Pulp Fiction | The Invisibility Affair by Thomas Stratton Page 8

  "So, that's how they did it," the Milwaukee agent said. "It's good camouflage; from the outside that door looks like part of the wall."

  Napoleon and Illya emerged. "I still don't see how Andy got through there," Napoleon said. "That place is narrow. How's George?"

  Brattner glanced at his agent, who was being steadied by another man and rubbing his head. "He'll be all right. A sore head is nothing to get excited about in this business. They surprised him; he was watching the windows and didn't expect them to come out of the wall on top of him. He'll know better next time."

  Napoleon nodded. "We have to talk to Miss Griffin, and I'd prefer to do it away from here. If we could use your car, while you go through the apartment and reassure the tenants that the excitement is over...? You probably won't find much in the apartment, but they did leave a small computer behind."

  Brattner grinned gleefully. "That'll cost them to replace. Come on, George, let's go check the apartment. If there's any of that gas left, it'll clear your head." He handed his car keys to Napoleon. "I'll ride back with one of the boys when we're done."

  Napoleon and Illya walked around the corner of the building and in the back door. Kerry was standing in the hall, near one of the battered doors. "I'm very sorry, Kerry," Napoleon apologized as they reached her side. "I'm afraid it didn't work out quite as well as we had planned."

  "The fact that you were capable of accomplishing your mission insofar as it related to myself is as matter which elicits my extreme gratitude," she replied.

  "Now, now," Napoleon said, "calm down. You're all right now, and we still have a good chance of getting your uncle back."

  She let out a deep breath and stepped back a pace. "Yes, I'm all right now. Actually it wasn't so bad. They were very polite all the time; they were just so quietly fanatical about things. They hadn't harmed Uncle Willard, either; he'd been pretending to work with them, but they suspected that he was stalling. That's why they wanted me."

  The three of them walked outside to the car. "Did you find out where they were keeping the OTSMID?" Illya asked. "They obviously didn't have room for it here."

  Kerry related her uncle's information that the OTSMID had been in storage. "But they were planning to move it today," she added. "They were going to put it on a dirigible—or a Zeppelin, McNulty called it."

  "A dirigible? You mean one of those things like a balloon only different? With gas bags and all?" Napoleon said vaguely.

  Kerry nodded and went on to explain the unlikely sequence of events that had led to a concealed dirigible in the state of Wisconsin. "Why did McNulty call it a Zeppelin?" she asked.

  "That's the German term for a dirigible," Illya said. "An invisible dirigible; it has a certain charm."

  "We surprised them before they could move," Napoleon said thoughtfully. "So the OTSMID is still stored. If we act quickly, we just might be able to surprise them again." He turned back to the building. "I'm going to get Brattner started on this; cleaning out the apartment can wait."

  A few minutes later Napoleon, Brattner, and three agents emerged from the building and separated to walk to their respective cars. Brattner and Napoleon joined Illya and Kerry.

  "I think we have something," Brattner said. "There was some Thrush activity not far from our headquarters a month ago, down on Commerce Street. We were looking for a satrapy headquarters, so when they didn't follow up, we let it go. But it could just have been them putting their equipment in storage. We'll cover the area now. George is staying behind to finish checking out the apartment; he is quite up to strenuous activity yet. So far we haven't found anything useful, but"—he smiled happily—"they lost some expensive equipment in there. The place was well designed, too, for a rush job. I wonder who their architect is?"

  * * *

  Commerce Street barely deserved to be called a street. It came into being only a few blocks northeast of the U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, and it seemed to be fighting for its life with a series of railroad tracks that ran alongside it and occasionally down its middle.

  Napoleon and Illya stood by their car across from one of the many warehouses in the area, one with a large parking lot alongside the loading docks. Brattner and the other agents were checking other buildings along the street. Pocketing the keys to the car, Napoleon started across the street toward the warehouse.

  "There doesn't seem to be very much activity going on around this one," Illya said as they walked toward some narrow steel steps that led up to one of the docks.

