The Thousand Coffins Affair

TERROR WALKS UNDERGROUND

Napoleon Solo stared down at the crumpled, cloaked heap that formed the man who had introduced himself as Golgotha, member of the High Council of Thrush. Dimly, he fought against the agony in his body, even as his right hand worked loose the stiff, leather cuffs that bound his left arm to the cage bars. A dull haze of enormous weariness of body and spirit hung over him like a shroud. He only knew one pounding truth, one complete clarity. They had to get out — he and Jerry Terry.

Golgotha had underestimated him, as so many of the enemy had in the past. Golgotha had miscalculated the time. True, the pain would emerge when the drug anakalinine wore off, but Solo had triggered the error in Golgotha’s eyes by acting the part. He had bargained for one chance in a million and won.

He shook his head to clear it, his body damp and aching. His eyes explored the empty dungeon. The bare walls of stone and the faint suggestion of moisture mocked him. Shaking himself, he stumbled to where Jerry Terry knelt caged as a rag doll. It took him a great deal longer to ease her carefully from her cell. When he caught her in his arms, her weight nearly bore him to the floor. Her body was cold and stiff, nearly lifeless. He slapped her swiftly across the face — hard. The sound of short, sharp smacks echoed hollowly in the room.

Her eyes opened. She saw his face and sudden joy reflected in her eyes. Then she remembered and her mouth formed another scream. He slapped her again.

“Listen — no time to talk — pull yourself together — we’re okay for a while—”

“Solo — I’m so tired—”

“Try — please — try — or we’re done for—”

He left it at that, and moved back to the inert man on the floor. It took an age for him to pull the voluminous cloak away and examine the tall figure. Solo’s eyes saw the withered, burned flesh of the man but his brain made no comment. His fingers found the flat medical case and thumbed it open. He tried to think. The pain was beginning to build in earnest now.

He groped for the hypodermic needle lying on the stone floor. The gods were good: it was intact. He examined the contents of the case with painful slowness.

There was a tiny phial of amber fluid lying in cushioned safety in the case. He didn’t stop to think; he didn’t dare consider the possibilities. Grimly, he refilled the hypo and found the soft area of his arm below the bicep. He jabbed the needle home. He worked his arm up and down, wanting the pain-killer — if that was what it was — to work swiftly.

He moved slowly back to Jerry Terry. She was huddled on the stone floor, her arms closed across her naked breasts. Her entire attitude was defeated dull, lifeless. Solo smiled bitterly. Golgotha had been right about that, for all of his hideous theatricality.

Jerry never saw the needle or felt the thrust. He patted her gently on the shoulder now. Her head came up. Their eyes met in mutual sympathy.

“Terry — we’re going for broke—”

“I’m with you, Solo.”

“Good girl. Pull yourself together. I’ll get you out of this—”

“Promises, promises—”

Her plucky talk was infectious. It was talk he could always understand. He had never had much time for people who felt sorry for themselves. And magically, almost miraculously, he could feel the agony ebbing away from his limbs. Golgotha’s panacea was already working.

He went back to Golgotha and bent over him again. The karate blow was good for at least twenty minutes. Sometimes — depending on the man’s physical makeup — more. Solo raced through the cloak, turning it inside out. By the grace of those same gods, the man was a souvenir collector…not one to leave the spoils of war to the hirelings.

Golgotha wore a blue shirt and blue trousers under the cloak. A uniform of sorts, with a leather belt complete with assorted weapons — one of which was Solo’s own very special “S” automatic pistol. A quick survey of the pockets turned up Solo’s compass watch and the ball-point pen which, in addition to writing with ink, also spurted tear gas. The wallet was not in evidence, but that was meaningless anyway. With an almost intoxicating sense of elation, Solo relieved Golgotha of a compact Luger and three clips of extra ammunition. There was nothing on the man to indicate any connection with Thrush.

Solo turned to see how Jerry Terry was doing. He was pleased to find some color back in her face. And the sagging, defeated look had gone.

“Are you game for some more double plays?” he asked.

She nodded. “Anything to get out of this place.”

“Good girl. We can’t operate like September Morn. So the next best thing is Dream Man’s clothes. I’ll take the pants and shirt You for the cloak. Unless you’re squeamish. He’s as foul as they come and it’s twisted his mind, but we can’t walk out of here like nudists. We’d be a bit conspicuous.”

“Anything you say, Solo.”

He nodded. “No telling when his team will show up. His body is covered with scars. So if you don’t want to look, don’t.”

He didn’t wait for her answer. Golgotha had moaned faintly. It was hardly a sound, but Solo bent swiftly to the unpleasant task of undressing the man. It took a full five minutes of struggling exertion. Golgotha was tall and heavy despite his lankiness of form.

Solo left him lying face down on the stone floor, his enflamed, withered flesh revealed to the light, grotesquely unreal in T-shirt and boxer shorts.

The clothes were a bad fit, but they would serve. Solo rolled up the cuffs and hitched the belt a notch tighter. The cloak, a heavy woolen affair with poncho type sockets for Jerry Terry’s arms to thrust through, would at least keep her warm.

