[Magazine 1966-­03] - The Beauty and Beast Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 9

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When he had peeled the mask away, he stared down into the face of Ordwell Slybrough, the practical joker from the plane.

"Who do you think he really is?" Wanda said breathlessly. "I know he isn't a car salesman."

"He's a THRUSH agent. And Zouida's poor country has a lot more woes than even poor Zouida suspected."

Solo chose the best of the guns Wanda had collected. He pushed it under his belt. Then he stashed the others in the glove compartment on the Rolls dash.

Wanda watched him silently, a look of awe firing her black eyes.

He took all identification papers from the double agent's pockets. Ordwell had regained conscious ness, but he could neither move nor speak.

He stared at Napoleon Solo, hatred burning in his eyes.

"Have a cigar, old pal." Solo said and shoved one between the double agent's lips. It hung there. Don't worry, the injection I gave you will have no side effects. It'll just keep you quiet, and your voice turned off for a few hours."

Solo placed the papers he'd carried for Armistead Finch into Ordwell's pockets. Then with slow, painstaking care and the use of a mirror he worked the plastic mask down over his own head. He placed the Kiell identification papers in his jacket pocket.

Ordwell tried to speak, failed, shadows swirling deep in his eyes. Wanda stared at Solo in the mask, lips parted.

Solo pulled the three men into the rear of the car, tossed Ordwell in upon them. He closed the doors, reversed the Rolls to the highway.

"Get in under the wheel," Solo told Wan "And keep driving, no matter what happens. Follow orders this time."

"I'm so sorry about the candy. I realize now you were inoculating me against the effects of the gas."

"I was a fool," Solo said. "I'll hate myself for it."

"You'll never regret it," Wanda said. "I'm going to be a good agent for you."

"You should live so long." Solo sat turned on the front seat, gun in hand resting on the back, fixed on the three men in the back of the car.

"All right," he snapped at Wanda. "Saddle up! Move out!"

Her voice was small, panic- stricken. "Please, boss. There is just one little thing."

Solo managed to refrain from swearing. "Yes. What is it?"

"Please, boss. How do you shift the gears on a car like this?"

FOUR

THE GROTESQUE yellow fingers flicking out from a single large candle fought feebly against the dark of the prison cell.

Illya Kuryakin stood up, testing the plaited rope by jerking it sharply between his fists. It wouldn't snub down an elephant, but it would do.

He listened. The firing had ceased in the streets during the prayer hour. Afterwards, they fought again, almost to the palace gates.

He sat in the darkness, waited for the end of prayer time, for the changing of the guards.

Now, the moment of truth.

He rolled up his straw mattress to resemble a human body and placed it in the darkest corner of the cell. He grinned, knowing the guard could not bring his lantern inside a night cell. He needed to keep both arms free to protect himself.

When the mattress was lined up to suit him, he inched across the cell to the opposite cave-dark corner. From here, he uttered a cry, pleased that it sounded as if it came from the straw mattress!

He sighed in relief because ventriloquism was an art that demanded faithful practice, and he admitted he'd grown rusty.

He wound the ropes over each hand, leaving a loop between. Then, crouched there, he moaned again, and again, until at last a guard came grumbling to the cell bars.

"What's the matter in there?"

"I'm sick," Illya whined, his voice coming from the pile of straw.

"You'll be sick, you don't stop that whining."

"I think I'm dying!"

The guard hesitated. "You better not die. Come here to the bars—let me look at you."

"I can't! I'm too ill."

"Listen to me! You come here. Sheik Zud ordered us not to kill you. But don't push me too far."

"If you don't kill me, you can't keep me here," Illya said in that weak voice.

"I can make you wish you were dead," the guard told him.

Illya's voice lowered. "Yes. There's always that. Isn't there?"

"You think about that, and you keep quiet in there."

"Zud will have your head when he finds I died while you were on guard."

There was a long silence. Finally Illya Kuryakin heard the key thrust into the iron lock, the door whine on its hinges as it was opened.

Illya held his breath, crouching in the corner, watching.

The guard moved cautiously across the dark cell. A wan splinter of light lay on the floor in a line from the high, inset window.

The guard moved across the spray of moonlight, gun upraised. "Where are you?"

"Here. I'm so sick." Illya tossed his voice into the rolled straw mattress.

"Get up. Let me look at you."

"I can't. I think my appendix has ruptured."

Suddenly he heard the guard cry out, and he went tense.

"Infidel!" the guard shouted. "Again you sleep with your infidel feet toward Allah!"

He lifted the gun and brought it butt down on the straw mattress.

Illya lunged upward, flinging himself across the darkness.

At that instant, the guard realized he'd been fooled. He straightened, trying to turn.

He was too late. The garrote was clamped about his throat, and Illya thrust his fists past each other with all his strength, pulling it tight.

The gun clattered to the stone floor. The guard followed it, like a toppling tree. He sank to his knees and fell over to his side.

Illya waited no longer. He grabbed up the gun, ran through the door. He closed the cell, locking it. He threw the keys into an empty cell, ran.

He almost ran into another guard at the first turn of the cell block.

The heavy tread of the soldier warned him.

Very slowly, barefooted, Illya inched his way to the corner, peered around it.

The prisoners in the cell block shouted, aware that one of them had broken loose.

Illya saw the guard come alert, shift his gun ready. He pressed back against the wall.

As the guard came racing around the corner, Illya stuck out the butt of his gun. The soldier tripped on it and went sprawling forward on his face.

His gun clattered far out of his reach ahead of him. He shook himself and came up on his knees, trying to turn around.

"I wish I didn't hate violence so," Illya said, clobbering him with his gun butt.

The prisoners in the cells were hysterical now. They ran to the bars, chanting, hooting, yelling, scraping tin cups on the iron bars.

In the distance Illya Kuryakin heard the booted guard detail alerted, running toward the cell-block.

He glanced around at the wailing prisoners.

'Thanks a whole bunch, fellows," he said in sarcasm.

He stood in the middle of the corridor, gazing around helplessly.

A voice shouted at him from a cell. "Mister! Through that narrow passage. It leads to the kitchen, the garbage. There is only one guard there. Hurry. And Allah go with you!"

Illya didn't waste time in thanks. As the first wave of the guard detail clattered off the wide stone steps and into the corridor, he slipped into the dark passage.

He ran along it. The inmate had not lied about the garbage at least. The sick-sweet smell of it almost suffocated him.

He saw the door at the top of a small stairs. He raced up it.

He heard boots behind him in the darkness. The opening door would silhouette him in light. Yet he could not hurry. He had to know where that guard was out there.

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