  The steps rattled as they climbed them. An open overhead door in front of them revealed long lines of crates, all mounted on wooden skids. A large forklift stood idly by, its motor chuffling noisily.

  "Coffee break?" Illya asked.

  "Strong union, apparently," Napoleon said. As they walked forward he pulled out his communicator and contacted Brattner. "We might have something here," he said. "There isn't any activity at all that we can see; not even a workman in sight."

  "Unusual," said Brattner. "That place you picked is usually pretty busy. Have you checked the offices yet?"

  "No, but we'll..." The roar of a powerful motor echoed through the building. "Something just took off," Napoleon said into the communicator. "I think you'd better get your men down here." Replacing the communicator, he took off at run after Illya, who had already started toward the rear of the building. They pounded through aisle after aisle of crates, bales and machinery. Rounding a corner they burst into an open space. A row of doors lined a wall fifty feet from them, and a forklift was laboring through one of the doors, carrying a large rectangular object. The driver was a large man wearing grey slacks, a dark brown shirt, and an orange tie.

  "I wouldn't swear to the face, but the clothing looks familiar," Illya shouted as he drew his gun.

  A shot rang out from somewhere beyond the doors, and chips of concrete from the floor spattered Napoleon's legs. He dived behind a convenient crate as Illya took refuge behind a stack of metal pipes.

  The forklift disappeared through the door.

  Napoleon risked a quick look and got off two fast shots which drew a fusillade in return. Hastily he pulled out his communicator and explained the situation to Brattner."They've got a truck out there," he added. "If you get here fast enough, you can block their exit."

  The forklift roared more loudly and a second later the engine of a truck sprang into even more noisy life. There was the sound of gears grinding, and Napoleon risked another look. This time there was no answering fire, and he caught a glimpse of the truck pulling away. Illya sprinted for the door, while Napoleon informed Brattner of the quarry's impending escape. Illya reached the door in time to see the truck vanish around a corner of the building. He turned and began running back toward the front of the warehouse.

  "We're almost there," Brattner's voice came through the communicator, "but I don't know if we can—" There was a grinding sound and the crash of breaking glass, followed by sporadic gunfire. After a second, Brattner's voice came through again. "We couldn't. That truck's tough; we rammed without doing any damage at all."

  Illya and Napoleon burst through the front doors of the warehouse, leaped down from the dock, and ran for their car. They could see Brattner's car, where it had attempted to block the truck's exit. Its right front fender was a shambles and headlight fragments covered the street. Fifty yards to the north, the truck was rapidly gaining speed.

  Napoleon jammed the keys in the ignition as the door slammed shut. Tires squealed as he took off in "low," shifting to "drive" as they gained speed with the accelerator floored. Illya leaned out the window and attempted to draw a bead on the rear wheels of the truck just as they thudded across a set of railroad tracks. When he stopped bouncing, he drew back inside, rubbed the back of his neck, and glared accusingly at Napoleon.

  Two hundred yards away, they could see the truck rounding a slight curve and heading into a three block straightaway that ran along the river. Heading into the curve themselves moments later, they could see they were gaini
ng very little. The truck was nearing the end of the street and braking sharply to take the hairpin turn that wound around to the right a full hundred and eighty degrees and climbed steeply to intersect with another street that crossed over Commerce some fifty feet above it.

  Instead of subsiding on the straightaway, the bouncing increased as their speed increased. Illya fired at the truck as it made its turn, but he realized that hitting a truck tire from this lurching, swaying car would be more a matter of luck than marksmanship.

  He wasn't lucky. As they braked for the turn, the truck, with hardly a pause, charged into traffic on the overhead street and headed north. Illya sat back and replaced the magazine of his pistol with a full one from his pocket.

  Wheeling into the turn, Napoleon suddenly braked violently and the car swerved sideways against the high bank that lined the left side of the street. It came to a halt ten feet from a large oil drum sitting squarely in the middle of the incline.

  Illya leaped out and dashed forward. A quick shove and the drum, apparently empty, rolled easily against the bank.

