"What's that?" said Joan.
"It's a fiendish thingie, Mark IV," said Napoleon. "Come on, while it's recharging. They're probably shooting at the Command Sub."
"I hope that door's open!"
It was closed and locked, but not for long. A thermite "skeleton key" blew the handle off and probably triggered an alarm, but nobody was likely to notice under the circumstances. Napoleon braced a heavy standing ashtray and a chair against the inside to hold it closed, muffling the sounds of battle without, while Joan checked the first few of a series of rooms on either side of the corridor.
She beckoned Napoleon silently with a quick wave of her U.N.C.L.E. Special, and he noticed as he joined her the twisted wire of a field telephone running under the third door on the left. Quietly he eased the door open, to hear a voice. "How many men in the attacking force? How many men?"
Solo kicked open the door with his automatic extended and barked, "Freeze!" A man in shirtsleeves looked up from the metal cot in the pale glare of a Coleman lantern and slowly raised his hands. "Are you alone?"
The man glanced down at the scarred leather case of the field phone in the shadow beneath his chair and said, "Yes."
Napoleon kicked away the rifle which leaned against the chair and Joan caught it as an unsteady voice said from the cot, "Hello, Napoleon. You shouldn't be here."
"Neither should you. How fast can you run?"
"I don't know. Even if I wasn't shackled to this bunk."
"The bunk's bolted to the wall," the Thrush interviewer volunteered.
"And before you get rough, I don't have any keys but my locker key, and that won't help. Only the Chief Therapist can open them. You, whatever-your-name-is- the Guard that locked you in there didn't even use a key, did he?"
"He's right, Napoleon. And, honestly, I don't feel like moving very fast."
Solo inspected his partner's shoulder, neatly wrapped in a field dressing which obscured the extent of the damage. "How is it?" he asked professionally.
".It could be worse. It missed major arteries and I think the shoulder joint is all right, but the left hand hasn't been working and I'm pretty sure something is broken but I don't know where. Besides, I think I lost about a quart of blood. Is there some water?"
"On the table," said the interviewer.
"You drink some first," said Solo.
"Glad to." Rising slowly, the interviewer poured a glass of water and drank it, then refilled the glass and held it for Illya while he drank, awkwardly.
Something slammed the building like a fist, and dust settled from the cool green walls. The table jumped, rattling the pitcher.
"Now they're shelling," said Solo. "Who's on the other end of that phone?"
The interviewer paled. "My boss," he hedged.
"The Boss? Acting Central?"
"Uh… yes…"
"Okay. You ring up and tell them that they are under arrest in the name of the United Network Command For Law And Enforcement."
The interviewer started to stall, and the fitful bell of the hand-crank set clattered discordantly. Napoleon picked up the handset, pushing the talk-switch. "Yeah?" he said impatiently.
"Myron, this is Jay. Forget the prisoner. We're pulling out all personnel with tech priority. You've got six minutes to report to Bay Four. They're arming Little Brother. See you there, fella."
Napoleon looked at the silent handset for a moment, then turned to the interviewer. "Tell me, Myron," he said thoughtfully. "Who is 'Little Brother'?"
The Thrush interviewer looked around unhappily, and helped himself to another glass of water while Joan and Napoleon watched him suspiciously.
"He's ah – Look, how much longer are you going to keep me here? There's no help I can give you – I'm not even worth anything as a hostage. Honest."
"I believe you," said Napoleon sincerely. "But Jay said 'Little Brother' as if he expected you to know what it meant, and although I only spoke with him for a moment on the telephone I feel I can trust his judgment in this. And by the by – he also said to tell you they were pulling out all personnel with tech priority. I forget where he said they were leaving from, but I doubt if they'll miss you in all the Confusion, and they didn't seem likely to wait. Who is 'Little Brother'?"
He glanced at Joan, who shook her head. "He's new since my time," she said. "But Myron looks terribly upset all of a sudden. Take a load off your conscience," she advised him.
"Yes. Unburden your soul," directed Napoleon coldly. "This may be your last chance to save it. Co-operate – and the next time you go to sleep you can expect to wake up."
The interviewer laughed, unexpectedly. "Not with Little Brother," he said. "We'll never even notice him;" He sat down, and shrugged. "There are worse ways to go."
"There may be for you," said Napoleon. "I've got better things to do with my time." He grinned quickly at Joan. "So they've got a bomb under the house, huh? Where is it?"
"Does it matter? If it'll make you happy to know, it's a fifty kiloton nuclear warhead we hijacked a couple of years ago. There's a lot of research on this island that shouldn't be allowed loose in the world."
Concussion buffeted them again, and a crack shot up one wall. The table danced and only a quick grab by Napoleon saved the Coleman lantern from toppling. Their shadows leaped high on the walls as he swung it, hissing, by its wire handle.
"We need to know, Myron," he said flatly. "Where is Little Brother?"
Outside, beyond the Long Buildings to the south, flames clawed at the star-crusted, smoke-smeared sky, lit red from beneath like the fires of hell. In this infernal glare men ran and fired, and rose to run again or fell and fired no more. Quonsets vibrated like giant steel drums to the slamming penetration of slugs, and the sharp cough of U.N.C.L.E. Specials underscored the short vicious snarl of Thrush automatic rifles.
From half a mile off-shore, through a light-amplifying video pickup to his place on the bridge of the command sub, Alexander Waverly watched his forces moving in along the island, units checking the outer points to their rear while the rest centered attention on isolating the central complex and moving in on it. With full magnification he could see machine guns on the roof above the veranda, protected by reinforced cornices, ready to rain fire on the invaders. Something had to be done about the Big House. And that strange thing behind the Big House, which was shooting something at him – though only the periscope showed above the surface, it seemed to attract the bolts like a lightning rod. Something would have to be done about that, too.
"Captain," he said. "Surface. We must direct our deck gun against the Big House. Aim first into the yard, there, then ease up on the building. Give their gun crews a chance to evacuate. It's more than they'd give us."
The deck shifted slightly as the sub rose, and then the top hatch was swung back to pass the three-man gun crew, scampering up a ladder to the dripping deck and a smell of salt and oil.
Illya balanced Joan's Special in his good right hand while she had a long serious talk with their captive Thrush.. Napoleon took the opportunity to scout the basement area in preference to sitting in on the interview – he started by following the phone wires to the foot of a stygian stairwell, where he stopped and tugged experimentally on them. There was no give; probably a door closed on them somewhere. And it wasn't time to go upstairs yet.
. At least not all the way… Silenced automatic ready, he traced the twisted line up the side of the stairs to a landing and around the corner into total darkness. No, not total. Above him a glass double door shone in ruddy rectangles against which shifting shadows ran back and forth. Rifles chattered nearby and Napoleon hugged the wall as he crept upwards towards the dim light.