The Stolen Spaceman Affair Page 8

  "Somehow, I don't feel right about this," the uneasy voice replied.

  "So what if the police find their bodies in the sunken junk? In another twenty-four hours we will be out of here and on our way back to South America with that astronaut."

  "It can't be too soon for me," the other replied. "That Chinese pirate gives me the creeps with his graveyard voice."

  "Yeah, he did sound weird talking to those women there in the dark. Once I felt like running out of there myself."

  "I'm going to cut for shore, Miguel. We can't risk hanging around here any longer. We should have left the sinking boat with the others."

  "I wanted to stay with the radio as long as I could," Miguel replied. "I hoped there might be another message from Site G."

  Slipping around through the water to the sampan's stern, April saw the shadow of the Spaniard loom up against the stars. The little two man boat was propelled by a sweep from the stern.

  When the X-man grabbed the handle of the sweep, April threw all her weight against the oar blade at the other end. The unexpected movement caught the man unaware. The oar stock caught him across the chest, knocking him overboard.

  He went under and came up spitting water. April came up behind him, caught the back of his head with the heel of her hand and rammed the man's face into the side of the boat.

  She dived instantly and went under the tiny boat. She came up on the opposite side. Miguel was bending over the gunwale, flashing a light on the water.

  "Carlos! Carlos?" he called anxiously.

  April took a deep, unsteady breath, holding to the side of the sampan. She took another breath, hungrily, savoring it as if air was the most delicious thing on earth.

  Then as the man across the boat leaned over farther in an attempt to spot his companion, April heaved herself up and over the gunwale into the boat. She hoped to catch him unaware. But the boat was so small that her weight caused it to bob on the water.

  Miguel whirled, snatching at a gun in his waistband. April jumped to one side. The motion caused the little boat, scarcely larger than a rowboat, to bob again. The unsteady footing made the X-man's aim bad. His shot split through the air slightly above April Dancer's head.

  He tried to shoot again, but she leaped at him. Her sudden rush knocked his arm aside. The gun exploded into the bay. He swung the barrel in a vicious arc at her head.

  April ducked. The killing blow just missed her head, but smashed into her shoulder. She fell to her knees.

  Miguel stepped back so he could shoot again. Desperately April lunged, grappling her arms about his legs. He fell heavily.

  Before he could twist his body up, April snapped the hidden catch on her finger ring. It was the last of the U.N.C.L.E. protective devices she had left. A tiny needle shot out from the hidden reservoir in the ring. She jammed it deep into Miguel's arm.

  He cursed and tried to jerk back, the potion worked fast. His movements were sluggish. He got his arm half up, but could never get the gun aimed at the girl from U.N.C.L.E.

  He fell to his knees and rolled over on his back. He did not lose consciousness, but stared at the sky, breathing with a shuddering rasp.

  April scrambled up. In the distance she could see a light flashing on the water and hear the roar of a speed boat's engine. She correctly surmised that it was a patrol boat the Hong Kong harbor police. April Dancer stepped hastily across the prone body of the Project X man. She grabbed the oar handle and started to move the sweep. The little sampan headed swiftly toward the shore. Anxiously April watched the oncoming boat, hoping the sweeping arc of its searchlight would not pick them up.

  While she could call on them for help, they were bound by certain rules of procedure. Since her own evidence would not have to be presented in court, April Dancer had to take another tack. She did not want her procedures spoiled by police red tape.

  When the police patrol's searchlight picked out the half-sunken junk and veered, April breathed easier. She kept moving the sweep until the little boat was well out of range. Then she let it drift slowly toward the shore.

  She got down on her knees beside Miguel. Her sensitive fingers touched his pulse. It was weaker than she would have liked. The new U.N.C.L.E. truth serum was extremely powerful. She worried that she might have given the X-man too strong a dose.

  "What is your name?" April asked as a preliminary test.

