19 - The Power Cube Affair (16 page)

Daring to peer up, Solo saw the twisted framework of the tower immediately above him. There came the squeal and spang of some strip of metal driven to destruction, and a bulleting rivet head smashed into the concrete in front of his face, struck a trail of sparks, and wailed away into the night. Then the silence rushed in, thick and cold.

TWELVE

IT WAS QUIET. Too quiet. Beyond the ringing in his head, Solo could hear the stillness. He scrambled up, heaving away the metal bar across his back. What a hell of a mess! He drew a deep breath, spat out some stone dust, set off to wander drunkenly to the edge of the surface, tripping and stumbling over chunks of wood, treacherous loops and hooks of wire, odd split levels in the concrete, and he came to a fragile looking barrier of scaffold tubing. He clung and craned over, stared down.

Still it was quiet. Away down there among the toy-sized objects he saw three spreading triangles, the yellow of sand, red of gravel and white of cement, and the tiny red mixer at their common focus. But it was still and silent. Perhaps Wendig had gone away! Solo pondered that a moment, his brain lurching loosely around in his skull. Turning, his eye caught a glint of light. Up there. A window swinging in the breeze. The crane cabin! What about Rambo? Solo aimed himself at the spot where the great box column of the crane leaned against the roof and started towards it.

Just here the scaffolding had been warped and smashed aside. He picked his way around it, leaned out and laid his hand on the main angle steel.

"Climb up," he told himself. "Got to check up. Make sure. Finish it off properly." He nodded at this sound piece of reasoning and had to take hold of his head to stop the nodding from going on indefinitely. He wiped his hands on his trousers, took hold, and started to climb. After the first strain, it was simple enough. All he had to do was to lean on the girder, stretch out, hold, bring up his feet, stretch out again. Engrossed in this, he suddenly realized that something was moving besides himself on the flat concrete, and he held still to watch, frowning gently.

It was Wendig. The thick chested bare headed foreman seemed to come from nowhere, out of a dark shadow. He glared around savagely, twisted back for a look up at the wreckage, ran heavily out into an open area and swore. After a string of profanity that made Solo shake his head, he stooped and caught up an eight foot length of aluminum pole.

"Where the hell are you?" he demanded. "Where?"

Before Solo could decide whether to reply, another shadow came out into the light on Wendig's heels. This one had a shock of fair hair that was almost white in the floodlights, had dirt and sweat on its face, white dust down the side of its sweater and pants, and it stood still now, panting and watching Wendig. Solo stared, then grinned delightedly.

"Why, there's Illya!" he murmured, went to lift a hand to wave and the movement almost dislodged him from his perch. He clutched again, tight.

"You calling me?" Kuryakin said, and Wendig spun around. "Who the hell are you?"

"One of the people you were going to bury in concrete."

The burly foreman froze for just one breath, then launched himself in murderous attack, moving fast, swinging the metal tube. Kuryakin ducked and fell aside, lashed out with a foot, and Wendig plunged on, full tilt, into a concrete edge. Squealing, he turned and came back. Kuryakin ran heavily across the open flat and stooped to grab a length of some thing to use as a weapon. Wendig tore after him, hoisted his tube and hammered down with it. Kuryakin met it, fended it, and the short length of timber he had found shattered and broke, and he went down and back from a numbing blow on his shoulder. Wendig squealed again, charged in, hammered down, and the metal tube clanged on the concrete as his target rolled frantically out of the way.

The foreman was thickset and enraged but nimble on his feet. He came around again, crouched a moment, then charged, but now he was learning caution. This time he wielded the scaffold tube at waist level like a stout spear. Kuryakin backed away cautiously, then deliberately came forward and grabbed the thrusting end and hung on. Wendig heaved back, snorting. Kuryakin set his feet, but he was outclassed for weight. Wendig dragged him, shaking the tube furiously. All at once Kuryakin reversed his tactics, shoved forward violently, and Wendig went tottering back, completely off-balance, falling and unable to regain stability because Kuryakin was shoving. A frantic look over his shoulder told him the end was near, the edge of the building very close. With a squeal he threw away the pole, scrabbling to check his fall. Kuryakin tried to brake too, but too late. The pole clanged aside. Solo saw the pair of them clump together in a tangle of clutching arms and go to the brink in a crazy waltz.

