"Does he or doesn't he?" he inquired of his image. "Only your U.N.C.L.E. agent knows for sure."
His handiwork on Illya completed, Napoleon searched through the unconscious man's pockets. They revealed little except that the man's name was Rudolph Salzwasser and that he was a Thrush. Illya pocketed the walled, identity card, and Thrush communicator.
"Now we wait, as long as we can," Napoleon said. "If we can hold off long enough, maybe Brattner will get here in time to help."
As if on cue, the Thrush communicator buzzed.
"Better answer it, or they'll get suspicious and maybe pull out without you," Napoleon said.
Illya snapped open the communicator. "Salzwasser here."
"Now what's wrong?" a voice asked. "You called an hour ago and said you'd be here in half an hour."
Wishing they had left Rudolph conscious long enough to get an idea of what his voice sounded like, Illya held the communicator away from his mouth and answered, "I missed the turn-off. I'll be there in a few minutes."
"Snap it up. McNulty is getting impatient. He's ready to pilot the thing himself, after the way he lucked out in getting it all the way here yesterday."
Without giving Illya a chance to sign off, the communicator went dead.
"Well, here goes," Illya muttered and climbed into the car and drove off down the road at a leisurely pace. Napoleon recovered his gob of plastic explosive from the middle of the road, tied and gagged Rudolph securely and, with some help from Kerry, dragged him under some bushes.
Ten minutes at a fast walk brought them back to their thicket. The road was much shorter in the daylight. The boat had apparently been waiting for Illya when he had driven up, for he was already well out into the lake, Rudolph's bulky suitcase clutched in his lap.
Napoleon checked his tracer and discovered that it was no longer picking up anything. Evidently Sanders was on board the dirigible. He hoped
Brattner could get there faster than he had promised. It wasn't likely that Illya could get Morthley off the ship without raising an alarm, and once Thrush was alerted, the odds against the U.N.C.L.E. agents would be formidable. A less optimistic man would have said overwhelming.
Chapter 11
"Well, If It Isn't Mr. Kuryakin Again"
A large metal hook appeared with startling suddenness in the air a few yards in front of the boat. As Illya watched, it lowered until it almost touched the water. He could see a steel cable extending upward and disappearing mysteriously about ten feet above the water.
The operator of the boat motioned toward the hook as they pulled alongside it. "Hang your bag on the hook, put your foot in it like a stirrup, and get a grip on the cable. You'll be hauled up."
Illya stared thoughtfully at the cable, which rose straight up and disappeared into thin air. "Shouldn't someone be playing a flute?" he murmured as he followed instructions. "With a snake charmer waiting in the wings?"
The cable started to rise.
A few seconds later, everything went black. Even though he had expected it, he almost tumbled of his perch. The sun was gone, the water, the shore, even the cable and his clenched hands. His invisible body was being pulled by an invisible force to an invisible destination. A wave of dizziness swept him.
Then there was again illumination as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Above him he could make out a cluster of lights. As he was drawn nearer, he realized that some of the lights came from the control gondola, while the one directly above him must emanate from inside the dirigible itself. He could see the dirigible only as a vast bulk, fading away into the darkness away from the lights. The light above him became brighter and he could recognize what appeared to be tremendous bomb bay doors yawning above him. The clatter of a winch came to him. As he passed the doors there was a loud humming sound and he saw the doors begin to close beneath him. The cable halted as they swung shut.
"You can step off now," a voice came from a platform overhead. Illya stepped off the hook onto the closed doors and picked up his suitcase. As he looked around, he realized what the doors were: aircraft hangar doors. The United States had made at least one ship like this, which could carry, launch, and pick up three fighter planes; evidently the Germans had produced a similar design.
He considered what Thrush could do with this much invisible transportation. Fortunately, modern fighter planes were larger than those of the 1930's, so the hangar where he stood could not readily be used for its original purpose. But it could, he thought, be easily adapted for use as a bomb bay. He thought about the dirigible hovering invisibly over Washington, D.C. with a cargo of plague germs, and shuddered.
"Rudolph Salzwasser?" A large man with a gold earring in his left ear and his right arm in a sling approached. When Illya nodded, the man picked up the suitcase with his good hand and motioned Illya to follow him.
"My name is Hunter," the man said over his shoulder as he led the way up some steps. "We have some temporary quarters set up for you just back of the control gondola. According to McNulty, they used to be crew's quarters; they're not in bad shape when you consider this thing is probably forty years old."
Illya muttered noncommittal sounds to indicate he was listening, and took careful note of his surroundings. Looking back from the top of the steps, he could see over the edge of the platform, to where a large winch had begun to feed out the cable again. The winch operator had apparently just thrown a large switch which operated the hangar doors; they were beginning to open.
Hastily, he moved to overtake Hunter, who was still moving forward and idly conversing. "...probably had a bad few moments coming up," he was saying as Illya came up beside him. "You get used to it after a few times, though."
Illya muttered assent. This must be the keel, he thought. Now they were on a narrow metal catwalk. Surrounding them, in inverted triangles, were rows of metal girders. The girders, with their lacy Swiss cheese appearance, had a look of delicacy about them, as did almost everything about the dirigible except for the hangar doors and the winch platform. The design provided maximum rigidity with minimum weight, but it had a certain fairy-tale look about it. Between the girders were metal tanks of all shapes and sizes. Some probably contained spare helium under pressure, he supposed, while others could be fuel. He saw no evidence of sandbags, and wondered where the one that had nearly dropped on Lavell had come from.
Now the catwalk and girders were replaced b an almost conventional hallway with a half dozen doors opening on either side. Hunter led the way to the first door on the right. "You can have this one," he said, opening the door. "There aren't many of us on board so we can each have our own room. The air force gets the best of everything," he added sardonically. "Down in the sub they're packed in like sardines."
Illya stepped into the room behind Hunter. It was a small spartanly furnished cubicle with a pair of double bunks along the outer wall and a single chair and table in the middle of the floor. The section of wall beyond the head of the bunks was clear glass. Illya noted that the partitions dividing this room from the next didn't match the rest of the construction, as if they had been added later.