Pulp Fiction | The Hollow Crown Affair by David McDaniel

by Unknown

  "I'm driving," Illya said.

  "Sorry. It's north of Milinocket, just below Mt. Katahdin."

  "Would you mind hitting those again slowly? I have trouble with your Amerind names."

  "It's maybe seventy miles north of Bangor. Up in the sticks. Biggest town for fifty miles won't break ten thousand."

  "Seems an unlikely place for Baldwin to go."

  "That's why it's so likely. There are no other marks on this map, if you want to try it; there are no other clues. I have four gasoline credit cards, and this upholstered tank is old enough to burn regular and like it."

  "Irene won't," said Illya. "The engine is tuned for premium."

  Solo sighed. "It goes on the expense account. Here's Ellsworth—watch for a sign. There: BANGOR 27, BAR HARBOR 20. I'll bet that was quite a game."

  * * *

  It was dusk as they rode north out of Bangor on Interstate 95, with small patchy clouds splattering the darkening western sky like muddy puppy-pawprints, and it was night when 95 ran out and they were delivered back to U.S. 2. They refueled in Lincoln about seven, and some time later Napoleon said, "State 157 takes off to the left pretty soon. We want it."

  "Check." The sign was clear in their headlights, pointing them twenty-five miles to Milinocket.

  In Milinocket Illya's arms were beginning to get tired, and he said so. "Bear up," Napoleon told him. "In twelve or fifteen miles we'll be at that pinhole. Look for a road that says...There. East Pomfret, Ambajejus Lake..."

  "Ambi-what? Never mind. I hope you have the right pinhole."

  "So do I," said Napoleon fervently.

  East Pomfret boasted two street lights, one on either side of a narrow high-crowned blacktop euphemistically indicated on the map as an 'Other Highway'. The map did not indicate the solitary paved path out of town in the approximate direction of the pinhole, but Napoleon saw it in the edge of the headlight beam. "Turn there."

  "If this truck will fit," said Illya. "My steering arms are about to fall off."

  "We've come this far—it would seem a shame to quit now."

  "If you're wrong, you can drive back. I'm willing to take the time to teach you not to use the clutch as if this were a 300-SL."

  Napoleon squinted under the map light. "It looks like three miles on the map, but the road isn't shown and it might wind a lot. If we don't see anything in ten miles, we could dismount and try shouting."

  Illya gave him a black look that was lost in the general darkness. "Five miles by the odometer."

  "Aw, come on! Seven or eight at least."

  The Russian slowed and swung left around the tiny darkened gas station, jockeying between it and the trees beyond the opening of the road. In his mind one thought was clear even above his professional pride in driving: Irene will kill me if I scratch the paint. Twenty yards ahead the road turned beneath interwoven branches and vanished from his headlights, but the car's flanks had cleared the corner. He sped up to twenty and flexed his fingers slightly. "Seven," he conceded.

  It was just over four miles when Napoleon said, "Look."

  Dim in the headlights on their left was a small signboard. It was the first work of man other than the road since an ancient bridge just outside of East Pomfret; that alone made it worth noticing. As they approached, Illya slowed and studied it.

  Painted on the signboard and somewhat faded was the head of a stag, strangely done in gold with silver antlers.

  "Bingo," said Napoleon.

  "Congratulations," said Illya.

  "That is a stag, or, antlered argent. The Fraser clan crest. We're home."

  "How do you know so much?"

  "A:" said Napoleon smugly, "my mother was a Campbell. B: It was in my file on Baldwin. C: 'Dr. Fraser' wore it on his blazer that evening we had dinner with Ed and Chandra. And D: look at that!"

  They had stopped just short of the signboard, and now could see a pair of brick gateposts set several feet back from the road, half-hidden among trees and high-piled bushes. The heavy metal gates, barely visible in the gloom, could be seen to be swinging open even before a concealed floodlight glowed and brightened the entrance.

  "I think you were right all along, Napoleon," said Illya. "I beg your pardon for ever having doubted you."

  "Thank you, Illya. And I will also admit that it was a hell of a long way to go for a lousy pinhole."

