08-The Monster Wheel Affair

by David McDaniel

  He shrugged at Suzie. "He must have gotten past us. The Keeper of the Way up there says he went ashore ten or fifteen minutes ago."

  "But I didn't see him. And I would have recognized him."

  "Maybe he's grown a beard."

  "He grew one while we were in the lifeboat. Not a big one, but I know how he'd look. Napoleon," she said, "either he's still on that ship or he left as soon as she docked and that man is trying to protect him. Or maybe"—her voice dropped—"maybe that man killed him and threw the body overboard, and now he'll try to prove he actually went ashore and will never be seen again!" She looked up the side of the ship suspiciously to the thin figure that leaned on the railing, silhouetted against the early evening sky, still working over his clipboard. "I think we should go up there and make sure."

  "How?"

  "Well—ask him, I guess."

  "And hope he reveals something out of surprise?"

  "It works in the detective stories—and anyway, you can threaten him."

  "Look, Suzie—we are in a foreign country. If U.N.C.L.E. wasn't pretty highly regarded, I wouldn't be able to carry this gun at all. The government wouldn't like it if I started waving it around to impress people. Besides, it's bad form."

  She clenched her little fists and made a face. "All right then, you wait here! I'll go up there and see what I can scare out of him!"

  And she stamped to the gangplank and started up. Napoleon was right behind her—after all, he had a responsibility here too.

  Suzie stepped past the railing and began fiercely without even waiting for the man to look up. He did soon enough.

  "Now look here," she said. "It's very important that we find Archie Gunderson as soon as possible. I know he didn't leave this ship in the last two hours. Now where is he, and what have you done with him?"

  The mate lifted his head, looked her over slowly and carefully, and said nothing. His eyes flicked briefly over her shoulder, then returned to his work, ignoring her protest.

  Napoleon had caught the glance, and looked down at his wristwatch. The silver case had a large enough flat area to serve as an unobtrusive mirror, and he twisted his wrist slightly, scanning the deck behind them. There was a figure in the door to the wheelhouse. It was too dark to see clearly, but it seemed to be holding something.

  The U.N.C.L.E. agent didn't lower his arm but let it slip inside his coat. While the little automatic shouldn't be waived about casually, it wasn't there just to compliment the color scheme of his ensemble.

  A soft, deep voice from behind him stopped his hand just as his fingers closed around the butt.

  "Don't try it mister. I ain't a very fast shot, but it'd take you a while to turn around."

  Suzie whirled around at once, and Napoleon instinctively grabbed for his gun, expecting a repeat of her indecisive action in Capetown. The automatic was halfway out and he was on one knee facing the big blond-bearded man in the doorway as Suzie cried, "Archie! Don't shoot him!"

  She didn't specify whom she was addressing, but both men heeded her suggestion, probably fortunately for both of them.

  Archie frowned doubtfully, not lowering his .45. "Is he okay, Miss Suzie?"

  "Oh yes! He's from U.N.C.L.E., and he saved my life when they killed Mac! Did you know about that? You must have."

  The big man nodded, and the gun muzzle drooped slowly. "When I heard about Mac and Waleed, I t'ought somet'ing big was wrong, and I t'ought I'd be ready if it came after me. And when I see you with this man, I t'ink maybe they make you find me."

  "Archie! You don't think I'd do something like that!"

  He lifted his shoulders slightly. "They can get pretty bad to a girl, Miss Suzie. That's why I was ready to kill him."

  Napoleon rose awkwardly to his feet, restored his U.N.C.L.E. Special to its accustomed place, and brushed at his clothes. "Well, I'm glad you didn't have to." He stuck out a hand, half expecting a bone-crushing grip. "My name is Napoleon Solo."

  Gunderson shifted the automatic to his left hand and shook. The grip was firm, but not powerful. The man knew have to use his strength, which would make him doubly dangerous in a fight. He's blue eyes were cool, and alert. "U.N.C.L.E.?" he said. "I t'ink I remember Mac talking about it one time, two-three years ago. And if Suzie likes you, I'm satisfied."

