The Unfair Fare Affair - Leslie Peter - Страница 18

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Managing the limp was no trouble—the lump inserted in his shoe by the experts of U.N.C.L.E.'s Wardrobe Department made every step excruciating. What concerned him more than his actual appearance was his voice. He had no means of knowing how the late Kurim Cernic had articulated—Hradec had merely said his voice had been a little deeper than Illya's. Fortunately, the escaped convict had come from the region of Kosice, in eastern Slovakia, which meant that any trace of Russian accent in the agent's speech could easily be accounted for, this being the part of the country nearest to the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, he looked forward with some misgivings to his first attempt at passing himself off as the man whose clothes he now wore. And the test was to come sooner than he had expected.

The route to the attic in which Cernic had been living led past the kavarna on the far side of the square—a bar in which the convict had passed an hour or two at the beginning of every evening. As Kuryakin limped past, two men reeled out of the open door and hailed him.

"Hey, Milo!" one called. "Where the devil have you been? Haven't seen you around for days. How have you been, eh?"

"Yes, how are you, you old soak?" the other shouted with a drunken guffaw.

Kuryakin scowled. "None the better for your asking!" he snarled—and, spitting scornfully on the cobbles, he stumped on toward the alleyway leading to his attic.

There was a burst of laughter behind him. "Who was that?" a girl's voice asked.

The Russian glanced over his shoulder. She was standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the smoke-filled interior of the tavern, a slender young woman with smooth blonde hair to her shoulders, wearing an unbuttoned trenchcoat.

"That?" one of the drunks repeated. "That's only old Milo! What a character! He must be the most bad-tempered man in town! Never been known to smile!"

"I don't see that that's anything to boast about," the girl objected. "Who is he, anyway?"

"Oh, some hick from the east," the first man said, tiring of the subject. "He comes from the Carpathians or some where. Come on—let's have another drink!"

"He doesn't look like a countryman."

"Well, he probably worked in the bauxite mines. Do come on."

"If you ask me, he looks more like a crook! He probably came here to escape the police—"

"Then he's safe in this neighborhood, isn't he?" the second man interrupted. "For you don't catch them down here often; they prefer to wait until we go up to the bright lights and trap us there!"

"Look, you two! For God's sake!" his companion growled. "Do forget old sourpuss for the minute. Let's get going, eh? We should have been at Imre's twenty minutes ago."

"Well, if you ask me..." the girl began again—but the rest of the sentence was lost in a fresh burst of laughter, mixed with singing, as more people spilled out into the square. Somewhere beyond the linden tree, a window frame squeaked open and a voice called angrily for quiet.

Kuryakin limped on. Beyond the oasis of gaiety in the square, all was deserted again. Down the alley, turn right across the courtyard and go through the arch, walk up the stone steps and take the second cul-de-sac on the left.

There it all was, exactly as the colonel had described it.

The old buildings leaned together across the passageway so that from the leaded windows of one projecting top story to the peeling shutters of the one opposite, the gap was small enough for a man to jump. Ancient, bowed beams cradled tile and brick and crumbling plaster. At the corner, a turret with a conical slate roof was etched against the night by the reflection of a lamp beyond the archway. And ahead, zigzagging up the wall blanking off the end of the alley, a rickety wooden staircase led to a door beneath a sagging dormer. Beyond it was the hideout of Kurim Cernic.

Kuryakin climbed the stairs and thrust the iron key he had been given into the lock. It turned silently, and the door swung open.

Inside there was a light switch with a cracked porcelain cover. In the feeble illumination of a single unshaded forty-watt bulb, he saw a large room with a varnished pine floor, a bed, a table, and two wicker-seated chairs, one each side of a dark mahogany cupboard. Cans, packages of dried food, and a bottle of milk that had soured jostled for position on the top of a cheap wooden chest of drawers.

The Russian crossed over to a tiny window beneath the sloping roof. He opened the shutters and leaned out into the dark. Beyond a black jumble of roofs, a curve of lights along the embankment marked the course of the river. The air was fresh, cold and tingling. In a few minutes the musty, stale atmosphere in the room had cleared. He drew back his head and prepared for the night.

In his role as the escaped murderer, he had no papers, no weapons, and no clothes but those he was wearing. There was a small baton transceiver in the breast pocket of his shirt. Behind the dirty curtain hiding the primitive washing and sanitary arrangements there was a skylight. And through the grimed glass of this could be reached the massive, curved tiles below which were hidden banknotes to the value of some $450,000.

With these two rather differing assets to his credit, he installed himself in his hideout and settled down to wait…

Chapter 9

A Surprise In Store!

THERE WAS a roaring in Napoleon Solo's ears. The world heaved before his anguished eyes in waves of blackness. Somewhere far down in his skull, a team of men with pneumatic drills were trying to blast their way out.

He raised his hands to his throbbing forehead and touched nothing. Oh no! he panicked. It's gone! My head's off—and there's nothing in its place! And then, gradually, as he regained consciousness, the head floated back into position, and he realized that he hadn't touched it at all. He couldn't have, because his hands were tightly bound behind him.

Bound? Yes, and so were his feet. Something hard and yet resilient, unpleasantly dry to the taste was jammed in his mouth and secured there with a strip of cloth. His jaws, wedged apart by the gag, were as painful as his head.

After a while his memory returned fully, though the blackness and the roaring remained.

It took him some time to work out that he was shut up in the back of a truck—an ancient one, to judge by the extreme hardness of the ride and the racket made by the motor, the exhaust, and the booming of the metal side panels.

He strained his eyes in the darkness. There was not the vestige of a light anywhere—no cracks between doors suddenly illuminated by the headlamps of a passing car, no errant reflections from street lamp or lighted window. It must, he thought, be very late at night. And if the abominable surface was anything to go by, they were on a very minor road.

He tested his bonds. His wrists were tied tightly together, not crossed but face to face. His ankles were bound and so were his knees. But for they had left his elbows alone. If they had been lashed together, he could have done nothing; but as it was, given the opportunity for a bit of contortionism, he could probably contrive to bring his hands around in front of him. And then they would see, for—fortunately again—the bonds were neither wire nor electric cord, but simple rope. Before he could try anything, though, he would have to wait until the vehicle stopped. He was being thrown about far too much to attempt it now.

For what seemed like many hours, they lurched and banged along the bumpy road. And then at last the truck turned sharply, hurling him across the metal floor like a sack of coal, and they were on a smooth surface.

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