Pulp Fiction | The Invisibility Affair by Thomas Stratton (10 page)

Napoleon tugged at Illya's arm. "You must have a remarkable interviewing technique. However, I think the gas has pretty well dissipated by now."

Together they walked into the apartment. The room they entered had obviously been used as an office and communications center. An adjoining similar room had been Forbes' living room.

Napoleon nodded. "Forbes took two apartments and put in connecting doors. He used one as living quarters and the other for business; changed the living room to an office, the bedroom to a stronghold for prisoners and the kitchen for...hmm." He pushed open the door and confronted and untidy heap of empty boxes, cans, and old newspapers. "Not very good housekeepers, are they? Still, I don't see any escape routes here. We had men on every door, and the windows haven't been opened..." He walked over to a window and tried to raise it. "I suspect it would take a small bomb to open them. They seem to be designed to contain everything except light waves."

Illya had been standing in the doorway between the two apartments, staring first at the living room and then at the office. Finally, he deliberately paced off the distance from the door to the wall in each room and looked thoughtful. "Now why," he mused, "should the apartment used as an office be two feet wider than the one used as living quarters?"

"Oh?" Napoleon came over and they began inspecting the walls. It was Napoleon who noted that the artificial fireplace in the living room didn't fit quite snugly to the wall. After some experimental pulling and tugging, the fireplace swung out into the room, revealing a narrow passageway between the wall of the building and the interior walls of the living room and kitchen. At the end was a door. Napoleon opened it and looked out into the startled face of Brattner.

"So, that's how they did it," the Milwaukee agent said. "It's good camouflage; from the outside that door looks like part of the wall."

Napoleon and Illya emerged. "I still don't see how Andy got through there," Napoleon said. "That place is narrow. How's George?"

Brattner glanced at his agent, who was being steadied by another man and rubbing his head. "He'll be all right. A sore head is nothing to get excited about in this business. They surprised him; he was watching the windows and didn't expect them to come out of the wall on top of him. He'll know better next time."

Napoleon nodded. "We have to talk to Miss Griffin, and I'd prefer to do it away from here. If we could use your car, while you go through the apartment and reassure the tenants that the excitement is over...? You probably won't find much in the apartment, but they did leave a small computer behind."

Brattner grinned gleefully. "That'll cost them to replace. Come on, George, let's go check the apartment. If there's any of that gas left, it'll clear your head." He handed his car keys to Napoleon. "I'll ride back with one of the boys when we're done."

Napoleon and Illya walked around the corner of the building and in the back door. Kerry was standing in the hall, near one of the battered doors. "I'm very sorry, Kerry," Napoleon apologized as they reached her side. "I'm afraid it didn't work out quite as well as we had planned."

"The fact that you were capable of accomplishing your mission insofar as it related to myself is as matter which elicits my extreme gratitude," she replied.

"Now, now," Napoleon said, "calm down. You're all right now, and we still have a good chance of getting your uncle back."

She let out a deep breath and stepped back a pace. "Yes, I'm all right now. Actually it wasn't so bad. They were very polite all the time; they were just so quietly fanatical about things. They hadn't harmed Uncle Willard, either; he'd been pretending to work with them, but they suspected that he was stalling. That's why they wanted me."

The three of them walked outside to the car. "Did you find out where they were keeping the OTSMID?" Illya asked. "They obviously didn't have room for it here."

Kerry related her uncle's information that the OTSMID had been in storage. "But they were planning to move it today," she added. "They were going to put it on a dirigible—or a Zeppelin, McNulty called it."

"A dirigible? You mean one of those things like a balloon only different? With gas bags and all?" Napoleon said vaguely.

Kerry nodded and went on to explain the unlikely sequence of events that had led to a concealed dirigible in the state of Wisconsin. "Why did McNulty call it a Zeppelin?" she asked.

"That's the German term for a dirigible," Illya said. "An invisible dirigible; it has a certain charm."

