"There they are," Napoleon whispered. "How do we get at them?"
"There should be a hatch near the bottom of the ladder," Illya whispered back. "Feel for it. If we can find it, it should let us down just back of the control room where they had the OTSMID."
Both agents dropped to their knees and began running their hands rapidly around the surface of the keel. "Here it is," Napoleon said after a few minutes.
Illya crawled across the Napoleon and ran hand down Napoleon's arm until he felt the break in the metal that outlined the hatch.
"When we drop," Napoleon said, "you stay where you land, and flatten anyone who comes in or out. I'll take care of the men inside. Don't move any further than you can help; my only advantage will be that I know that anyone I run into is an enemy."
"And after we've seized the ship?"
"As long as we can keep anyone from turning the nullifier back on, we'll have plenty of time to decide what to do. Those paratroops back there aren't going to jump blind." He twisted the latch and lifted the trap door.
As the trap door opened, Hunter's voice came booming through. "When are you going to get that thing fixed, anyway?"
Another voice, which both agents recognized as McNulty's replied. "I don't know. The only one who knows this thing is Dr. Morthley, and we left him back at headquarters. All I can do is keep reducing power to the field; I'm not even sure it was the attempt to expand the field that did the damage. For all I know, Morthley sabotaged the machine somehow."
"You were the one who told Forbes you could operate this rig," Hunter said accusingly.
"I said I knew how to work the controls; I didn't say Morthley had given me a course in field maintenance and repair. If you want to try your hand at running this thing by feel, come on over."
There was the sound of someone coming down the steps that led up and back to the main cargo and passenger area of dirigible. "Who's that?" Hunter asked.
"Sanders," came the reply. "The boys back there are still worried, but I told them if an old man like me wasn't afraid of the dark, they didn't need to be." He cackled. "They'll jump when you give the word. When are you going to get the lights back on, anyway?"
Napoleon waited until sanders' voice passed beneath him, then dropped through the hatch as quietly as possible. He moved forward to get out of Illya's way, then stopped to listen. Sanders' question started Hunter and McNulty quarreling again and Sander, from the sound of the breathing, had stopped moving at the same time he stopped talking. Behind him, Napoleon heard a light thud, presumably Illya dropping to the gondola deck. Evidently Sanders heard it, too. "Somebody back there?" he inquired. Napoleon thought about the muzzles of the invisible Ithaca swinging to cover his stomach, and quickly stepped to one side and began to creep forward. At this range, even if Sanders shot blind, he might very well get both U.N.C.L.E. agents. A twin load of buckshot was nothing to fool with. It seemed, however, that Sanders wasn't the nervous type. Napoleon heard him shuffle his feet as he changed position, and then he remarked to the world at large, "There must be some big rats on this ship. I just heard one."
"Probably just ship noises," Hunter said. "This thing creaks like an old windjammer."
"How would you know what a windjammer sounds like?" McNulty said with a sneer.
"Because I've sailed in one, you pipsqueak! You and your antiquities societies...I've done things! All you do is talk about them."
Napoleon smiled. If they would just keep on talking, he could tell where they were and his job would be much easier. He must be close to Sanders now. He reached out, cautiously, and touched the man's back. Sanders started to turn, but Napoleon quickly located the caretaker's neck with his left hand and delivered a solid karate chop with his right. The Ithaca clattered on the deck as Napoleon grabbed Sanders and eased him down. A quick search located the gun and something in one of Sanders' pockets that felt like a Thrush communicator. He pocketed the communicator and stuck the gun through his belt, feeling much safer.
Deciding that any sudden cessation of talk from either Hunter of McNulty would make the other one suspicious, he crept forward toward two other men he could hear talking in low tones near the front of the gondola. He didn't quite make it.
"Sanders, what do you think you're doing?" Hunter demanded, his words coming from a point inches away from Napoleon's face. Napoleon mumbled something he hoped was a passable imitation of Sanders' cracked voice.
"Speak up, dammit!" Hunter yelled.
Accurately gauging the location of the voice, Napoleon chopped Hunter across the throat, then got him with a blow to the back of the neck as he stood strangling. He caught the Thrush as he fell, and relieve him of a pistol and another communicator. After some thought, he put the communicator back; he didn't have room to carry it. He hefted the pistol, then reversed it and gripped it firmly by the barrel as he moved forward again. McNulty had begun to curse the OTSMID, which Napoleon hoped would keep him from noticing that he wasn't getting acid comments from Hunter any more.
Napoleon moved up behind the two men at the front of the gondola, who seemed to be standing and idly talking. Once he ran into something and stopped to rub a painful shin. The voices were close to him now. He crept up behind the nearest one, reached out to touch the man's shoulder, and then swung the pistol at the spot where the head would be. The man collapsed and Napoleon eased him to the floor.
The second man sensed that something was wrong. "Hey, Rudolph, what happened?" he asked. Getting no answer made him more nervous. Napoleon could hear him moving about. "Rudolph? Say something; what's going on?" Napoleon reached to locate the man by feel when the lights suddenly came on. He leaped and swung the pistol; the Thrush collapsed.
Napoleon whirled toward the OTSMID and McNulty. The latter had turned to jeer at Hunter. "If you'd just shut up earlier I could have..." He took in the situation and reached for the pistol in the shoulder holster under his coat, at which point Illya stepped silently behind him and pressed the point of the knife into his ribs. McNulty froze. Napoleon got his pistol reversed and aimed at the Thrush agent, while Illya deftly reached under McNulty's coat and extracted the pistol, exclaiming in surprise as he noted that the gun was his own U.N.C.L.E. Special. He stepped well back, out of range of a sudden gram by McNulty and out of Napoleon's line of fire. Spotting the open door leading to the dirigible body, he ran back and slid it tightly shut.
"Get his communicator," Napoleon said. "And you might frisk him for any secret weapons before you tie him up. We can check these others after we get him put away."
McNulty had a communicator but no obvious weapons. From the unconscious Thrushes, Illya gained three communicators, two more guns, and an assortment of wristwatches. Napoleon stared at the latter booty in some puzzlement. "Aren't you carrying your Russian background a bit far?" he inquired.
"I have seen wristwatches," Illya said, "which contained, among other things, secret cameras, radio receivers and transmitters, electronic equipment, miniature time bombs, and one that could be reassembled into a tiny machine pistol. It was a rather large watch," he added, noting Napoleon's disbelieving stare.