  The gates swung closed behind them and the light went out. Ahead a well-tended dirt lane wound through patchy timber for another quarter mile or more before the porch light of a large building appeared ahead with an illuminated garage open adjoining it. They left the Mercedes there next to a two-year-old Lincoln and went around to the front door. Irene answered their ring.

  An hour later they were all seated before a blazing fire in the great comfortable living room. Irene had kept two portions of dinner warm in hopes that they would arrive, though Ward had scoffed, and they had been gratefully devoured by the two hungry UNCLE agents. Baldwin passed liqueurs around, and now seemed willing to discuss their situation.

  "So King was alone this morning. Unless he has another means of finding us, we should be safe here until the Council election is held. Though in desperation, King might enlist the aid of all available Thrush forces to find us; in that case our security anywhere would be problematical." He clipped the end from a slender cigar with unnecessary vigor. "A pestilence upon King and the fools that follow him! I have been hounded to the most desolate reaches of the planet by this blackguard, deprived of every civilized convenience, forced to live the desperate life of a hunted criminal..." He blew an aromatic cloud of smoke through the cigar and extended the brandy decanter to Solo, who declined.

  "Wasn't your San Francisco house adequately defended?" asked Illya.

  "Yes, but its neighbors were not. I should not have wanted to bring damage or destruction to the other five old homes around Alamo Square."

  "So you closed it and left."

  "Certainly not! I was forced to leave many valuable things behind, and given unlimited time King's vandals could have sacked the place. No—concealed within the building is a shaft, roughly six feet on a side, so well placed that only the most precise series of measurements could detect its existence. I had it lined with armor and spent some time ensuring the security of its entrance. Here everything concerned with my para-legal activities is stored. The building itself has, since my departure in June, served as the campaign headquarters for an incumbent state senator. Thus it is constantly occupied by alert people, and the local police are particularly aware of any attempts at illegal entry or surveillance. Needless to say, none of them have the least idea of what they are guarding."

  A buzzer forestalled the continuance of his remarks, and Irene slid back one panel of the end table to reveal a compact control board with a single yellow light flashing. She touched a switch and turned a knob, and the faint mutter of a motor, distinctly recognizable among the grotesquely amplified sounds of the woods and breeze, rose from concealed speakers. Illya rose as well.

  "Do you mind if I watch?"

  "Not at all. That's our easternmost sound detector on the road. I'd say the car is more than a mile away and proceeding slowly."

  "You have the alarm rigged to trip on low frequencies only, right? So it ignores the background noise?"

  "Very good. Yes, anything under 500 Hz continuing more than ten seconds at 0db." She tapped a button and part of the wall slid back to reveal a tastefully built-in television screen. "This is a commercial television set," she said, "equipped with ultrasonic reed remote controls." She touched another button several times and the set whirred. "Connected to an unused channel..." The screen brightened to an oddly luminous picture in what appeared to be diffuse low-angle sunlight: the front gate as viewed from across the road. "We have the output from a modified remote-controlled vidicon camera which has been fed through a three-stage image multiplier. The camera is controled by this cluster." She pointed. "These control tilt, pan, zoom and focus. The camera is set for the
present level of moonlight, filtered through the trees."

  Napoleon gaped as she touched one more button and the bushes piled high beside the gate swung gracefully and silently down, intermeshing and utterly concealing the entrance. "That," said Irene, "I put together from two garage door openers." She pushed a tiny lever left and the camera panned to look up the road. It seemed to be in a tree directly across from the gate and capable of at least 180� coverage.

  It was nearly four minutes before the sound of the engine picked up on the middle microphone, and another minute before the car appeared on the screen. At an electronic command the camera zoomed in and the image of the car expanded. The dash lights supplied more than adequate illumination to show five grimly identical men scanning the roadside intently.

  "Apparently King has called for help," said Baldwin bitterly, and fumbled for his pocket watch.

  "Checking his time?" asked Solo.

