“She’s seen something way out of the ordinary,” he said, “and I doubt it’s the knives you warned us about. She knows what a pier should look like around here-she’s been near here about a dozen times. And she wouldn’t shy from those knives until we were nearly on top of them if they’ve been in the sea for a long time. She’s one of the canniest big bitches I’ve ever worked with.”
He barked at Sourpuss, and she pointed off toward the beach, at the base of the pier.
“She wants me to let her investigate something. She’s not afraid of it; it’s just something unusual, something she doesn’t think belongs in the ocean. If I’m any judge of seal hunches, we ought to take a minute and follow this up.” They pulled down their masks and submerged again.
Sourpuss led the way in when they gave her her head. Under the pier, she stopped abruptly, went back over to Gus, and nosed his shoulder again. Nestled cosily on an opened sphere of metal was a flying saucer, reflecting their flash-beams’ red light like Detroit’s newest chrome bumper.
“Did you see that?” asked Bransen when they surfaced again. “If that isn’t something straight out of The Day The
Earth Stood Still, Tm hallucinating. What’s a baby flying saucer doing underwater?”
“Well, I doubt that Thrush has an alliance with the Martians,” said Napoleon. “Whatever it is, I’m willing to bet that the gang upstairs will be planning on it being there, and they’ll be considerably discomfited if it isn’t, all of a sudden.” He looked at Sourpuss and her boyfriend, and turned to Bransen. “Do you think these two huskies could tow it out to sea, and give it to the submarine for safekeeping? We can wonder about what it is later at your base, when we can take it apart and decide why Thrush would want one.”
“Easy enough. If it navigates underwater, its weight ought to be balanced almost to an ounce. All we have to do is get it moving, and I think the two of them can do that. If not, I can get in behind and push, and even call in the other pair for more muscle with my sonar signal.”
“They better come in immediately, then. You get all four in position and tie them onto it, and I’ll make the assault on my trapdoor alone. If I can’t do it alone, it possibly can’t be done-besides, I think it’s designed to let people out suddenly, not to keep out surprise visitors.” He looked around.
“We’re already attacking Porpoise from two directions. I think that that saucer would be set to sound an alarm if anyone tampers with it, and then he’ll have what looks like three sides jumping him. I want you to be ready to move out on the double when your watch says quarter to the hour. I’ll have plenty of time to get inside by then, and give the signal to my crew on the beach simultaneously with your little hijacking job. With all that trouble hitting at once, Fatty won’t know which way to belch “first. In point of fact, if I may be permitted a small conclusion jump, I suspect that this saucer is his way out in case of trouble-maybe we’ll really give him an ulcer.”
With that, Napoleon headed back for the trapdoor and its bed of knives. He was still dragging a little from the punishment his body had been taking. “The cuts and bruises wouldn’t be so bad,” he subvocalized around his mouthpiece, “if only I could get some sleep once in a while.” He thanked his stars that the pain-killer U.N.C.L.E. doctors used
wasn’t habit-forming, but he hadn’t thought to ask if the pep-shots were.
Knives started showing up in his field of ^vision with an infra-beam sort of eerieness. He worked his way through the outer ones until he got up to the steel briar patch that waited under his trapdoor.
He hung his flippers on a nearby twelve-inch butcher knife, and strapped on a pair of telephone lineman’s spurs. Two very careful climbing steps brought him up under the latticed framework supporting the crisscrossed blades. From the pouch at his hip he took a tube not unlike a container of toothpaste. Squeezing the tube underwater proved to be more of a job than he had anticipated, but with growing skill he managed to get a minimum amount of the gray paste spread over key bars of the framework. Casting the empty remains of the tube well away from his point of vantage he depressed the plunger on his wristwatch. The burst of radio signal worked as well underwater as it ever had on the surface: the gray paste flamed brightly, and Napoleon felt the water warming momentarily.
Instead of falling clear as planned, the section of the bladed platform that Napoleon had freed from the rest jammed in place. The U.N.C.L.E. agent looked bleakly at his would-be doorway to the trap above. There was none of the incendiary paste left, and he wasn’t carrying a jemmy. For a lack of a better tool, Napoleon jabbed at the framework with his U.N.C.L.E. Special. The loosened rectangle of steel and knives lifted off the obstruction, twisted, taking the pistol from his hand, and slid through the opening into the depths. Napoleon picked his way around the few knives remaining. It was quick work climbing the piling he had shinnied up hours before with naked legs. He worked easily, with no waste motion, glorying in the leverage he had with spurs.
Now that Tm here, two feet from it, I suppose there must be a best way to get back into this trap, he thought. Imagine making something for falling through. There’s much more to be got here by climbing up into it. His eyes roved over the door s underside and its meshing with the pier, while he mentally selected each of the gadgets, in turn, that he carried tucked in pockets and compartments of the wetsuit.
I could insert a throwing knife, figuring that it would cut the electric beam, so I could climb through while the door was open. But probably a thermite bomb is best. Fulminate of mercury is a good clean idea, but I have to stick it out right here while it goes off-too hot. He leaned out over the knives, looking at the floor’s slit to find a convenient lip for the bomb, and found none. A little instant-epoxy will stick it onto that steel, he decided.
The bomb in place, he found his flare pistol and got ready to signal Matt and the land team when he was ready to start. But he didn’t get a chance to trigger the pistol or the bomb, because the door sprang open without a touch from him, and a rolled-up jacket fell through.
He was immensely relieved to recognize the jacket, and the head that looked down through the floor at him.
“Good timing, Illya,” he said quietly. “When it closes, wait a minute for me to recover my bomb and get in position, then spring it again. Or can’t you spare any more dirty laundry?”
Napoleon grinned up at his partner, wondering how long it would be before Illya found his voice to toss back a retort. But when the Russian spoke, it was only to yell back over his shoulder, “Sing louder! Sing a lot louder!”
Before Napoleon could figure that out, the halves of the door slammed together again, and he shifted to be ready for the next opening. Thermite and flare gun went back into their proper compartments, and he swayed backwards from the pole, removing his feet from their spurs and standing on the little steel gadgets that were designed to dig into any kind of wood at a slight pressure, and hold their position under hundreds of pounds on each spur. Legs bent to push him upward, he waited for Illya to make the floor do its trick for him again.
“Sing louder,” Illya said over his shoulder. Mai and the boys reacted like trained militia, bouncing into When the Saints Go Marchin’ In just as the Russian reopened the trapdoor. He said “Allez!” as loud as he dared and Napoleon shouted “Oop!” back at him.
The trap snicked shut again, with Napoleon safely up in the Spaceship Room. The kids clustered around him joyously, pumping his hands until they realized he was wincing under the affection. “You’re all bandaged up/’ said Mai.
“Well, those cuts haven’t gotten in much healing time in the last six hours. The surface anesthesia keeps them from hurting too much, except when you pound on them in outbursts of affection. But how did you three get mixed up with such bad company as Illya?”