Mission: Earth "Disaster" (11 page)

Silently we crept into the patio of the villa itself. The only sound was the fountain. We went through to my bedroom. Now, if I worked this right, I could con him into my secret room and get my foot upon the tile.

I opened the closet passageway. Heller pushed me ahead of him. I stepped through into my secret room.

The lights were on. Krak's broken viewer still lay on the floor. My gun rack glinted invitingly. Heller, seeing it, made me step back.

I only had one pace to take so I could step on the key tile and twist it to sound the general alarm. It would not be heard in here but it would bring every man on the base into the hangar and set up every gun!

Heller was in my way!

He seemed to be listening.

Then I heard it.

Someone was coming up the tunnel from the other side of the

secret door!

Heller spotted the portal.

He reached out and grabbed me by the arm to hold me still.

Yes, someone was coming. They were now at the door. It swung Inward.

UTANC!

She was coming out of the hangar! How could she ever have known it existed? How could she even know about this secret room? She was carrying two bags of heroin over her shoulder!

She stopped.

And then in a draw so fast I didn't even see a blur, she had a small gun in her hand!

With a sudden yank, Heller had me in front of him.

Utanc was raising the gun!

"Oh, darling!" I screamed. "Look, look, look! It's me! DON'T SHOOT!" In terror I watched her finger on the trigger.

I made a struggle to get free.

She looked straight at me. '

SHE FIRED! !

I felt the bullet jar my ribs.

At the same instant I saw her big black eyes.

They were cold and ruthless!

I felt myself being hurled forward by Heller.

SHE FIRED AGAIN!

Then suddenly I was thrown to my left. Utanc's gun hand was in Heller's grasp.

With a heave he snapped her spinning into the room. She went down.

He was on her like a tiger!

The gun was in his left hand and pointing at her throat!

In this moment of his distraction, I saw the key tile not three feet away. With a sudden crabwise scuttle, I got my hand on it.

I twisted. I pressed. I had sounded the hangar alarm that would assemble the whole base. I felt a surge of triumph. Then I saw my hand. Blood was running down my fingers. I had been hit!

The shock of the bullets vanished. The pain struck me in a red, twisting tide. The whole room seemed to spin and upend. Items in it leaped into separate view as though unconnected with the rest. Krak's broken viewer. Heroin spilled across the floor. The door to the tunnel once more tightly shut. Utanc's heels drumming on the floor.

Heller was no longer holding a gun. He was strangling her with his left hand!

Utanc's eyes were wild! She was struggling, threshing back and forth, trying to get away.

Then I saw that Heller was doing a terrible thing. He was undressing her!

The thought surged through my pain: Gods, has he gone mad? Is this a rape?

With his free hand he tore her sleeves to bits and cast her jacket aside. His fingers stabbed under her belly band and yanked. There was a sharp rip of cloth. He tore her Turkish pants off and cast them away. His savage hand gripped her underpants and tore them into shreds!

Writhing and twisting and trying to get out from under him, Utanc was naked on the floor.

The body, every muscle taut, writhed over on its side in my direction.

Through the pink mist of pain, I could not believe what I saw.

UTANC WAS A MAN!

The comprehension hit me like another bullet. And then a wave of nausea swept through me.

Ever since this creature had come, I HAD BEEN MAKING LOVE TO A HOMO!

I vomited.

Heller still held the writhing body down. The bra had been torn away, showing a hairless but male chest. He was searching under the body's back. Then he shifted his holds and one hand started down the homo's inner thigh. He yanked and Utanc screamed. He had removed a flat wallet that was taped there.

Using one knee now to hold the creature, Heller was opening the leather. He was evidently reading something. He read it again, aloud, "Colonel Boris Gaylov of the Russian KGB!"

Heller glanced in my direction. "If this was your woman, it's the Code break of all time! You've been harboring an agent of the Soviet secret service! Was this your doing?"

I vomited again.

Heller turned to the homo he was holding down. "You'd better talk and talk fast! What were you doing here?"

