[Magazine 1966-­05] - The World's End Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 6

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Illya jerked his head up, staring at the blood-hued lights.

A hidden loudspeaker barked, "Immediate red alert! Immediate red alert!" A siren began to warble. Waverly snatched up the mike.

"Give me the Central Board." A pause. "This is Waverly. Where's the trouble?"

"The medical wing," came a voice. "Unexplained explosion. All primary communications systems have been knocked out. We're trying - hold on, here come the backups."

"Plug me in with the wing," Waverly ordered.

Solo and Illya tensed by the door, checking over their long-barreled pistols. There was another rattle of noise. As the back-up communications systems cut in, the audio-visual room filled with an amplified confusion of voices crying out in pain. Solo heard fire crackling, sirens warbling, walls collapsing. Waverly shouted for Dr. Bailey. Finally he answered:

"Here - here, sir; Chee woke up. The search units missed one thing. He had a high-intensity explosive cap on one of his teeth. He used it to blow half this floor to pieces the minute we left him alone. We thought he was still sleeping it off."

"Are you all right, Doctor?" Waverly said.

"Yes. Two of my interns got it, though. Killed by the blast. There's fire everywhere, but the sprinklers are on. We'll make it. The prisoner's loose."

"In which direction?"

"The express elevators leading to the basement level."

Illya snapped the slide on his pistol. "Let's go, Napoleon. If Chee discovers the underground channel leading to the motor launch dock at the East River, we've lost him."

Both men charged out of the room.

"Waverly!" came Dr. Bailey's voice. "I heard that. Tell Solo and Kuryakin to be careful. I'm willing to bet that if the prisoner had onetooth with an explosive cap, he had at least one more. Two is usually standard for THRUSH agents."

Under the blinking blood-colored lights, Mr. Waverly looked wan.

"It's too late, Doctor. They have already gone."

Four

Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin raced through the corridors, pistols drawn. Other

U.N.C.L.E. agents, responding to the red alert, crisscrossed the halls, then disappeared behind stainless steel doors which shut and sealed themselves and would not open again until a specified signal removed the alert.

Out of breath, the two agents reached the express elevator bank. Two sets of doors were recessed in the wall. Solo pointed to the indicator board above the closed doors.

"That one's in the basement already. If the alert signal had come a second or so sooner, we could have caught him between floors. Use your keys on the over-ride board, Illya."

Illya was already at work. He inserted one key and then another into the silvery-dull cover of a metal box set in the wall between the elevators.

Tumblers rattled faintly. The cover sprang open. Illya threw a toggle within the box.

At once the indicator lights above the right-hand elevator began to wink. The over-ride system had restored power. Within a few more seconds the men were riding downward again.

Neither spoke.

Finally the elevator stopped. Solo and Illya flattened against the side walls of the car, pistols ready. The doors opened.

Illya slid forward to the front of the car. He shifted his long-snouted pistol to his left hand. He used his right to press a button which locked the car doors to full open. Solo peered around the edge of the opening into the hallway.

In most respects the corridor resembled the one they had just quitted, stories above. The walls shimmered and reflected each other like dull steel mirrors. Recessed light banks, but fewer of them, blinked every dozen yards in the ceiling. Not so many doors opened off this corridor. And there was a faint but pervasive scent of salty, open water.

The corridor was empty.

"He must be down here," Illya said. "Each floor is sealed during an alert."

"He's here," Solo whispered back. "I'm getting the message from my spine. Let's go."

Solo's neck prickled as he and Illya stepped into the tomb-like hall. Like perfectly oiled machines, one of them whipped around to the left, one to the right. They swept the gloom with the muzzles of their pistols.

The doors of the other elevator stood open. Bright fluorescent light washed out over the concrete floor. But the car in which Chee had ridden down was also empty.

They began to walk. Their footfalls clicked and echoed, eerily. The ceiling lights flashed blue, amber, vermilion, coloring their faces with harlequin patterns. Solo licked his lips. A feeling that they were being watched increased.

His scalp tingled. His belly felt tight. Somewhere, in this corridor their quarry waited, hidden. The ceiling angled downward as they rleached the halfway point between the elevators and the massive steel doors which led to the underground quay and the private channel.

Illya's eyes ranged the corridor. "This is impossible, Napoleon. All the doors are sealed, the elevator is empty, and no one has gotten through those steel lovelies blocking the exit to the river." He craned his head back to stare at the ceiling. At this point it was barely three feet above their heads. "I don't see where our elusive friend could have got to, unless he ascended to heaven as a cloud of ectoplasm. I would have sworn -"

Barely whispering, Solo said, "Quiet. He's watching us. From that vantage point you mentioned. Don't turn! Keep staring at the river doors. Something just registered. At the place back there where the ceiling began to slope, I noticed a patch of shadow on the floor. One of those light bays in the ceiling is out of commission."

Illya's eyebrows quirked up, understanding. Each of the bays consisted of three large, square panels set in a line across the ceiling from wall to wall. Still playing the game of pretending that his interest was centered up ahead, Solo went on, "The only trouble is, we told him which way is out."

"But he has no over-ride keys," Illya said. "And he can't possibly be armed."

Sweat trickled down the back of Solo's neck to his collar. "You're right. We'll take him on the count."

Slowly Solo whispered out the numbers. On the spat-out three, both agents turned. Instantly Solo spotted the dark ceiling square which his subconscious had only noted before. Repair crews had apparently pulled all the wiring guts from the center light box a few yards back. The translucent cover which fitted into the frame flush with the ceiling was gone. Up in the barely man-sized space recessed into the ceiling, a shadow stirred –

"Chee?" Solo called. "Chee, you haven't got one chance. Get down, or –"

A shrill, ear-hurting shriek made Solo start. The THRUSH agent had been wedged up into the recess, using the pressure of his backbone and his heels to hold himself in concealment. Now he let out another wild scream as he dropped. He tumbled on the concrete, sprang up. Solo knocked Illya's rising arm aside:

"Don't kill him! His hands are empty -"

Strictly true. But in spite of this, Chee was not behaving like a trapped man. He had his fingers in his mouth, pulling and yanking at his teeth as though one ached. Then his spittle-shining hand whipped out from between his lips. There was a wild, crooked grin on his face as he threw hard.

The two U.N.C.L.E agents dodged instinctively. Something small and white whizzed past them, and pinged against the great steel doors. Instantly, deafening sound, raw heat, gouts of fire and billows of smoke swirled around them.

The explosion's force hurled Solo against the corridor wall. Chee stumbled, off balance, keeping up that maniacal, demoralizing shrieking. Chee pelted past them through the smoke, which was already beginning to leap and swirl as fresh currents of air struck it.

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