Pulp Fiction | The Invisibility Affair by Thomas Stratton (19 page)

Napoleon moved up behind the two men at the front of the gondola, who seemed to be standing and idly talking. Once he ran into something and stopped to rub a painful shin. The voices were close to him now. He crept up behind the nearest one, reached out to touch the man's shoulder, and then swung the pistol at the spot where the head would be. The man collapsed and Napoleon eased him to the floor.

The second man sensed that something was wrong. "Hey, Rudolph, what happened?" he asked. Getting no answer made him more nervous. Napoleon could hear him moving about. "Rudolph? Say something; what's going on?" Napoleon reached to locate the man by feel when the lights suddenly came on. He leaped and swung the pistol; the Thrush collapsed.

Napoleon whirled toward the OTSMID and McNulty. The latter had turned to jeer at Hunter. "If you'd just shut up earlier I could have..." He took in the situation and reached for the pistol in the shoulder holster under his coat, at which point Illya stepped silently behind him and pressed the point of the knife into his ribs. McNulty froze. Napoleon got his pistol reversed and aimed at the Thrush agent, while Illya deftly reached under McNulty's coat and extracted the pistol, exclaiming in surprise as he noted that the gun was his own U.N.C.L.E. Special. He stepped well back, out of range of a sudden gram by McNulty and out of Napoleon's line of fire. Spotting the open door leading to the dirigible body, he ran back and slid it tightly shut.

"Get his communicator," Napoleon said. "And you might frisk him for any secret weapons before you tie him up. We can check these others after we get him put away."

McNulty had a communicator but no obvious weapons. From the unconscious Thrushes, Illya gained three communicators, two more guns, and an assortment of wristwatches. Napoleon stared at the latter booty in some puzzlement. "Aren't you carrying your Russian background a bit far?" he inquired.

"I have seen wristwatches," Illya said, "which contained, among other things, secret cameras, radio receivers and transmitters, electronic equipment, miniature time bombs, and one that could be reassembled into a tiny machine pistol. It was a rather large watch," he added, noting Napoleon's disbelieving stare.

"We'd better try to get the troops out before they send someone up to investigate," Napoleon said. He turned to McNulty. "What was the signal to jump?" he asked.

McNulty glared at him and said nothing. Napoleon glanced around the gondola. His eyes lit on the door. "How high would you say we are?" he asked no one in particular.

Illya thought for a minute, turned several switches on the OTSMID, then walked to the front of the gondola and looked out. "I'd estimate at least a thousand feet," he said. He looked thoughtfully at McNulty. "High enough for a parachute to operate. Too bad we don't have one for you."

Napoleon was studying McNulty with interest. "You could use some of the properties of a real Thrush in about thirty second, if we don't get some information out of you."

McNulty laughed. "You don't scare, U.N.C.L.E. doesn't operate that way."

Napoleon moved over to the door and released the catch. "When he's gone, I suppose we'll just have to make do. Do you think that we could just open that door back there and yell at them?"

"I don't see why not," Illya said. "The communicators could have been affected by the blackout, for all they know. Come on, now, Arpad." Each agent took one of McNulty's arms and urged him toward the open door.

McNulty held back. "Oh, come on, now. We all know that you're not going to push me out. You can't; it isn't civilized. You simply aren't going to do it, I know you're not. You..." He paused briefly as he faced the opening from a distance of less than a foot. "By George, I believe you would, at that," he decided. "All right, I know when to quit. There's an intercom system up front. You just announce 'Prepare to jump,' then give them a couple of minutes to get the hangar doors open, and say 'Jump' and they jump."

"Very cooperative," Napoleon said, keeping McNulty facing the open door. Illya stepped back to the OTSMID and reversed every switch he had previously thrown. The view of the ground outside the opening was replaced by blackness. He walked to the indicated intercom, studied it for a moment, then flicked a switch and announced, "Prepare to jump."

They could hear a grating sound from somewhere back of the gondola. When it stopped, Illya said "Jump!"

There was a very slight swaying motion as fifty men dropped almost simultaneously through the open hangar doors. "Go check, just to make sure," Napoleon said.