  "No—his wavelength," said Baldwin. He studied his large antique double-hunter turnip watch, flipped open the front face to check the time, then turned it over. "The original works have been replaced with an ultra-thin self-wound Patek-Phillipe movement. The remaining two-thirds contain my communicator. It was done especially to my specification." The second face flipped open to chrome steel and delicate knobs. He twisted the winding-stem and pulled up a fifteen-inch aerial, then scanned across several bands. "They have nothing to say at the moment."

  The car crept past the camera, which panned to follow. Something moved in the interior and Irene zoomed in to catch the near man in the front seat lift something to his lips. Baldwin scanned again and a tiny voice spoke.

  "... ignboard to the left of the road with a deer's head in gold and silver—looks old. No place to turn off."

  Irene zoomed back and followed them off right. Before they were gone another voice said, "... there somewhere. Leave a beacon and we'll send a recon plane over in the morning."

  "He was on another channel, the slyboots," Baldwin exclaimed sarcastically. "Mr. Solo, Mr. Kuryakin, I understand you have had a trying day, but the evening is relatively young. The moon is setting, and you might do something to earn your keep for the duration of the siege."

  "You want us to take out that car full of armed men and plant the transmitter twenty miles away, don't you?" said Napoleon.

  "Your grasp of the situation is perfect. Mr. Kuryakin, your transceiver, if you please; I can follow your progress and guide you to the spot where, I believe, the car is now stopping."

  The second west sound detector picked up the dying gurgle of an engine, followed by the ragged slamming of four doors. "If you leave at once you will have more than adequate time to find them; they are less than half a mile away—a mile along the road."

  "We'll go through the woods," said Illya. "You don't really want that transmitter planted twenty miles away, do you?"

  "Ten would probably suffice."

  Napoleon rose reluctantly. "Do you think we could get through all that at night?"

  "Don't worry, Napoleon. I was a Junior Woodchuck."

  "I'm afraid all our sophisticated equipment is built in," said Irene.

  "That's all right. We'll settle for a couple of old-fashioned flashlights."

  * * *

  "Where did you leave the car?" Baldwin asked them shortly before three o'clock the same morning.

  "About fifty feet from the transmitter," said Illya.

  "Which is on the far side of Debsconeag Lake," Napoleon added. "If Irene hadn't offered to pick us up we would've been home about dawn."

  "I presume you neutralized the scouting party?"

  "Effectively. We put them to sleep without a murmur, and packed everything they had in the car before we took it away."

  "Including their trousers," said Illya.

  "Oh!" said Irene. "They'll freeze!"

  "Probably not," said Napoleon. "We piled them together so they'd be warm until they woke up. They'll still have to walk to East Pomfret—is there a telephone in East Pomfret?"

  "There are five," said Baldwin. "I hope you remembered to turn on the beacon before you left it?"

  "Of course, sir," said Illya. "May we go to bed now?"

  "By all means. We may yet have work for you tomorrow."

  Chapter 15: "I Think He Was Scrooched."

  At nine-fifteen Ward Baldwin was seated in a sunny breakfast room listening to his pocket watch. It spoke tinnily of an airplane and a ground controller whose control did not extend to his voice, which grew harsher over a period of time.

  "The men who were on the spot say there was no lake in sight. As soon as they have been picked up and treated for exposure they will be sent back. Look for the road."

  "I can't see any road, I tell you! Everything is either trees or water or rock. There's just a few cottages and a lodge or two—and I can see the Appalachian Trail..."

  "I don't want a travelogue. Find the car, why don't you?"

  "I've got the beacon locked in...There's something...Yeah, I think that's the car down by the lake. I think the beacon is right near it."

  "You've got the wrong car. You're at least ten miles west of where they called from last night. Fredericton and Bangor triangulated them."

  Several seconds silence, then the same voice returned. "And there wasn't any lake in sight."

  "Well, that's our beacon down there, boss. I don't know how it got there, but I'm going to set down on the lake and check out that car."

  "Don't waste my time!"

  "Field Autonomy, Paragraph Twelve. Baldwin couldn't get out of here without being spotted, so we're not in action at the present time. I'll take the responsibility."

  Irene's voice spoke from behind him. "They certainly work well," she said. "Do you suppose they triangulate all communications as a matter of routine?"

