Magazine 1967-­07] - The Electronic Frankenstein Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 2

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"Follow that deep-channel gray streak to where it turns almost black," he said. "The periscope's just a little to the left of a patch of choppy waves, it's moving fast."

Huntley nodded and realigned his binoculars without saying a word. His features remained impassive. But his posture matched that of Rivers in its stock-still alertness.

No further word was spoken until Rivers, as if irked by the other's silence, asked abruptly: "Don't you see it? It should be easy enough to make out. It's almost stationary now and the sea around it is breaking into foam."

"Yes, I see it," Huntley said. "But I thought for a minute it might be a shark. A fin cutting through the water would have pretty much the same look—"

"That wouldn't be so wide of the mark," Rivers said. "In about three more minutes we'll be seeing the gray dorsal fins of an all-metal killer shark that's probably more native to these waters than THRUSH would like anyone—least of all, U.NC.L.E.—to suspect."

"How many men do you suppose they'll put ashore?" the other asked. "Two—a half-dozen? There's very little likelihood that the commander will arrive on the beach alone."

He stopped speaking abruptly, the rigidity of his posture becoming more pronounced again. The submarine was emerging into view amidst a white swirl of foam. Not even the dull overcast could dim the gleam of a conning tower awash with spray as it continued to surface, swaying and rocking a little.

In utter silence the two men on the headland watched the hatch arise and several crew members leap out. They watched a hurrying to and fro, and the putting off from the long gray undersea craft of a small boat which contained four men, wearing what looked like THRUSH uniforms of officer rank.

FIVE MINUTES later the boat was drawing up at the beach and in all that time neither Huntley nor Rivers had exchanged a word, so intent had they been on watching a possible threat to their very survival materializing out of the sea.

"Well, this is it," Huntley said, his voice so sharply decisive it seemed to shatter the stillness like a pistol shot. "We may as well meet them on the beach."

Descending the narrow cliffside path against the fierce gusts of wind took them a full minute. The four officers had just finished beaching the boat when they reached the frozen sand, and only one of them had started to move cliffward.

He was a tall, gaunt man with a heavily lined face and he walked with a slight stoop and a faint suggestion of weariness. But there was something authoritative in his darkly gleaming eyes and the stern set of his features that left Huntley and Rivers in little doubt as to his command status.

The instant he saw Huntley and Rivers he raised his right arm in a gesture of recognition. It was not a greeting. There was no change of expression on his face, nothing to suggest that he was pleased to see them, or even that their appearance on the beach had lifted a small burden from his shoulders by making a search for them unnecessary.

He turned and gestured toward the other three officers and stood waiting for them to join him with out advancing further.

Then, walking four abreast, the men from the sea approached Huntley and Rivers and halted directly in front of them.

The commander was wearing steel-rimmed spectacles and there was a hard glint in his pupils which the thick lenses seemed to magnify. Even at a distance of seven feet the coldness of his gaze was unmistakable.

"I am Commander Ulrich," he said. "And these gentlemen are my senior and junior officers. You are Thomas Drake and Melvin Kendall?"

The use of their THRUSH cell names, which corresponded with the initials on their identity bracelet, would not have remotely suggested that their disguise had been penetrated if Commander Ulrich's voice had not been tinged with mockery. The mockery was as pronounced as the coldness of his gaze, and it caused Huntley to hesitate a moment before replying.

Rivers had been content simply to nod, but a look of relief came into his eyes when Huntley answered the question with surprising firmness.

"Yes," he said. "We have some microfilm instructions to turn over to you. We were told—"

"What were you told, precisely?" Ulrich asked, a deceptive mildness coming into his voice.

"That the submarine would surface and you would come ashore between two and two-thirty. We were instructed to return to the project if you did not arrive by three, at the latest."

"Excellent," Commander Ulrich said. "You are very good at obeying orders—up to a point. But then you committed an unforgivable blunder. You talked about the precautions you'd taken to avoid exposure. I can quote your exact words, spoken less than twenty minutes ago: 'We've taken every precaution. No messages exchanged, even in code. No attempt to communicate with New York.'

"A great deal more, of course. But need I repeat everything you said? It would only delay your execution by a few minutes and for a condemned man a few minutes can mean an eternity of torment. I'm sure you would not wish to delay what has become inevitable."

Huntley and Rivers had both taken a quick step backwards, pallor overspreading their features. It was as if so strong a feeling of unreality had come upon them that speech bad become impossible, for when their lips opened and closed the silence which had followed the commander's accusation remained unbroken.

"I know," Ulrich said, his voice once more tinged with derision. "It seems unbelievable, doesn't it? We were under the sea and you were standing on the cliff overheard, seven miles from the project. No possibility of being overheard, eh? Well—you were. And not by human ears until we picked up the warning."

His voice thickened, became choked with sudden rage. "To think that THRUSH had not the faintest suspicion that you might be U.N.C.L.E. agents! The unit's surveillance was just a precaution. If you had remained silent—"

Commander Ulrich turned abruptly and made a quick gesture with his right hand. The three other officers drew their weapons so swiftly that the long-muzzled pistols in their hands were leveled and aimed before the two U.N. C.L.E. agents could take another step backwards.

Leaping backwards or aside could not have saved them and Huntley seemed to realize that an instant before the first blast came, for there swept into his eyes a look of resignation terrible in its bleak hopelessness.

He straightened nevertheless, facing death with his shoulders squared, and although the two bullets that tore through his chest sent him spinning back toward the cliff wall, he did not slump until be struck a jagged edge of rock with his arms outflung.

Why the three officers did not fire simultaneously, blasting away at both men until they both dropped remained their own secret. But it was not too difficult to fathom. Efficiency in an execution could be impaired that way. Bullet riddled bodies had a way of recoiling and rebounding and random firing, even at almost pointblank range, could leave an uncertainty in the mind until the smoke cleared.

That unconscious preference for accuracy and neatness in killing gave Rivers a few more minutes of life. Before the gun in the hand of the officer on Commander Ulrich's right came level with his head he flung himself face downward in the sand, jerking himself backwards just as quickly without raising his head.

The gun that had been aimed at his head wavered a little as the officer lowered it and before he could bring it into alignment again with so flattened a target River's hand had whipped under his greatcoat and emerged with a tiny explosive pellet the size of a fountain pen.

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