[Magazine 1966-­08] - The Cat and Mouse Affair - Davis Robert Hart - Страница 2

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"Good," Roy said. "That will show how impartial we in Zambala are. O'Hara is one of our oldest colonial families. Now, shall we get on with it, Inspector?"

The inspector stood up and bowed the premier out, to be charged like any common criminal. Within an hour all of San Pablo knew what had happened; within three hours all of Zambala knew. There was a great outcry against the Stengali underground organization.

The streets of San Pablo were jammed with cheering students. The army declared itself solidly behind the premier. Carlos Ramirez, the old pacifist, poet, and national hero of Zambala, accepted the post of chairman of the international tribunal to investigate the situation.

The whole world applauded the action.

Some time later, alone in his office, Inspector Tembo made a telephone call.

The man Tembo called, Martin O'Hara took the message in his old house high on a hill overlooking San Pablo, hung up, and went straight to a bookcase in his elegant library. He touched the bookcase, and it opened. He went through the opening. The secret door closed behind him.

He stood alone in a bright room lined with steel and heavily soundproofed. Instruments, filing cabinets, maps and communication equipment filled the first room. Along a windowless corridor there were unmarked doors into other rooms, the doors having neither knobs nor visible locks.

In the first room Martin O'Hara went directly to a large electronic console and flipped a switch.

"Code ten. Code ten. Agent O'Hara, Section two Chief in Zambala on direct relay to Waverly in New York. Code ten. Come in, Mr. Waverly."

TWO

San Pablo Prison is a combination of old and new. The center part of the building that stands on the side of a hill just south of the city is the grim old original prison from the pirate days. The two wings are more modern, built within the last twenty years to hold the enemies of the colonial government before independence.

As with all buildings in San Pablo that are more than simple dwellings, the prison stands only four stories high. This is earthquake country, and four stories is as high as should be built. In the case of the prison, the hill rises steeply behind the old center section, and the hill itself touches the building up to the third floor.

It was from a cell on the third floor of the old part of the prison that the Stengali escaped, two days after the murder of the Security Chief Mura Khan. The hour was late and the night was dark. The Stengali made his break when a guard carelessly entered his cell to gather up his plate when he thought the Stengali was asleep.

The Stengali easily overpowered the guard, locked him in his cell, and made his way to an unbarred window in the guard room at the rear of the third floor. By chance, the guard room was empty at this time. The Stengali easily got out through the window and dropped the few feet to the hillside behind the prison.

The Stengali was halfway up the hill when the guard on the roof spotted him. Another fifty feet and he would have made good his escape. But the machine-guns of the guards on the roof cut him down. Before the guards could reach him to see if he was alive, he finished their work with his stolen pistol rather than be taken alive again.

The guards carried the body back into the prison. They were not happy. They had let him escape. They had let him take a pistol. Now he was dead and could not be questioned. They were very quiet as they carried him back into the prison.

The night returned to darkness and to silence.

A man stepped from a clump of trees at the top of the hill behind the prison. This man stood in this night and watched the guard carry the dead Stengali back into the prison.

He was a strange figure in the night as the moon rose above San Pablo.

He was an old man, stooped and with a twisted left arm. One eye was covered with an evil-looking patch. His face was scarred like some rutted old road, and his hair was white and hung down over his face in ragged strings. His clothes were rags, and his feet were wrapped in filthy cloths. He carried a long, thick staff which he leaned on as he stared down the hill at the silent prison.

Suddenly, he seemed to raise his hand to his lips and bite the knuckle of his thumb. At the same time he seemed to bow his head toward the dark bulk of the prison. Then he turned sharply and moved off down the hill toward the road on the other side of the prison. He moved with amazing agility for a man so old and crippled.

As he reached the road, he stood clear in the moonlight for a long moment. It was then that the cup suspended around his neck was visible, and the mark on his left hand that told the world he was a beggar!

A strange beggar. Moments after he reached the road a long, black car glided all but silently up and the old beggar got in. The car drove off into San Pablo.

The old beggar, intent first on the prison and then on the car that came for him, had not seen the other events his appearance on the hill had set in motion.

The moment the old beggar had started down the hill, another man had appeared from out of the night near the prison. This man was tall and dressed all in black. He followed the old beggar to the road and vanished into the dark trees between the road and the prison.

As he crossed a patch of moonlight his face showed briefly—or did not show!

The second man, dressed all in black, was masked! A black mask covered his entire face except his eyes, and his dark hat was pulled low over his face. When the long car picked up the beggar, the man in black followed form the trees in a jeep that had been carefully hidden there.

The third man had been seen by neither of the other two.

He was a small, slender man also dressed all in black, but neither masked nor did he wear a hat. In the dark he followed both the beggar and the masked man, his blond hair catching the moonlight from time to time. As he watched the beggar reach the road, and the masked man vanish among the trees, his quick and bright eyes narrowed beneath an habitually lowered brow.

With the silence and agility of a cat, he moved closer to the road and the beggar. Beneath the unruly blond hair, cut like the round haircut of some modern knight-errant, his handsome Slavic face was both quizzical and a trifle amused. He was about to move even closer when the black car appeared and picked up the beggar.

Immediately, the jeep emerged from the trees with the masked man driving and followed the black car toward San Pablo. The small blond man ran swiftly to the road. He bent down where a drainage culvert ran beneath the road and drew out a motorcycle. In an instant he was on the cycle and roaring off after both the black car and the jeep.

As he rode he guided the motorcycle with one hand. With the other hand he drew a pencil-like object from his pocket, pressed a tiny button, and spoke.

"Report to Zambala Headquarters. Agent Kuryakin following two men. Stengali suspected of murdering Mura Khan has been killed trying to escape. Both men being followed were at the scene. One is an old man dressed as a beggar, one eye and a twisted left arm. The second man is dressed in black and is masked. See what you have on them and check with New York."

There was a shot silence as the motorcycle sped through the night. Then the pencil-radio spoke low in the voice of Martin O'Hara.

"Roger. Check will be run, Illya. And be careful. The Stengali usually dress in black. They are very dangerous. They would have been watching the prison."

Illya Kuryakin concentrated on following the jeep ahead, and beyond the jeep the black car. The road was deserted here at the edge of the city, and the small blond U.N.C.L.E. agent was riding the motorcycle with the lights out.

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