They struck a scaffold pole fence, and it creaked, yielded, and then Wendig was going—up in the air and over— screaming as he fell out of sight. Kuryakin went over too, until his legs, desperately crooked, caught at the pole and he hung there, swinging. Just for a moment; then he grabbed upward with one hand, then the other, heaved and writhed and managed to get himself upright. Then, with a convulsive leap, he flung himself back on to the safety of the concrete, staggered forward, and went down on his hands and knees.

Solo nodded to himself happily, then remembered his own errand. He looked up. Got to fix Rambo. Not far, now. He began to climb again. The girder gave way to locking plates, then another girder, and then the base of the cabin. A door, but it was shut, and it would have meant forsaking the girder and launching out into the emptiness in the middle of the square. So Solo decided against that, decided instead to go on up the outside and look into the swinging window. He applied his abraded fingers with care, heaved until his head came up level with the dark opening, and peered in. Breathing. A grunt. Then a huge hand on the end of an arm like a beam came out of the dark and took him by the throat.

"Waited for you," a deep chested voice growled. "Heard you coming up the steel. Got you now, mister!"

Solo tried to shake his neck free and the pressure went on until he felt his face going blue. Blood pounded in his head, and his lungs ached.

"You done me, mister. I'm all smashed up inside. But you're going with me. We is going to sing Hallelujah together, you and me!"

That grip was evidence that Rambo meant every word. Solo had no free hands to tackle it. He was suspended on the underside of an angle. To let go meant to fall. His wits churned. If he didn't let go and do something he was dead anyway. His lungs were bursting. Far away, over the thunder, he heard a voice.

"Napoleon, what are you doing up there?"

There was nothing else to do. He let go both hands, clamped them on the massive arm that was choking the life out of him and let his whole weight fall on Rambo's arm. Something had to go. Something did. He felt himself go sluggishly backward and then down, caught a glimpse of a dark face, gleaming teeth and staring eyes as Rambo was dragged bodily out of the window. And then he fell. The white concrete came up to meet him, and he had one brief flash of Illya's amazed stare, directly below. Then the smash of impact and merciful darkness.

This time I'm ready dead
, he thought.
It's happened at last!
and there was a certain sadness about it. But not for long. Aches began to report themselves, from his hands, his knees, the small of his back and his throat, and he sighed and decided there was nothing else to do but to wake up and start all over again. He stirred, tried to raise himself, and there was an arm across his neck. Rambo's arm, but Rambo would never need it again. He struggled free, sat up, worked his head and neck gingerly and saw Illya near by, curled up and sleeping soundly.

"Hoy!" He reached over and shook, firmly. "Can't sleep here!"

"Not sleeping. Dying. Look." Kuryakin opened one eye accusingly. "Next time you hurl yourself off somewhere, shout a warning, eh?"

"Should know better, man like you. Never stand right under. Always back off a little. Anyway, can't die here, up in the air. Got to go down."

"How?"

"You came up," Solo reasoned. "So must be possible to go down again. Come on, show me."

Kuryakin stirred, sat up stiffly, managed to get to his feet on the third try and stood looking down. "Come on, then!"

"Oh!" Solo realized he was still sitting, put out a hand, shoved the inert bulk of Rambo's shoulder carefully aside and made it to his feet. He waved Illya to lead on, and all at once his mind became pinpoint clear, completely detached from his battered body. Hopwell, gone. Wendig, gone. Rambo, gone. Who was left? He thought carefully while his automatic arms and legs descended a stairwell into gloom, down, and around, and down, and around, moving in blackness, into the glare from windows and into blackness again. Who now? Well, there was still Green. And Beeman. Somebody else. Groping, he came up with the name Louise, remembered who she was and that started something else to mind. The small truck. Sacks. He watched his shambling form come out on to the level, into the reflected glare from the lights, and urged himself to get with it again.

"Illya," he said, catching up with his guide. "The little truck. That way." He pointed with an arm that seemed curiously bent, but Illya understood and nodded. They plodded on, up to the open gates and the truck. They peered inside.

"Got to get her out," Solo decided, and between them they managed to drag out the unconscious girl and struggle with her around to the front, where they piled her into the driving seat.

"She can't drive, Napoleon."

"Certainly not. We have to do that. Got the keys?"

