18 - The Unfair Fare Affair (12 page)

Seizing the man by the collar, he jerked him viciously face downward across the table top. Then, before his opponent could recover, he linked his hands and brought them hurtling down on the unprotected neck. The fight was in effect over then—the man's reflexes were paralyzed. But the window dressing had to be put in for the customers.

Kuryakin growled with simulated rage, cast aside the table, and thrust the fellow back up against the wall. Steadying him there with one hand, he drove three pile-driving blows to the pit of his stomach, allowed him to slide toward the floor, and finally helped him on his way with a couple of contemptuous rabbit punches. The man was out before he hit the ground.

Abruptly the place was loud with chatter again. The proprietor stood the table upright, dusted it down and replaced Illya's drink. A couple of the bar's patrons dragged away the unconscious man, and Kuryakin sat down, staring morosely into his glass.

The clientele were a rough bunch. Among them were the two drunks who had accosted him the night he arrived. And several times he saw the blonde girl who had been with them regarding him furtively. But the majority of them seemed to be the Czech equivalent of gangsters. There was not the opportunity for an organized underworld here that there would be in a Western city, but such crooks and black marketeers as there were, he would wager, hung around this quarter and this particular bar.

On the morning of the third day, Illya awoke and realized that he could no longer hear the rain on the roof. He threw the shutters wide and looked out on a different city.

The downpour had not long been over, but the sky was now an impeccable blue and the pale winter sunshine gleamed and sparkled from a million droplets of moisture dewing the chaos of slates and dormers and tiles and cornices and gutters outside the window. A crescent of the river glittered between the high blank wall of a warehouse and a forest of chimneys to his right, and above it the turrets of the fairy- tale palace on the high ground above the town shone in the bright light.

In the narrow, twisting streets of the quarter, shopkeepers and their customers had an air almost of gaiety about them, and several food stores displayed crates and baskets of fruit and vegetables on the sidewalk.

Kuryakin felt justified in taking Cernic to the
kavarna
at lunchtime and passed off the ribald references to this break with tradition with a snarl a little less surly than usual. The blonde wearing the open raincoat—her name, he had discovered, was Marinka—even gave him a half smile when he came in, and the proprietor was quite cordial.

"That's a bit better, isn't it?" he said cheerfully as he took Illya's order. "Makes the world a more cheerful place, I always say, when there's a bit of sun around, eh?"

"For those that have time to notice, I suppose," the Russian said grumpily. "As for me, I still wish I was a thousand miles away from it."

"Why, comrade? It's not such a bad city. At least there's life here!"

"Life? I'd give a great deal to get out of it. Right out, I mean—and I'm not kidding. Rain or shine, it makes no difference to me. All I want—"

"If you hate it so much, why don't you get out, then?" the proprietor interrupted reasonably. "There doesn't seem to be anything to keep you here; you don't seem to have a job or anything."

"You mind your own damned business!" Kuryakin shouted, thumping the table. "It's none of your business why I stay here. What I do is my own affair and I don't want any interfering snoopers meddling."

He drained his glass and stalked out, leaving the inn keeper staring in amazement. Anyone at that bar who didn't suspect by now that "Milo" was a crook on the run, the agent thought to himself with a grim smile, must be pretty dumb!

That evening he returned to the
kavarna
and took his usual table. But he affected to be still angry and kept huffily to himself, returning none of the "Hey, there, Milo!" and "Looking for another victim?" pleasantries of the drinkers.

Several hours after he had returned to the attic, the soft knock on the door penetrated his consciousness. He got out of bed, drew on a pair of trousers, and opened it a crack. It was still fine outside, and in the light from a half moon he saw a girl standing at the top of the stairs.

She wore an open trenchcoat with the belt hanging, and the moonlight glinted on her hair.

It was Marinka, the blonde from the
kavarna
.

"What do
you
want? What the devil d'you mean by waking me up at this time of night?" Illya snapped ungraciously.