  He remembered the automatic in his left hand and tucked it back in the waistband of his trousers, then called across to the first mate, who had stood unmoved, even during the imminent shooting match: "Okay, Fish-eye. Signal if somebody else comes looking around the ship. We'll be in the wheelhouse for a little while."

  Then they were seated around a small table. Gunderson was interested in the circumstances of Mac's death and clapped Suzie proudly on the shoulder when Napoleon told of her part in the battle. He could offer no possible explanation for the interest of Egyptian agents, unless that country had a secret missile capability. "I don't think they have," he rumbled. "But it is true that a lot of Germans went to Egypt when the War ended." Napoleon noticed his Scandinavian accent seemed to lessen as he talked with them, and made a mental note to keep an eye on this man who seemed, on examination, to be rather more than the simple sailor he appeared on the surface.

  "Possibly they were hired by another country," Solo suggested. "But the question remains as to just what island you saw the missile fired from. Aerial reconnaissance of the whole area has found many tiny volcanic islands, none of which show any signs of being a missile launching site. And as I'm sure you know, it takes quite a bit of hardware on the ground to get a modern missile into space."

  Archie nodded. "And this is why you have to find Kurt. Well, all I can tell you isn't very much. Kurt and Alexei and Waleed and I had a sort of celebration in Capetown the night before we were to sail—no, after you and Mac left, Miss Suzie. We were...well, we were sailors out for a last night on the town, and it wasn't the sort of thing you could have come along for. We all said where we were going from Capetown, and Kurt didn't want to say at first. But I think there might be trouble after us, so I keep after him. And finally he got a little drunk, and whispered the name of the place. Neu-Schloss, he said. And I remember it. Neu-Schloss."

  Napoleon leaned back with a sigh and a smile of satisfaction. They had their goal in sight at last. He thought a minute, and frowned. "Neu-Schloss? Where's that?"

  The sailor smiled a little and stood up. "I start wondering that myself when I hear about Mac being murdered." He pulled down a large book from the shelf and latched the door again. "Take a look in the gazetteer."

  Napoleon accepted the book, opened to the middle and started flipping through the N's. "Neurara, Neuruppin, Neuse River," he said. "Neuss, Neustadt.... There are certainly enough Neustadts.... Neustrelitz, Neu-Ulm, Neuville, Neuwarp, Neuwied..." He stopped and ran his finger back up the column. "Hm."

  "I checked the other atlases here. There is no such listing."

  "Could he have been making a joke?" Suzie asked.

  Gunderson shook his massive head. "I don't think so. He seem very serious about it. He tell me because he say I am smarter than the other two, and if there is trouble he trust me to know what to do. But he was pretty drunk, I guess."

  Napoleon saw his trail evaporating like a mirage. He closed the book with a deep and heartfelt sigh. "This will take some thought," he said. "Some heavy thought. And possibly even some detective work." He leaned back in the chair and thought until Suzie interrupted him.

  "Have you thought of anything?"

  He straightened up. "As a matter of fact I have. It's getting rather late, and I don't recall having eaten for several hours."

  She nodded. "That's worth thinking about."

  "That's even worth doing something about. Why don't the three of us go for dinner someplace?"

  "Marvelous," said Suzie, without a trace of sarcasm in her tone. "Do you know a good place?"

  "I seem to remember a good restaurant at the corner of Mongkok Road and Reclamation Street."

  "The Yen Chi," said Archie unexp
ectedly. "A good place."

  Napoleon shrugged. "If you like Chinese food."

  Chapter 6: "I'll Show You A Magic Trick."

  Dinner was excellent. Suzie was at least enough of a world traveler not to ask what she was eating, and in fact was able to recognize most of it. The meal was leisurely and enjoyable, but Archie grew uneasy as the hour grew later, and pointed out that wandering the streets of Kowloon after dark was asking for trouble, with unknown powers almost certainly after them. Over drinks, Napoleon and Suzie were discussing the situation.

  "It's early morning in New York, and a couple of hours later in Rio, if Illya's still there. When we get to the hotel, I'll check in and see what results our South American department has had in this investigation. I hope he had better luck than we did."

