An anxious hour passed. The hills rose higher on each side of the river. There was less and less sign of atomic destruction, for the ground burst was confined to a smaller area by the surrounding hills than would have been the case of an airburst bomb. Then the ruin would have extended over many times the area.
Rocky cliffs loomed high on each side of the bobbing sampan. The river became swifter, then so rough that the tossing little boat almost capsized.
Shortly after this they were almost smashed against a concrete pier that extended a short way into the river. With difficulty they beached the sampan and followed the pier to a set of narrow stairs cut out of the living rock.
The only light came from the stars showing through the rent of rocks at the top of the gorge. Spray from the churning river fell like heavy rain. Water splashed high on the rocks and ran off the steps in heavy rivulets. The steps were narrow and Slippery. Occasionally in the dark they brushed against branches of hardy juniper that miraculously had sprouted and grown in cracks along the sheer rock surface.
“How long have we got?” April asked.
“Time has run out on us,” Solo said. “If they fire the clusters on schedule, as they informed Tiell, we have less than fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes,” April repeated.
Fifteen minutes to save the lives of two hundred million people around the world! And we still don't even know where we are going or what we will find there, April thought.
But she kept her thoughts to herself as they struggled up the steep steps.
They went a short distance farther; then the steps switched to the right parallel along the cliff face. They were several feet along the narrow trail when a searchlight suddenly cut out of the darkness below.
The chilling chatter of machine gun fire broke above the roar of the rushing river below.
The four from U.N.C.L.E. scattered as best they could. Solo, who was ahead fell flat, pressing against the bottom step where the steep angle protected him from direct fire. Illya, directly behind him, dodged behind a bulge of rock. Mark Slate in the rear retreated back down the step.
Only April Dancer in between had no place to go. Another machine gun cut loose. She was caught between the two lines of fire. She couldn't go forward and to retreat after Mark Slate would run her directly into the second gun's bullets.
She pressed against the face of the cliff, momentarily in darkness as the searchlight beam probed for Mark Slate below her. Then it swept back, throwing her crouching body in bold relief against the wet rocks.
She knew that a deadly hail of bullets would follow her discovery. She didn't hesitate. There was a juniper growing in the rock just over the lip of the trail.
April ducked as the first burst of gunfire slammed into the cliff above her head. She threw herself flat on the trail. Another burst of gunfire ripped above her head. She realized that the next would tear through her body.
She had only one slim chance. She grabbed the edge of the trail ledge and swung herself down into the branches of the tree growing from a crack in the rock.
The branch sagged under her weight. She was out of range of the machine gun now, but the tree limb dragged so badly she thought for a horrified moment that it was going to break under her weight.
She pulled herself up against the trunk. It was spray-wet and scratched cruelly through the coarse coolie clothing she wore. The entire mass of the tree sagged. She stopped moving for fear the roots would pull away from their purchase in the rocks.
The searchlight swept across the trail, seeking a target. April Dancer saw a burst of muzzle blast from Slate's gun as he fired to draw attention away from the rest, for he had better cover.
April looked down as the search-light swept around. The river was a hundred feet below. Jagged rocks thrown down by construction of the trail lay directly under her.
She looked up. The top of the cliff was not too far overhead. Now she could see the occasional silhouette of a man's head beside the moving eye of the light. The machine gun fire was coming from a position to the right of the light.
Solo and Illya were pinned down. She was clinging for her life in the branches of the tree. That left only Mark Slate to fight back. And he was in no position to get a good target.
They were effectively stopped. It would be impossible for them to get past this guard that held all the advantages.
Then she heard a voice cry from the top of the cliff: “It's U.N.C.L.E.! I can recognize the sound of that Special!”
“Get over and bring some gas shells!” another voice cried. “That'll rout the rats out of their holes! Hurry!”
The others heard the command also. They knew this meant the end for them if the gas shells were fired. Solo rose up from his protection, firing his Special as fast as he could pull the trigger. It was a desperate move in an attempt to break the searchlight and give them a chance to make an upward rush in the dark.
Not a shot hit the target. He dropped back to slip another clip in the gun.
“Don't!” April cried. “Don't risk it again, Napoleon. Let me try something first!”
“We can't wait, April!” Solo shouted back. “We have less than three minutes left before the countdown is completed and the signal sent to fire the cluster bombs!”
“Give me thirty seconds!” April cried. “Don't get yourself killed for nothing! We still have a lot to do before we crush this monstrous thing!”
Napoleon Solo hesitated. He had no idea what April had in mind or what she could do, clinging as she was for her life in the branches of the juniper on the cliff face. However, he knew the girl and her extraordinary resourcefulness---proven in a hundred equally desperate fights with THRUSH.
