[Magazine 1966-­08] - The Cat and Mouse Affair - Davis Robert Hart (версия книг .txt) 📗

The pencil-radio crackled. The voice of O'Hara's chief assistant was clear, cool, and enticingly female. "Zambala Control. Come in, Agent Solo."

Solo made a mental note to meet O'Hara's assistant as soon as possible. "Is there any word yet from Agent Kuryakin?"

"Negative. No contact with Agent Kuryakin since yesterday. Channel of his transmitter has been continuously open," the low, throaty voice said.

Solo nodded grimly. "Call as soon as there is contact. Make it a priority One, Code ten."

A priority One was the only call that could break radio silence to an agent on active assignment. "Priority One. Will do. Over and out."

For a brief moment, Solo imagined the face and form of the female voice. Then he sighed aloud, climbed out the window over the motionless body of Inspector Tembo, and moved swiftly through the night to his car. He drove toward the waterfront and The Harbor Inn.

When he reached the silent and deserted area of the waterfront of San Pablo where The Harbor Inn's lights were gaudy in the night, Solo reached into his attache case on the front seat beside him and took out a small electronic instrument. He parked his car and got out. The instrument in his hand, he started at the door of The Harbor Inn.

The instrument showed no response. He walked away from the inn toward the edge of the water, where the wig had been found floating by O'Hara's men.

The instrument began to register at a spot where the sidewalk turned sharply away from the water. Solo smiled to himself. Illya had left the trail—the private trail of sensitized liquid from his shoes that only Napoleon Solo could pick up on his detector.

Solo returned to his car, and, with the detector set on the dashboard in front of him, picked up the trail and started to drive out of the city. The trail led deep into the hills and jungle to the north of San Pablo.

A half an hour later, thirty miles north of San Pablo, Solo became aware that he was not alone.

The lights of a truck moved steadily behind him.

TWO

They had come and gone twice more before Illya Kuryakin saw his chance. The last time the black-uniformed guard failed to tie his hands securely, the many tieings and untieings having made the guard careless. After all, how could this small blond man escape from the locked cave room, even if he got his hands free?

Illya smiled grimly to himself—the guard would find out. He waited what he estimated were ten minutes for the routine of the guards to become normal. Then he went to work on his bonds. They were a fraction too loose. By using all his trained skills, the small Russian squeezed his open hand into the smallest space possible and strained to slip them through the bonds. Sweat stood out in beads on his head.

He strained, drawing his narrowed hand through the ropes—and the hand began to slip. Shaking the sweat from his eyes, the blond U.N.C.L.E. agent forced his hand harder and harder against the loop of the rope.

And his hand slipped out!

Quickly he freed his other hand and bent to the ropes on his feet. Moments later he stood and rubbed the circulation back into his legs.

Now he had to hurry. The stimulant drug would begin to wear off soon, and when it wore off his brain would give out, his muscles would go limp, his control would slip away, and he would sleep for thirty-six hours.

Moving swiftly, his face set in grim concentration, the small blond agent took off his belt and carefully felt the wide leather band. He drew out a flat foil packet, a thin thread, and a long thin wire. He replaced his belt and bent to his left shoe. From the heel of the shoe he took out a round ball the size of a marble. He stood up and crossed the silent stone cell to the steel door.

Bending close, his shrewd eyes alert under his lowered brow, he inspected the lock. He smiled—a single standard lock. He placed the foil packet on the lock of the door where it stuck with its self-adhesive. He attached the thin thread and rubbed it hard. There was a flash of flame and Illya leaped back.

The foil packet began to glow white hot, casting an eerie glare in the stone cell that made the shadow of the blond agent loom large against the stone of the walls. Then the glow ceased. Illya moved silently to the door and opened it. There was no guard outside. Illya stepped out, the long wire in his right hand.

The stone tunnel led to the left. At the far end there was a faint light. Illya glided silently toward the light. The tunnel opened into a small stone room with another steel door on the far side. A single guard sat at a rough table in the room. The guard was reading a book, his British Sten gun on the table in front of him.

Illya was across the room to the table in two quick bounds. The guard heard him and grabbed frantically for his Sten gun. The book slithered away across the cold stone floor. Illya had the wire looped around the throat of the guard. The guard fought. Illya hung on grimly as the heavier guard thrashed and fell to the floor on top of the small agent.

Illya tightened the wire, drew it closer around the throat of the struggling guard. His hands thrashing, the guard dropped the Sten gun and clawed behind him for Illya's face. His fingernails raked close to the eyes of the grim Russian.

Then his hands grew weaker, he flailed once more at nothing, and lay still.

Illya released the wire. The man groaned. Illya pressed a spot on the man's neck and the man lay still, unconscious. Illya found the keys on the unconscious man and crossed the silent room to the second door. He opened this door cautiously and found himself in another corridor. He moved down this corridor.

The cave turned out to be not a single unit but a honeycomb of passages and small rooms and larger rooms down side tunnels, where Illya heard activity. A vast maze of caves like the caves of Guam and Okinawa during the Second War, where an army could hide and vanish like wraiths in the wind.

Now the maze came to Illya's aid. By using his ears he was able to move unseen, hiding whenever any of the black-uniformed men approached, their footfalls clear on the stone floor. But the real aid was the narrowness of the tunnels. Through the dark and narrow passages the air moved strongly in a venturi effect, and, by feeling the direction of the air, the blond agent moved steadily toward the exit from the complex of caves.

He saw a faint silver light ahead, a round area of silver darkness, before he was discovered.

He saw the exit and passed a wide side gallery at the same instant. In the gallery men worked. A shout went up. Illya darted a quick glance at the gallery and saw the men in black running toward him. He knew that there would be guards at the entrance. His quick mind saw that he could reach the exit before he was caught, but there would be the guards.

He was dressed all in black.

He took out the tiny marble-sized object and hurled it at the advancing men from the side gallery. There was a flash of flame, a loud explosion, and thick white smoke blocked the men from the gallery. The cloud of white smoke spread with incredible speed. Illya ran shouting toward the exit.

"Attack! Attack! They've broken through! Everyone to the rear!" Illya shouted in perfect Zambalan-English.

His running black figure, the smoke and flame behind him, gave the three guards on the exit no chance to think. They left their position and came running toward him. Illya stopped, urged them on to the rear. They ran passed him, their weapons ready, their eyes on the thick cloud of smoke.

With a grin, Illya watched them run to the rear, turned, and ran on to the exit. He reached the exit and went out into a moonlit night before he heard the shouts behind him that told him his trick had been discovered.