  "And if he didn't?"

  "We'll all go home and wait for our international network of eyes and ears to send word on Schneider. You can find a needle in the biggest haystack if you have enough people looking, for long enough."

  "But how long do we have?"

  Napoleon took a drink from his iced glass and rolled it around in his mouth a while before swallowing and answering, "We don't even know what's going on on that island. The rocket you saw launched obviously wasn't an attack on anybody—that we would have heard about. It might have put something small into orbit; anything big would certainly have been spotted. There are a surprising number of people all over the world who are paid to do nothing but stare at the sky and take notes on anything that moves. Or it could have been a test. It may have failed; it may have succeeded. If it succeeded, they may be very close to doing...whatever it is they want to do. If it failed, they may still be very close. Or they may not. The only way to find out without finding them first is to wait until they either announce themselves, or they succeed. And then it will probably be too late to stop them, if indeed they even should be stopped."

  "Who decides whether they should?" asked Archie.

  "Not me. And in something as big as this could be, not my superior either. There's someone—several someones, for all I know—over him. This business could be big enough to plunge the whole world into atomic war in a matter of hours if something went wrong."

  Suzie shuddered and finished her drink quickly. "Let's hope nothing goes wrong, then."

  Napoleon nodded. "That's my department. And since it is getting fairly late, I think I should keep our own exposure to danger to a minimum. I'll get a taxi to run us down to the hotel, and drop Archie off at the Miyako Maru on the way."

  Service was prompt for the late hour, and a taxi appeared less than five minutes after the call. They loaded in, and Solo gave the driver directions to the Whampoa docks. The man nodded, and the little car leaped off up Mongkok Road. Three blocks later it turned left on Nathan, away from the downtown and the docks. Napoleon leaned forward.

  "The Whampoa docks, driver," he said. "You should have turned right. Take the next right."

  The driver released a flood of Chinese in an inland dialect Napoleon couldn't follow. He attempted Cantonese, and got no answer.

  During the time this took, the taxi had crossed Boundary and started up a grade. The clapboard shanties became smaller and even less attractive, and there were fewer people on the road. Here and there a cultivated patch showed between the hovels, and only the tiny cooking fires marked the edges of the road.

  Napoleon leaned back. "Something's wrong," he muttered to his friends, as he slipped his automatic out of its spring-clip holster. "We're going the wrong way."

  A sign flashed by, flaring briefly in the headlights: TAI PO ROAD. An arrow bore to the right, and the car followed it.

  Napoleon leaned forward again and said quietly, "You understood English well enough when we got in. Now understand this. Either you stop and turn this car around, or you'll see your brains splattered over the inside of the windshield."

  The car slowed as the driver reached for the dashboard and pulled a knob. There was a pwangg! of a strong spring released and a sheet of metal shot up from the back of the front seat. It caught Napoleon across the wrist, a numbing blow that knocked the gun from his hand and almost cracked the bone. The gun fell into the front seat as the shield thumped against the roof, and Napoleon fell back.

  Suzie leaned over him. "Napoleon!" she said. "What's going on?"

  "Well, I wouldn't like to jump to an unwarranted conclusion, but I think we're being kidnapped." He picked himself up to a proper sitting position, massaging his wrist tenderly.

  "But where could they be taking us?"

  Archie scowled. "British possession is not very big. The only other place they could go is over the border."

  Suzie looked shocked. "But I can't go over the border! I don't have a visa for Red China!"

  "None of us do," said Napoleon. "That makes it a good place to get rid of us. But we have some twenty miles to go yet, if I remember this road, and I expect a helicopter from downtown can pull us out of the fire long before we get there." He winced slightly as he bent his wrist towards an inside pocket and pulled out his transceiver.

  "Channel L, please. Channel L." The only answer was a burst of static.

  He adjusted something slightly, pulled up the tiny antenna, and called again. Only the hiss and roar of a jammed frequency answered him. He sighed and replaced the device. "Well," he said, "it looks as if we'll have to get ourselves out of this one."

