the other three joined them. Napoleon and Illya were hustled off, and one guard tried to grab Baldwin's cane.

"I warn you, young man," said the Thrush chief sharply, "I cannot walk without my stick. If you take it, you will have to carry me, and I am not an easy load."

The DAGGER looked at Keldur, who nodded. "Let him keep it, but watch him. The old devil is tricky."

As he and the other two stood with guns bristling around them, Napoleon thought, Mr. Waverly was scheduled to come to the rescue in five minutes. I hope he remembered to wind his watch this morning.

Chapter 15: "Mr. Solo, We Are DAGGER!"

They were taken to the next corner of the hangar, where there were a few folding chairs and a table, and directed to sit down with their hands under them. Keldur leaned against the table.

You have been looking for us for some time. I am Kim Keldur. This is Don Chernik" — he indicated the husky blond — "and this is Leo Holt. The device you see before you is ours."

"And who do you think you are?" Napoleon asked.

Keldur smiled a thin, hard smile. "Mr. Solo, we are DAGGER. We will open the throat of the world with our blade, and bring antiseptic peace to this crawling cesspool of a planet. Our goal is the most noble in the history of the foul human race, and we are about to achieve it. My discoveries, the designs and constructions of my friends here — fate brought us together like parts of a supercritical mass which will irradiate and cleanse the globe.

"Rather an ambitious statement, my boy," said Baldwin. "The world is a very large place, and quite full of life."

"Words mean nothing," Keldur said. "The only proof is experimental proof. Two days from now, if anything lives on this planet, it will prove my theories wrong. But I have more evidence behind my prediction." He rose, and stalked over to a cabinet. "Would you like a demonstration? You shall have one."

Napoleon recognized the device he brought out, and his heart started to pound. It was the first working model — the one Illya had smashed just before it could claim its first victim. And now it would claim three. Napoleon Solo was afraid of very few things in the world — but this was one of them. He knew its effects too well. The back of his neck tightened until his scalp ached.

Keldur carried it lovingly back to the table. "Unfortunately, we cannot maintain you until the final test tomorrow. A less humane man than I would simply shoot you and throw your bodies into the Bay. But then you would suffer needlessly. This will be most gentle."

He stroked the coil gently with a fingertip. "This coil is directional. The one up there" — he gestured — "is non-directional. That and the size are the only essential differences between the two. All those controls are simply to check separate parts of the circuitry. One master switch will send a sufficient surge of power to all parts of it at once when the time comes, and the field will begin to spread out. Only a few connections remain to be made in the final stages. I really wish you could be with us to watch. Your world ending — and mine beginning. But you are too dangerous. You would try to interfere, and too much must be done. Now you will have to be content with this small-scale version — which will be quite large enough for you. Goodbye, gentlemen." And he twisted the knob on the side.

Napoleon wanted to scream, but his throat wouldn't open. And then his legs and arms were growing numb, and time was slowing down. The room grew darker and began to fade....

And then the light was there again, and the echoes of thunder were filling the hangar. He turned his head, and saw Waverly standing in the entrance from the office, his Webley smoking in his right hand. "The first man who moves will die on the spot," the familiar firm voice barked.

Keldur leaped from the table and was gone as the Webley thundered again and the slug tore a hole in the cabinet behind which he had vanished. Napoleon fumbled for his automatic, but his fingers still wouldn't obey. The guards were dropping to the floor, their automatic rifles coming to bear on the U.N.C.L.E. commander. The Webley roared again, and one guard fell aside, dead before he hit the ground. Then there was a sound like a fire-extinguisher, and a billow of white smoke covered the remaining five guards.

It squirted from the end of Baldwin's cane as a liquid, and was directed like a stream from a hose upon the prone figures, but it turned to a heavy gas in mid-air, a safe distance away from the user. Two rifles fired wildly, and the guards thrashed a moment upon the floor, then were still. The gas dissipated rapidly as Baldwin said, "Thornite. Now you see why I still keep it in stock. Much more efficient than the Webley."

"At least at short-range," said Napoleon. He finally had his automatic out, and was looking anxiously about for anyone of the opposition forces. The workers had all disappeared from around the machine, and they seemed to be alone as Waverly hurried toward them.

"I get the impression I arrived at just the right time," he said.

"You could have come in a minute earlier, and I wouldn't have minded at all," said Napoleon. "You see what I meant, Illya? We've got to destroy that thing."

"Afraid not, Napoleon," said Waverly. "Our technical crews want to take it apart carefully."

Illya, looking around the huge hangar, suddenly flipped his gun up and snapped off a shot at a shadowy figure near the far end.