“Well,” she sighed. “We’re dressed for the ball and we look a sight but like the man said, what do we do now?”

“The door.”

“Huh?”

“It’s time to take a look outside. The door is thick or else no one’s been on guard duty. In any case, it’s high time we found out just how bad off we are.”

He motioned her to the other side of the door, which was no more than a slab of stone set tightly in the wall, with an iron handle jutting from the mass. Golgotha moaned again, and Solo cursed as he stepped quickly to him. He rapped the skull quickly with the butt end of the Luger. Golgotha subsided once more.

They waited at the door, listening. No sound issued forth. Solo frowned. He didn’t like the silence or the fact that no one had shown up in all the time Golgotha had been with them. Possibly the man had issued strict orders for everyone to keep out. Twisted egos always had their shortcomings, and one of them was the “Me-Me-Me” attitude.

Solo gestured for Jerry Terry to step back. He took the iron handle and turned it. A latch clicked. Carefully, he tugged the stone backwards.

There was a sudden wash of cool air from the outside. Solo peered quickly around the rim of the door.

Semi-darkness met his eyes. He blinked. A dim glow of light, as though from a miner’s lamp, filtered toward him. He stared at the ground. It was damp, muddy earth. Strange. Golgotha’s boots had been dry. He signaled to Jerry Terry to follow him. She moved swiftly, the cloak wrapped about her shapely figure, her long, copper hair flying.

They were in a tunnel of some kind. A long, low passageway with timbers and beams shoring the sides and the earthen ceiling. Cool air was fanning through the tunnel from some distant, unseen opening. Solo closed the stone door, held his left hand behind him for Jerry to take. She squeezed it warmly and they pushed on through the dimness.

The shaft narrowed suddenly, forking in two directions like the cross-bar of a T. Solo hesitated, as his eyes tried to search the darkness ahead. Grinning to himself, he moistened the forefinger of his right hand and held it up. Almost immediately, the influx of air evaporated the dampness on the right side of his finger.

“Right,” he murmured. “God bless the Boy Scouts.”

The clinging mud beneath their feet was firm enough to allow easy passage. Jerry had no shoes and her bare feet made slick, slapping sounds. It was unavoidable now and too late to remedy the oversight.

Solo was puzzled. What could all this lack of protection mean? No sentries or guards. No security. Was it possible that Golgotha had handled the two of them all by himself? A lone wolf caper to bargain for higher power in the Thrush Council? No, it wasn’t likely. And yet there must be some explanation for all this. It was beginning to look as if they could walk right out of the spider’s web into the sunlight.

Up ahead, the glow of light widened. The darkness was dissolving. The air current had increased in volume. He knew they were getting closer to the surface, without not knowing how far was Down in the first place.

Then they both heard the sound.

It came suddenly, with frightening loudness and nearness — a roaring, rhythmical throb of gigantic pistons of some kind. The beat mounted with ear-shattering violence. They flattened against the earthen walls of the passageway, trembling, waiting. Then the sound ended as abruptly as it had begun. The new silence was awesome. Solo licked his dry lips.

“What was that?” Jerry whispered.

“Turbines or pistons. I really can’t say.”

“Maybe there’s a plant overhead.”

“Maybe. Let’s keep on going and play it by ear.” They moved on again, toward the light. It had seemed closer than it was. They panted down the passageway, feeling their path in the gloom. Solo didn’t dare risk using his pencil flash. They’d been too lucky as it was.

The roar of engines throbbed again. The sound had faded somewhat, meaning they had passed beneath it a few minutes back. But the pounding, humming noise was eerie and somehow terrifying. When the silence fell again, Solo realigned his grip on the automatic pistol. No telling what lay ahead now.

If Golgotha had been discovered—

Solo saw the man before the man saw him. He drew up so sharply that Jerry Terry ran into him but she had enough presence of mind not to cry out.

Solo held her back, flattening them both against the passageway. The man up ahead had his back to them. He was a silhouette framed against the daylight.

He wore a uniform of some kind — belted middle, puffy jodhpurs and boots, and a peaked helmet. More importantly, a stocky, ugly looking grease gun was cradled in the crook of his arm.

Solo pushed Jerry Terry back. “Stay here,” he commanded. “We can’t walk past that one. He’ll have to be taken.”

“Be careful.”

He smiled to himself at the obviousness of her concern, and moved stealthily along the wall. The man was a scant thirty yards away. Thirty yards and freedom. But the grease gun was something to think about. It could spray them down in seconds and no real marksmanship was called for. Solo held his breath as he swiftly and soundlessly bridged the gap between them before he made his move.

And then he stepped on something that snapped in half with the loudness of a pistol shot. A dry twig. In the mud of the tunnel of all places. The irony was too cruel to be funny — and Solo did not feel like laughing. He was caught flat-footed.

The man with the grease-gun revolved as though on a swivel. His gun came up and his hoarse, guttural voice cried out challengingly. His cry echoed down the passageway.

“Vast ist?”

Napoleon Solo fired, straight from the shoulder this time, a steady burst of three, at the shadowy figure framed in the entranceway.

The tunnel reverberated with the sound of death.