18 - The Unfair Fare Affair (10 page)

They crossed the Vltava by the Smetanov bridge, dodged a late tram at the Prikopy junction, and swung into the Vaclavske Namesti. The street glittered with light from the junction to the statue of Wenceslas on his iron horse, but there were very few people about. Soon the car turned and threaded its way back toward the river among the narrow, cobbled streets of the old town.

They stopped halfway down a twisting thoroughfare leading into a small square. Around them, the tall, narrow houses were shuttered and silent, but light from a single street lamp splashed lozenges of silver onto the ancient stones through the branches of a linden tree in the center of the square. There was more light streaming onto the cobbles from the open door of a
kavarna
on the far side of the open space. Over a chatter of voices, the sound of an accordion brayed softly.

Colonel Hradec leaned forward and opened the door of the Tatra. "Very well, my friend," he said quietly, "now it is up to you. You know where to go; you know what to do. Just remember that our murderer is known since he came to this quarter simply as 'Milo'—and that the real Cernic was very roughly spoken, bad-tempered, a surly fellow!... Good luck now!..."

As Kuryakin melted into the shadows, the door clicked shut, the staff car turned and whined away down an even narrower street, and the Russian was alone with his new identity.

Much of the flight from New York had been spent, with Hradec's help, in memorizing a detailed street map of the area and learning the position of the few stores Cernic patronized and the kind of things he bought there. There was therefore no difficulty in finding the right route, and Kuryakin—having waited a few minutes to let the car get away—emerged from the darkness and slouched down toward the square.

Managing the limp was no trouble—the lump inserted in his shoe by the experts of U.N.C.L.E.'s Wardrobe Department made every step excruciating. What concerned him more than his actual appearance was his voice. He had no means of knowing how the late Kurim Cernic had articulated—Hradec had merely said his voice had been a little deeper than Illya's. Fortunately, the escaped convict had come from the region of Kosice, in eastern Slovakia, which meant that any trace of Russian accent in the agent's speech could easily be accounted for, this being the part of the country nearest to the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, he looked forward with some misgivings to his first attempt at passing himself off as the man whose clothes he now wore. And the test was to come sooner than he had expected.

The route to the attic in which Cernic had been living led past the
kavarna
on the far side of the square—a bar in which the convict had passed an hour or two at the beginning of every evening. As Kuryakin limped past, two men reeled out of the open door and hailed him.

"Hey, Milo!" one called. "Where the devil have you been? Haven't seen you around for days. How have you been, eh?"

"Yes, how are you, you old soak?" the other shouted with a drunken guffaw.

Kuryakin scowled. "None the better for your asking!" he snarled—and, spitting scornfully on the cobbles, he stumped on toward the alleyway leading to his attic.

There was a burst of laughter behind him. "Who was that?" a girl's voice asked.

The Russian glanced over his shoulder. She was standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the smoke-filled interior of the tavern, a slender young woman with smooth blonde hair to her shoulders, wearing an unbuttoned trenchcoat.

"That?" one of the drunks repeated. "That's only old Milo! What a character! He must be the most bad-tempered man in town! Never been known to smile!"

"I don't see that that's anything to boast about," the girl objected. "Who is he, anyway?"

"Oh, some hick from the east," the first man said, tiring of the subject. "He comes from the Carpathians or some where. Come on—let's have another drink!"

"He doesn't look like a countryman."

"Well, he probably worked in the bauxite mines. Do come on."

"If you ask me, he looks more like a crook! He probably came here to escape the police—"

"Then he's safe in this neighborhood, isn't he?" the second man interrupted. "For you don't catch them down here often; they prefer to wait until we go up to the bright lights and trap us there!"

"Look, you two! For God's sake!" his companion growled. "Do forget old sourpuss for the minute. Let's get going, eh? We should have been at Imre's twenty minutes ago."

"Well, if you ask me..." the girl began again—but the rest of the sentence was lost in a fresh burst of laughter, mixed with singing, as more people spilled out into the square. Somewhere beyond the linden tree, a window frame squeaked open and a voice called angrily for quiet.

