The Moby Dick Affair Page 11

  With a faltering hand Commander Ahab reached for the white switch—

  With all the strength he had left, Napoleon Solo hauled back his right arm and flung the alloy tube whose end had been ripped by the lathe into a javelin-jagged point. Ahab's fingers touched the switch. The sharpened tube drove full force into the center of his back.

  Ahab shrieked. He clawed at the switch. Solo watched, horrorstruck. If Ahab managed to seize the vital toggle in his last death spasms—

  The commander's fingers slid away, leaving the switch unthrown. He turned awkwardly, peering up the aisle toward his slayer. Then, with a last bellow of pain, he sank down like a harpooned whale.

  Feebly Solo limped back to Illya, found his communicator and called Channel D.

  FOUR

  THE HUGE TRANS-OCEANIC jet for New York lifted from the London airfield. Napoleon Solo sat by the window, staring out.

  The city was not a pleasant sight. Even forty-eight hours after the Prime Minister had called an end to the evacuation at 4:24 P.M. that fatal afternoon, fires still burned. Smoky pillars climbed into the bright afternoon sky. The streets were being patrolled by units of the British Army, plus additional NATO forces rushed in by airlift.

  The casualty toll, while not nearly as high as it would have been if Project Ahab had been a success, was still unpleasant. Solo tried to shut it all out of his mind.

  The only compensation in the whole affair was the recovery of Cleo St. Cloud. In return for a lightened sentence, she had offered to work for U.N.C.L.E. when she got out of the hospital. She could be valuable in training U.N.C.L.E. agents in advanced hypnotic techniques.

  The jet continued its climb toward the setting sun. Solo glanced at Illya Kuryakin sitting next to him. To Solo's surprise, Illya had taken a book out of his attaché case and was engrossed. He still looked pale, and heavier than usual due to the layers of bandage beneath his shirt.

  "What's that you're reading?" Solo asked.

  "Oh, something I picked up at a book store before we left," Illya replied. He flipped to the title page, pointed. "The Psychomilitary Uses of Medical Hypnosis. As someone once remarked, if you can't beat them, join them."

  Seated across the aisle, Mr. Alexander Waverly pinched the bridge of his nose and looked unhappy.

  "Put it away, Mr. Kuryakin," he said. "Put it away."

  "But sir, it contains valuable information which we could profitably—"

  "Not now, Mr. Kuryakin," Waverly said. "In New York, all right. But not now. Can't you occupy yourself with something that doesn't call up distressing memories?"

  Suddenly Napoleon Solo grinned. The trim and most attractive stewardess was moving along the cabin aisle, speaking to various passengers.

  "I can," Solo said, and rang the bell to call her.