Suddenly Illya kicked the side of a computer with his unbound foot. Lupe jumped at the unexpected noise. She jerked her head around. The two men stopped to look back.
In that brief instant of their inattention, Napoleon Solo ducked behind a line of computers. He grabbed the corner of an electronic cabinet and overturned it as the two men leaped for him.
Lupe gave a strangled cry of rage and whirled to bring her gun to bear on Solo as he raised up to overturn another cabinet to slow down the two men pursuing him.
Illya Kuryakin lurched to his feet. His hands were still bound to the chair back, but he bent low and rammed his head into the small of the girl's back. She fell and her head smashed against the side of a computer.
Kuryakin turned and kicked at the gun that fell from her nerveless fingers.
He sent it skidding down the path between the banks, directly toward Solo.
Napoleon stooped to grab it, but before he could straighten up, one of the THRUSH men leaped on his back. They both fell. Solo twisted to avoid a knee in his stomach.
The second man's foot slammed down on his wrist as he sought to jerk the gun up. The first man caught Solo with a savage kick in the ribs. Napoleon managed to catch his foot with his one free hand. The THRUSH man fell heavily on top of Solo.
Kuryakin came charging toward them. He was still unable to free his hand, but he caught the second THRUSH man with a hard drive of his hunched shoulder, knocking the man back against another of the long line of electronic cabinets.
Freed momentarily of the double menace, Napoleon Solo caught his opponent with a hard blow to the chin. The man's head snapped back and his eyes glazed. Napoleon grabbed the THRUSH gun with his left hand. As he opponent tried to jump him again, Solo pulled the trigger. He whirled as the second assailant tried to duck around Kuryakin. Solo pulled the trigger a second time.
Kuryakin stepped back quickly to avoid the falling body. He grinned at his battered partner.
"I've been glad to see a lot of things in my life," he said. "But never have I been so glad to see anyone as I was you!"
Solo tried to grin back, but his mouth was too battered by a blow he never even knew he took. "And I guess Waverly was right," he said through his puffy lips. "You are the difference!"
"What do we do now?" Illya asked as Napoleon unbound his arms.
"What do you know about this stuff?" he waved his hands at the electronic gear still operating.
"From what I overheard," Illya said. "There are three of these outposts. It takes a radiation feed from all three to keep the storm going. The Waterloo focuses the transmitted beams and directs the storm. That big black box in the center is the transmitter."
"Then let's see what happens," Solo said. He raised the THRUSH gun and put three quick shots through the plexiglass window in front. Bulbs shattered and there was a flash of blue light as the circuit shorted.
For a moment it seemed to have no effect, the increasing fury of the storm battered at the broken door of the bunker.
"I guess it didn't—" Illya began.
The rest of his words were lost in a tremendous explosive sound like the crash of a hundred bombs. The concrete bunker shook with the violent force of a severe earthquake. The lights went out. Two great cracks ripped across the concrete ceiling.
Water poured in. The rain suddenly became a solid mass of water as the clouds dumped their entire contents at once.
"We had better get out of here!" Illya Kuryakin shouted above the din. "This ceiling looks like it is going to come all the way down any second!"
"We'll drown outside!" Solo shouted back.
"Okay! So you get to pick the way you want to die!"
"Then let's drown! It's better than being crushed!" Solo said.
They started for the door, but by the time they arrived, the clouds were gone, wrung dry by that one great deluge.
Water ran a foot deep in the bunker and across the island. But the sky over head showed stars to all horizons.
"Great!" Illya said. "We should be able to get a call in to Mr. Waverly. We have definite proof now. He can get Air Force planes out to sink the Waterloo."
"Then there is the matter of the Air Force prisoners," Solo said.
"They were taken to the submarine for safe keeping. It is in the lagoon."
"We'll have to do something about that," Napoleon said.
"What can we do?" Illya asked.
"We can figure out something, I guess," Solo said. "Do you mind if I pass that detail to you?"
But as it happened, this was not necessary. The girl, Aloma, came running to meet them. Breathlessly she told Solo that her lover, the big Polynesian, had rallied his people after he escaped from the bunker. Those in the sub had not heard of his deflection and opening the hatch when he called. He held it open until his war party broke in. They took the vessel.
Illya Kuryakin looked at the girl with open admiration.
"Say, Solo," he said, "Ask her if she's got a sister?"
"Sister?" the girl said, "Oh, yes, I get!"
"Wait!" Napoleon said. "He was just joking. He—"
"Speak for yourself!" Illya retorted.
A few minutes later, after they made sure that the THRUSH sub crew was completely subdued, Napoleon Solo contacted Mr. Waverly on the pen-communicator.
He gave a brief report. Waverly promised to get planes and ships out to locate the Waterloo and the other two outposts. At the same time, they would send search planes into the Pacific and Indian oceans to find the storm generating positions there.
"We have Lupe de Rosa under guard," Napoleon said. "She's still pretty dizzy from a blow on the head. As soon as she is able we'll interrogate her under the truth serum. I think then we will have the complete story and locations. That will wind up the whole affair."
"Excellent, Mr. Solo," Mr. Waverly said. "And how is Mr. Kuryakin?
"Great!" Napoleon said. "You know that pretty native girl I told you helped us?"
"You mean that she and Kuryakin—?"
"No, sir. She has a native boy friend. Illya asked her if she had a sister. She did."
"Oh, so Mr. Kuryakin and the sister are looking at the tropic moon?"
"Yes, sir, and is she lovely. The biggest brown eyes you ever saw. Wavy hair down to her shoulders. A laughing mouth. And she is wearing a genuine grass skirt."
"Hmmm!" the U.N.C.L.E. chief said. "Maybe I'd better hurry that plane out for you before Mr. Kuryakin goes native."
"Oh, I don't know," Solo said. "You see Aloma either didn't understand what Illya meant when he asked if she had a sister or she is a great kidder. Just a minute I'll tune you in on the romance—"
In New York the U.N.C.L.E. chief was startled to hear his agent's voice say: "No! No. it's 'Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man—"
Then a tiny voice said, "Pat-eee—cake, Pat—ee-cake—"
"What?" Waverly said.
"That's right," Solo replied. "The sister is almost, but not quite three years old!"
Waverly chucked. "Tell Mr. Kuryakin I said, 'Better luck next time!'"
THE END
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posted 10.25.2009, transcribed by Selyndae