Pulp Fiction | The Ghost Riders Affair (July 1966) (7 page)

Finnish jerked his head up. He did not smile. "Some beings are mentally inferior, Mr. Solo, born to be servants." He spoke to the waiting hireling: "Serve drinks."

The man left the room, the door sliding open at a movement of Finnish's hand upon the small instrument in his palm. Moments later, the servant returned with decanter, glasses. He poured, served them to Finnish, Solo and Illya.

Finnish leaned forward in his leather chair, gesturing with his glass. "A toast, gentlemen. To my magnificent new society."

Solo shrugged, but drank. "If you're to have inferiors and masters, it looks like the same old rat race, with just different fat rats running things."

"Things will be run as they should be," Finnish said. "Too bad neither of you will live to see it."

Illya held his glass, but did not drink. "Mind saying how you hope to accomplish this take-over of world power?"

"Not at all. If your intellects fail to grasp the potential of underground freeways opening up this hemisphere to me, I'll be glad to explain. Your deaths have been set; you can no longer hope to interfere: Underground trains will carry our nuclear warheads—all traveling, unheard, undetected, deep inside the earth, at more than a hundred miles per hour.

"They will strike simultaneously from
beneath!
Chicago, New York, Washington. San Francisco. All blown to fragments at the same instant. Can your minds encompass the magnitude of this? The so-called free-world brought to its knees in one mighty operation!"

Illya stood as if considering this for some moments. He sipped at his drink, liked it, smiled vaguely and drank again.

Finnish peered at him near-sightedly. "My plan begins to appeal to you?"

Illya strode about the room, sipping glumly. "Not particularly."

"Then why have you decided to drink with me?"

Illya shrugged. "Oh. I decided I was thirsty. Besides, your plan is shot full of holes. I tell you frankly, Professor, it's not going to work."

Finish sat forward, gray face flushed. "Is that why you smile? You think I can be stopped now?"

"I think so," Illya continued prowling.

"Stand still and talk to me! I could have you killed at this moment!" Finnish cried.

Illya shrugged again. "This might bolster your ego, Professor, but it won't improve your plan. No. I see that as doomed, and you along with it. Unless you call it off now!"

Raging, the rotund man swung up from his chair, pressing the buttons of his signal-sender. The doors slid open and dun-clad soldiers double-timed into the room, armed. They came to attention, stood waiting.

Finnish hesitated, gasping for breath. Not taking his peering gaze from Illya's face, he said, "Now, if you hope for one extra moment alive—tell me why I shall fail."

Illya nodded. He set down his empty glass, then inserted his finger in it, wiped it around the bowl, licked it with delight. "A pleasure. You see, Professor, it occurs to me that the train I rode that night—even if communications failed, once it was within the rock-bound inner crust of the earth—still it sent bleeps out until that instant.

"Don't you see, Professor? They know exactly, precisely, the spot where my train left the earth's surface. They may be confused for a spell. But soon they'll discover the break. Once they do, it's a matter of time—time running out for you."

"Do you think we would have boldly taken two huge streamliners when nothing on earth could hope to stop us?"

"Sorry, Professor," Illya said, his tone saying he was not al all sorry. "It won't work that way. You could have hoped for success, only as long as no one above ground suspected from where you'd strike. They'll find the way down here now and they'll stop you, whether Solo and I live to see that or not."

"Get them out of here!" Professor Finnish's voice rose, cracking. He pressed the small signal sender again, frantically. "Throw these men in the dungeons until the warheads are ready to roll. We'll allow these noble meddlers to deliver at least two of the atomic warheads they're so certain will never be delivered!"

TWO

Solo prowled the dungeon into which the dun-clad guards had thrown him and Illya. This was a breathless cavity holed out of solid rock. He found the small round disc through which oxygen was pumped into the ten by ten foot cave. He pounded his fists against the door, finding this as solid as the walls.

He turned, glancing at Illya. "I'll say one thing. You talked us into a real hole this time."

Illya moved with puma-grace along the walls, tracing his hands along them, listening. He looked over his shoulder, grinned. "Disagree. Maybe what I've done has prolonged our lives. Finnish had us marked for instant death. Now he plans to let us ride prisoners on a couple of those atomic-warhead trains."