  Pulling out into the cross street a second later, they could see the truck disappearing over a hill three blocks to the north. The blaring of horns from a stop-lighted intersection a block behind the truck indicated a difference of opinion which the truck had obviously won.

  Another series of railroad tracks bounced them off the car's roof as they raced across. Luckily the traffic light was green by now and they didn't have to fight for the right of way. Topping the hill, they could see the truck, still three blocks away, bulling its way through another stoplight. A chorus of auto horns erupted as it made a rocking left turn and disappeared down the side street.

  "Make a note to have some kind of siren put on U.N.C.L.E. cars," Napoleon said, swerving to avoid a car that had pulled out of a cross street in front of them.

  "Yes," Illya agreed. "We don't have enough size to bluff through the way he's doing, and even if we did, I don't like the idea of killing innocent bystanders."

  "Thrush isn't that particular, apparently," Napoleon said as he watched the truck charge through a red light with its horn blaring and leave a Volkswagen sitting against a curb like a broken beetle. The light was green as Napoleon and Illya raced through, with the Volkswagen's passengers staring at them in shocked silence.

  "I wonder what our relations are with the local police." Napoleon wondered as he swerved out to pass a bus.

  "Deteriorating by the minute, I suspect," Illya returned.

  "Now what's that juggernaut up to!" Napoleon exclaimed. "We were just starting to gain on him!"

  Two blocks ahead, the truck made a sharp left turn amid more blaring of horns and disappeared down a side street. Napoleon did the same a few seconds later, earning some colorful language from a bus driver he cut off.

  For half an hour the pursuit continued. Whenever Napoleon and Illya started to overtake the truck, it would duck into a side street and emerge again, always; it seemed, through hordes of cross traffic that parted much more readily for the truck than for the pursuing car. By this time, the two agents could hear the wail of police sirens, but so far no police car had been able to get close enough to the chase to be effective.

  Longer open stretched, however, were making it more difficult for the truck to retain its lead. Napoleon and Illya were only a few car lengths behind when the truck's brake lights flared suddenly. With a last-second twist of the wheel, Napoleon swerved the car past and stepped on the brakes.

  The car skidded to a halt just off the edge of the highway and the two agents leaped out, guns ready. The truck was empty and two men were disappearing into a line of bushes atop a steep bank. Illya and Napoleon plunged after them.

  Bursting through the bushes at the top of the bank, they found themselves in a cemetery, most of the graves overgrown and the headstones weather-beaten and cracked. The Thrushes were disappearing down another steep bank at the rear of the cemetery.

  Illya and Napoleon cleared the remnants of a wire fence, then half jumped, half slid down the bank and plunged through a thick cluster of trees, followed by the sound of the Thrushes crashing through the brush ahead of them.

  Suddenly the thrashing sound stopped and the solid thunks of a pair of car doors came to them, followed immediately by the hum of a motor and the sound of spinning tires. The trees and undergrowth ended abruptly, and the two agents found themselves on a narrow path, just wide enough for a car. Disappearing down the path was a large black sedan.

  "Back to the car!" Napoleon snapped. "If they get there first..." They raced back to the highway. The truck and their car still sat there, and the black sedan was nowhere in sight.

  "At least we have the truck and the OTSMID," Illya said philosophically.

  "I hope so," Napoleon replied. "But I have a distinct feeling that this was too easy."

  They walked up to the back to the truck and opened the rear doors. Inside was the massive metal object they had glimpsed at the warehouse. It looked like a large metal case, decorated with a few knobs and meters. "Does that look like an OTSMID to you?" Napoleon asked.

  Illya shrugged. "It looks as much like an OTSMID as you could expect," he replied cryptically.

  "The immediate problem, though, is to get it back to headquarters. How's your memory of your old Russian truck driving days?"

  Illya looked at him thoughtfully. "If I don't get picked up by the police; I suspect every prowl car in town will be on the lookout for this particular truck."