Illya crossed the length of the gondola, pausing for a moment to administer a thump to Sanders, who was beginning to show signs of life. "Tough old bird," he remarked. Checking the body of the dirigible he found no one. Even the man who operated the hangar doors had apparently jumped with the rest; the doors still swung open. Tidily, he closed them and returned to report.

Napoleon nodded in satisfaction. "See if you can find something to tie all these people up. We can't be stopping to crack someone over the head every few minutes."

Rummaging through the storage areas in the gondola, Illya located an assortment of odds and ends including a very large coil of rope. He cut several lengths from the latter and tied up the Thrushes.

"Now then," Napoleon said, "we are approximately a thousand feet up, invisible, and heading in the direction of, first, Cerro Bueno and, second, the Pacific Ocean. What does your dirigible lore say about getting us back to hearth and home?"

Illya looked about the interior of the gondola. "First, I'm going to look for some instructions. There must be an operator's manual somewhere."

After a few minutes, it became obvious that there were no operating instructions aboard.

"Well," Napoleon said as he looked around the control room, "there don't seem to be too many controls. Why don't we try them one at a time and see what happens."

Illya nodded. "I'm sure Arpad will let us know if we start to do anything dangerous; it's his neck as well as ours."

McNulty glared at them.

"And of course," Napoleon said, "if he doesn't cooperate, there's no real reason to leave him around, is there? Why don't we try waking up Hunter? We'll keep the one who cooperates and pitch the other one out the door."

McNulty grimaced. "Very well. A practical man must be governed by the circumstances, which seem to favor you at the moment."

"Fine," Napoleon said. "Now about these controls?"

"Quite simple, really. The wheel in front controls the rudders. The one on the left, facing the side, controls the elevators. The one on the right controls engine speed, and those switches above the elevator wheel releases the ballast. You seem to have figured out the OTSMID for yourself, and presumably you know something about sonar."

"We seem to need more ballast, not less," Illya said. "But I suppose the elevators can get us down...?"

McNulty nodded. "Just turn the wheel clockwise and set the engines at
Slow
."

"That's where they're set now," Napoleon said.

McNulty nodded. "We hoped they were. We had to set them by feel when the nullifier quit on us."

"What happened there, anyway?" Napoleon asked.

"I don't know. We were trying to expand the invisibility field, so the paratroops could jump from a good altitude and still be invisible most of the way down. Morthley had shown me how to work the controls. All at once the nullifier quit."

"Some sort of interaction with the expanding invisibility field," Illya said. He turned elevator wheel slowly. There was a slight shift in the deck beneath them as the dirigible's nose lowered, but nothing else.

"What does the sonar say?" Napoleon asked.

"I can't tell from here," Illya said. "Maybe we'd better shut off the OTSMID until we get some practice on this thing. I don't want to plow into any mountains." He walked over to the OTSMID and fiddled with the controls until the absolute blackness outside the gondola windows was again replaced by moonlight. He checked their progress. "We're going down slightly; still pretty high. Incidentally, hadn't we better get this thing turned around? I have no particular urge to provide target practice for El Presidente's boys."

Napoleon nodded, left the engine controls and approached the rudder controls warily. Several full turns were required before Illya reported that the ship was beginning to turn.

"While you were at it, you might have put in power steering," Napoleon told McNulty.

Suddenly the Thrush communicator in Napoleon's pocket buzzed. He pulled it from his pocket while Illya hastened to McNulty's side and gestured suggestively with his knife. McNulty nodded. Napoleon flipped open the communicator and put his hand over the pickup. Someone was already speaking.

"...what happened. We came down in the jungle. I don't even know where we are. I've just managed to collect the group, and we'd like somebody to get us out of here."

Another voice cut in. "Forbes here. You can't contact the dirigible if the OTSMID is functioning. I'll get some help to you from headquarters. Keep talking so we can get a fix on you."

The first voice began to swear, steadily and without inflection. After a minute, Forbes cut in again. "You're not more than fifteen mile from headquarters! You say you don't know what happened?"

"No. The lights went out, and Sanders came back and told us it was just a temporary failure and for us to sit tight. Then they came back on, and a couple minutes later we got the orders to jump. We jumped, and we landed here. Couldn't see the trees until we got out of the field and by then we were in them. Worst foul-up I ever saw!"

