20 - The Corfu Affair (9 page)

And he was warm now. Unfortunately, half a mile was quite a lot of ground to cover. He lay quite still on the bed, warm in the blood-red glow of the setting sun, and wondered what was the best thing to do; indeed, if there was anything effective he could do. And, in the hushed silence, he heard a faint but unmistakable click from behind a door he had not as yet opened.

The bathroom! He had not bothered to inspect it, because he had tangled with French plumbing before, and it was hardly conducive to comfort. But he did know that there was only the one door. That click—another came as he was thinking—meant someone was in there who had no business to be there. An enemy.

He put away his communicator and drew his pistol, all in the one movement, then waited, eyes riveted on the door.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SITTING quite still and silent, never taking his eyes from the door, Kuryakin nevertheless flogged his agile mind to consider the implications. How, for one thing, had the intruder managed to get in. And then, why? Had he been spotted at St. Denis, or was this possibly just a common burglar? The difference could be crucial. The bathroom, most probably, had a skylight. That would provide ingress for a burglar. And if that was all, then the mere sight of the gun would be sufficient.

But if it wasn't as simple as that, if, for instance, this was a Thrush manifestation, the outlook was totally different. He saw the bathroom knob turn, slowly. Not as a burglar would do it, at all. If Thrush was on the other side, the next move was predictable. Ease the door off the catch. Jerk it suddenly open. Drop and attack from the floor level possibly. Kuryakin kept absolutely still, ready to move rapidly when required.

The knob came to a standstill. The door eased open just a crack. Then, exactly as he had expected, it crashed all the way open from a kick. And nothing. The man out there was flattened alongside the doorjamb, tense and ready, probably hoping for a startled shot. So he knew this was no common burglar, but a highly trained operator.

There came a sudden blur of speed as a man sprang––pounced and landed all square with gun aimed. Kuryakin checked his trigger finger just in the nick of time.

"Napoleon!" he sighed. "That's no way to—" and only razor sharp instinct impelled him to forget the words he had in mind, to jerk himself to one side in frantic haste. He catapulted from the bed to the floor as the gun in Solo's hand bucked and roared, shattering the silence of the room.

He hit the carpet, rolled, got to a knee then hurled himself crazily under the bed to avoid another crashing shot. This time, as he went headlong, he was fractionally slow and the white-fire agony of impact shocked his leg. It needed that anguish to wipe out the last traces of doubt from his mind. If there were mysteries here, one thing was plain. Solo was intent on murder, and nothing less.

Kuryakin reversed his tracks, squirming like an eel, bobbed up by the side of the bed and snapped off a shot as Solo swung round. Part of his attention noted the acute difference in sound between his gun and the shots from Solo, even as he saw that his own snap shot had been a lucky one. It had struck Solo's gun and jarred it out of his grip. Now it fell, clattered on the wood floor beyond the carpet and skidded away into a far corner. It left the way for Kuryakin to stalk round the bed angrily.

"Hold it right there!" he ordered, limping painfully, but with the gun steady in his hand. "Just one minute. What—?"

He never got to finish his question. Solo snapped out of his momentary stillness into a vicious kick and back fall. The kick smashed Kuryakin's grip, sent his weapon flying. The back fall dropped Solo only just long enough for him to strike the floor, roll, and dive for his own gun. The Russian swayed back, wincing at the weight on his injured leg, then launched himself headlong on top of Solo. All his weight came down hard, and he grasped at once for a bone-breaking arm lock, but his efficiency was impaired by a sense of unreality. It was hard to believe, to accept, that this snarling hard-eyed fury who now snaked out of the arm lock and flung a vicious groin kick at him was really Napoleon Solo. And, more to the immediate point, if this was Solo, he knew all the tricks and how to use them.

For some frantic seconds they rolled and snarled over each other like a pair of animals too evenly matched to have any advantage over each other. Then one squirming roll brought Solo's head up against the leg of the brass-bound bedstead, and Kuryakin seized the head by the ears and pounded hard. Solo wrenched strongly, kicked out, his shoe striking Kuryakin where the bullet had plunged into his leg, wincing the Russian into momentary agony and the chance to break free. He was away at once, diving into the corner after his gun. Again Kuryakin plunged after him, got a grip on one wrist and hung on desperately. He knew he was failing. This was a killing pace, and he was losing blood. Grunting with effort, his gaze began to fog up, magnifying the dusk of the room. He felt Solo rear up powerfully, and all he could do was to hang on for very life.