  "Miguel de Cervantes," the man answered in a dull voice.

  "Are you a member of Project X?"

  "Yes," he said.

  She went on quickly, asking what country he was from and who was behind Project X.

  The latter question he did not know, but when she asked about the nature of their search, he answered readily enough: "We are supposed to receive the astronaut from the Khmerranians when they capture him."

  "Why does Project X need this astronaut's information?" she asked.

  "To fill in the one gap missing from their own death ray."

  "What is that?"

  "The satellites act like auto distributor condensers," he said. "They store up the cosmic rays and then release them in powerful pulses. Our people have not succeeded in building condensers that will hold their charges long enough to be practical."

  "That is all they need?" April asked.

  "The rest they gathered earlier from spies in the American laboratories, where the satellites were assembled. The spy was caught before she could learn the condenser secret which is the heart of the death ray space moons."

  "What can this do?"

  "It can flash a beam at the earth powerful enough to destroy any living thing in its radiation arc," Miguel said in a mechanical, sleep-walker's voice.

  "Do the directors of Project X really intend to use this frightful weapon or will they bluff with it?"

  "The plan calls for complete destruction of every national capital as well as other selected major cities. They believe that it is necessary to have complete political chaos so they can move into the vacuum."

  "How long after the astronaut is captured could Project X be placed in orbit?" April Dancer asked.

  "A matter of days," Miguel's dead voice droned.

  April shivered. "A matter of days!" she repeated in husky whisper. She shuddered again and took a deep breath.

  Almost fearfully she asked her next question: "How close are the Khmerranians to finding the astronaut?"

  "The radio message came in from Project X's Site G in Khmerrania a short time ago that the search party had located the space capsule."

  "Where is Site G?"

  "On the Mekong River in Khmerrania," he said.

  Under April's direct question he rattled off the coordinates---the latitude and longitude of the location.

  "How far is this from where the capsule was found?" April asked.

  "About twenty miles," he replied.

  "Did the Khmerranians give the location of the space capsule?"

  "Yes," he replied, and gave the coordinates which were almost identical with the ones for the Site G.

  April felt another chill. The natives, of course, would know their jungle well. It would surely be only a short time before they captured the lost astronaut.

  "Who is in charge of your Hong Kong cell?" April asked next.

  In the starlight she could see the X-man's face twist. Sweat popped out on his face. He spoke, but reluctantly, fighting hard against the drug.

  April knew the symptoms. The powerful drug was short lived. She had but a few seconds more. There was no chance for a second injection. The ring's tiny reservoir held only a single dose.

  "Senor Juan Morales," the man from Project X said, answering her question.

  "Where is his headquarters?" April asked quickly, hurrying to get in a final bit of information before it was too late.

  "In-in-godown---"

  "Where?" April cried as his voice faltered.

  "Rice warehouse, on---"

  "Where?"

  "---on Quay Road---behind---" His faltering voice traile
d off.

  His body shuddered and stiffened. April reached over with the gun he dropped when she jumped him. She hit him across the temple. A blubbering sound came from his gaping mouth. He relaxed, unconscious.

  April grabbed the sweep and started rowing for the pier. Behind, the police boat was circling the almost sunken junk. Its searchlight was sweeping in a wide arc.

  There was no shoreline here on lower Aberdeen Bay. A rock rampart was constructed to protect the buildings fronting the water's edge. April pulled into a tiny quay and made the boat's rope fast to an iron ring set in the concrete.

  A narrow flight of stone steps led up the dike to the narrow street. She hesitated, wondering if it would be better to get to a phone first. She needed to report to Waverly in New York. Direct communication was not possible, since she had lost her pen-communicator in her purse.

  Also, she would have liked for the Hong Kong police to jail the X-man until he could be questioned more closely. April hesitated just for the briefest moment. "There isn't time!" she told herself. "Every second counts now!"

  As she remembered Hong Kong, Quay Road was about an eighth of a mile down the bay. She started to run, but the near drowning had taken too much out of her. Her lungs still burned and her legs shook. She slowed to a fast walk.

  She saw a taxi let out a couple headed for one of the famous bay floating restaurants. She started to hail it, but remembered she had no money. She walked on hurriedly, hugging the dark side of the street, keeping as much in the moon-cast shadows as possible.

  She came to Quay Road. To her dismay there were three rice warehouses in a row. She stopped, trying to decide which it might be. She tried to recall something the X-man said that might give her a clue.

  Her mind was too dulled by fatigue. April shook her head in a futile effort to clear it. She started to cross the street, but stopped hastily when she saw the shadowed figure of a man crouched low on the roof of the center warehouse. He was moving slowly down the pitch.

  "That must be the one," she told herself, gripping the gun in her damp pocket tightly.

  Then she saw the dark figure jump the intervening distance to the next roof. April Dancer stopped, hesitated.

  "Did he come from the cell headquarters, meaning the place could be in warehouse B or is he headed for it---meaning it would be in the adjoining building?" she asked herself.

  The answer was vital. With the Khmerranians moving in on the missing astronaut, the success or failure of U.N.C.L.E.'s attempt to save the world's capital cities could be lost by a few second's delay.

  Suddenly making up her mind, she started for the center building. Then she stopped, shrinking back in the moon-cast shadows. There was a second man on the roof. She watched him. From his furtive movements it appeared to April that he was following the first.

  Then the first crossed to the building farthest back from Quay Road. He slipped over the eaves and swung down and through a broken loft window.

  His pursuer did not follow, but scurried down a fire ladder and entered a small door at the side of the building.

  April hurried after him. Her heart was beating wildly. She was sure that she was wrong, but something in the silhouette of the first man when he swung off the building reminded her of Mark Slate.

  She opened the door, pushing it gently. She did not enter, but pressed back against the building waiting tensely to see if the man who entered ahead of her would catch the movement.

  There was no sound from inside. April entered cautiously, pressing against the inside wall. It was almost midnight back inside the warehouse. Here and there a shaft of moonlight penetrated through a broken window, but the piles of bagged rice broke the streamers, leaving pitch black alleys between the stacks.

  In the back she could see a small room. A thin line of light showed under the door. Holding the gun firmly, April moved from the wall over to the first line of rice stacks. Softly she moved through the blackness.

  Suddenly she stopped. At the opposite end she saw a man, hesitant and furtive. He was moving rapidly. In the brief glimpse she got April could see a gun in his hand. Then she saw the other man, the one who came across the roof.

  There was a slight movement behind her. April froze, pressing back hard against the sacks. She jerked the gun up, tense, ready to fire. A rat ran up the stack. April let her breath out in a soft sigh and inched closer to the end of the stack line. There she had to cross a short break through which the moonlight streamed.

  She stepped across it hastily and paused on the other side, waiting for some sign that she had been observed. For a second she saw nothing. Then a hand snaked from around a stack of rice snacks. A gun leveled in her direction.

  It was an U.N.C.L.E. special! "It is Mark!" she thought.

  But she couldn't shout a warning to him. There was the furtive man following Slate somewhere in the darkness, and there were the X-men in the room in back. She could not afford to alert either by calling out to Slate.

  April dropped to her knees to make as small a target as possible. Mark Slate, however, was having difficulty spotting his target again. He held his fire. April started to inch forward, trying to get close to whisper to him.

  But as she moved, April saw the shadow of the furtive man loom up behind Mark. A snatch of moonlight fell across his hand. She saw the gun leveled at Mark Slate's dark form.

  There wasn't time to shout a warning. April had her own gun up. She squeezed the trigger. The report was deafening in. the warehouse. It echoed among the rafters, sounding like several shots.

  Slate's pursuer screamed and pitched on his face.

  Slate whirled and threw a quick shot in April's direction. In his haste there wasn't time to use the infra-red darkness-penetrating sight. The bullet crashed into the rice behind April's head. She ducked flat, crying, "You're a lousy shot, Mark!"

  "April!" he cried, his voice shaking with great relief! He rubbed his eyes. "Come on! We've got to get out of here fast! There's more of them in the rear!"

  A powerful electric torch suddenly shot out of the darkness, throwing Mark Slate in a blinding spotlight. Then a voice penetrated the night.

  "Get him! Get him! Death to any fool who lets him get away!"

  April Dancer shivered. It was the deadly voice of the junk captain crying out of the dark!

  NINE

  THE TRAP

  Mark Slate yelled loudly and broke for the door! He was deliberately drawing the X-men's attention away from a different direction with the element of complete surprise on her side. But her gun had only three shots left in it!

  Worse yet, it was an ordinary automatic. It did not have the marvelous U.N.C.L.E. infra-red sights that could pick out a target in total darkness simply from the heat radiation of the body.

  The chance was excellent that Mark, in exposing himself to save April Dancer, had dug his own grave.

  Two men ran past April, but still she held her fire. There were three more on the opposite side. There were not enough bullets left to down them all.

  In that split second when Slate's life depended on her flank attack. April made a desperate decision. Mark Slate, she knew, had no way of knowing that she was inadequately armed. He surely thought that she would be able to hold up her end of the battle.

  So---April ignored all five of Mark's pursuers. She whirled and raced to the end of the rice stack. The gaunt figure of the junk captain stood in the lighted doorway of the back room, shouting for his men to be careful to take Mark Slate alive.

  He broke off at sight of April. He screamed and grabbed for the gun about his waist.

  April shot as the captain's gun raised. The force of the bullet kicked his spare frame back against the wall. He choked and fell on his face.

  The girl from U.N.C.L.E. darted toward him, stooping to snatch up the dying man's gun. One of Mark's pursuers, deciding the girl was the greater danger, whirled and shot at April.

  In the excitement he moved too fast. His bullet missed April's head by inches. It smashed into
the wall. April, growing calmer with the increase in danger, put a bullet into his chest.

  The other two surviving X-men split and ducked into the dark corridors between the high stacks of rice bags.

  April, anticipating their gunfire, ducked behind the body of the dead junk captain. She sprawled flat on the floor to present as small a target as possible.

  There were a few breathless moments when both sides were afraid to move. Then April half raised her head. She had her gun ready but did not shoot. She was trying to decoy them into giving away their position by firing at her. It was a life gamble that she could duck fast enough.

  Both men bit at her bait. They shot at her. One explosion followed the other in quick succession. The muzzle blast betrayed their positions to Mark Slate. His first shot caught the nearest X-man in the side of the face. The second smashed into the other man's chest as he whirled to face the new danger.

  The girl from U.N.C.L.E. made a hasty count. By her figuring there were but two left to face them. Slate came over to join her. Together they pressed against the heavy sacks of rice and waited.

  There wasn't time for a greeting. They quickly moved back to back, each hawkishly watching his and her direction for the slightest movement of their enemies. For ten seconds there was a complete silence. Nothing moved in the dark warehouse.

  Then April whispered softly, "Dr. Slate, I presume!"

  Mark grinned in the darkness. "Fancy meeting you here!" he replied, equally softly.

  Suddenly a light flashed out of the darkness toward them. Slate whirled and fired at it. Too late he realized it was a trap to draw out their position.

  The X-man's bullet skimmed his cheek and smashed into the rice bags a scant inch from April's nose. They both fired together. The report of their guns blended into a single explosion.

  There was no answering shot from the X-man, but the flashlight still lay on the floor where he had tossed it earlier. The beam still pointed toward them.

  The two agents from U.N.C.L.E. retreated slowly to get out of the light.

  "We must have hit him," Slate said softly.

  "But there's another one somewhere."