Now it was showing texture, like a piece of fine cloth instead of glossy metal. And now the texture was expanding until the dancing specs of whitecaps whirled dizzily past as the jet continued to spiral downward. Illya was one of the few pilots in the world Napoleon would trust to do this to a plane he was in—it takes great control to appear to lose control completely, especially in front of the experts who were doubtlessly watching with critical and suspicious eyes from the deck of the Egyptian aircraft carrier below them.
Illya pulled out of the flat spin with a purposely clumsy falling-leaf maneuver, and threw them into a reverse spin for a few seconds with only a couple hundred feet of very thin air between them and the jagged surface of the sea. Then he managed to level off.
Only one engine was functioning, and it was on half power. The other still roared flame, and the plane appeared, even to Napoleon, who knew better, to be limping badly.
The carrier was dead ahead of them, and growing slowly. Illya pulled the wheel hard back, and the jet climbed to the edge of a stall before he let it off. The maneuver gained them another hundred feet, and a clearer view of the ship.
It was an old carrier, of a type nearly made extinct by the attack on Pearl Harbor. The flight deck was short by modern standards, and the island large and awkwardly placed for a plane with the landing speed of the U.N.C.L.E. jet. But Illya throttled back until their air speed barely sustained them in flight, and started down the glide path.
There was a speck in a bright orange suit standing just below the near edge of the deck, and his arms waved frantically as they approached. Illya corrected his angle slightly, then more. Port wing still too low. He pulled at the wheel and kicked the right pedal to maintain the exact direction, and then the deck was leaping up at them. He pulled the nose up violently and cut the power to both engines as the leading end of the deck whipped under them.
There was just a moment of weightlessness, and then Napoleon's chair tried to slam the base of his spine through the top of his head, and almost succeeded. They bounced several times, and canted several degrees to one side. And then all was still, except for the sound of the turbines as their penetrating whine wound down the long chromatic scale towards silence.
Illya was the first to get his seat-straps unfastened and kick the door open, but Napoleon was close behind him. Figures were running across the deck towards them and their plane, and they ran away from it. Theoretically, it could be about to explode, and these sailors were risking their lives to extinguish the fire before it did any more damage to the plane or to their ship.
A foam wagon screeched up and began squiring detergent-laden spray over the blazing engine, and the flames vanished in seconds. A crew in asbestos suits hurried in and began checking to make sure the blaze was safely extinguished.
As they stood in their sweat-stained flight suits, Napoleon and Illya heard footsteps behind them even as the fire was brought under control. They turned to see a short, bearded man in a blue uniform with ranks of gold braid on the sleeves, who addressed them in English.
"Your plane may not be severely damaged," he said, "but I must tell you that you have by accident fallen into a very...embarrassing situation. We are on a mission of extreme secrecy, and you must stay as prisoners for some time. You will be well treated, but you cannot be allowed any contact with the outside world for a few weeks, perhaps less. I am deeply sorry, gentlemen—consider that a comfortable prison for two weeks is better than a watery grave for eternity." He spread his arms and four armed guards stepped smartly forward.
"Do not think badly of me," he said. "You will soon be free, possibly with your jet repaired in our shops on board, and allowed to continue your flight to Yaoundé in Cameroon."
They looked surprised and he nodded. "Yes, I checked you out before I decided to save your lives. I am entrusted with this ship, and our mission is one which might attract spies or agents of foreign powers. But since your flight plan was perfectly plain and had been filed a week ago, before we ourselves knew our assignment, you could not have been here but by unhappy coincidence."
He turned and started towards a hatch. "Come," he said. "You cannot even be allowed the freedom of the ship, for some days yet."
The guards bracketed them, and the two U.N.C.L.E. agents proceeded to follow the Captain of the treasure ship down companionways and passages deep into her steel heart.
Chapter 15: "Accidental Misfire."
Alexander Waverly leaned back from the communications console and set his unlit pipe in an ashtray. His face looked tired, but his eyes were hard. Fifty hours had passed since his two top agents had disappeared into the South Atlantic, and not a word had been heard from them since their jet had gone down in flames. He had no choice now but to believe they were dead.
He felt no grief—he had sent too many men to their deaths in the line of duty to feel any more than a cold anger which he buried and directed at the enemy who made this constant cost necessary. A man in his position could afford to have few friends, and none within his own organization. He remembered Napoleon Solo only a few days before envying his desk job, and a thin, bitter smile creased the corners of his mouth. It was so easy to die...but others must live to carry through the job.
There was still a chance that either or both of them might still be alive, but hope had no place in an all-or-nothing game. When you were risking the lives of a billion people and the safety of the entire world, you played only on sure things.
But what did you do when there were no more sure things? It took a gambler's cool courage and evaluation of odds when the human chips were down to know the winning cards, bluff, bet and play, and still rake in the pot.
Napoleon Solo had possessed this talent to an extent his partner, for all his intelligence and technical capacity, could never attain. His instinctive ability to slip through the smallest loophole in Fate's contract had brought him back from disaster and worse time and time again. Waverly hoped for the sake of the organization—his organization—that it would this time. But now there was no way of knowing, and the odds were dropping.
No computer could have told when the odds shifted to favor the alternate attack. But Waverly was always a percentage player—almost always. And now the time had come to split the bet, call the bluff, and wait for the last card to fall. And if the other player really held the winning hand, to pay the score without regret.
He tapped a button on the communication console and said, "Get me a secure line to NASA headquarters in Washington. Doctor MacTeague."
It was perhaps thirty seconds or so before the crisp voice answered. Waverly spoke in cold, precise tones, describing their findings and their theory as to the nature and origin of the Monster Wheel. MacTeague had been appraised second-hand and in no detail; it was necessary that every fact be laid before him now.
Waverly set them forth in short, crisp sentences. When he finished, he said, "Doctor, a few days ago it was decided we could not risk a direct attack on the Wheel. Now I must report that in my opinion it is the only possible course remaining open to us."