Illya, dazed and needing air, drifted up from the ocean floor. Instinct kept him from letting out any of the precious oxygen he had stored up before his spectacular exploration of the deeps.
Porpoise hit him across the back, trying to knock out of him what little air he might still hold. Illya reacted slowly, spinning to face the fat frogman. Porpoise drew him in as a mother might her child, hugging the Russian to him, trying to smother him in fat as well as drown him in water. Illya brought an elbow up, knocking Porpoise’s mask askew. Cold
brine filled the mask, and his eyes. He released the weakened agent to clear his mask, and Illya struggled feebly for the surface.
Matt and an assault squad and three energetic flower children hit the loading door in a rush. The dozen Thrushes inside put up a short battle, but fell to the withering fire of the U.N.C.L.E. agents. Mai liberated a Thrush repeating rifle and smashed it over a would-be Thrush hero shouting, “No war toys!” Andy and Charlie took up the chant, and the three seemingly bulletproof flower children routed the last of the Thrush.
“What are you doing here?” Matt roared, his voice without the bullhorn hardly a decibel less loud than with it.
“Napoleon said we should get out and stick with you ” Mai answered innocently. “Besides, we’re native guides, and we work real cheap.”
The three set out after the retreating Thrushes. Gunfire from outside attested that the fight was far from over. Matt shrugged and sped after the three children, wondering how he was going to phrase this development in his report on the evening’s action.
The gang of Thrushes trying a sortie from the maze entrance were driven back to cover by U.N.C.L.E/s rear guard. The darkness of the maze, plus the dangers of the outside, had just about convinced them to surrender. From behind, lights appeared, and Matt and a part of the assault squad with miner’s lights on their heads filled a myriad of mirrors.
“I told you,” Charlie exulted. “That door had to lead to the maze, or there wouldn’t have been so many baddies around to pop off.” Matt collected up a dispirited group of Thrushes and passed them on to the men outside, then he and his group with Charlie went to meet the group following Mai and Andy. The flower children led the agents quickly through the confusing maze, with no false steps or turns, into the Spaceship Room, and through the open spacelock to the corridors beyond.
Shots echoed ahead, and the group broke into a run. Rounding a turn, they spilled into the pool room, to view the disarming of the remaining Thrushes. Mai and Andy
were doing the “Jailbird” to entertain the captured Thrushes. Charlie joined the others with a rebel yell and leaped into the pool. Instead of the expected splash, there was a crash and a yell of laughter as the boy scrambled back out. “Hey, somebody drained the pool. What kind of hospitality is that?”
A panel swung open in the wall, all lights in the room swung to pinpoint the action, and Napoleon staggered into the room, dragging Arnold in his good hand. “Here’s one more for you, Matt, and there’s another inside.”
“Hey, look,” Andy shouted. “Napoleon took Arnold, and HI bet Apis is the other one. Nobody can beat our favorite spy!” Napoleon smiled at the accolade, and scanned the room.
“Where are Illya and Porpoise?” he asked as he collapsed from the pain of his broken ribs.
Illya was taking in long deep pulls of life-giving air under the pier with Porpoise racing to the surface below. The fat shark grabbed an ankle and yanked the Russian under, and Illya stopped breathing instantly; his reaction to water honed by Apis earlier kept him from a lungful of brine. He twisted full length and seized the diving mask and pulled. Water spilling in over his face blinded Porpoise for a second time, but he held tightly to the Russian, pulling him down as he rose to the surface himself.
Porpoise sucked in the night air and pulled the struggling agent into his soft stomach. Illya, breath nearly gone, kicked out and struck a piling. Using the piling and its barnacles for footholds, he lifted the two of them out of the water, and broke the fat man’s grip.
Porpoise panicked again. The fight was going wrong. Even in his own element, where he should have had the U.N.C.L.E. agent at a disadvantage, he wasn’t winning. The fat man fled into the sea, his flippered feet giving his kicks great thrusting power.
Illya gasped in badly needed air, and followed, not gaining, not losing ground. His lack of fins was perfectly matched by the huge cross section Porpoise had to drive through the water. Both men were forced to stay near the surface for air, although Porpoise could have cleared his mask again had he dared take the time.
Ultimately, Illya’s greater endurance proved to be the difference. He drew closer and then pulled alongside. Porpoise was straining in panic flight, but again, when stimulated from outside, snapped back to instant rationality. When Illya seized him the fat man dived and twisted, bringing his flippered feet up into the Russian s face. He kicked hard and fled to the depths.
With cool precision he re-donned his mask and cleared it in time to receive Illya’s charge. He easily dodged the grab for the mask, and again pulled the Russian into his arms. This time there would be no hurry, no pushing. He would simply hold the Russian under for ten minutes or so, and then be on his way.
Illya, wondering disgustedly why he let Porpoise do this to him three times running, opened his mouth and closed it again, taking as large a bite out of the rubber and fat as he was able. Porpoise squealed with the pain as the Russian chewed his way through the wetsuit and through his stomach.
Overhead the platform of knives offered Porpoise a solution. He would hang the Russian on one or more of the blades; it didn’t really matter how he died. Porpoise kicked strongly to raise them back to the surface.
Illya, blacking out from lack of air, felt his struggles grow weaker. He spat out the mouthful of Porpoise and tried to twist around. Passing his face he saw a pair of U.N.C.L.E. swim fins. As if in a dream he reached out and took hold of one of the fins. It hung up on the blade it was hanging from, and the two men swung around the blade in a large circle.
Porpoise felt the first blade enter him in total disbelief. He dropped the limp Russian and tried to back off the blade in his shoulder. The second knife entered in his lower back, I and he rocked back and forth trying to free himself-but he .was slowly driving one and then the other into his vitals.
The absurd humor of losing his life to such a fluke set him laughing, and he finished in hysterics, confident that despite not living to enjoy the fruits of his work, he had still beaten U.N.C.L.E.
Chapter 16
“We’re the Urban Renewal/’
“HEY, LOOK AT THAT. The Soldier in White!”
Napoleon came up out of a sedative sleep for the third time that day, and decided maybe he was hallucinating. The voice was Andy’s but the face leaning over him was carefully barbered and rode above a gold and red vest and pin-striped black shirt.
“Don’t go back to sleep, man. We’ve been waiting half an hour for you to come to. They said we could come in a minute ago, and here you’re trying to sack out again.”
“Napoleon, please wake up.” He forced his eyes open and turned towards his window. Framed against the late morning sunlight was Malista, her hair sculptured in a mass of Helen of Troy ringlets, twined with miniature orchids. She was wearing bell-bottoms and a clinging top, all in radiant white, with her clay medallion riding proudly on her bodice.