"A delightful development," Solo said.

"Maybe not. What's that old Hungarian proverb?"

"There's no place like home?"

"Almost. The one I had in mind goes, 'Where there's life, there's a way out.'"

Solo scowled at the small air opening in the wall. "I hope you find that way out quickly, Illya. They're flooding this place with that gas again. We're on our way to being zombies."

"How do you know?" Illya pressed against the wall, staring at him.

"They're doing it all right. That nerve gas is odorless, colorless, tasteless, but it's being pumped in here right now instead of oxygen. I'm getting that headache and eye-burn. That's the first warning And this time, old friend, we're fresh out of any antidote for it."

Illya straightened slightly. "Maybe one of these will help."

Solo's eyes widened with relief and wonder when Illya took one of the fountain-pen sized oxygen flasks from his jacket pocket. He extended it. "Just press the nozzle, as our friend the professor did."

Solo grinned incredulously as Illya produced another oxygen flask and fitted the nose cone against his own nostrils.

"Where'd you get these things?" Solo said.

Illya grinned. "Got dozens of them while I was at it. They looked like the handiest little gadgets we could collect in a place like this. They were all over Finnish's room. He had to have them were he could grab one quickly. Didn't you notice?"

"I noticed. But how did you get away with them? It's a wonder you didn't get us killed on the spot."

Illya smiled. "I figured the odds on our escaping weren't too good anyhow. And there's one good thing about being in a room with a half-blind man—he's not continually watching every move you make."

Solo exhaled. "But he warned you that he had closed circuit television cameras fixed on you."

Illya shrugged. "More half-blind men. That's what I told myself."

"And you took them, knowing they were watching you?"

"I figured I'd let my nearsighted friends learn the hard way that other old Hungarian proverb—the hand is quicker than the eye. They watched me drink, sip, lick my fingers, wave one hand. They should have been watching both my hands."

Solo grinned at him, continued using the pressure-flask. There was not much hope in his smile. He moved along the walls, seeking a weakness, a break. He found none and the flat tone of his voice betrayed his frustration.

"I don't care much about dying, for a cause like Finnish's. Still, to do anything to stop him we've got to do more than stay alive on oxygen flasks. We've got to get out of here." He shook his head ruefully. "Too bad you didn't pick up some of those magic door openers while you were shoplifting."

Illya reached into his other jacket pocket and held up one of the palm-sized rectangles. "You mean this? Opens any door in the city. Have one; have two. They're small."

* * *

Illya and Solo kept close to the shadowed walls, running.

They slowed as they neared the end of the corridor. Beyond, where the corridor opened into the huge tunnel with walks and tracks and working people, there were fevered sounds of activity.

Solo and Illya moved cautiously near the end of the corridor. The workers were loading beef on train cars, unloading other gear, working in silence, panting for breath, making every motion in languid heaviness.

Along the silver rails of the tracks armed guards plodded in heavy tread, carrying their weapons loosely at their sides.

Solo and Illya remained motionless for some moments, watching the workers and guards. All were in dun-colored coveralls, the standard uniform for workers and guards in the tunnels.

Solo whispered across his shoulder to Illya. "We can bet our lives there are TV monitors fixed on all these lighted tunnels."

"Big brother watching his happy subjects at work and play," Illya said.

Solo nodded. "They're going to have a greater society, whether it kills them or not. But we've gone as far as we can go like this. We got one break—obviously there was no TV camera in the dungeon, or in the corridor. But we can't move around out there, unless we're dressed like the natives."

Illya nodded. "Right. Once they gander us on their monitors we're marked pigeons. Even the blind men will recognize us in these clothes."

"Clear enough why they dress everybody alike. It makes them easier to keep in line."

Illya said, "Could work against them, too."

Solo inched closer to the mouth of the corridor. Sighing, he whispered across his shoulder, "Will you be the decoy, or shall I?"

Illya drew a deep breath, set himself. "I make an elegant decoy—classic profile and all that stuff, you know."

