19 - The Power Cube Affair (15 page)

"Factorial twenty seven," Kuryakin said promptly. "An enormous number, so big it would take several lifetimes to run through."

Beeman's hand clenched suddenly on the black pieces. "Nevertheless"—his orotund voice hardened—"I shall solve it, with these, first. Because I have the Gorchak stones, you see. Never mind, that can't concern you."

Solo shifted cautiously, trying his bonds and the effort made him sweat. His hands were tied at his back, and his arms were aching numbly.

"Bodies are a nuisance," Beeman said, and Solo wanted to agree. "It is a hobby of mine to imagine various problems ahead of time and work out solutions in readiness. This is one for which I have several solutions, and I am about to— ah!" He broke off as a ringing noise sounded. Diving one hand into a drawer he produced a telephone.

"Wendig? Good, found you at last. Of course it's late. You've had to leave a party? My dear man, you wouldn't believe it if I told you the entertainment I have had to abandon this night. Listen, now. The last time I passed the Moorside Estate I think you were on the fifteenth floor? On the second block, yes. Wendig, did it ever strike you that the human body, laid flat, is less than eighteen inches thick? And those floors you are putting in are that thickness, aren't they?" He listened, smiling, to the chatter from the other end.

"Quite right. And so permanent, don't you agree? Good. How soon can you be at the site? Very well. Two of my men will deliver three––er—packages to you at that time and remain to assist. I think you will agree that we don't want too many eyes involved? Good!" He waited, touched a button at the base of the instrument, then put it to his ear again.

"Hopwell? Get the small van and bring it around to the rear, and send Rambo to me. I have a job for you both." He put the instrument back in the drawer and leaned back comfortably.

"You see, gentlemen, the virtues of planning? Wendig is the construction foreman of a firm that I own. I am building several blocks of very fine dwellings on the Moorside Estate, very cheaply too. You are about to become part of them, permanently. Ah, Rambo."

"Something you want doing, Chief?"

"Yes. You know the Moorside Estate?"

"Yah. Buildings about twenty miles off, back up the road."

"Right. Now, you and Hopwell will take these two and the girl, put each one in a sack, tied and roped, inside and out. In the small van, and deliver them to that site. You will meet a man there. You will help him lay a floor of concrete."

"Do we kill them first?"

Solo held his breath while Beeman deliberated carefully, his eyes half-closed. "I am not a sadist, you know. Can't afford to be. Emotional values are dangerous in planning. But I will admit there is something very appealing in the thought of you two lying there helpless while the concrete settles and sets around you. And I owe myself that much, for the two dogs. They were valuable dogs. Pets. No, Rambo, don't kill them. Just wrap them up well and deliver them as instructed."

A heavy hand descended on Solo's shoulder, shifted its grip to the scruff of his neck. He saw Illya's head come to meet his own, and again there was that flashing light. And darkness. He was vaguely aware of being half-carried, half-dragged into a small room ablaze with light. There was a smell compounded of stale beer, frying, hot metal, and tea. He dropped to his knees as Rambo released him. He struggled to stay conscious, squinted painfully up at a tall, lean man in dark trousers and a gaudy sports jacket, a man who grinned evilly down at him and went right on slapping his palm with a flexible leather thing that sounded solid.

"You're a tough nut, cobber. If it comes to a next time I'll have to give you the full treatment."

"Ain't going to be no next time, Hoppy, not for these fellers. We got some old potato sacks? Gotta wrap the lot of them up and deliver them for burial." Hopwell came back, after a moment, frowning.

"Two. That's all there is."

"Don't matter. We can put two of 'em in one sack easy enough. Give me a hand, will you?" Solo's wits were unscrambling a little now, enough to show him that Louise lay in a corner on the tiled floor, like a discarded doll. She was very still. Beeman, evidently, had an economical mind. He had recovered the glamorous ball gown. Solo shivered as he watched the indifferent pair grab Illya and stuff him into a filthy sack, to whip a noose about the top and extend the lashings all the way down, firmly. Then it was his turn. Rambo stooped, caught up Louise's sprawling body and dumped it on the floor roughly. A shove of his huge hand sent Solo flat beside it.