"Let me in," the girl whispered. "I have something to say to you. It's important. Come on! The longer I stand here, the more likely it is that someone will notice."

Grumbling and growling, the Russian opened the door wide and stood aside with bad grace to let her through. Once she was in, he closed it and turned the key before switching on the light. The girl was pushing thirty, thin faced, with large gray eyes.

"You're Kurim Cernic, aren't you?" she asked softly.

"Kurim who? Never heard of him!" Illya said promptly. He did not ask the girl to sit down.

"Look—do not bother to deny it. I
know
you are Cernic."

"I tell you I never heard—"

"Oh, never mind then! You're not Cernic! But you keep on saying how much you want to get away from here, don't you? Obviously you are on the run, or you would just go."

"Supposing I was, then?" Kuryakin said craftily.

"If you wanted to get out of the city unseen, without the risk of being asked for papers; if you wanted to get out of the country, even... "

"Well...?"

"Well, I think—if you have money—I think I know some one who can arrange it for you," the girl said.

Chapter 11

Getting Underway

AT TEN-THIRTY the following evening, Illya Kuryakin stood on a corner of Wenceslas Square and watched the crowds thronging the wide pavements beneath the trees on the Vaclavske Namesti. Glittering with lights, bordered by push carts, and stalls selling hot
parkys
, the street pulsed with the gleam of fast-moving traffic. In a few minutes Kuryakin would have to act; but for the moment he was content to stare and to think.

He had argued and protested the previous night for what he considered a sufficiently credible amount of time before he permitted himself to be persuaded to talk seriously. He had guarded his suspicion and his hostility until the last possible moment. But finally he had given in and allowed the girl to make her proposition.

After bargaining and blustering for hours, he had eventually agreed to pay what he had considered privately to be an incredible sum for the privilege of being secretly transported to Zurich, Switzerland.

The girl had refused to divulge any details of how this was to be accomplished; she had merely said that the organization was well enough known to need no references. And she had made a rendezvous for the following night and told him to bring the sum with him in cash. He had filled in the intervening time by going to the roof and removing the correct amount of banknotes from the hoard under the tiles. He had also pretended to remove the balance and mail it to himself
poste restante
in Zurich. But the bulky envelope had in fact been stuffed with blank paper; by arrangement with Hradec, the loot was to stay in its hiding place for collection by the police.

He had no doubt, standing among the crowds clutching a cheap briefcase to his chest, that the police were keeping him personally under surveillance too. But they could hardly have acted against the girl and her accomplices, since it was not illegal to transport a citizen of the United States from Prague to Zurich, whatever method was used! And in any case it had been agreed that, having delivered Illya into the correct area, they would withdraw and leave the chase to U.N.C.L.E.

But they would be there, just the same, he was sure.

For the moment, though, the hour of truth was at hand. He glanced at his watch—it was ten-thirty-six—shifted the briefcase to his left hand, and walked a little way up the hill. Where the tramlines forked into double tracks, there was a safety zone in the middle of the street. He crossed over and stood there as if waiting for a tram.

At ten-thirty-seven precisely, a car—a Skoda Octavia in anonymous beige—stopped briefly by the safety zone. A door opened. Kuryakin got in.

The girl Marinka was driving, her slender wrists and feet expert about the controls as she whirled the car in and out of the traffic clotting the great square beneath the domes.

"Where are we going?" Kuryakin asked suspiciously. "Surely we can't simply drive out of the city openly like this. There are too many police about, we could be stopped and asked for our papers at any time... and anyway, my face is known."

"Do not worry," the girl said. "All is taken care of but it is best to begin with a short auto ride, lest there is anyone following. We have a rendezvous not far from where you were staying."

"Then why meet in the Wenceslas Square and drive there when we could have..."