He darted from the corridor, ran out into the tunnel almost to the place where the mole-round men were loading the cars.

Workers yelled, and the fat guards reacted. They moved in slow motion, but they did move. By the time the two nearest guards wheeled around and got their guns to their shoulders, Illya had already raced back into the corridor.

"Here they come!" he said to Solo as he passed.

The heavy treads came nearer, like elephants charging.

The first guard bounded into the corridor. He was only inches from the place where Solo was pressed against the tile wall. Solo let him pass, but reached out and deftly jerked off the guard's thick-lensed glasses.

The blinded guard cried out, a sound of guttural terror as he toppled past Solo. Solo smashed the glasses against the wall and turned back, waiting for the second armed guard.

This one lumbered into the corridor, gun raised against his fat chest. He tried to slow when he heard the cry of his fellow guard.

Solo drove his fist wrist deep into the fat stomach. The guard cried out, doubling forward. Solo judo-chopped him across the neck. The gun was flung into the corridor and the guard went sprawling after it. Solo snagged off the glasses, smashing them.

The he half-lifted the guard and tossed him beside his unconscious partner.

Illya wasted a moment blowing on his fist. Solo was already undressing and Illya followed suit. Solo unzipped the coveralls, worked them off the porcine bodies. They donned the guards' suits, took up their guns.

Solo broke the lenses from the black-rimmed glasses, gave one pair to Illya and set the other on his nose. They took up the rifles and moved along the corridor toward the tunnel.

Illya strode ahead of Solo, until Napoleon's voice lashed out after him. "You look wrong when you walk that fast; you look to restless to be a native."

At the very brink of the corridor, Illya slowed and grinned across his shoulder. "Right."

"Just remember that," Solo warned. "We walk like fat men, no matter what happens. We won't get anywhere down here by hurrying."

THREE

Carrying the weapons in the sluggish manner of the other guards, Solo and Illya sauntered along the walks past the loading train cars. Workers kept moving without glancing at them. Other guards leaned against the walls. None gave Solo and Illya more than brief, myopic glances.

Illya said, "Everything's going fine, but I feel like I'm carrying a target on my back."

"Just keep moving."

"They must have seen me on those monitoring screens."

"I've an idea we'll find out about that at any moment. They likely have their own ways of handling situations like this."

"You don't fill a guy's day with sunlight, do you?"

Solo was almost breathless. He longed to look over his shoulder, yet did not dare to. "It's just that I won't really relax until I get out of here."

By now they had moved in that lumbering pace to the head of the long train.

Solo slowed, touch Illya's sleeve. He nodded, indicating the cab of the engine. Two dun-clad men slouched at their places in the cab, the engineer and his assistant. The powerful engines, breathing, smoked, waiting a signal to roll.

Solo jerked his head upward. Illya nodded and moved ahead of him, swinging up into the cab.

The engineer and assistant turned in that leaden way. The engineer spoke coldly: "What do you want?"

"This train," Illya said. "Do you mind?"

The engineer squinted, peering more closely. He saw the slack dun-colored uniform, the lense-less glasses. The rotund man shuddered visibly, crying out: "You're not one of us!"

Illya nodded, smiling. "Nicest thing anybody's ever said to me."

Solo stepped close beside Illya, raising the gun, fixing his finger on its trigger. "I got the word for you. Never mind who we are. Get this train moving!"

"We're waiting for our orders!"

"You just got 'em," Illya said. He thrust the barrel of his gun into the engineer's fat belly. "Move it!"

The engineer nodded, turning slowly.

He engaged the gears. The train shivered, then inched forward. His voice rasped with contempt. "Where do you think you are going?"

Illya prodded him harder with the gun barrel. His voice was soft, "Miami's nice this time of year."

Solo watched the stout guards falter to attention, jerking up their guns as the train ground into motion. He spoke warningly over his shoulder. "The important thing for you, friend, is to get this train moving."

"I don't think there's any real misunderstanding. Is there?" Illya lifted the gun and let it bite into the engineer's flabby neck.

"No. None." All protest seeped from the engineer's voice. He and his assistant turned their attention to heading the train out.