Kuryakin limped on. Beyond the oasis of gaiety in the square, all was deserted again. Down the alley, turn right across the courtyard and go through the arch, walk up the stone steps and take the second cul-de-sac on the left.

There it all was, exactly as the colonel had described it.

The old buildings leaned together across the passageway so that from the leaded windows of one projecting top story to the peeling shutters of the one opposite, the gap was small enough for a man to jump. Ancient, bowed beams cradled tile and brick and crumbling plaster. At the corner, a turret with a conical slate roof was etched against the night by the reflection of a lamp beyond the archway. And ahead, zigzagging up the wall blanking off the end of the alley, a rickety wooden staircase led to a door beneath a sagging dormer. Beyond it was the hideout of Kurim Cernic.

Kuryakin climbed the stairs and thrust the iron key he had been given into the lock. It turned silently, and the door swung open.

Inside there was a light switch with a cracked porcelain cover. In the feeble illumination of a single unshaded forty-watt bulb, he saw a large room with a varnished pine floor, a bed, a table, and two wicker-seated chairs, one each side of a dark mahogany cupboard. Cans, packages of dried food, and a bottle of milk that had soured jostled for position on the top of a cheap wooden chest of drawers.

The Russian crossed over to a tiny window beneath the sloping roof. He opened the shutters and leaned out into the dark. Beyond a black jumble of roofs, a curve of lights along the embankment marked the course of the river. The air was fresh, cold and tingling. In a few minutes the musty, stale atmosphere in the room had cleared. He drew back his head and prepared for the night.

In his role as the escaped murderer, he had no papers, no weapons, and no clothes but those he was wearing. There was a small baton transceiver in the breast pocket of his shirt. Behind the dirty curtain hiding the primitive washing and sanitary arrangements there was a skylight. And through the grimed glass of this could be reached the massive, curved tiles below which were hidden banknotes to the value of some $450,000.

With these two rather differing assets to his credit, he installed himself in his hideout and settled down to wait…

Chapter 9

A Surprise In Store!

THERE WAS a roaring in Napoleon Solo's ears. The world heaved before his anguished eyes in waves of blackness. Somewhere far down in his skull, a team of men with pneumatic drills were trying to blast their way out.

He raised his hands to his throbbing forehead and touched nothing.
Oh no
! he panicked.
It's gone! My head's off—and there's nothing in its place
! And then, gradually, as he regained consciousness, the head floated back into position, and he realized that he hadn't touched it at all. He couldn't have, because his hands were tightly bound behind him.

Bound? Yes, and so were his feet. Something hard and yet resilient, unpleasantly dry to the taste was jammed in his mouth and secured there with a strip of cloth. His jaws, wedged apart by the gag, were as painful as his head.

After a while his memory returned fully, though the blackness and the roaring remained.

It took him some time to work out that he was shut up in the back of a truck—an ancient one, to judge by the extreme hardness of the ride and the racket made by the motor, the exhaust, and the booming of the metal side panels.

He strained his eyes in the darkness. There was not the vestige of a light anywhere—no cracks between doors suddenly illuminated by the headlamps of a passing car, no errant reflections from street lamp or lighted window. It must, he thought, be very late at night. And if the abominable surface was anything to go by, they were on a very minor road.

He tested his bonds. His wrists were tied tightly together, not crossed but face to face. His ankles were bound and so were his knees. But for they had left his elbows alone. If they had been lashed together, he could have done nothing; but as it was, given the opportunity for a bit of contortionism, he could probably contrive to bring his hands around in front of him. And then they would see, for—fortunately again—the bonds were neither wire nor electric cord, but simple rope. Before he could try anything, though, he would have to wait until the vehicle stopped. He was being thrown about far too much to attempt it now.

For what seemed like many hours, they lurched and banged along the bumpy road. And then at last the truck turned sharply, hurling him across the metal floor like a sack of coal, and they were on a smooth surface.

He heard the sucking whine of heavy-duty tires, the regular concussions of air as they thudded past cars and trucks, going in the opposite direction. From time to time, as some late traveler came up behind them and awaited his opportunity to pass, the cracks outlining the rear doors were limned in bright light. And then the noise of the tires altered to an oily hiss, and he heard the drumming of rain on the roof.