  "You go ahead then," Napoleon said. "I'm going to take a look around back there, and then I'll bring our car in."

  A few minutes' inspection showed the path behind the cemetery to be a U-shaped access road ending on a cross street about fifty yards to the east. Just a few yards from where they had emerged from the trees earlier, a half dozen cigarette stubs lay scattered on the grass. Indentations in a sandy area of the path showed where a car had been parked.

  Napoleon took out his communicator and contacted Brattner. "Anything worthwhile in the warehouse?"

  "Nothing yet," Brattner replied. "The place is deserted. There are cars in the lot, but no sign of the drivers. The office is empty, too. We've been over the entire place once; we're checking more thoroughly now. Any luck with the truck?"

  "We have the truck, but the drivers got away. What worries me, though, is why they should give up the truck and the OTSMID without at least a final gun battle. And they very conveniently had a getaway car waiting when they abandoned the truck. Even if this was a routine rendezvous point, the timing strikes me as remarkably good." Napoleon was silent for a moment, then went on.

  "Anyway, Illya is on his way back to headquarters with the truck. I'll join you at the warehouse as soon as I can. Solo out."

  He had just snapped the cap back on the communicator when its warbling beep sounded. "Solo here," he said.

  "Yes, Mr. Solo," Waverly's voice replied. "I have that report on Forbes and McNulty for you. Forbes has been with Thrush for many years now and is regarded as one of their most capable operators. McNulty is a fairly recent recruit, but his enthusiasm has brought him favorable notice from his superiors, though not necessarily from his comrades. The combination of Forbes and McNulty could very well prove a formidable one. I'm forwarding complete dossiers to Milwaukee headquarters."

  Forty-five minutes later, Napoleon pulled his car into the warehouse parking area past the battered car that still partially blocked the driveway. Brattner came out of the warehouse at a trot. "We just found the warehouse employees," he said as he came up to Napoleon. "They were drugged and hidden away in some empty crates."

  Before Napoleon could reply, his communicator sounded. "Napoleon," came Illya's voice, "Kerry just looked at the machine in the truck, and she says it's not the OTSMID."

  Chapter 8

  "Charles Fort Never Mentioned Sandbags"

  Illya's announcement produced a dismayed silence from Napoleon and Brattner. Then Napoleon spoke. "I was afraid of then. Thrus
h gave up too easily—and that getaway car was just too convenient."

  "A decoy," Illya said bitterly. "They must have decided it was worth the loss of their souped-up truck to gain two or three hours' time. Which would indicate that two or three hours was all they needed. The real OTSMID is probably on its way."

  "They must have a more liberal budget than we do," Napoleon said, turning to Brattner. "Back to headquarters, then? The bird seems to have flown."

  Brattner nodded, but seemed to be thinking of something else. After a second, he said, "Maybe we can sell the Thrush truck and get a replacement for the car we smashed up trying to stop it." He brightened as another idea occurred to him. "You know, with the truck, and that computer we picked up in Forbes' apartment, we may end up showing a profit today."

  Ten minutes later, Solo, Illya, Brattner, and Kerry were seated in the local U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, discussing their next move. "We should be able to locate them," Illya was arguing. "After all, a dirigible isn't something one can hide in one's garage. It requires a sizeable installation. And we already know it's somewhere in the western part of the state."

  Brattner laughed shortly. "Don't bank on its being easy to spot. The driftless section of this state has some of the most rugged topography in the Midwest."

  "Driftless?" Napoleon's eyebrows raised a fraction. "From what little I've seen of the snowy Wisconsin winters, I wouldn't think the state had a driftless section."

  Illya groaned, but Brattner merely shook his head. "No, the driftless area is the section of southwestern Wisconsin that didn't get covered in the last glacial advance."

  Illya nodded. "And with no glaciers, it wasn't leveled off and filled in with glacial deposits."

  Napoleon had the good grace to look suitably chastened at this display of knowledge. "The southwest corner of the state, you say? Is that the only section in which something as big as a dirigible could be hidden?"