The Doomsday Affair - Whittington Harry - Страница 9
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He stepped down from the bunk then, and walked leisurely across the cell. He dropped the spoon back on the tray and leaned against the bars, trying not to watch the fire flickering in the paper around the heat-bomb pellet.
He made a mental countdown, watching the corridor. The sound the pellet would make would not be huge, but it would be enough to be heard all over the cell block.
As he waited, he tried to compute the time he would have, running across the cell, lunging upward against those bars that would be ripped free along the bottom, but perhaps only loosened on the sides. He would have to go out that window in whatever space was blown loose by the heat-bomb. He knew it was going to be small.
At the instant the heat bomb exploded, the wall quivering with the mild concussion, Illya heard the shouts along the cell block, the pound of shoes as men ran in the corridors.
He did not waste time to look over his shoulder. He sprang up on the bunk, shoving with his hands, finding the bars still friction-heated. He thrust outward with all his strength, twisting as he pushed.
He breathed a small prayer of thanksgiving because three courses of bricks beneath the window had been blown loose and his weight against them sent them falling outside the jail. Holding his breath, he pushed upward on the bars, worming his head into the opening.
Illya’s head and shoulders were outside the window. Behind him he heard the shouting of men, the ring of keys, the clang of metal. It occurred to him that surely Lieutenant Guerrero would have a special torture and inquisition set-up for captured escapees. Guerrero would never stop tormenting him if he were caught and returned now. What better admission of guilt than an escape attempt?
Illya pressed downward on the bricks of the outside of the jail, thinking that he was like a woman trying to get into her girdle, only what he hoped to accomplish was to work his body through an opening too small to accommodate it.
He turned and twisted, feeling his hips sliding through, feeling the cut of the bars, the scraping of the broken wall, and feeling the pain, too. The worst pain was the fear of being caught by the legs from behind, of being dragged back into that jail, squirming like a fish.
He pushed harder, feeling more bricks give, feeling his hips twist through the hole. A hard hand clutched at his ankle. Panic gave him forward thrust. He lunged outward, his hips freed. He lost his balance and went tumbling down toward the paved alleyway.
He struggled, trying to turn his body, attempting to land on his feet like a cat. He didn’t make it. He struck hard, and flat, the breath blasted out of him.
Breathing painfully, Illya sat up and looked around. From above him, he heard the warning shouts of the jailers, the crack of a gun. He scrambled on all fours to the shelter of the wall, trying to buy enough time to recover his breath.
He stared down at his feet, realizing for the first time that whoever had caught at his ankle had jerked off one of his shoes.
For a moment he slumped, feeling the chill of defeat. How far could he get in one shoe? He couldn’t lose himself in a crowd; he’d have eye witnesses to every move he made.
A gun fired above him and the bullet splatted in the pavement near him, galvanizing him into action, and shifting a gear in his brain. This was a vacation spot, wasn’t it, a land of gaudy shirts, shorts, bikinis—and bare feet?
Trying to control his desire for frantic haste, Illya pulled off his remaining shoe and his socks and tossed them away. He rolled up his slacks above his ankles, leaped to his feet and ran along the street.
Behind him sirens whistled and alarms flared. Armed men ran from the police station into the street.
Illya pulled his shirt from his trousers, and forced himself to saunter through the gathering crowd gaping at the curbs.
A taxi driver stood beside his hack, watching the uniformed men spilling from the police headquarters.
“Cab,” Illya said, opening the rear door and stepping inside the taxi.
The driver pulled himself reluctantly from the excitement. Behind the wheel, he grinned over his shoulder. “Where to? And you ain’t the guy they’re looking for, are you?”
Illya shrugged. “What do you think?”
The driver started the car, flipped down the meter flag and pulled away from the curb. He made it only to the center of the street when he was halted by two patrolmen armed with rifles. “Where you headed?” one of them wanted to know.
The driver shrugged, jerking his head toward the rear. “I don’t know. Got a fare here.”
Illya was lying back casually, his bare feet up on the seat. He grinned vacantly at the cops, hoping they had not seen him inside the jail. “Waikiki, driver. Let’s get away from here; I can’t stand violence.”
The cops pulled their heads back from the car and waved the cab on. Illya sat up, turning, giving them a wide grin and a bye-bye wave. At the same time he was saying to the driver, “Is this as fast as you can go?”
The driver, suddenly alerted, stiffened and stepped on the gas. He said, “You armed, mister?”
Illya turned, his face blank. “They so seldom arm the inmates, Charley. Just drive.”
He watched the driver’s knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. When the cabbie made a sudden move to turn a corner, it was as though Illya could read the slow process of his thoughts—around the corner and back to the police.
Illya leaned forward and laid the side of his hand against the cabbies Adams apple with only the slightest pressure. “I think this is far enough. You stop when you make this corner.”
“Okay. Okay. I got nothing against you, buddy. I just want to keep my license.”
“I have my little ambitions, too,” Illya told him.
He stepped out of the cab while it was still rolling, and strolled through the crowd. A bus was pulling in to the curb at the far corner. He ran across the street and boarded it.
When he heard police sirens behind the bus, he touched the cord, alighted and walked swiftly down the side street. He had gone less than half a block when a Volkswagen swung around a corner ahead of him and cruised toward him. He paused, watching it, vaguely troubled without knowing why he should be. There were three men crowded into the small car—and then he recognized the driver. It was the man with the lethal fountain pen.
There was an arcade at his left; Illya stepped into it and strode along it, going past the shops that lined it toward a walled court lighted with afternoon sun. He winced, seeing the cul-de-sac, and knowing there was no chance his friends in the Volkswagen hadn’t spotted him, just as they must have been watching the jail. Sam and company meant to see that he was framed for Ursula’s murder, and kept incarcerated.
Near the rear of the arcade Illya paused and looked over his shoulder. The Volkswagen pulled into the curb and the three men unwound themselves from it, spreading out to search for him.
He stepped into the alcove of a curio shop. From this shadowed concealment he watched his friend of the deadly fountain pen stride toward him, his dark eyes searching the stores, watchful and alert.
Illya waited until the man passed, then he stepped from the alcove. “Were you looking for me, friend?”
He heard the man gasp, turning. He didn’t let him get all the way around because he was too immersed in the memory and rage of what had happened to him in that jail cell. The man threw up his arm to shield himself and Illya drove his extended fingers into the unprotected armpit, and then clipped him across the neck with the side of his hand.
He didn’t wait to see him fall. He moved through the astonished bystanders, ran across the curb and leaped into the unattended Volkswagen.
He burned away from the curb with the accelerator pressed to the floor. The two men ran after him, shouting, guns drawn. Over and above the wail of horns and the shouting, he heard the scream of approaching police sirens.
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