The girl sighed. "We can leave the car and walk, if you wish. But it is better like this." She turned down toward the Carlos Bridge and then right along the embankment. Soon she turned again, up into the old town, and stopped by the long, blank wall of a warehouse. The building had perhaps once been some official place, for there were turrets at each end and the high wooden gates were enclosed in an ornamental arch. "See," the girl said. "We are by the repository you see from your window. There is the entrance to the other floors of your building, around that corner."

She pointed to the archway at the end of the wall. "And there is where you have to go now. Inside the gate is a small pass door. Soon, the watchman leaves to fetch his beer for the night. After he has gone, go through the door. It has been... arranged... that it will be open."

"And then?" Kuryakin demanded suspiciously.

"Inside is much furniture, stored on all the floors. But there is also a loading dock with a van and a trailer. They are already packed full. Get into the van—not the trailer— and squeeze as far forward as you can. You will find right at the front a wardrobe, facing away from the doors at the rear of the van. You get into this—it will be quite comfortable with blankets and pillows—and you wait."

"How long for? I don't like vague arrangements like this."

"I also. But here we have no choice. There are many police and you are much wanted. Besides, the people arranging this make good business for themselves, but also they must take risks. So they must state the terms. You understand me?"

"Very well, very well," Illya growled. "But I still don't like it."

"Now," the girl said briskly. "We must act. See, the watchman leaves to visit the
kavarna
." She waited until an elderly man in overalls had walked from the gates to the corner, and then vanished around it, before she continued, "You have the money with you?... So. Good. No, no—keep it. They will ask for it when it is time. Now, is there anything else before you go?"

"Yes. How long shall I be cooped up in there? When does the van leave? I hate being shut in, not knowing when to expect action... and I've not eaten since this afternoon, either."

"You would like to eat some food before? That also I can arrange."

"Forget it. Just tell me how long," the Russian said ungraciously.

"I cannot say. It is not for me to decide—it depends on too many things. Tonight sometime..." the girl said.

"Can't be too soon for me," Illya grumbled. "Well, is that all then? Because if it is, I'll be off. Get the thing over with."

"Yes, you may go now. And hurry while the man is away." Her long face creased into a smile, and for a moment, in the lamplight, she looked quite beautiful. "Perhaps I will say one thing more," she added, "I wish you the good luck…"

She leaned across and opened the passenger door.

The agent muttered something under his breath, got out of the car, and limped off down the pavement with his briefcase clutched to his chest, without so much as a backward glance. Before he got to the gates, he heard the Skoda's engine start and then the whine of gears as the girl turned in the narrow street and drove back the way they had come.

It went very much against the grain for him, but he figured that in one thing, at least, he had played his role true to the real Cernic––the girl and the clientele of the
kavarna
in the square must certainly be confirmed in their belief that he was the rudest, the most boorish, the most bad-tempered man they had ever met! He smiled grimly to himself as he approached the pass door let into the big gate; there were more serious ways in which he would have to test the authenticity of his impersonation soon. .

The door, as the girl had promised, was unlocked. He turned the handle, opened it, and stepped through.

There was a light burning inside a glassed-in hutch where the watchman obviously sat between his rounds. Through the glass, Illya saw sausage, black bread and pickles laid out on a newspaper awaiting the arrival of the beer. And there was a low-powered bulb hanging above the platform at the rear of the loading dock behind the gates. But otherwise the place was in darkness.

The van and its trailer looked enormous—two leviathans of the road silhouetted against the dim shapes of sheeted furniture bulked in the dark.

He let the door snick shut on its return spring and listened. Very distantly, he could hear the sounds of the city— a roar of far-off traffic, shouts and a snatch of music from another street, a siren on the river, bells (could it really be only eleven o'clock?). But nearer at hand there was nothing—no footsteps, no demanding voice; just a scuffle and a squeak as a rat scurried away somewhere down the aisles of furniture, the thin, high, singing of silence in a large place.

Satisfied, he walked openly to the space between the van and its trailer. The double doors at the back of the van were ajar. Pulling one open, he climbed up into the interior and edged his way between stacks of chairs and tables and crates exuding straw, toward the front of the vehicle.