They were still in the ignition. Somehow they managed to scramble in, Solo at the wheel and Kuryakin supporting Louise's limp figure. They got moving along the road. After what seemed an age they approached a familiar sign post. Solo peered up at it and nodded. The plan was crystal clear in his mind. They ran on across the highway and into the long, curving lesser road.

"Keep a lookout, Illya. Beeman's place. Down there some where. Got a little—little gift for him. Sort of a surprise."

"All right. There it is now, down there."

Solo dragged at the wheel, grunted as the front wheels dropped into the ditch and up, then killed the engine. "Plan," he said, enunciating very carefully. "Like we did be fore, remember? Down the hill, and boom?"

"I remember." Illya nodded, and chuckled. "Boom! Good!" They fell out on either side, struggled to drag Louise clear, and Solo staggered around to the back, where the doors were flapping open. It seemed urgent that he first cheek whether there was anything inside. As he put out a hand to grope, he noticed the sleeve on his own arm. Hopwell's jacket. He didn't need that any longer. He fell down as he tried to drag it off. Getting up again he saw Kuryakin watching him curiously. He grinned, tugged at a sleeve again, and there was a rattle from one pocket. Matches.

"Spare can of gas in there. You follow me, Illya?"

"Absolutely. Get it out."

It was a task, getting the cap off, but they managed it. Solo held, while Kuryakin poured, then tossed the can into the back.

"Matches now. You go start the engine."

Solo giggled, shambled around, climbed in, twisted the key and the engine caught. He craned out to peer back.

Kuryakin struck a match, waved it near the jacket, and it caught with a whoosh that singed him. He threw it hastily, slammed the doors.

"Go away!" he shouted, and Solo let the clutch in. The truck bucked up over the edge of the grass. Solo fell out, rolled, clutched grass, sat up and watched as Kuryakin slid to a stop beside him. The truck plunged on and down, bumping and lurching, gathering speed, struck a steeper part, surged, hit a shelf and leaped out into the dark. At that moment the back doors burst open to gush out leaping yellow flames. Down and down, and it landed solid and square, right in the middle of a glassed in sun dome on that house down there. The spout of flames and the hideous crash that reverberated back were extremely satisfying.

"Bull's-eye!" declared Solo. "With the compliments of Mary Chantry, Louise Thompson, Illya Kuryakin and yours sincerely, Napoleon Solo!"

"Good speech! Can we go home now, Napoleon?"

"That's a very good idea, Illya. Go home. Got a little car here somewhere. Lovely little car. Goes like a bomb!" That struck him as exceedingly witty, and he was still chuckling over it as they fought their way up the hillside, collected Louise's lifeless body, and sought out their own car from its hiding place among the bushes. They stretched her out in the back seat and scrambled into the front. Solo found the keys, pressed the starter, and the engine came to life. He straightened, fumbled with pedals and gear lever, pawed the panel until the lights came on, then aimed for the road, and they were off.

"Got to get Louise to a doctor," he declared. "She's sick. Everybody's sick. Need help." There was no response. Kuryakin leaned back and lolled with his eyes closed, wearing a smile of bliss. Solo snorted, put his attention on the road again. The headlights seemed bent, and the road twisted crazily from one side to the other as he tried to follow it.

"All crooked," he sighed. "All of it. That's the trouble with everything. All twisted up." Again he had a flash of that knife edge clarity, his mind retreating from the crazy world of corkscrew roads, and sinuous headlight beams.
Going home.
But
, he argued,
where home? Which way? Need help. But who? Mustn't tell U.N.C.L.E
. He was certain of that.
So who
? A name knocked at the door of his mind. He let it in. Nan. Nan Perrell. Lovely girl. He fastened onto that thought, worked at it until it was clear, then peered, through the rainbow windshield again. Somehow he had left the road and was on a switchback. But there was a familiar corner. And there, just ahead, was a call box shining in the dark. Sanity struck through the delirium. He leaned his head against the cold glass of the screen, and the chill was wonderful. He sat up, eased over to the side of the road and stopped, stared at the call box. Call for help. He scrambled out, fumbled at the door, stumbled inside. Six- pence. He groped, got one out and ready. Then he dug down through the muddled layers of memory until he found the number she had told him. He lifted the receiver and dialed. There came a double-buzz, and again, then a click and a rapid chittering. He aimed the sixpence for the slot as he heard a male voice state: