The Stolen Spaceman Affair Read online

  "That," Mark Slate said with a hard note coming into his casual voice, "is his misfortune!"

  "Well---" April began and then called frantically, "Look out, Mark!"

  Slate jerked around to see what had alarmed her. Too late he saw the pile of rice bags tumbling over on top of him. He jumped back. But a one-hundred pound sack hit his shoulder. The falling weight knocked him down. Before he could recover other bags kept tumbling off the stack. From the opposite end of the warehouse the darkness was ripped by muzzle blast as the second X-man cut down on them with his gun.

  Mark Slate was partially protected by the heavy jute bags of rice which pinned him down. April was fully exposed to the fire from both the shooter and the X-man who had toppled the bags over on Slate.

  April ducked, firing as she went. The shot went wild, but it caused the X-man to duck back out of sight. The one on top of the stack leaned over, trying to find a target.

  April whirled. Her bullet caught the unbalanced man in the shoulder, but it was only a skin breaker. He jerked back, but lost his balance. He came hurtling down on top of the bags pinning Mark Slate.

  April rose up over the fallen sacks. She caught the slight movement of the other man in the dark. She fired at the shadow and heard a scream as the shadow fell.

  Her distraction to make that shot gave the man who fell from atop the stacks the chance he was looking for. He scrambled around, aiming his gun full at April's chest.

  Slate was pinned down so tightly he could not get out. The bags lay across his back and legs. He was face down, but his arms were free. He had twisted as much as he could, pushing futilely against the hundred pound sacks crushing him.

  He saw the danger facing April. He heaved with all his strength, but the weight on top of him was too much. He lashed out with his hand, trying to grab the killer's ankle, but missed by inches.

  In an anguish of fear for his companion Slate saw the X-man raise his gun.

  Unable to move to help her, Slate did the only thing he could. He yelled, a wild, piercing bansheeish scream that caused the killer to flinch. The X-man's grated nerves made his aim unsteady. The bullet intended for April Dancer's chest whined over her shoulder.

  Before he could shoot again, April hurled her now empty gun into his face. He staggered back. She caught his arm, intending a judo throw, but his sleeve ripped and she lost her grasp.

  He fell from the backward momentum of his attempt to get away from her. This brought him too close to the imprisoned man from U.N.C.L.E.

  Mark Slate's frantic fingers caught his ankle. The X-man sprawled fiat again. He twisted, trying to put a bullet in Mark.

  April jerked her body around and the spike heel of her shoe rammed into the killer's side. He doubled up in pain. April snatched up his gun and shoved it in Mark's hand. He covered the groaning Xman while April pulled the heavy bags off Slate's body.

  "Can you move?" she asked anxiously.

  "Yes," Slate said. "The weight just had me pinned where I couldn't get enough leverage to push my way out."

  "Okay!" April said crisply. "We haven't a second to lose. The Khmerranian searchers have found the astronaut's capsule!"

  "Then you know what the whole thing is about?" Slate asked.

  "I know something," April said hurriedly. "Maybe not all, but you can fill me in later. We've got to get into Khmerrania and fast."

  "Mr. Waverly already has it set up for us," Slate said, stretching gingerly as bruised muscles protested his movement. "Permission has been obtained from Cambodia for Professor Marcus Slaterson and his wife, Aprelda, to go to Angkor for scientific studies of the ruins. The air route, I suppose you know, lies across the southern end of Khmerrania."

  "Great!" April said.

  "How are you at sky diving?"

  "I can do it if you can!"

  "So the only thing holding us up is a destination. We have the way to get into Khmerrania, but we don't know where to go when we get there."

  "I think I have the answer to that!" April said, her excitement growing.

  Quickly she sketched for him what had happened to her. He prudently kept quiet, for the present, about his own experience with Avis Avalee. He did not want to admit to April that the girl from THRUSH had outwitted him.

  "And," April concluded hurriedly, "the Project X men were using this warehouse and the junk as their headquarters here in Hong Kong. They got word from their Khmerranian field division known as Site G that the Khmerranians had found the space capsule and expect to get the astronaut any minute."

  But did you hear where they think the astronaut is?” Slate asked. "If not, it is no help to us. We haven't time to go into Khmerrania and start looking. We must cut right to the heart of the knot."

  "The capsule is close to Site G," the girl from U.N.C.L.E. said. "So he---"

  She motioned toward their groaning prisoner.

  "---So he should know where Site G is. I used all my truth serum. Do you have any?"

  Mark Slate nodded. The X-man looked up at them. He tensed.

  "Go on!" April Dancer ordered, holding the gun level with his eyes. "Go on, jump him if you dare!"

  He shuddered and flinched as Mark Slate flicked out the tiny needle hidden in the black star sapphire ring he wore. Mark jabbed it into the X-man's arm.

  As the serum took hold, they questioned him closely. The last report from Site G, they learned, was that the astronaut had been located, but had escaped their net. Capture was expected momentarily.

  "The site? Where is it?" April asked.

  Mark Slate pulled out his pen-communicator as their prisoner talked. He gave Alexander Waverly a quick report, adding, "April and I will follow the original plan and go into Khmerrania by accident. We will leave at once."

  "Excellent," Mr. Waverly said. "Is Miss Dancer in sufficient physical condition after her ordeal to go with you? This will undoubtedly be a most strenuous endeavor."

  "I am in top physical condition," April told Mr. Waverly.

  Mark Slate's appreciative eye noted the way her wet dress was molded to her body. "Yes," he said. "That is apparent."

  "Very well, Mr. Slate, I will send word for the plane to be readied for you. Can you start within an hour?"

  "Yes, sir," Slate said, looking at April, who nodded.

  "Then good luck," Alexander Waverly said. "I understand fully what difficulties you face in this terrible matter. You are going into an unknown jungle, much of which has never been explored. In addition to the natural dangers, which are formidable in themselves, you must fight THRUSH, the Khmerranians, and the men from Project X."

  "We'll get by," April said quietly.

  "I am sure you will," Alexander Waverly replied. "And I will have help to you just as quickly as it can get there. Mr. Kuryakin will be leaving in a matter of minutes. Mr. Solo will follow from South America. However, do not wait on them. Every second counts."

  Much as they hated to lose the time, it was necessary for Slate and April Dancer to return to the hotel. Slate had to lay aside his loud Carnaby Street wardrobe for the outdated garb of a not overly well endowed professional type. April Dancer scrubbed off her lipstick and powder, pulled her hair up in an unbecoming knot, and put on flat heels to complement her shapeless tweed skirt.

  The change was made as quickly as possible. Then, with the support of the Hong Kong police, they were whisked to the airport where a representative of the U.S. Embassy had new passports made out in their cover-up identities. The proper Cambodian visas were in order.

  As they went out to the plane, Slate explained that it was a charter job.

  "A small two-engine prop job," "The wheel retracts and floats can come down. This will be nice, for I have consulted my horoscope, crystal ball, and favorite gypsy tea leaves reader and all assure me that we just might be forced to make an emergency landing on the Mekong River, where it swings through Khmerrania."

  "How far is this emergency landing spot from Project X's Site G?" April asked.

  "It is just slig
htly up river from the site---if the location we got that reluctant X-man is correct. The border mountains are upstream. I figure he would head for them and try to get out of Khmerrania and into Vietnam, where he can contact Americans."

  "Well," April said, "if we don't stop talking and start walking, time is going to run out on us."

  Slate's face sobered. "I know you what mean," he said.

  "The pilot?" April Dancer "Anybody we know?"

  Mark Slate shook his head. "This matter of national borders is so important that there must be no suggestion that the United States is violating any country's neutrality. We are scientific investigators for a museum. When the plane is forced down the pilot must be able to pass any suspicions of the Khmerranian government."

  "If he isn't in on the matter, how do we make an emergency landing?" April asked.