“Go ahead!” he shouted. “I'll hold up for thirty seconds!”
April balanced as best she could, gripping the tree trunk with her knees and looping one arm over a swaying limb. She fumbled in her purse, which was draped over her shoulder under her loose coolie jacket. She grabbed at the remaining pill-bombs.
In her hurry she dropped one. The roar as it exploded on the rocks below was deafening. The cliff shook. There was a rattle of rocks falling from around the strained roots of the tree.
April hung on grimly. Above the dying echoes of the accidental explosion she heard Solo cry: “Don't, April! You can't throw the bomb high enough to clear the top of the cliff!”
Then she heard him shout back Kuryakin and Slate: “Get ready! We'll make a concentrated attack. It's all we can do---advance and pray one of us will make it “
“Give me one more chance!” April screamed.
She grabbed the tree branch directly above her, pushing a bomb in between two twigs. She bent the limb back as far as she dared and then let it spring back. The bomb was hurled upward.
The searchlight swung over, trying to spot the source of her cries. In that moment of darkness, Solo leaped to his feet to rush up the steps.
The light swung back after its fruitless attempt to find April. It caught Napoleon Solo full before he could get to cover farther up the trail.
Both Illya and Slate jumped out and starting shooting frantically to divide the enemy's attention and hopefully draw fire from Solo to themselves.
There was a moment's hesitation on the part of the THRUSH machine gunner in the face of this concentrated attack by U.N.C.L.E.
That second was fatal for the men on the cliff. The bomb, hurled upward by April's makeshift catapult, cleared the top of the cliff. It struck---and exploded!
The shock waves ran down the cliff. Rocks were loosened. A section of the cliff where the explosion went off broke loose with a thunderous roar. Tons of rock plunged down past April.
The tree shivered and sagged lower. April swung around frantically, trying to grab the edge of the trail ledge. She missed it by inches!
The searchlight was out, carried down by the collapsing cliff. It was almost totally dark. Only the starlight shining down through the gorge gave any illumination at all. April could not
tell how well the tree was still rooted.
Then she heard Mark Slate yell: “April! Where are you?”
“Here!” she cried.
“Keep talking! I need your voice to guide me!”
“Mark? Need any help with April?” It was Illya Kuryakin's voice calling from farther up the steps.
“Follow Napoleon and keep him covered!” Mark Slate shouted back. “I'll take care of April!”
Guided by her voice he leaned over the ledge. She pawed in the dark until she caught his hand. He braced himself and called for her to let go. Slowly he pulled her to safety.
“Okay?” he asked anxiously.
“I'll stop and figure that out tomorrow!” she snapped. “Come on!”
Together they followed the other two men from U.N.C.L.E. The collapsing cliff, they found, had destroyed part of the stairs. They caught up with Solo and Illya as the two men from U.N.C.L.E. were scaling the broken face.
As they made the top, they saw a small cluster of concrete buildings about a hundred yards away. A man came running out. Illya Kuryakin cut him down with a burst of fire from the U.N.C.L.E. Special.
“Take the center building,” Napoleon Solo yelled. “It's got antenna on the roof. It must be the tracking station.”
They headed for it. A guard cut loose with a machine gun, but he was confused by the fan of fire thrown at him by the spreading U.N.C.L.E. quartet. He hesitated too long and died from a bullet in the head.
Solo charged into the station, closely followed by the other three. The room was empty except for one man. He was standing by a control panel, frantically punching buttons with his right hand while his left pointed a gun at Solo.
He fired, but in his agitation his shot went wild. He tried to dodge, but Solo's shot caught him in the side. He fell, dropping the gun. He twisted, trying to grab it, but April Dancer jammed her foot down on his hand.
The THRUSH man looked up at them. He coughed blood and then snarled: “You've lost, U.N.C.L.E.’s! You've lost! I got off the command signal before you broke in! I've activated the control mechanism in the cluster bomb. In five minutes, when the bomb reaches the proper orientation in orbit, the dispersal unit will start throwing the bombs into their trajectory! Nothing can stop it except a direct hit by a missile and there isn't time for that! You've lost, damn you!”
“Illya! You're our computer expert!” Solo snapped, “Can you tell anything about that console?”
Illya Kuryakin sprang to the bank of gauges and control buttons. Above it there were slots for inserting keyed punch cards. He hastily punched a button marked Correction Control.
Nothing happened.
“I think he's right!” Kuryakin said hastily. “I can't stop the signal!”
“Isn't there anything we can do?” Mark Slate asked.
“I don't think so---” Illya said, scanning the instrument bank.