  "It would seem to be experimental in this area," Baldwin said. "A considered risk."

  "Who are you considering risking?" asked Napoleon from the kitchen door.

  "You're up early. Did you hear the radio?"

  "Huh?"

  "Last night's transmissions were triangulated," Baldwin said. "King is ordering a search plane into our immediate vicinity, and we will probably be spotted shortly."

  "Will you have time for breakfast?" asked Irene.

  "Oh, certainly. King is probably on his way to East Pomfret at the moment, and it will take him some time to get here and set up an attack. He certainly wouldn't want to miss again. In fact, he will probably insist upon dismissing all his support to face us alone."

  "I certainly hope so," said Illya following his partner in. "Bacon crisp, eggs scrambled."

  "Over easy," said Napoleon, joining Baldwin in the breakfast nook. "Have you considered evacuating?"

  "Never seriously. The Lincoln is borrowed, and not remotely bulletproof; the Mercedes is nearly as visible from the air as this lodge, and is not so nearly well defended."

  "Or as comfortable."

  Breakfast ended before ten-thirty, and Baldwin re-checked all the silent channels of his pocket communicator. "I'm afraid Mr. King has realized we might be able to overhear him," he said, and restored it to his pocket. "Now we have nothing to do but watch the road and wait."

  * * *

  At precisely eleven forty-three both Napoleon and Illya twitched an instant before a dull explosion at the front door shook the lodge. Seconds later Baldwin's communicator chimed. He picked it out and extended the stem. "Good morning, Mr. King," he said. "You knocked?"

  "Just to let you know I was here, Baldwin. Do you want to give yourself up for trial by the Council, or will I have to come in there and get you?"

  "I refuse to dignify your insane railery with legal recognition. You will be given adequate opportunity to earn the position you desire, undeserved though it may be."

  "I'll deserve it for killing a traitor named Baldwin. And you may tell your Mr. Kuryakin that my power source is now multiply protected against another lucky shot."

  "A traitor thrice accused i
s better than a traitor once proven, Mr. King," said Baldwin, and the front door thundered again.

  Illya said, "Did you hear something just before it hit?"

  "That's part of his oscillator circuitry," said Irene. "I believe it's a 50-millisecond burst at 14 kiloHz, which is beyond my range. By what I've been told, it can nearly be heard over a quarter of a mile away. It can also be nearly heard from just beside the gun."

  "Very interesting," said Baldwin, closing his pocket watch. "What else do we know about the Particle Accelerator Rifle?"

  "It's likely to come in the front door at any moment," Solo said. "You can ask its inventor."

  "Come, Mr. Solo—we may indeed be unable to defeat it, but it would surely be the height of folly to concede the game without conclusively proving this. Mr. Kuryakin?"

  "Were the sound detectors and all left on overnight?"

  "Of course," said Irene.

  "How did he sneak in here? Carrying that Scrooch Gun on his back?"

  The sound detectors went off and the speakers came on. An engine was starting. "Sounds like a jeep," said Irene. The sound was coming from the middle channel. The motor revved down as the clutch was let in, and then faded, moving off. It didn't pick up on either side channel.

  "Among many other possible methods, Mr. Kuryakin, he could have landed a large glider on Lake Milinocket and avoided the road entirely. Now about the PAR..."

  * * *

  It was not quite five minutes before Napoleon and Illya nearly heard something, and a window on the east end of the lodge was heard by all to blow in. Irene cocked an eyebrow. "The windows are made of the same glass as the windows in the Mercedes," she commented.

  "He's going to keep that up indefinitely, isn't he?" said Illya.

  "Unless we stop him," said Baldwin. "Mr. Kuryakin, you were just saying that the apparent cause of failure in the 1965 test was stray RF?"

  "Right. It triggered what they called an avalanche oscillation and he was caught in it. Supposedly."

  "Something started it going," said Napoleon. "A resonant frequency, right?"

  "Uh, right..."

  "Like the resonant sonic Thrush used on us when they attacked New York headquarters. If that had kept up we would have gone to pieces. You suppose we could..."