The World's End Affair Read Online Free PDF Page B

in his head. If he threw one right now, we'd be two very -"
     
    A white spot of light bloomed out by the marina. It widened, blasted Solo's eyes with its glare. Suddenly Illya and Solo were circled in brilliance. Chee had found the spotlight on the launch.
     
    Solo leaped out of the light, zigzagging wildly as he ran. Illya went the other way. The spotlight whipped back and forth wildly, searching for them. Finally it hit Illya, and stayed on him.
     
    Then the thing which Solo feared happened. The THRUSH agent discovered the swivel-mounted machine-gun mounted near the spot.
     
    A stuttering roar filled the dark. Tracers left orange trails as the bullets ripped the wall in the center of the spot-lighted circle. Illya had thrown himself face forward just in time. Now he leaped up, started to run. The spotlight swiveled. The machine-gun stuttered evilly. Illya wrenched out of the way again, wincing as cement dust driven up by the bullets stung his eyes.
     
    Chee was operating the searchlight with one hand and the machine-gun with the other, Solo guessed. He started a reckless run forward. Illya was jumping back and forth like a madman. The light followed him.
     
    Solo poured on the speed, heedless of how much noise he was making. Shielding his eyes at the quay's edge, he made out the shape of another launch moored between the quay and the launch from which Chee was firing. He tensed, jumped, landed on the nearer deck
    with a thud. Chee heard the noise.
     
    Around came the searchlight and the machine-gun muzzle. The searchlight blinded Solo. He used his thumb to set the pistol on automatic fire. The gun bucked and barked in his hand as he fired into the heart of the light and kept firing, moving his aim slightly to the right.
     
    Glass broke. The searchlight element sizzled and sparked and went dark. Alfred Chee screamed.
     
    In the echoing confines of the secret marina, the machine-gun noise lingered long after the gun itself had stopped. The weapon swung gently on its upright mount, creaking.
     
    Solo and Illya jumped aboard the second launch a moment later. Illya produced a pocket torch. He shined it down on Chee's blood-flecked shirt, then up to his lifeless face. Chee's mouth was open. Two of his teeth were noticeably shorter than those alongside.
     
    "Mr. Waverly won't be happy about this," Solo said.
     
    "Mr. Waverly was not down here the last few minutes."
     
    "Well," said Solo, though he sounded rather dubious, "I guess you have a point. But I wouldn't bet on it"
     
    The interior of the U.N.C.L.E morgue was chill, blue-lit, uncomfortable. Solo shivered. Mr. Waverly dropped the white sheet over the corpse of Alfred C. Chee.
     
    An attendant rolled the slab back into place and latched the locker door. Mr. Waverly's breath clouded as he said, "His death is regrettable, though I suppose you had no alternative. But now it is impossible to execute our plan to have you follow his contact route from Hong Kong. Therefore -"
     
    Mr. Waverly sighed. "Yes, I'm afraid you'l1 have to take the more dangerous route into Tibet. By parachute."
     
    "Tibet!" said Solo. "By parachute?"
     
    "Why, Tibet's practically the end of the world!" Illya exclaimed.
     
    "It may well be just that for all of us, if you fail," Mr. Waverly said soberly.
     
     
    Act II: World's End This Way, Two Miles
     
     
     
    Dawn arrived with chill magnificence.
     
    In the east the snowy crests of the Himalayan peaks slowly glowed golden. The light rose behind the peaks and spilled down the western slopes, but it did little to relieve the stark, basalt severity of the landscape. Napoleon Solo groaned and thrashed in his bedroll.
     
    His bones ached with cold. The rarified air stung his lungs. But he was getting used to it.
    Five hours had passed since he and Illya jumped from the hatchway of the disguised cargo plane into abysmal blackness and the howling slipstream…
     
    At the top of his lungs, Solo had raised the same question he had been