Then Solo gave a tremendous wrench, tore his wrist free, and the effort sent Kuryakin reeling backwards, to catch the back of his knees on the bed. Too late to stop himself falling, he went with it, flung himself all the way over in a backward roll, over the bed and to the floor on the far side. He landed heavily, gasped for breath, fought his way erect, and as his head cleared the bed level, he saw a blur of movement. He threw himself desperately aside. There was one more shattering roar from Solo's gun. The room filled with a great light, just for a moment, and then there was nothing at all but deep black darkness.

"Monsieur! Monsieur!" A cracked and quavering voice demanded his attention. He screwed his eyes open to peer up at the strained old face of a woman. She was in black, with lace edges to her apron. He remembered her dimly. The concierge. "You are alive, monsieur?"

"I think so," he mumbled, and accepted the loan of her arm to sit upright. His head thumped like a brass bell filled with mud. The old woman stared fearfully at him as he put delicate fingers to his head. There was a tender place at his temple and his finger tips came away red.

"The doctor has been summoned," she told him. "He will be here soon. It was an assassin?"

"Something like that. You didn't see him, I suppose?"

"Me? Praise be to Heaven I did not. I was on the stair. I heard a shot, then another, and another. I remained still, and screamed. And I waited for some time, then screamed again. What would you? It is not good, to be shot. Then Jules came, with questions, and we waited a while more. All was silent. We opened the door and found you, like this."

Heavily deliberate steps crackled across the floor and an old man with a white moustache came to stand and stare down at him.

"He escaped, monsieur. Through the bathroom skylight and up. That was formidable! The window has not been opened since I can remember. Ah, the doctor comes now. Do you wish that I summon the police?"

Kuryakin had been thinking as hard as his aching head would permit. He declined this last offer.

"It would not achieve anything, would it? The man is away, and with no traces or description, what can we do? I also wish to leave very soon. I would rather not be delayed with many questions. You understand?"

He reached for his wallet to facilitate their understanding, and his fingers brushed a folded piece of paper that he had not noticed before. He put it aside, passed crackling bank notes to the staff, then seated himself on the edge of the bed to make the doctor's inspection easier.

"You were fortunate, monsieur," the medical man informed him, after the blood had been sponged away and the bleeding halted. "This much to one side—" he held a finger and thumb very close, "—and you would never have needed a doctor again." Kuryakin thought that over carefully. It must have seemed to his assailant that he had been shot dead. And possibly it would be a good idea to let him go on thinking that. At the leg wound the doctor looked grave, and shook his head.

"For that, you should be in bed for a week, at least. If it is not convenient here, I can arrange an ambulance and hospital for you."

"That's all right. Just fix it so that I can travel. It will be cared for but I have a very important appointment to keep. Please?"

The doctor departed eventually and Kuryakin, while appreciating his professional skill, was glad to see the back of him. He needed time to think. The crisp memory of a grim, snarling and murderous face, dreadfully familiar, shook up all his preconceived ideas. He reached for his communicator, then stared at it a long while before putting it back in his pocket unused. That was out. He recalled the defection of Frank Stanton, and the total revision of communication methods that had made necessary. Now Solo had gone bad too, with all the inside information he had. Kuryakin set his jaw hard. All at once he felt very much alone.

But there were other channels. He screwed his head round stiffly, to stare at the telephone and think hard, in an attempt to remember the proper routine. Then he rose and limped round the bed to get at it. On the way he saw a dark slim object lying along the edge of the carpet, easy to miss if the light hadn't caught it just right. He kept his eyes on it as he settled on the bed again, lifted the telephone from its bracket and asked for a LOUVRE number. In a while there came to his ear a male voice in a bad mood. Yes, it agreed, this was the UNCLE Carpets and Furnishings Emporium and Wholesale Dealers, but there was no one present at such an hour except himself, the night watchman, and what else would anyone expect? Kuryakin wasn't put off. UNCLE Carpets was the front for U.N.C.L.E. Paris in just the same way that U.N.C.L.E. New York had an innocent front office.

