Solo smiled wryly and turned away, dragging out his sodden pocket-handkerchief in a futile attempt to wipe the oil traces from his hands. He stared over the heaving billows without seeing them. Help? Illya was absolutely right. They could call for it, but it would take hours arriving. And they didn’t have hours. At the most, they could anticipate a few more minutes.
His thoughts were curiously mixed. Always, in this hazardous profession of his, one had to face the prospect of sudden demise. It was always in the cards. But somehow he had never imagined it would be this way, miles out at sea and helpless.
His fingers met something foreign in the wet folds of the handkerchief, and he looked down. It was a crumpled and wet visiting card, the legend on it barely legible: DR. MICHAEL O’ROURKE. He curled his lip at it, took it between his fingers and flicked it away, watching as it fluttered and fell into the thin film of oil. King Mike! And the gentleman himself was just over there, only a few yards away, in that cabin-cruiser. He had been badly thwarted in his maniacal dreams of world conquest. He would be seeking appropriate vengeance any moment now. Solo sighed, and swung back to see Illya’s face grow suddenly intent with purpose. It was an expression he knew very well indeed.
“What?” he demanded. “What’s hatching in your mind now?”
“Just a thought. Something she said, about sending a radio-call for help. It reminded me. That trick circuit.”
The blond Russian dabbed at his fringe suddenly and turned on Sarah in tense interest. “Let’s think again about that circuit your uncle wanted you to design for him. Here!” He struggled to reach into his pocket and get the notebook that was still there, wet and compacted. He shook it briskly to free most of the water from it, and began leafing through the soaking pages until he found the place he wanted. “This. Now, what exactly was the idea?”
The two fair heads came close together, peering and muttering, and all at once Kuryakin looked up, blue eyes gleaming.
“Keep an eye on the enemy, Napoleon. I think we may have something!”
The cabin-cruiser had slowed and begun to circle back by now, just in sight from time to time as the waves heaved the stricken launch up and down. Solo watched it, trying to guess which way those minds would be working, over there. Caution would be in order. Not too close, not at first. They might still be armed. But then, by degrees, closer and closer. Make sure they are quite helpless. And then out with the rifles. Target practice.
He felt for his pistol, even though he knew it was futile. He looked to Illya, wondering what was going on in that head, but knowing better than to interrupt the process with time-wasting questions. Sarah seemed to understand, at any rate, to judge by the way she was nodding vigorously. He took his gaze back to the heaving sea.
The half-scuppered launch was drifting now away from the oil-slick. Not quite clear of it, but almost. And the cabin-cruiser was edging in closer, cautiously. Solo could distinguish two figures standing by the midships guard-rail, staring. One had binoculars. The tall one, that would be King Mike. Solo pointed his pistol, aiming very high, and fired. The watchers ducked nervously back, but they needn’t have worried; they were well out of range.
Kuryakin looked up at the shot. “Are they that close?”
“Close enough for them, too far for me. How’s your department?”
“I think I’ve got this. It’ll take a minute or two more, and some luck.”
Solo saw now that he was tinkering with his personal transceiver, with the cover off and poking at its entrails with a tiny screwdriver. “You’d better duck down and let us cover you,” he advised. “They’re due to start target practice any time.”
As if they’d heard the cue, the enemy opened fire. Solo could see the pair of them distinctly, O’Rourke standing free with his feet spread and belly to the rail, Trilli more professionally bracing himself against a stanchion, but both intently holding rifles. He had heard angry shots wail by many times before but never in such a desperate position as this. The two rifles spoke again, one right after the other. A bullet thunked into the hull of the launch just below them; another screamed from the water no more than a foot to the right. Getting close, he thought. And they had all the time in the world to perfect their aim.
“That’s that!” Kuryakin lifted his head. “If it works!”
“What are you going to do, give them a farewell oration?”
“A farewell message, yes. I’ve cut out the audio circuits, and shorted some of the resistors. It should give enough power, if only for a brief burst.” Flying steel ripped a long yellow splinter from the woodwork close to his head. He gripped the little instrument tightly. “It ought to work. Watch those two.”
Three pairs of anxious eyes concentrated on the cabin cruiser, which was now almost close enough for a pistol shot. The two prominent figures still held weapons, took time about their aim, steadied themselves against the rail.
“Now!” Kuryakin muttered, and pressed hard with his thumb on the transmit button.
In that instant they saw the two threatening figures suddenly jerk and stiffen. There was a jet-puff of smoke from O’Rourke’s chest, a lesser one from Trilli’s. Two muffled explosions sounded, across the water. Then those two men buckled, dropped their weapons, folded like dolls over the rail, hung there a long moment, and then slid and fell into the sea.
“That’s the most beautiful double act I ever saw!” Solo gasped. “What the hell did you do to them, Illya?”
“It was the old visiting card routine, Napoleon. Sarah gave me the clue. Apparently Uncle Mike had an eccentric habit of presenting his visiting card only to very special people.”
“That’s right. He gave me one.”
“Well, King Mike isn’t the sort of man to do anything without a very good reason. So it was obvious, when I added it to that trick circuit. Those cards are plastic explosive, each one with a trigger-circuit incorporated in it, a radio-frequency circuit. Each circuit is slightly different from the rest, and each one numbered. King Mike had a special transmitter with a selector-switch, so that he could pick any one, and explode it. That’s all in the diagram. All I did was adjust my communicator to a broad band that would blow them all at once, you see?”
“I get it. The old man had a wallet full of them. And Trilli had one. And—hey! Wait a minute! He gave me one of those cards, too!” Solo slapped instinctively at his breast-pocket—then, remembering, cast a frantic glance over his shoulder at the oil-slick where he had pitched the card. He saw a great leaping wall of smoky red flame come whooshing across the waves at them as the scattered oil burst into eager blaze.
“Let’s get out of here!” he yelled and flung himself into the sea, the other two only split seconds after him. Imagination made the sea seem hot. For a few frantic seconds they swam as if it were boiling, then they slowed and turned to look back where the flames were licking around the hulk of the launch.
Solo blew water from his lip and glared at his colleague. “Just as well I decided to toss that card away, wasn’t it? You might have said something about what you were up to!”
Kuryakin shrugged in the water. “It never occurred to me that King Mike would give you one of his cards.”
Solo looked back to the burning relic and snorted. “Talk about burning your boats after you! What do we do now?”
“At least,” Kuryakin said, “the fire will take care of any further hazard from the ferment. It is destroyed by high temperatures.”
“I don’t exactly thrive on them myself. I suppose we’d better head for the cruiser and thumb a ride.”
They turned and began swimming for the cabin cruiser, but they had hardly gone a dozen strokes before they heard a by-now-familiar explosive sound and the water ahead of them was lashed into sudden foam.