  Some twenty minutes later the taxi pulled off the road and bumped to a stop near a cluster of huts surrounded by angular terraced hills. Shadowy figures hurried out of one of the huts as the taxi flashed its lights. They opened the doors from the outside, and regarded the three sleepers in the back seat for a moment. Then a quiet command in Chinese, and the three were picked up and borne back into the building.

  The fresh air began to revive them, and Napoleon gradually became aware of being supported by his knees and armpits. Then a door slammed, somewhere beyond his head, and he was put down on his back on a rough floor. A voice in accented English said, "They are coming around. You didn't use enough gas after all."

  Napoleon thought. As long as they know, there's not much use in pretending. He groaned a little and tried to sit up. Then he groaned realistically. Whatever they had used on him had left quite a headache. He forced open an eye and tried to bring the room into focus. It almost worked.

  By the light of the single swinging lightbulb, five armed men were directing their attention towards the three figures on the floor. Archie was already sitting up, breathing deeply and looking around. Suzie was just beginning to move.

  One of the men spoke. "Before you stand up, Mr. Solo, please to empty out your pockets completely. You, also, Mr. Gunderson."

  Napoleon slowly went through his various pockets, laying out an assortment of things. One of the five came forward and took them. He nodded at the "fountain pen" and the cigarette case-lighter, and set them aside. The other objects he dropped into a small plastic bag of the type morgues use to contain the effects of the deceased. Napoleon noted the similarity, and carefully refrained from thinking about it.

  The last item to be brought out was the Gyrojet pistol, which had been resting lightly in a deep-cut inside pocket of his coat. Its few ounces did not bag the jacket, and it was conveniently located. The Chinese lifted his gun warningly as Napoleon brought it out, and held out his other hand.

  He took the little pistol, hefted it, and looked at it carefully. Then he held it up contemptuously for the others to see. "The American carries another gun! A toy one to frighten us with!"

  The tall thin one who seemed to be the leader came forward and examined it closely. "Why do you carry a toy gun, Mr. Solo?"

  Napoleon looked a little embarrassed. "Well," he said, "I just picked it up this afternoon for my nephew. He likes magic tricks."

  "This is a trick gun? It does not just go click-click?"

  "Well, not exactly. It's really sort of remarkable. A tribute to the ingenuity of your toymakers, and a whole lot of fun,
too."

  "What does it do?" The Chinese was beginning to be interested. Obviously this little contraption of stamped tin could not be a danger against five armed men, but he was still uncertain as to what it really was. "In my experience agents of the U.N.C.L.E. do not carry toy guns without reason."

  Napoleon shrugged. "I would have left it at my hotel if we'd been there since I bought it."

  The tall man suddenly pointed the pistol at Napoleon and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. And Napoleon, who knew better than to carry a gun cocked with a round in the chamber, didn't even flinch. Instead he laughed easily. "Not like that," he said condescendingly. "Here, let me show you." He held out his hand casually.

  The other stepped back quickly. "No—you tell me how it works," he said, but his tone was doubtful. It felt so much like a harmless toy, and perhaps it would be amusing....

  Napoleon looked patient. "It's very difficult to explain without showing you on the gun what I am talking about. It took the clerk at the toy store fifteen minutes to teach me how to work it properly."

  The Chinese thought, and looked around a moment at the other two prisoners for clues. Suzie was staring in complete puzzlement, and Archie was watching impatiently, tapping his fingers on the floor where he sat. It seemed an insane waste of time to be playing with a toy gun when their lives were at stake.

  At last he reached a decision. He handed the gun to Napoleon, saying, "All right. But remember you are covered by several armed men, and there are more outside. And do not try anything foolish like a cyanide spray; I will stay well away from you." And he backed to the opposite wall.

  Napoleon observed that only two men had their machine pistols at a ready position, and only one of them had the bolt cocked. He smiled inanely as he held up the pistol like a conjurer. "Now you see," he said foolishly, "I have here what appears to be an ordinary gun. Watch closely—I have nothing up my sleeves—and observe that during this entire performance my fingers will never leave my hands." He wiggled his fingers, and saw five pairs of eyes fixed fascinated on them.