"What the devil are you doing, Solo?"
Flick, flick, Solo twisted red levers.
"Your job. Getting the anti-personnel rockets ready. We don't know what kind of reinforcements THRUSH has on those islands."
"Their 'copter is out of sight now," Illya said. Solo hadn't even seen him glance up.
Masters licked his lips. Sweat popped on his brow. A drop rolled down and sat on the tip of his nose.
"Shouldn't we radio for help?" he asked.
Solo couldn't help himself:
"What do you use for backbone, Masters? Jello?"
The yellow dash-glare shone again in Masters' eyes. "That wasn't a prudent thing to say."
Illya snapped his small book shut. "Not prudent, perhaps. But precisely right. Napoleon, the behavior of Mr. Masters on this flight can be described by only one word. Reluctant."
Suddenly Illya's hand went out of sight. When it re-appeared, the fingers were dwarfed by the massive blackness of the long-muzzle U.N.C.L.E. pistol.
"This seaplane is not underpowered, Mr. Masters," he said. "It is you who are underpowered. You lack ambition to catch THRUSH at its dirty work. I suggest you take the controls, Napoleon. Mr. Masters was fearful of your cigarette. He pleaded exotic fuels aboard.
"I always carry my little pamphlet on U.N.C.L.E. operating equipment. I was leafing through it just now. This type of plane operates on standard fuel. We are quite explosion-proof here in the cock pit. Unless, of course—" Illya Kuryakin jabbed the muzzle nearer Masters' face—"there is some other explosion hazard we don't know about."
All at once Masters seemed to acquire character. He threw his head back and laughed.
"Get out of there, you miserable traitor," Solo shouted. He grabbed the fur collar of Masters' flying suit.
Masters clubbed at him hard. Napoleon Solo took a blow on the temple. He went crashing back against instrument dials on the rear cockpit wall.
With his left hand Masters reached beneath his seat and gave a twist.
"There! Now I've armed the little darling—" He batted savagely at Illya's pistol with his fist.
Illya's right hand was driven up. The pistol blammed. A big ragged hole appeared in the cockpit roof. Wind screamed.
From somewhere Masters produced a heavy spanner. He cracked Illya across the bridge of the nose with it. Then, face contorted with fanatic fury, he twisted up out of his bucket seat. His leg accidentally kicked one of the control levers. The seaplane's nose jerked up into a steep climb.
Wind whipped and tore at Solo's face as he fought for balance. The plane's upward tilt threw Masters at him, hacking air with the spanner. Solo ducked and darted between Masters' legs as the pilot's hard blow connected.
Had it connected with Solo's skull, that would have been all. As it was, Masters had swung violently and the spanner head crashed through the tin outer metal shell of the instrument panel on the rear wall.
Glass shattered. Ripped wires spurted green sparks. The spanner in Masters' hand became a conductor of powerful currents. The flight glove was of little help as insulation. Masters' backbone arched. He shrieked, trying to stand taller than he was as electricity shot through his body.
Then he dropped, crisped.
Smoke swirled in the cockpit now. Solo crawled groggily into the pilot's seat. Sparks hit him on the back of the neck, burning his skin. He thought he heard ticking but that was impossible. The wind was screaming through the shot-out cockpit roof too loudly.
Had the roof control tracks been damaged? If they had, he and Illya, who was muzzily shaking his head, would be marmalade or worse as soon as he tripped the lever—
"Hang on," Solo yelled. "I'm going to blow the ejector."
"I preferred Edinburgh," Illya yelled back. "Scottish lasses, Scottish whiskey—"
Solo hammered the ejection lever and knew a moment of exquisite horror. Nothing happened.
But his own senses had stretched a split second into an eternity. There was a thunder, a sense of lifting, of shooting straight at the cockpit roof.
Good-bye, skull, Solo thought. Then he was rocketing up into gray-blue sky.
He shot up and up like a projectile. The remains of the ejection seat dropped away beneath. A ferocious blam hurt his ears and sent black smoke balls writhing across his vision. The seaplane had gone up.
Solo began to drop. The horizon spun over and over. Finally, when he was dropping like a stone and thought he had the sea and sky in their proper places, he yanked the ring. With a crack and a tear at his armpits, the chute opened.
He twisted his head. Silk bloomed several hundred yards above and to his right. Illya bobbed like a doll at the end of his shrouds. He kicked a boot to indicate he was all right.
On the way down Solo had only a swift glimpse of the nearest island. The THRUSH jet 'copter had landed on its far side. In all the island was not more than several hundred yards across, but it was bisected by an uneven ridge. Atop this ridge two tiny figures stood silhouetted now. They were out of pistol or rifle range. That was both a blessing and a burden. Time might be short.
With a huge splash, Solo settled into the icy sea. He struggled and snorted and flicked the inflating switches on the legs of his suit. Soon he paddled out from under the soggy silk of his chute. From the neck down he resembled the circus fat lady.
An equally bulbous shape with Illya's head on top floated a dozen yards off. Solo paddled toward it. Illya squirted a spout of water out of his mouth.
"I saw two of them," Solo panted, indicating the island. "One might have been Shelley."
"Two against two isn't bad," Illya said. "Of course they've seen us too."
Squinting into the light haze which lay on the surface of the sea, Napoleon Solo nodded.
Neither of the U.N.C.L.E. agents needed more words with the other. They'd worked long as a team, knew what must be done, appreciated the perilous shortness of time just now. Naglesmith might have arranged his pickup on a split-second schedule. A nuclear-powered THRUSH powerboat could appear on the horizon and reach the island before Solo and Illya succeeded in swimming halfway there.
Shock and pain had already conspired to put a weight of fatigue on Napoleon Solo. He tried to forget it all. He deflated his suit to the proper level to give his stroke maximum efficiency. Then, icy water slashing at his head, he began to swim.
He drew within fifty feet of the island's rough beach. He heard a flat report. A geyser of water leaped up inches from his head. From atop the ridge, Newsom Naglesmith had found the range.
Solo poured on the speed. Another gunshot. This time the echo said the shot was directed at Illya, approaching the island's far side. Solo swam like a madman, filling and emptying his lungs with savage force.
Naglesmith fired in his direction again. The bullet ripped a slash in his left sleeve. Solo's knees crunched gravel.
He staggered up the rocky beach and floundered out flat behind a big boulder, a portion of which was chipped away by Naglesmith's next bullet. A flying bit of stone nicked his right eyeball, bringing intense pain and momentary blindness.
Hastily unzipping his right suit leg, Solo took out his own long-muzzle pistol. He snapped a range extender over the end to make it even longer. Then he dragged him self upright.
He peered from behind the rock. Up above him the ridge was jaggedly cruel as a dinosaur's spine. And empty.
Carefully Solo dodged forward to the cover of the next rock nearest the ridge base. Suddenly Naglesmith loomed into sight in a bright scarlet windproof with parka hood. His face was ugly with delight as he aimed and fired.