He had relaxed his grip on the throat and a stream of profanity—Russian, English, French—sprayed from the contorted lips.

Heller reached across the floor to where the heroin had spilled. He scooped up a handful. "If you don't talk, this is going to go down your throat!"

Utanc screamed and writhed and tried to get away.

"Russia is no more," said Heller. "You can't betray it, as it has ceased to exist. Talk!" The handful of heroin approached her mouth.

"You beast!" screamed Gaylov.

"Information!" demanded Heller, the hand holding the heroin hard against Gaylov's chin. "Did you report this base to Moscow?"

"You son of a (bleepch)!" howled Gaylov. "Russia was winning! We would have ruled the world! We had the greatest spy network man has ever seen!"

"Information!" said Heller.

Crystals of deadly heroin had reached those perverted lips. Colonel Gaylov spat them out. "I kept our whole worldwide spy network financed with heroin and money from this base. And now everything is wrecked. Go ahead and kill me!"

I had ceased to throw up. I got a grip on myself. I had turned on the alarm. The longer he spent here, the better they would be organized in the hangar. Wounded though I was, all was not yet lost.

There was more struggle from Gaylov.

"Did you report this base?" said Heller.

"Yes, yes, yes!" Gaylov snarled, spitting out heroin crystals. "I've known you were extraterrestrials since I made that silly (bleepard) there think he bought me last fall!"

Heller threw away the heroin. He was grabbing straps and lines from the rack. As he tied the secret agent up he said to me, "Every time I think I've gotten to the bottom of your crimes and can't get any lower, you always have a new surprise! They'll execute you for sure for this Code break."

I glared at him as he was taping up Gaylov's mouth. I wasn't through. In just minutes now, I was certain that he would be dead. I hated him more than ever for costing me the love of my life– Utanc! She was gone forever.

Heller turned me over. He pulled back my shirt and coat. I was afraid he would spot the knife and flinched away.

"You've got a bullet in your side," he said. "And one in your arm." He found some gauze compression pads and some tape. He pressed them against the bleeding holes and fixed them in place. "I don't think any vital organ was hit and there is no arterial pumping. We'll get them fixed later. Right now, we have other things to do. Can you walk?"

I groaned. But he got me on my feet. He reached for the secret door. I was bad enough off, but I pretended I was even worse. My right hand and arm were fully operational. The knife could be swiftly drawn from its secret place in the coat lining. If I could just get behind him, if only for a moment, a sudden stab would finish him and all would be well. But I might never have to draw at all. The moment he showed his face at the end of that tunnel, a blast of fire from the crew would cut him down.

The tunnel door was open. He glanced back at the securely trussed Russian. Then he shoved me ahead of him. The door clicked behind us.

He seemed to be fumbling around in the ledge above the switches just outside the secret room door. And I remembered he had been all through this place last fall. He now had something in his hand.

He pushed me further down the tunnel.

Suddenly I realized that I, myself, was in grave danger. The moment I came to the tunnel end, a blast of fire from the hangar could cut me down. And it wouldn't be bullets. It would be slashes of deadly fire from blastguns!

Cunningly, I pretended to be weaker than I was. The tunnel end was just ahead. I was just about to be pushed into the open.

Expertly, I weaved and crumpled.

I shouted, "Kill him!"

Instantly a barrage of fire racketed!

The whole tunnel exit turned blinding orange!

I felt my jacket singe!

Something had me by the collar, dragging me back. "Well, blast you!" said Heller. "It was a trap!"

He raised his voice in that piercing, Fleet-officer, carrying pitch. "I'm armed! Don't try a rush. Is the commander of this base there?"

Faht Bey's voice through a loudspeaker in the hangar: "Throw out your guns and walk into view with your hands up!"

"I am operating on orders from the Grand Council," Heller called. "Any effort to impede their execution could bring a charge of treason. Throw down your guns and step over into view."

"We know exactly why you are here!" shouted Faht Bey. "We refuse to tamely let you execute us!"

