The Final Affair - McDaniel David - Страница 19

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That cost him count — he g1impsed his watch while he crossed Harry’s wrists in front of him and shifted the weight onto his back. <i>48 - 49 50 … Better get moving.</i>

His burden balanced like a side of beef, he staggered into the corridor again, hooking the door to with his toe and near1y losing his balance in the process. 64-65- 66… He made the end of the corridor and c1eared the corner with about five seconds, to spare, secure in the knowledge that Il1ya would be likely to give him a few seconds mar9in.

Once he was out of camera range he could slow down. The stairs were going to be a problem -“HEY, FELLA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? <i>Hold it right there!!</i>”

Napoleon started to turn, drawing his gun with his free hand, and fe1t something slam into his back like a sledgehammer as the SPLAT of a silenced Thrush rifle followed the sudden voice behind him. His own automatic coughed fatally once and silence rose from the carpet as the wa11s absorbed the echoes. The Thrush guard kicked a few seconds and was still.

Harry felt strangely limper than he had a minute before —Napoleon ducked and lifted the linked arms to check his passenger. He didn’t look…

It suddenly became apparent to Napoleon that Harry’s troubles were, ultimately. finished.

So was their carefully prepared plan. Harry could no 10f1ger be induced to tell anyone anything, and there was an inconvenient1y dead Thrush unexpectedly involved as well. The situation called for some brilliant improvisation. He wished Illya were there.

<i>Two deaths do not cancel each other,</i> he said to himself, <i>but two bodies may be easier to explain than one if we use them to explain each</i>

<i>other.</i> A pair of double doors opened off the corridor into a large dark office. and a quick search found and lit a desk lamp.

<i>Now — how do we do it? Harry was shot while escaping, obviously.

And he killed the guard before he died. Uh-huh — with what? Well, he grabbed the guard’s pistol? You’re kidding. Got a better idea?</i> He shook his head and started plotting the set-up.

Put the guard over by the door, maybe even with his body slumped against it; Harry about three feet away. the guard’s automatic in his hand.

Say Harry had been hiding in here and the guard heard him. or -There was a footstep outside and Napoleon’s hand darted to the lamp switch plunging the room into darkness just as the latch clicked and the door opened.

Light spilled in from the corridor. silhouetting a figure with a gun in her hand pointing steadily at him. He froze, squinting against the bright fluorescents. There almost seemed to be something familiar about the way she stood…

Slowly she lowered the gun.

“Napoleon?” said a soft. slightly hesitant voice.

Something impossible started to stir in his memory as she spoke; on sudden impulse he snapped the desk lamp back on. She came a step towards him. tentatively.

“Have I changed So much?” she ask~d. “After eighteen years — don’t you recognize me?”

It was Joan.

His wife.

Section III : “Cry ‘Havoc!’, And Let Slip The Dogs Of War.”

CHAPTER NINE

“Where Have You Been All My Life?”

The room spun about Napoleon. and a wave of dizziness blurred his vision for a moment. He leaned on the desk and tried to think. The question of a hoax never entered his mind.

JOa71.

The only photograph he had of her was a yellowed snapshot in the bottom of a box somewhere —he hadn’t seen it in years. But her image was still clear in that part of his mind where he lived alone; cool. intelligent eyes with a directness of gaze which had annoyed some of his classmates but had drawn him magnetically; a certain indefinable grace of posture and movement which even now identified her more surely to him even than her soft and husky voice.

He stared at her. unable to voice the questions bursting unformed within him. She looked down at the floor. “Good.” she said. “1 thought you’d think of that.” She knelt smoothly to inspect Harry’s body. then rose again as effortlessly as a dancer. “Would you have noticed the guard’s pistol hasn’t been fired? Baldwin would.”

Napoleon became aware that his mouth was open. and closed it. Then he realized he’d been asked a question. and opened it again to answer. But he couldn’t think of anything to say. “Joan?” he finally said tentatively.

“1 thought you might be a little surprised.” she said. “1111 explain it all to you, but not right now. You want to get out of here, don’t you?”

“Uh —yes…Oh! The Luger!” He stood up and studied the scene again. And Harry. And Joan, who had been killed in a horrible accident back home while he was carrying an M-l through enemy snow with death crouched behind every hill. He’d hardly known her, his bride of a year. with whom held lived less than a month —and nearly twenty years later, half his lifetime removed. he scarcely thought about her except as a private dream that had no relation to the real world…

While that part of his mind reeled in gibbering confusion, his trained intelligence took on the problem at hand. He worked the toggle and ejected one cartridge from the guard’s Luger; Joan caught it and dropped it into her pocket. Then he fired one muffled round into the guard’s body, directing the slug parallel to the angle of the first and fatal wound. This done, he fitted the Luger back into Harry’s limp and coo1ing hand.

He straightened from his task, and Joan handed him the gleaming coppery cartridge. “At least it’s the right caliber.” she pointed out.

Napoleon scowled “But it’s a wadcutter,” he pointed out. “Mine are full-jacketed hollowpoints. Tough. We can’t do an autopsy to find the other slug and replace it without more trouble than we can spare at the moment. We have a chance it won’t be found, at least for a couple of days, and it may be bashed up beyond ballistic reconstruction. Or they may not care to work on it. It looks like an open and shut case from here.”

“Let’s hope it does from upstairs. We’d better get out now. I think.”

The plural registered belatedly, and Napoleon reacted.

Joan noticed. and looked at him. “Do you want me to come with you?”

He stated at her. and suddenly whole areas of memories untapped for years flashed before him. Joan?? Finally he said. “I’ve changed.”

She smiled. “So have I. Napoleon. Possibly more than you —or perhaps not. But I think you’re the same in the important ways.”

“Do —you want to come? You know who I am and what I do…”

“Of course. Everyone in Thrush does.”

“Thrush?”

“Of course Thrush. you ninny! Where do you think you are? I was working for Thrush before you even heard of U.N.C.L.E. —from about the time they first heard of you.”

“Oh! Uh. maybe you!d better explain after we get outside. Yes. If you come with me, I —I’d be honored. But…”

“Napoleon. before we go on I want to tell you one thing. I never pretended or lied about the way I felt about you. Everything else —”

“Not now. I’m not really sure you’re real. but I don’t want anything to happen to you before I find out. It’s— it’s been a long eighteen years. And a lot has happened.”

Her smile wanned him again. ?Yes. quite a lot. Where’s your partner.

Illya? I’ve wanted to meet him for years.”

“He’s right upstairs… Oh ye gods! Illya!” He looked at his watch. It was nine minutes past four. “He’s sitting in the middle of an ultrasonic field upstairs. and I’m ten minutes late to get him out. Come on!”

With a last quick. look around. they checked all the elements of their tableau, switched off the light. and departed. In silence, Napoleon led the way back to the proper stairwell and up two flights. There was his sonic shield, just as he’d left it. He cracked the door. and extended the baton.

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