"You're lucky, man! I should hope to have that kind of company when it comes to my turn to die!" Rambo laughed hugely as he clamped Solo firmly against the inert girl so that Hopwell could apply more rope. Then he was hoisted bodily and slid into the sack. It was ancient, dusty, and the smell was unbelievable, so powerful that he passed out again. The next thing he knew was the agonizing shock of being dropped onto a hard and unyielding surface with Louise's weight on top of him.

The floor of the truck was hard and equipped with painful bumps that took their toll as the truck heeled around a corner before striking the road. Solo knew he had only the scantiest chance of ever seeing daylight and fresh air again. Hopwell had put plenty of muscle into the roping, and Louise was no help. He squirmed desperately, begging her pardon silently for being rough but intent on getting his hands close enough together so that he might reach the knife that was stuck to his right forearm. The only way was to hug her tight, and she was a buxom girl. The truck took another bend violently, and he rolled, cracking his head on the hard floor, but the jar had helped. He gripped his own fingers, heaved savagely, got his fingertips to the haft of the knife and breathed all the way out so that he could gain an extra inch. Then he had it. Seconds more and the nearest rope was in pieces. Hauling back, he slit the sack enough to get his nostrils to the gap and suck in a much needed breath. He didn't know whether he was being observed or not, and this was no time to worry. He enjoyed the breath, then used the knife fast, got himself out of the sack, and was able to look around.

The truck was empty of everything but a spare fuel can and the bodies. The back wall was blank. The twin doors had tiny windows. He peered out just in time to see the main road intersection slip backward into the night. He knew where he was now, for what good that was. Turning to the other sack, he got busy with the knife and had Illya free. The Russian agent was barely conscious, his eyes glazed.

Solo went back to his vantage point by the small windows, sparing only a moment to grab a sack and spread it, not very effectively, over Louise's nude body. "Got to get you to a doctor," he mumbled, "among other things. Got a lot to do and nothing to do it with."

Kuryakin sat up weakly. The truck swung into another sharp curve, and he rolled over again, grunting painfully. Through the windows Solo saw a high wire fence and then the scattered debris of construction, the tall gray ghosts of buildings. The truck halted, began to back up and around, and he saw double gates standing open. Just beyond were the low roofed sheds of temporary offices and haphazard piles of girder strip and wooden boxes. On beyond those again stood the gaunt white bulk of multistory block, and beside it the fragile looking skeleton frame of a monotower crane. The truck shuddered to a stop. Solo tensed as he heard doors slam at the front of the truck and then Rambo's giant voice.

"You be dragging one out, Hoppy, while I talk to this feller, see what he wants us to do."

Kuryakin sat up, groaning, and Solo hissed him to silence urgently, listening to the approaching footsteps. He gathered himself by the door, and as it clicked and swung open for Hopwell to lean in, he struck, hard and savage, with both hands and all his might. Hat, head and shoulders went down with a crack against the steel stripped floor; then Solo leaped catlike right over him and turned to do what battle he could. But there was no need. One touch of the sagging body told him that.

"What now, Napoleon?"

"What else? It's crazy, but I'll have to play it by ear. Give me a hand to get his jacket off and then we'll stuff him in the sack."

Within minutes Hopwell's body was roped, and Solo, with the hat jammed on his head and the garish jacket in place, stooped and took hold. "I'll deliver this. You follow up, stay out of sight until we get an idea going. Right?"

He got a good grip, hoisted, grunted with the strain, and went plodding away with Hopwell's limpness sagging over his shoulders and his head well tucked down to avoid recognition. He heard, now, a high pitched squealing voice that had to be Wendig. He sounded Welsh and bad tempered.

"Only two of you? What does that fat fool think I am, a magician? Who's going to take the crane?"

"I can handle that bit," answered Rambo. "Done it before."

"All right, get going! Is that it?"

Solo staggered close, spun round to peer, saw Rambo striding away to the foot of the crane, met the bright little eyes of the foreman staring.

"This is one of them, yes." He stooped and let the sacked body fall to the ground, and stretched up gratefully. "Now what?"

"Hmm! I can't do six different things at once, can I? You know how to feed a mixer?"

"Sorry, no idea."