"I have no orders to execute you," shouted Heller. "But I have a prisoner here, Soltan Gris, that I must take to Voltar."

Faht Bey gave a short, barking laugh through the speakers. This doesn't fool us for a moment. Gris is probably holding a gun on you. He is wanted here for mortgaging this base. We have a black-jowled man in custody who has confessed. Only Gris knew how to sound that alarm. Gris! Step out into view or we will begin barrage fire!"

"Stop!" said Heller. "I've got Gris here. Are you going to listen to reason or aren't you?"

"Don't try to trick us, Gris!" shouted Faht Bey through the speakers. "We've already had an earthquake today and now you! I demand that you surrender! We promise a fair conference trial."

I wailed, "I didn't cause that earthquake! This Crown agent did!"

"So you are there!" cried Faht Bey. "FIRE!"

A torrent of slashing flame ripped into the tunnel mouth. Rocks fell! Stone dust swirled around the green glowplates.

"Cease fire!" shouted Heller in that high-pitched Fleet voice.

The shots ceased.

Heller yelled, "If you do not surrender at once, I'll bring half that roof down on your heads. Drop your weapons and step out where I can see you!"

The answer was a renewed storm of electric flame!

Heller was flat against the floor, up the tunnel and in back of me. I looked around to see how I could get in back of him. I had some idea I could blame the difficulties of the base on him, maybe get Utanc/Gaylov to say he put her up to it. I was in pain, my head was in a whirl, but I had not given up.

Heller had a small device in his hands—it must be what he had taken from the ledge. Amidst the swirling dust he was pushing a lever up and down.

"Blast!" he said. "The wall charges won't explode!"

Abruptly I understood what he was talking about. When he was here before, he had gone all over the inside of the hangar, saying he was testing for erosion. He had been planting charges in the walls! And when I had shot at Crobe with a needle stungun, no wonder it had brought tons of rock crashing down into the hangar—I had accidentally exploded Heller's charges! No wonder there had been so much reaction!

Gouts of fire were probing deeper into the tunnel. Heller inched backwards. He pulled me with him by the heel.

Then he did something very odd. He reached into his shoulder kit bag and got out two masks. He pushed one over my face. He put the other one on himself. Gas masks? Why?

He picked up his firing board again. It had three more switches on it. He closed them.

Muffled explosions sounded above the blastgun din.

The roof didn't come down. The firing did not slacken. What had he done?

After a moment, I saw a swirl of white smoke in a portion of the hangar I could see.

Then I heard some coughing. Faht Bey's cough joined it through the loudspeakers.

Somebody screamed, "Opium!" Another took it up!

The firing stopped.

There was the beginning rush of men trying to leave.

A white fog came swirling into the tunnel mouth.

The opium storage caverns! Heller had installed flame bombs in them last fall. Countless tons of opium were burning.

The electronic illusion which made up the hangar roof would not pass air. I had seen Heller test it!

That whole hangar was now full of a powerful narcotic– OPIUM SMOKE!

There was a sound of men falling who had been trying to run.

Then there was only the burning sizzle of flame as it ate into the opium stores.

Heller shoved me ahead.

Through the soporific mist I could see the crew. They were sprawled all about, draped over sandbags and guns, out cold.

Heller said, "Take me to that detention cell."

I still had my chance. I felt for the knife and planned how I could get him ahead of me.

My brilliant idea to lure him with the corpse of the Countess Krak was about to pay off. We made our way through the swirling white mists of the hangar and to the prison corridors. I indicated the way but Heller was pushing me in front of him. We went up the longest passage and came to the end. The port of the door was covered and I was not giving him any chance to lift it. I knew exactly what I would do. Surreptitiously, I felt for the hidden knife in the jacket. Sick as I felt, I could still draw it and plunge it into his back if I could get behind him. And I knew he was approaching a new moment of shock.

I spun the combination. I got the door open a slit, enough to get my hand through and unlock the barred grate within.