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

"And the reactor?"

The agent gestured towards the indicator board. On the section detailing the lowest floor, the central rondel was bracketed at all its entrances by illuminated red lines. "It's the only part of the middle bit protected," he said. "Now we have to go to this other board and – ah - pull a few strings to open things… the doors to the tunnel, for example."

"But, Illya, what are we going to do? I mean, there are only two of us, after all… and at least one has to stay here in case they come back and reopen all the doors you've closed. And if that one was me, I wouldn't like to guarantee that I could hold out against all of them. On the other hand, what could I do out there if you stayed?"

"The point is well taken," Kuryakin said. "You couldn't complete the mission if I stayed here; I wouldn't be allowed to if you did. Ergo, we send for help… and don't forget, they wouldn't come back here: they are here. There are still six of them underneath."

"What do you mean, call for help?" the girl said.

Illya produced the tiny transceiver from his belt. "Waverly," he said. "He's waiting with O'Rourke and others not far from the estancia. If I can find some way of operating the far end of the tunnel, they can come right in. If not, they'll have to blast their way through. In either case, as you point out, we won't be able to get to the maintenance section and put the missiles out of action without them."

"And the second part of the mission - your friend?"

As Kuryakin frowned, the downstairs door to the council chamber was flung violently open. The crash of the steel door against the wall was drowned in the clamor of the submachine guns held by the two uniformed men standing there.

Once more they dropped to the floor - noticing from the corners of their eyes a blur of movement from beneath the gallery towards the soldiers and their covering fire.

The agent crawled a little way along the gallery as the staccato tattoo of slugs ripped into the walls and ceiling above them. After a moment he ducked up, gun in hand, and fired a single shot. The clatter of the Thompsons ceased. Something fell metallically to the floor. A moment later the door slammed again.

Kuryakin rose to his feet. "Got one of them," he said, blowing the curl of smoke from the gun's barrel. "It was just a diversion to get the top brass away. But we'll let 'em go: it's easier for us without them down there."

He turned his back on the chamber below and began studying the masses of equipment stacked around the control room.

"Look here," he said, opening the lid of what looked like an oversized record-player cabinet. "There's the usual ground-glass screen in the lid - complete with schematic diagrams and pilot lights in a pattern I don't recognize - plus levers and knobs on top of the chassis in the box it self. And the only identification is this strip here saying 'Section E.' Now if E could stand for estancia..."

He never knew what extra sense made him turn his head at that moment. A faint current of air, perhaps; something moving reflected in a bright surface in the corner of his eye; a sound too small to be registered by the conscious mind... Whatever it was, he did turn - and saw the bludgeon on its way down to the back of his skull.

As his breath hissed in with astonishment, he lurched to one side with an arm automatically raised to ward off the blow.

The girl, pivoting too, gave a gasp of alarm as she took in the scene in a single agonized glance: the yawning trapdoor which had been silently opened behind a bank of teleprinters, the attacker - he was one of the two thick-set men who had been at the table when they'd come in - with murderous expression and upraised arm, the whistle of the blackjack.

It was too late for Kuryakin to escape the blow completely. The blackjack glanced off his wrist and thudded into the muscle between his collar bone and the point of his shoulder, forcing a shout of pain from his lips and paralyzing his arm.

As the Walther crashed to the floor from his numbed hand, the man swung around in a smooth spiral of controlled energy, knocked the Beretta from the girl's grasp with the truncheon and - before the little gun had gone spinning out of the shattered window to crash to the floor below - had swung back on the rebound and knocked her sprawling to the far side of the room.

Illya reeled, pain searing his whole side. Desperately, through blinded eyes, he fixed his gaze on the blackjack and groped upwards to fasten wiry fingers on the wrist that wielded it.

The big man snarled, shaking the slight figure of the agent from side to side as a mongoose shakes a snake.

But eventually the crushing judo grip forced apart his fingers and the blackjack clattered down. Swearing, he collapsed suddenly to the ground, dragging Illya on top of him. The Russian brought up his knee to the man's solar plexus and forced his sound forearm under the blue chin. But the attacker knew all the tricks in the wrestling trade - and he was formidably strong, too. At a distance, Kuryakin could have held his own, but they were already too much at close quarters for him to stand a chance.

The thug rolled over, holding the agent to him in a bear hug, caromed off the telleprinters, and sat up with Illya in a scissors grip. Three times, viciously, his fist jarred the Russian's head - and then again they were locked together toe to toe, wrist to wrist, with every muscle, shrieking to sound out a weakness in the opponent's guard.

Abruptly, Kuryakin abandoned the trial of strength and went limp. For a moment he was bent over the opening left by the trapdoor - then, wrapping his legs around the man's hips, he dropped through, dragging the thug with him.

From below came the sound of splintering wood and a strangled shout.

The girl had picked herself up, sobbing, some time before. The Walther had been kicked somewhere under a cabinet in the fight and she bad been circling the struggling men, not knowing how to help. Her mascara had run and her nose was bleeding. Now, with a cry of alarm, she sprang to the edge and looked down.

Amid the remnants of a table, the Thrush man had Kuryakin bent backwards like a bow in the agonizing grip known as the Boston Crab. In wrestling bouts this dangerous hold almost always results in a submission; if there is no referee and the pressure is continued, a spine snaps.

Aghast, Coralie watched the veins on the big man's temple and arms bulge as Kuryakin's eyes turned up; and his face broke out in sweat.

"Illya!" she screamed.

"Pen… pen…" the agent choked. "Quick... floor."

In anguish, her eyes swept the boards below. In the exertion of the struggle, most of the contents of Illya's belt had been spilled out onto the ground. Among them was a slim cylinder resembling a ballpoint.

Without hesitating, she dropped through the trapdoor like a stone, hit the floor with a numbing impact, staggered, recovered herself - and reached for the tiny device. There was a button at one end.

Almost in a reflex action, before he had realized what was happening, she had pointed the other end at the thug's face and thumbed the button. There was a shrill hiss of gas escaping under pressure. The man's eyes widened, his mouth split open in an almost ludicrous expression of surprise, and he pitched forward as the agent collapsed with a groan of relief.

---

Ten minutes later, when the girl had tidied herself up and Kuryakin had recovered sufficiently to climb the ladder back to the control room, they began again to speculate whether the cabinet with the screen in the lid was a control for the outer gates of the tunnel.