"That's a great help you are, then. Hell!" Wendig swung around, his face screwing up into a scowl. "I'll have to do that bit myself. Hey!" He put his head back and squealed up into the darkness. "You let the hooks down here, right away!" He spun around again. "You stay there a minute." Seconds later two spotlights flared into life, aimed up at the building and the crane. Wendig came back, striking a switch that set the mixer grinding loudly.

"You'll have to go up with the hooks," he said, "and that!"

"I what?" Solo stared at him, "You must be joking!"

"Damn and blast it, man!" Wendig squealed furiously. "I haven't got the time for playing about. I haven't got six arms, see? I have to make the mix, all ready. Your mate is on the crane. Somebody has to ride up there with that and disconnect it so that the hooks can come back down for the next one. I can go and get that, easily enough, as soon as I've got a mix going. But somebody has got to go with the hooks. You!"

Solo gulped, stared up at the looming building. Black rectangles of windows stared at him blindly from gray walls festooned with a spider web of scaffolding. He shifted his gaze to the unlikely frailty of the crane, with the great jib stretching out and the cluster of concrete blocks at the other end to balance the weight. He swallowed again as out of the gloom came two massive and grit crusted hooks on the end of twin chains. The chains and hooks fell swiftly, swayed toward him, then halted a moment, to drop the last few feet and sprawl right alongside the sack.

"All right?" Wendig demanded. "Up you go, then!" Unwillingly, but unable to see any way out of it, Solo stooped and grabbed the gritty hooks, jamming them under the rope loops, wide apart. Reluctantly he set his feet by them, clutched the chains, and heard Wendig shriek out.

"Hey, up there! You take him up nice and steady, now. Put him down by that stair well, all right?"

Rambo's reply was a monstrous bellow of laughter. The links came taut, and Solo groaned as his weight grew large and the sagging burden lifted and buckled. He clung frantically, watching the ground fall away. The gray face of the building slid down and past like a nightmare. Then, with added height, the unfinished top of the building was below him, a pattern in stark black and white like some scene from an abstracted hell. The upward surge stopped abruptly, and, all at once Solo was weightless as the load ran down and the pockmarked surface there seemed to leap up.

He came to a spinning, swinging halt about a foot above the surface, drew a deep breath, and then Rambo let him go, let him fall the last short bit with a bone shaking thud. He crashed, pitched forward, put up his arms to save himself, rolled to the edge of a patch of black shadow, hung there for one awful second, then tumbled over. The drop was no more than three feet but it was enough to shock him and rasp his elbows and knees into agony. The crane whirred again, and here came the sack, slithering and sliding, to fall into the hole with him, knocking him staggering again. Once more Rambo laughed.

"Cast her off, Hoppy. Want them hooks for the next one." Solo squinted up under the brim of the hat, up at the spidery structure of the tower and the jib, until his eyes found the cab with its windows, no more than ten feet down from the cross member which carried the jib. He got a glimpse of Rambo's face and toothy grin. He fumed inwardly, turned, and caught his foot in what appeared to be a U shaped length of stout steel rod. Crouching, he investigated and found it was solidly rooted in the previous layer. He turned to fumble with the limp sack, disengaged a hook, slipped it under the U piece and over, linking the beak into the chain itself. A moment later he had done the same with the other one. All in the dark. Rambo couldn't see. He stood cautiously, backed away, then made a sign, threw his hand up in the air—and prayed that Rambo would be as heavy handed as before.

He heard the motors howl, saw the chains snap taut—and sing! And then grate against an impossible strain. Up there the motors screeched up into overload and then beyond into destruction before the safety cutouts could save them. Solo stared up in fascination as the long jib bowed down, its cables quivering and lashing, the cluster of counterweights at the other end dancing lazily upward. And then down again. Time seemed to congeal into a crawl. Rambo shouted in fury. The cables lashed and spoke like huge harpstrings. The spindly monotower whipped, sighed, groaned and then gave off a crack like a cannon. And buckled. And fell, snapping like a carrot at its weakest point, just below the cabin.

Solo shrank, wrapped his arms about his head and fell flat on his face, half-stunned by the gargantuan scream and cry of destruction, cringing from the infernal barrage of shearing, bursting nuts and bolts. Under him the concrete shook as the jib, canting sideways, slammed into the top of the building.