"You will please inform M. Raymond Boncourt that his elderly and very impatient avuncular relative wishes urgently to speak with him.
Il y a un situation tres desagreable
." There was a click and a wait of approximately forty seconds, then a totally different voice asked, cautiously:

"Volga?"

"Right. Seine?"

"
Oui
! 'Allo, Illya. Why the round-the-houses approach,
mon vieux
?"

"Because all other channels are dangerous. Very dangerous. Leaking."

"Oh!
All
the other channels? You are positive?"

"Confirm. It is very bad. The little Corsican has turned his coat."

There came an audible gasp of shock. "
Bleu
! That is very bad. And very hard for me to believe."

"Me too. I got shot, twice, finding out. I am most probably dead right now."

"
Comment
? Oh. I comprehend. You need a funeral cortege, yes?"

"Nothing elaborate. Just get me out of here fast. I have to get this sad news to Greatuncle as quickly as possible. What about flight times?"

"A moment!" The voice went away, came promptly back. "A flight leaving Orly in thirty-five minutes. That suit you?"

"That will do very well. Now bring on your ambulance and carry the body away."

With that fixed he racked the telephone and went to pick up the odd object he had seen. As soon as his fingers touched it he knew what it was, and that Solo must have dropped it in the struggle. To the innocent eye it was no more than a propelling pencil with an eraser. But that eraser served as cover for a very fine lens, and the clip was the trigger that operated the camera up to a maximum of twenty exposures on a cunningly arranged roll of microfilm in the barrel of the pencil. Kuryakin slipped the pencil-camera into his pocket and pondered a while. Then he recalled the folded slip of paper that he had felt in his pocket, and groped for it. He unfolded it very carefully, because the paper was extremely thin and opened out into a fair sized sheet. It was an odd wiring diagram, not too well drawn, and at the first glance it didn't make much sense. Kuryakin scowled at it. There would be plenty of time, later, to puzzle out what it meant. His immediate problem was to account for its presence in his pocket.

A wild thought insisted on being present in his mind. Perhaps Solo had not dropped his pencil camera by accident—but deliberately. And had added this enigmatic diagram at the same time. But why? It was tempting to believe that Napoleon was somehow playing both sides against the middle and acting some peculiar part, but there could be no doubt at all about his recent invasion. That had been intended murder.

Back in the office of M. Lafarge, Solo reported his success with a confident grin.

"Nothing to it. He gave me a fight, sure. I expected that. He was one of their best men. But not any more."

"You are absolutely sure?" Lafarge insisted.

"I didn't hang about for a medical report, if that's what you want. But I shot him I was as close to him as I am to you now. He went down. I waited, outside, to see the doctor come, and go away again, shaking his head. And then the meat-wagon came, and went. And so did I. What more do you want? He's dead!"

"Very well!" Lafarge shrugged. "I suppose it is fortunate that you were here to spot him. But unfortunate that now we shall not do business with the Soviets. That would have been profitable. Alas. Now, about this other matter. For two days you will remain under cover. Then, it is all arranged, you will fly direct to Miami Base, which is in Coral Gables. There you will be met. You will collect one dozen more radio-modules. You will leave again, almost at once, but you will not return here. You will proceed direct to Corfu, to Madame la Comtesse herself. These are her instructions. You understand?"

Solo looked up from cleaning his pistol and snarled angrily. "You bet I understand. I already knew all that, Louis."

"But how could you? The orders are sealed, and private to me!"

"Never you mind how, but I know exactly what the Countess wants from me, at any time. I just know." And he put up a hand to stroke the top of his head.

The little man with the busy steam-press in Del Floria's had to look a second time, and grin, before he was sure that it was Illya Kuryakin. The golden straggle of moustache and beard was bad enough, to say nothing of the bulky jacket and hairy pants, but what put the topper on it was the rakishly askew circlet of white bandage around his head. The little man widened his grin, opened his mouth for a brisk comment, then met the glacial stare in those blue eyes and forgot entirely what he had intended to say. Instead, he manipulated the trap that released the robing room panel; and wondered in silence just what the hell Illya had run into this time?