Before all their eyes rose the terrible vision of death and destruction falling on Washington, London, Moscow, Paris and---
“Wait!” Illya cried. “Here's a key marked attitude rocket adjustment. The original announcement on Satellite-I said it was built on the U.S. MOL satellite system. I know that had small vernier rockets aboard to allow slight orbital corrections from the earth. If this has the same and this key indicates it---”
He paused, his jaw set hard, his eyes bleak. “How much time have we?” he asked hurriedly.
“Two minutes!” Solo replied. “April!” Illya cried. “Get Waverly on the pen-communicator!”
While Kuryakin studied the control panel, April extended the antenna of the pen to convert it into the famed U.N.C.L.E. world-wide communications set.
“Waverly here,” came the familiar voice after a hasty exchange of identification codes.
“Mr. Waverly This is an extreme emergency!” April cried into the communicator. “We must have the code for firing vernier rockets for attitude control on a MOL-type space vehicle!”
Waverly recognized the urgency in her voice. He didn't hesitate. She could hear the click of opening communications lines and the U.N.C.L.E. chief's crisp command: “Space Track Headquarters! Emergency! I want code for MOL attitude verniers!”
And then back to China he said to April: “How much time have we?”
“One-and-a-half minutes!” she replied. “THRUSH has transmitted the command to release the clusters. There is a three-minute delay between reception of the command and the activation of the bombs. Illya says our only hope is to start the vernier rockets!”
“I understand,” Waverly said.
“The verniers are to stabilize the spacecraft in orbit. They could also be used to destabilize as well. And that would unsettle the bombs' aim.”
At the control panel Kuryakin looked up at the clock ticking off the seconds of the countdown. There was one minute left!
“We have only sixty seconds left, Mr. Waverly!” April said into the pen communicator.
“Mr. Waverly! Lab control! We must have information on the panel arrangements---”
“Take it, Miss Dancer!” Waverly said.
April shoved the pen-communicator in front of Illya's face. Quickly the Russian read off the figures on the gauges and instruments.
“Set the gradient gauge at fifteen degrees---”
Illya Kuryakin adjusted the dial and anxiously looked up at the clock.
It had ticked down to forty-five seconds.
“Adjust your gain control for seventy-five per cent!” the U.N.C.L.E. lab ordered.
Illya made the adjustments. The time was down to thirty.
“Try a cross feed on the two dials. That will give an indication that the setup is working.”
“There is no change in gain,” Illya reported.
Sweat was dripping from his face. The countdown clock was down to ten seconds. “Time's running out!” he said.
“Feed these orbital calculations into the computer section of the console---”
Illya's fingers shook slightly as he punched in the U.N.C.L.E. laboratory calculations.
The countdown clock was down to five seconds and moving swiftly toward zero.
“Press the fire button and then---”
“It's pressed!” Illya called back half across the world to the U.N.C.L.E. laboratory. “Now what---?”
“Now pray---for all of us!”
The firing signal leaped across space with the speed of light. The countdown clock showed two seconds before the cluster bombs reached the precise point in space where they must be released in order to hit their predetermined target.
“We are watching the---”
“Wait!” Illya interrupted. “A red light is flaring on the panel.”
“That means the verniers are firing! It---”
“A green light just came on! The countdown clock is at 0!”
“The bombs have been released!”
“Will they hit their targets?”
“I don't know! It depends on whether the verniers fired in sufficient time to roll the cluster bomb case around so that the bombs were aimed at space instead of the earth!”
“Must we wait until the bombs drop to know?” Solo cut in.
“Don't get nervous, Napoleon!” the lab scientist, who knew Solo well, said. “You have a back seat. We here are one of the targets! Let me get nervous first! Actually, our scanner-trackers are trying to get the answer for us now.”
“Here's an emergency message being broadcast world-wide by the United Nations,” Waverly broke in. “It says, 'Space tracking stations in both Russia and the U.S. report the Red Satellite I spawned fifteen objects believed to be atomic bombs. All people on earth are cautioned to take immediate Civil Defense precautions pending further notice---”
“This is Space Track Lab, Mr. Waverly,” the speaker on the U.N.C.L.E. chief's desk broke in. “We have an accurate report on the cluster bombs trajectory.”
“Yes! Yes?” Waverly said hoarsely.
“The verniers fired by Mr. Kuryakin were successful in
rolling the bomb case. The bombs are directed toward deep space instead of the earth.”
“Thank you,” Waverly said.
“And thank you, Mr. Solo, Mr. Kuryakin, Mr. Slate and Miss Dancer. Thanks from me and from two hundred million people who are alive now because of you,”
The Sinister Satellite Affair Page 9