It was Forbes' turn to swear, and he did it with more feeling. McNulty has done it again! Well, that young man has either failed or double-crossed me once too often. When I get my hands on him, he'll learn a few things about Thrush discipline." Forbes continued at some length on McNulty's failings and his anticipated punishment for them.

On the dirigible, McNulty's faced paled until it resembled old putty.

Finally Forbes broke off his tirade. "We'll try to get a helicopter out to pick you up. Keep your communicator on so we can locate you. We only have the one copter, so we'll have to bring you in a few at a time."

Napoleon put the communicator back in his pocket. "At least we some of the paratroopers are out of the way for a while. If we work fast, we might be able to get Kerry and Dr. Morthley out before the bulk of them return. It will take the helicopter some time to find the troops and arrange for a pickup."

McNulty looked up, startled. "You aren't going back to Thrush headquarters!"

"Of course," Napoleon replied. "Why not?"

"Look, I don't want to go anywhere near there. Just give me a parachute and let me jump. I know Forbes, and he meant every word he said. Give me a chance to get out of the country."

Napoleon looked thoughtful. "How bad do you want out, Arpad?"

McNulty shuddered. "You don't know Forbes. I do."

"What are you thinking about, Napoleon?" Illya asked.

"Mainly that two men can't operate the dirigible controls, the sonar, and the OTSMID simultaneously. Now, if we let Arpad loose—without a gun, of course—he could handle one of the controls for us. Would you do that Arpad, in return for being allowed to bail out a good long way from Thrush headquarters when the job is done?"

McNulty nodded eagerly.

"Should we trust him?" asked Illya.

"I think we can trust him with reservations. Don't let him get near your gun. Also, I think we should dispose of temptation in the form of his buddies here." Napoleon gestured to the recumbent forms of the Thrushes lying about the control room. "Arpad, are there any extra parachutes about?"

McNulty nodded. "In the second cabin back, on the left. Most of the crew were a little nervous about out airworthiness, so we brought along parachutes for everybody." It was obvious from his tone that McNulty held no sympathy for those who doubted the virtues of his ship.

While Illya brought the parachutes forward, Napoleon opened the gondola door next to the OTSMID and roused the still sleeping Thrushes. After considerable confusion, Hunter, Sanders, Salzwasser and the unidentified crewman were roused and bundled into the parachute packs.

"All right, gentlemen," Napoleon announced as the last buckle slipped into place, "just step through the door over there and remember to pull your ripcords when you've cleared the ship."

"Wait a minute!" Hunter exclaimed, pointing at McNulty, who was cowering near the front of the gondola. "What about him?"

Napoleon smiled. "I shouldn't be giving away secrets, but I'm sure you'll find out eventually. Arpad is one of our best agents."

Hunter nodded. "I should have guessed it. Nobody could foul up that often unless he did it deliberately. All right," he said to McNulty, "you win this time, but if I ever see you again—"

"At the count of three," Napoleon broke in ominously. "One..."

At the count of three, Hunter, followed closely by Sanders, Rudolph, and the unidentified Thrush jumped.

"That seems to dispose of possible saboteurs," Illya said. "Now we can get down to business."

McNulty came hesitantly toward Napoleon. "Don't you think I'm in enough trouble without your telling Hunter I'm one of your agents?" he asked accusingly.

"No, I don't," Napoleon replied firmly. "The more trouble you're in, the less likely you are to think you can double-cross us and get away with it."

Pulling the returned communicator from his pocket, Napoleon called Ishmael. "This is Solo," he said when the man's voice answered. "Have you located the other prisoners yet?"

Sotavento sounded unhappy. "No Se�or. They are on the third floor of the headquarters building, but I have not been able to find out which cell."

"Never mind." Napoleon turned to McNulty. "Which cell did you put Kerry and Dr. Morthley in?"

"The corner cell at the far end of the corridor."

"Which side of the corridor?"

"Toward the back of the building."

Napoleon relayed this information to Sotavento, who sounded even more unhappy than before. "Se�or Solo, I do not think that I can rescue the prisoners from that location. Se�or Forbes has discovered your escape and put guard all around the building, with a man at each end of the upper corridor. Undoubtedly a man of your skill could affect a rescue, but for a poor interpreter..."