  "There is a tiny device in the plane's engine," Mark Slate explained. "It is activated by a radio signal from our pen-communicators. So don't call Waverly for anything until after I cut off the engines."

  "I don't know if mine will work," April said. "I just grabbed my spare purse at the hotel. All my other devices were lost when I was taken to the junk."

  "Do you have everything else?"

  "Everything," April said. "The smoke bomb mints, the explosive chewing gum, a new truth serum ring, the cigarette lighter tape recorder, the pen communicator, and the rest."

  "Then we're in splendid shape for the shape we're in," Slate said.

  April nodded and closed her eyes. In a couple of seconds she was sleeping. Slate shook his head wonderingly. April's marvelous power of recuperating never ceased to amaze him.

  He closed his own eyes, but could not sleep. He kept seeing a vision of the Potomac River flowing past a Washington that had become a mausoleum, a Seine River that was the only moving thing in Paris, and a London that had become a graveyard.

  The hours passed swiftly. Suddenly his wrist watch gave a tiny bleep. Slate sat up tensely. The signal came from the standard world navigation satellite used by ships for pinpointing their positions. The tiny signal told Slate that they were nearing their location in Khmerrania. He had earlier set up the disguised navigation device in the watch for the coordinates on the map.

  He nudged April awake.

  "This is it," he said. "I have received the first signal. When the bleeps turn into a steady hum, I will jam the engine."

  April took out her pen-communicator from her purse. She extended the six-inch antenna and adjusted the wave length by turning the cap.

  "What is the good word?" she asked.

  His lips formed the word "Uncle." April nodded that she understood.

  "Please fasten your seat belts," the pilot's voice came over the intercom back to the tiny cabin. "We are running into bad weather ahead," he said. "A typhoon is forecast, but we will land at Siem Reap outside of Angkor at least two hours before then. However, the air may be a little rough."

  Two minutes later the tiny bleep-bleep of the navigation device settled into a steady hum.

  "This is it!" Slate said to April. Then into the pen-communicator she held for him, he said, "Uncle!"

  April looked out the window of the plane. The tropical jungle stretched all the way to the mountains in an unbroken sea of green. The mountains were almost obscured by the approaching storm. The great Mekong River, winding down from Laos, snaked its way through the jungle.

  The thin silver thread seemed too small from the air to afford them a landing spot.

  While she watched, the engines cut out. The pilot called back: "We have trouble. We'll have to make an emergency landing. Don't worry. Everything will be all right. We have pontoons. We'll make a landing on the river."

  "Well, here we go!" April said. Her dark eyes were shining.

  They spiraled down rapidly. The green sea started to take on individual form.

  "I think I see what looks like a jungle outpost," the pilot reported over the intercom. "I'll try to put her down beside it."

  "Is that good for us?" April asked.

  "It may be," Slate said. "Our papers are in order. I don't suspect they will penetrate our disguise. They will have to bring the astronaut back here to Site G to turn him over to the men from Project X. We will be in a good spot."

  "Or at least in a spot!" April said, but the look of pleasure on her face belied her words.

  "I am going over the river outpost," the pilot called. "It will alert the operators so they can follow us if we land too far away from there."

  They came in at about two-hundred feet.

  April watched carefully, seeking some idea of how many X-men manned the outpost.

  "I think it is deserted," she said, frowning. "I don't---"

  Her words were cut off by a sudden lurch of the plane.

  "They're shooting at us!" the pilot's voice cried from the cockpit. "I---"

  The little plane yawed and then started to sideslip. Fire burst from the left wing tank. They were losing altitude in an alarming manner. Already they were too low to bail out.

  The tops of the giant jungle trees reached up to catch their fall.

  April Dancer and Mark Slate braced themselves as best they could for the coming crash!

  TEN

  MOUNTAIN Of DOOM

  As the plane came down, the pilot jerked back on the stick with all his strength in a desperate attempt to bring up the diving nose. The screaming wind caught the elevators. The nose came up a little, but the plane had lost flying speed.