"We surprised them before they could move," Napoleon said thoughtfully. "So the OTSMID is still stored. If we act quickly, we just might be able to surprise them again." He turned back to the building. "I'm going to get Brattner started on this; cleaning out the apartment can wait."

A few minutes later Napoleon, Brattner, and three agents emerged from the building and separated to walk to their respective cars. Brattner and Napoleon joined Illya and Kerry.

"I think we have something," Brattner said. "There was some Thrush activity not far from our headquarters a month ago, down on Commerce Street. We were looking for a satrapy headquarters, so when they didn't follow up, we let it go. But it could just have been them putting their equipment in storage. We'll cover the area now. George is staying behind to finish checking out the apartment; he is quite up to strenuous activity yet. So far we haven't found anything useful, but"—he smiled happily—"they lost some expensive equipment in there. The place was well designed, too, for a rush job. I wonder who their architect is?"

* * *

Commerce Street barely deserved to be called a street. It came into being only a few blocks northeast of the U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, and it seemed to be fighting for its life with a series of railroad tracks that ran alongside it and occasionally down its middle.

Napoleon and Illya stood by their car across from one of the many warehouses in the area, one with a large parking lot alongside the loading docks. Brattner and the other agents were checking other buildings along the street. Pocketing the keys to the car, Napoleon started across the street toward the warehouse.

"There doesn't seem to be very much activity going on around this one," Illya said as they walked toward some narrow steel steps that led up to one of the docks.

The steps rattled as they climbed them. An open overhead door in front of them revealed long lines of crates, all mounted on wooden skids. A large forklift stood idly by, its motor chuffling noisily.

"Coffee break?" Illya asked.

"Strong union, apparently," Napoleon said. As they walked forward he pulled out his communicator and contacted Brattner. "We might have something here," he said. "There isn't any activity at all that we can see; not even a workman in sight."

"Unusual," said Brattner. "That place you picked is usually pretty busy. Have you checked the offices yet?"

"No, but we'll..." The roar of a powerful motor echoed through the building. "Something just took off," Napoleon said into the communicator. "I think you'd better get your men down here." Replacing the communicator, he took off at run after Illya, who had already started toward the rear of the building. They pounded through aisle after aisle of crates, bales and machinery. Rounding a corner they burst into an open space. A row of doors lined a wall fifty feet from them, and a forklift was laboring through one of the doors, carrying a large rectangular object. The driver was a large man wearing grey slacks, a dark brown shirt, and an orange tie.

"I wouldn't swear to the face, but the clothing looks familiar," Illya shouted as he drew his gun.

A shot rang out from somewhere beyond the doors, and chips of concrete from the floor spattered Napoleon's legs. He dived behind a convenient crate as Illya took refuge behind a stack of metal pipes.

The forklift disappeared through the door.

Napoleon risked a quick look and got off two fast shots which drew a fusillade in return. Hastily he pulled out his communicator and explained the situation to Brattner."They've got a truck out there," he added. "If you get here fast enough, you can block their exit."

The forklift roared more loudly and a second later the engine of a truck sprang into even more noisy life. There was the sound of gears grinding, and Napoleon risked another look. This time there was no answering fire, and he caught a glimpse of the truck pulling away. Illya sprinted for the door, while Napoleon informed Brattner of the quarry's impending escape. Illya reached the door in time to see the truck vanish around a corner of the building. He turned and began running back toward the front of the warehouse.

"We're almost there," Brattner's voice came through the communicator, "but I don't know if we can—" There was a grinding sound and the crash of breaking glass, followed by sporadic gunfire. After a second, Brattner's voice came through again. "We couldn't. That truck's tough; we rammed without doing any damage at all."

Illya and Napoleon burst through the front doors of the warehouse, leaped down from the dock, and ran for their car. They could see Brattner's car, where it had attempted to block the truck's exit. Its right front fender was a shambles and headlight fragments covered the street. Fifty yards to the north, the truck was rapidly gaining speed.