Shortly afterward the truck bumped off the road and groaned to a halt.

The rumble of the motor died away. The pattering of the rain appeared to increase in volume. A door slammed, and there were sounds of footsteps squelching on wet ground. Solo feigned unconsciousness, his breath snoring slightly through the gag, his eyes turned up.

There was a sudden rush of damp, cold air as the doors at the back were jerked open. Somebody stared inside, flashed a light, grunted, and slammed the doors shut again.

Through slitted eyes, the agent had a momentary impression of a small, nut-faced man in blue overalls, a man with a heavy, pugnacious chin, silhouetted against a glare of light in which rain sloped down in silver lances. And then the iron bar had been dropped across the doors and the footsteps were receding.

He waited for a moment to make sure nobody else was coming. And then he forced his cramped body into action. Rolling over on his back, he gathered his strength and launched himself upward, so that his pinioned feet were pointing at the roof and he appeared to be almost standing on his head—his whole inverted body balanced on his elbows, neck and shoulders. Then, opening his arms as wide as he could, he rolled himself downward again, drawing his knees tightly into his chin and keeping his heels against his haunches. At the same time he passed the hoop of his arms over his hips and tried to bring his bound hands over his feet.

He had almost succeeded, when the heels of his shoes fouled on his wrists—and no matter how hard he tried to bring his knees up further, the feet just wouldn't go through!

Panting and cursing under his breath, he struggled for some minutes before he hit on the obvious solution.

And then, grasping the heels of the shoes firmly in both hands, he jerked them off his feet and tipped them both to the floor. The stockinged feet slid smoothly through the loop of his hands and arms... and at last his wrists were in front of him.

The first thing he did was to reach up and tear off the strip of cloth retaining the gag—and then, painfully, he ejected the gag itself. It was, he discovered, an ordinary tennis ball.

With his bound hands, he explored his pockets as far as he could. The Berretta, of course, was gone. So was the cigarette pack. But the pen appeared to be in place, and the lighter was still in the breast pocket of his jacket. How ironic, Solo thought, that after all the trouble the Armory guys had been to, incorporating a weapon into the thing, it was in fact simply as a lighter that he was going to use it!

Fortunately, it was not one of the self-extinguishing type. Once the wheel had been flicked, the flame continued to bum until the hinged top was lowered over it. He flicked the milled wheel and set the lighter with its small flame on the truck floor.

In the flickering light he saw that apart from a pile of old sacks, the back of the truck seemed to be empty. Gritting his teeth, he lowered his wrists toward the flame.

Two and a quarter excruciating minutes later, the last charred strand of rope parted and he was able to snatch his wrists to his mouth and suck the seared and tender flesh. Quickly, he picked the knots at his knee and ankle and untied his legs. And then, massaging himself to restore his circulation, he took the lighter and began prowling around the truck to see if he could find anything that might help him to get out of it.

It was not very big—larger than a half-ton panel truck but not by any means a
poids lourd
—probably a two or three tonner, Solo thought. The back was, as he had supposed, empty apart from the sacks. But the boxlike storage space continued forward over the roof of the driver's cab.

And here, lying in a corner with a coil of wire, three plugs bound in insulating tape and a twist of oily rags, he found a rusty hacksaw blade.

This was a prize! Scrambling down to the floor again, he tiptoed to the back doors and flicked the lighter on. Although the paneling was rusty, it was a close fit, and the blade would not go through the gap between doors. Panting with the effort, he managed to lean against the outer door with one elbow at the same time as he hooked his fingernails around the edge of the other and painfully drew it toward him. Imperceptibly, the crack widened until he was able to slip the old blade through.

From there it was relatively easy to work it upward until it lodged against the bottom of the fiat iron bar retaining the doors. Sweat beaded Solo's brow as he wrestled the slender steel finger upward against the weight of the bar—but at last the bar was clear of its socket, and he tilted the blade away from him so that the bar slid off and clanked down, leaving him free to push open the doors.