[Magazine 1966-­07] - The Ghost Riders Affair - Whittington Harry - Страница 15

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Illya laughed. "That's right, Professor. I say that our agents probably have located your Indiana elevator shaft, your secret spur-line. But if they haven't they'll hear from us."

Finnish's voice wheezed through the crackling speaker. "You remain arrogant, eh? You're wasting time."

"Time's running out on you, Professor," Solo said. "Not us."

"That's where you're wrong again, Mr. Solo. For your own sake, I urge you to listen to me, and stop throwing away your last chance to stop that train before I am forced to destroy it."

For a moment the engineer's sharp, cutting laughter was the only sound in the cab.

Illya stared at the engineer, he spoke to Finnish. "Afraid you're missing an urgent point, Professor. You may well destroy this train or this whole rail pattern in order to stop us. But it doesn't really matter, Professor, whether we die in your train or at the hands of your soldiers, does it?"

Finnish said, "But I know your idealistic souls too well, Mr. Kuryakin. You will face peril. But will you force others to die with you?"

Illya glanced at Solo. He said into the speaker, "Go on. I'm listening."

"There are many other people aboard that train at this moment. Innocent people caught aboard it when you stole it. Will you sacrifice them to a foolish attempt to escape, an attempt doomed to certain failure? Must these people die with you? That is your decision, gentlemen. Clearly, I will permit them to die—I can look only at the greater good. But will you doom them?"

Neither Illya nor Solo spoke. The train whipped through a tunnel so narrow that the white light tubing was only inches from the cab window, an endless glow worm wriggling eternally through this maze of caverns.

The speaker crackled. Finnish's voice deepened the tension inside the cab. "I must ask you to make your decision quickly. Your time is running out."

The engineer turned, his jaws sagging. "Listen to the master! Do as he tells you, before it is too late for all of us."

Finnish spoke. "The engineer gives you wise counsel."

Solo drew a deep breath. "Sorry, Professor. I can't make a decision. I think you're bluffing."

Finnish wheezed, gasping, the sounds magnified on the speaker: "You're a fool. That river you saw through the glass wall in my quarters should have warned you."

Solo drew a deep breath, remembering the raging waters, the blind marine life.

"I'm listening."

Finnish said, "That's it, Mr. Solo. I neglected to mention to you that we down here live in constant threat of underground rivers breaking through shallow crusts and flooding. We've had to equip every tunnel with many steel, watertight doors. We can slam these doors closed every few miles, in every tunnel, making watertight compartments. Now. In seconds, Mr. Solo, I am pressing a button on a control panel in this room that will close and magnetically seal, through the use of our atomic power, steel doors.

"The door immediately ahead of you will close. It will be like driving that train over a hundred miles an hour into a solid wall. Don't take my word. Ask the engineer there in the cab with you."

The engineer cried out in panic. "We'll slam into that steel wall, the whole train! Demolished!"

Finnish said, "Your engineer doesn't lie to you, Mr. Solo. And I do not bluff."

"Listen to him!" the engineer raged, trembling.

Finnish said, raspingly: "Your time is running out, Mr. Solo. I will no longer tolerate your interference."

Solo drew a deep breath. He glanced at Illya, but Kuryakin did not speak. His face showed nothing.

Solo lowered his gun. He nodded toward the engineer. "Stop it."

He waited but there was no sounds of triumph from the control room. There was no elation, no astonishment expressed. There had been but this one answer from the start.

"It was as I told you," the engineer said.

Illya gazed at the fat man, but did not speak. Solo stared through the cab window as the train slowed.

"The door!" The engineer whispered.

Holding his breath, Solo thrust his head out the cab window. Gleaming steel plates reflected the headlights of the engine.

He did not speak even when the train rolled to a stop only inches from the watertight wall of steel.

The engineer cut the engines to idle. The train gasped, sounding almost like the master himself.

Soldiers ran along the walks, dun-clad men with guns held at ready. They came up the steps. The engineer took the guns from Illya and Solo. Neither of them protested.

With smug smiles the soldiers surrounded them.

ACT IV: INCIDENT OF THE INCREDIBLE EARTHQUAKE

Professor Leonard Finnish remained crouched over the television monitoring screen in the control room, until the stolen streamliner had been returned to the loading yard.

He sighed heavily then and stood up.

A minister spoke at his shoulder. "Are the soldiers to slay the prisoners, Master?"

"No reason to permit them to live any longer, sire," another suggested.

Finnish lifted a pudgy hand, palm outward. "I want those men bound and alive, aboard two of the atomic warhead trains. My plans for them have not altered."

"They've caused you much grief, Master."

"That's right," Finnish wheezed, held out his hand for an oxygen flask which was instantly supplied him. He placed the cone against his nostrils, inhaled hungrily. "I want them alive when the atomic warheads explode. This will be a warning to any who might come after them, even from the ranks of the ambitious, or foolhearted, among our own people."

A minister exhaled heavily, "A wise decision, Master."

Finnish laughed flatly. "Wise or not, the point is, it is mine."

Lights flared red from every monitoring panel, from the walls.

Finnish straightened. He said, "Red alert. A message from our THRUSH contact!"

"It's here, Master!"

A monitor lifted his arm, waving it.

Finnish pressed the oxygen cone over his nostrils and waddled through the aisles of control machines to the instant-bulletin screen.

The screen flared brightly red. Finnish shoved the monitor aside, pressed a button. "Finnish speaking. What is the message?"

A woman's voice crackled in the room. "Top priority urgency. Red alert. THRUSH advised seconds ago that United Command agents on earth's surface have discovered your Indiana below-ground train elevator shaft, and the secret spur lines. Red alert. All plans to this moment must be altered to operation Four Strike. Repeat. Delay of even hours will jeopardize success of Operation Four Strike. Repeat. Red Alert. Repeat."

Finnish slapped the off-switch, silencing the speaker.

The bulletin screens continued to flicker brilliantly red.

Finnish leaned a moment against a machine, breathing deeply of the oxygen. Then he pressed control button panels on inter-com boards.

He spoke slowly, wheezing, but his voice was cold, without emotion: "Operation Four Strike now activated. Leonard Finnish speaking, activating Operation Four Strike. Load atomic warheads for immediate dispatch. Repeat. Load warheads for immediate dispatch."

TWO

The stone door slid open upon the sodden mass of human beings in the many-tiered chamber of zombies.

At gunpoint, Solo and Illya were thrust into the chamber. The door slid closed behind them.

Almost at once, Solo pressed his fingertips to his temples, the throbbing inside them immediately intolerable.

Illya pressed close to him, pushed one of the small oxygen flasks into his hand. "Use it secretly. Our half-blind friends are watching every move we make in here."

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