Napoleon jammed the keys in the ignition as the door slammed shut. Tires squealed as he took off in "low," shifting to "drive" as they gained speed with the accelerator floored. Illya leaned out the window and attempted to draw a bead on the rear wheels of the truck just as they thudded across a set of railroad tracks. When he stopped bouncing, he drew back inside, rubbed the back of his neck, and glared accusingly at Napoleon.

Two hundred yards away, they could see the truck rounding a slight curve and heading into a three block straightaway that ran along the river. Heading into the curve themselves moments later, they could see they were gaining very little. The truck was nearing the end of the street and braking sharply to take the hairpin turn that wound around to the right a full hundred and eighty degrees and climbed steeply to intersect with another street that crossed over Commerce some fifty feet above it.

Instead of subsiding on the straightaway, the bouncing increased as their speed increased. Illya fired at the truck as it made its turn, but he realized that hitting a truck tire from this lurching, swaying car would be more a matter of luck than marksmanship.

He wasn't lucky. As they braked for the turn, the truck, with hardly a pause, charged into traffic on the overhead street and headed north. Illya sat back and replaced the magazine of his pistol with a full one from his pocket.

Wheeling into the turn, Napoleon suddenly braked violently and the car swerved sideways against the high bank that lined the left side of the street. It came to a halt ten feet from a large oil drum sitting squarely in the middle of the incline.

Illya leaped out and dashed forward. A quick shove and the drum, apparently empty, rolled easily against the bank.

Pulling out into the cross street a second later, they could see the truck disappearing over a hill three blocks to the north. The blaring of horns from a stop-lighted intersection a block behind the truck indicated a difference of opinion which the truck had obviously won.

Another series of railroad tracks bounced them off the car's roof as they raced across. Luckily the traffic light was green by now and they didn't have to fight for the right of way. Topping the hill, they could see the truck, still three blocks away, bulling its way through another stoplight. A chorus of auto horns erupted as it made a rocking left turn and disappeared down the side street.

"Make a note to have some kind of siren put on U.N.C.L.E. cars," Napoleon said, swerving to avoid a car that had pulled out of a cross street in front of them.

"Yes," Illya agreed. "We don't have enough size to bluff through the way he's doing, and even if we did, I don't like the idea of killing innocent bystanders."

"Thrush isn't that particular, apparently," Napoleon said as he watched the truck charge through a red light with its horn blaring and leave a Volkswagen sitting against a curb like a broken beetle. The light was green as Napoleon and Illya raced through, with the Volkswagen's passengers staring at them in shocked silence.

"I wonder what our relations are with the local police." Napoleon wondered as he swerved out to pass a bus.

"Deteriorating by the minute, I suspect," Illya returned.

"Now what's that juggernaut up to!" Napoleon exclaimed. "We were just starting to gain on him!"

Two blocks ahead, the truck made a sharp left turn amid more blaring of horns and disappeared down a side street. Napoleon did the same a few seconds later, earning some colorful language from a bus driver he cut off.

For half an hour the pursuit continued. Whenever Napoleon and Illya started to overtake the truck, it would duck into a side street and emerge again, always; it seemed, through hordes of cross traffic that parted much more readily for the truck than for the pursuing car. By this time, the two agents could hear the wail of police sirens, but so far no police car had been able to get close enough to the chase to be effective.

Longer open stretched, however, were making it more difficult for the truck to retain its lead. Napoleon and Illya were only a few car lengths behind when the truck's brake lights flared suddenly. With a last-second twist of the wheel, Napoleon swerved the car past and stepped on the brakes.

The car skidded to a halt just off the edge of the highway and the two agents leaped out, guns ready. The truck was empty and two men were disappearing into a line of bushes atop a steep bank. Illya and Napoleon plunged after them.

Bursting through the bushes at the top of the bank, they found themselves in a cemetery, most of the graves overgrown and the headstones weather-beaten and cracked. The Thrushes were disappearing down another steep bank at the rear of the cemetery.

Illya and Napoleon cleared the remnants of a wire fence, then half jumped, half slid down the bank and plunged through a thick cluster of trees, followed by the sound of the Thrushes crashing through the brush ahead of them.