Lightning flared. Solo spotted a whopping sail on a half-broken mast. The sail displayed a large, crudely painted storm cloud. The craft was the third vessel beyond the one on which he was fighting for balance.
With big leaps Solo crossed the nautical stepping stones. He had to grab ropes or a mast as he landed on each boat, because the decks were tilting back and forth through an arc of almost ninety degrees.
The distance between the sampan and the junk with the torn storm-cloud sail was a good seven to eight feet. Besides, the sampan was tilting violently. So was the junk. Solo waited until he thought his timing was right. Then, gun in his right hand, he jumped.
He missed. A wave rolled the junk back out of the way.
Solo hit the water and went down, thrashing and flailing, into the customary waterside Hong Kong garbage.
The moored junk tossed back toward him and the hull smacked him in the head. Dazed, Solo grabbed the rail.
He tossed his right leg up and pulled himself aboard. Bits of refuse clung to him. A stream of water ran out of the barrel of his now useless pistol.
Two-thirds of the junk's deck was covered with a bamboo framework over which a tarpaulin had been draped. Inside the improvised deckhouse a spot of amber light glowed and wavered. Solo crept forward.
The deck pitched again. Solo fought for balance. He fell, making a loud, hollow thud during a lull in the thunder.
Part of the tarpaulin whipped aside. An ugly Oriental in a mud-spotted white suit thrust the muzzle of a big pistol into the dark. Beyond the man, Solo glimpsed General Weng's heaving bulk and the black generator box. Its sides glowed with red highlights from a
small charcoal brazier.
"I do not see anyone -" the gunman began. Solo's shoulder hit him in the belly.
Solo and the gunman careened inside the tarp shelter. General Weng leaped up from a packing box. He wore the sinister switch-belt around his waist. A faint hum rose from the generator box. Solo saw all this in a wild blur as he went crashing to the slick deck.
The gunman leaped and landed, knocking the wind out of him. The gunman fastened one hand on Solo's throat and, gun in the other, took aim.
Solo brought his own gun hand lashing up behind the THRUSH agent's head. He cracked the man over his left ear. The agent made a loud, gulping sound. His grip loosened momentarily. Solo rammed his knee into the THRUSH agent's groin and lifted him off.
As Solo lurched to his feet, General Weng struggled to pull out a pistol. The gunman was up again too, aiming at Solo from behind. Solo spun and flung his useless gun.
It smacked the agent's nose. Solo had a split second to find another weapon.
He saw one, its point embedded in the top of a crude fisherman's bench. Solo's water-slicked hand closed around the haft of the scaling knife. He jerked it loose. The agent fired.
Solo tried to dodge. The bullet slammed into his left shoulder. But his right hand was already swinging in a killing aim. The serrated edge of the knife grazed the agent's throat like a caress. The man shrieked as blood flowed down over his lapels from the fatal slash in his neck.
Solo caught the gunman's pistol as it fell from slack fingers. General Weng was breathing in asthmatic panic. His cheeks gleamed with sweat and his eyes with murder. He had gotten his gun out. He chattered lurid obscenities as he fired.
His bullet took Solo hard in the left thigh. Blood soaked Solo's trousers instantly. His leg throbbed and weakened to the point where he could not stand. He felt the leg collapsing under him as he triggered the shot that caught Weng in the breastbone.
With an elephantine bay Weng fell over backwards, his shirt red. Solo lay on the slick deck, panting. His whole left pants leg was soggy with blood.
Weng propped himself on hands and knees. He aimed his pistol at Solo while his eyes wedged down into tiny pain-wracked slits. Solo flopped over on his belly. He braced his right forearm with his left hand to steady his aim. He centered the muzzle on the middle of Weng's forehead.
Thunder crashed in the sky. Another wave hit the junk's hull and sloshed under the edge of the tarpaulin. Most of the coals in the charcoal brazier were extinguished by the spray. A few still flickered but the interior of the tarpaulin shelter was dim. Random spots of light illuminated Weng's pained face. The adversaries held each other at gunpoint.
"Standoff, Mr. Solo," Weng wheezed. "Though perhaps I will get the better of it yet."
Muzzle to muzzle, the men lay on the deck as the storm roared. Solo's lips peeled back from his teeth. "Turn off the switch, General. Turn it off unless you want one more bullet in your fat hide."
Weng gasped for air. A spasm, of pain shuddered his blubber. "I can kill you while you kill me, Mr. Solo."
"Very true," Solo panted. The pain in his left leg was maddening. He felt dizzy. "But you aren't really sure whether that bullet in your chest has already put a period after everything, are you? Maybe you want to take a chance. Maybe - you want to find out whether a police surgeon can patch you up. You kill me and I kill you and neither of us finds out. That's the way the hand looks to me, General." Solo bit his lower lip as his leg flamed with heat and hurt. "I said turn off the switch, General."
At last Weng coughed, "Yes. Yes. The will to live remains. You win."
With one hand he threw his gun across the shelter. It fell sloshing in water. With his other hand he flicked the switch on the belt. Solo let the muzzle of his own gun drop. He pushed himself up to his feet.
General Weng struggled and heaved, managing to sit up with his back resting against one of the tarpaulin supports. He lifted the blood-soaked lapel of his suit, felt gingerly beneath it. His paunch heaved slowly. Weng's face became crafty.
"I still maintain, Mr. Solo, that U.N.C.L.E. personnel are naive. Step around here on my side of the generator box, please. Fine. I trust that you can see the stenciling on the box? Can you also recognize the language?"
Beneath his feet, Solo could feel the deck heaving less violently. The thunder was less ear-splitting than before. He bent to examine the white stenciling. He stood up again, one hand braced on the generator so that he wouldn't fall.
"The stencil identifies the generator as the property of one of the governments meeting at the Hotel International. That's exactly according to your plan. But when U.N.C.L.E. turns the generator over to the proper authorities, your little flim-flam will be exposed. I'm afraid all that blood you've lost has weakened your logic, General."
"Not at all, not - at all." Weng coughed. "You see, Mr. Solo, we return to the subject of naiveté. You believe you have convinced me that I have a remote chance to survive the impact of your bullet. I am more realistic. I am dying. However -"
With incredible speed Weng's fat yellow hand jerked out from beneath his black-bloody lapel. He cracked a football-shaped plastic capsule with his thumbnail. Sparks and smoke boiled. Weng tossed the capsule onto the deck. Blinding white tongues of flame leaped from it.
"That thermal device, Mr. Solo, will destroy the junk, water-soaked as she is. It will destroy my corpse along with yours. But the metallurgical materials incorporated into this belt and the generating unit, the tremendous heat will not harm them. The components will be found, their stencils intact. THRUSH will achieve its goal of touching off an armed conflict, even though you and I are not present to witness it."
Weng cocked his sweat-shining head. "Listen, Mr. Solo. The rain has diminished. It will soon stop altogether. But the storm has just begun."