  The tail dragged across the tree tops. Shudders went through the falling plane. It was not a hard fall. The dragging tail slowed their speed and the tightly entwined tree limbs acted as a great spring to cushion the shock.

  The plane never touched the ground, but rocked to a stop, still supported by the shattered trunks and limbs of the tropical forest giants.

  One wing was almost completely engulfed with flames. Mark Slate jerked off his seat belt and ran to the pilot's compartment. He saw with regret that the man had not come out of the crash as well as his passengers. The broken stub of a limb had crashed through the windshield and was driven through his body.

  Slate ran back to April Dancer. Already the girl from U.N.C.L.E. had the door open. It was a ten-foot drop to the ground. April grabbed the edge of the door and let herself down on her extended arms.

  Then she dropped lightly the rest of the way. Slate grabbed two emergency survival kits from the parachutes stacked in a cabinet back of the pilot's compartment. He threw them down to April and then dropped out himself.

  They started to run, knowing that the burning wing would reach the gasoline tank momentarily.

  For a short time they made good progress through the area torn loose by the falling plane, but once past this they ran into almost solid jungle. Parasitic plants grew so thickly they could make no progress at all.

  Slate jerked a machete from the jungle survival kit and started hacking madly at the tangled vines. Behind them the flames reached the main gas tank of the plane. It exploded in a crash of flame that shot high in the air.

  The two from U.N.C.L.E. burrowed deeply into the thick vegetation to escape the rain of fire that fell out from the explosion.

  April Dancer raised up.

  "Are you okay, Mark?" she asked anxiously.

  "Yes," Slate said. "But we have to get out of here fast. That explosion will give our position away for sure. The way they shot our plane down shows that Site G will not accept any strangers. Our plan was shot down with the plane, April."

  "Okay," she said. "We'll make a new one. There isn't a chance for us to hack out a trail fast enough to stay ahead of them. So let's take to the trees!"

  She started to climb up the tangled vines strangling a giant tree with a silvery gray bark. Close to the top she balanced on a huge branch long enough to test a vine as large around as her wrist when she found it would hold her weight, April swung across to a neighboring banyan tree. She landed on a huge limb which snaked a hundred roots down to t
he ground in the curious manner of these spreading wonders.

  Mark Slate followed her, but his heavier weight was too much for the vine. It tore loose from above. He started to fall. Frantically he twisted in the air with a dexterity born of his years with the British Olympic ski team.

  He grabbed a branch and laboriously pulled himself up beside April Dancer.

  "You Jane, okay," he panted, and attempted a smile. "But me Tarzan is out!"

  "Well, what's next, Mark?" April said.

  "The best I can recommend is that you stay---" He broke off, listening intently. "Can you hear it?" he said.

  "Yes," she said. "They are coming. It sounds like machetes slashing the undergrowth."

  "The way I have it figured," Slate said. "We must have crashed about two miles from the Site G. They could not have cut their way through the jungle that far. There must be some sort of a trail near here."

  "'We're not far from the river," April Dancer said. "I saw it as we went down."

  "If they came by the river, then they probably left a boat on the bank," Mark Slate said. "How would you like to do a little pirating?"

  "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!"

  They started to climb cautiously through the trees, working their way slowly back toward the wreck. They worked their way into the top of a huge fromager tree where they could see the wreck. They could see two men who looked Spanish and two Khmerranians. The fire was still too hot for them to approach the wreck.

  "We're okay," Slate whispered to April. "They'll think we're in there until the thing gets cool enough for them to probe. Come on!"

  The next tree was too far for them to swing over. They laboriously climbed down. They began to work their way along through the thick underbrush, depending on the roar of the flaming airplane to hide the noise they made.

  They were making fair progress when a third Khmerranian came running up the path from the river.

  "Senor Morales!" he cried in passable Spanish. "They have found the lost astronaut!"

  A tall, gaunt man wearing a floppy sun helmet whirled, "Where?" he called sharply.

  "The message just came from the searchers! They have him trapped on the Mount of the Castle!"

  "But, have they taken him?" Morales inquired,