Flying finish / Бурный финиш. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Alf nodded, walked up to the wall on the left of the door I had come in by, and pushed up a heavy switch beside a black fuse box. A second similar box worked, I suppose, the fluorescent strips across the ceilings and the low-powered radiant heaters mounted high on both side walls. Beside the switches stood a mechanic’s bench with various tools and a vice, and further along two sturdy brackets held up a rack of gardening implements; spades, fork, rake, hoe and shears[455]. Filling all the back of the bay was a giant motor mower with a seat for the driver, and dotted about there were some five gallon petrol cans, funnels, tins of paint, an assortment of overalls and several greasy looking metal chairs.

That Cessna, I thought briefly; I could fly it like riding a bicycle. And the car… if only I had known they were there.

Yardman searched among the clutter on the bench and produced a length of chain and two padlocks, one large, one small. Billy had shut the door and was standing with his back to it, the gun pointing steadily in my direction. Alf, Rous-Wheeler and Giuseppe had prudently removed themselves from his line of fire.

Yardman said, ‘Go over to that first girder, my dear boy, and sit down on the floor.’

To say I was reluctant to be tied again is to put it mildly. It wasn’t only that it was the end of any hope of escape, but I had a strong physical repugnance to being attached to things, the result of having been roped to a fir in a Scottish forest one late afternoon in a childhood game by some cousins I was staying with: they had run away to frighten me and got lost themselves, and it had been morning before the subsequent search had found me.

When I didn’t obey at once, Yardman, Giuseppe and Billy all took a step forward as if moved by the same mind. There was no percentage in having them jump on me: I was sore enough already. I walked over to the girder and sat down facing them, leaning back idly against the flat metal surface.

‘That’s better,’ Yardman said. He came round and knelt down on the ground at my back. ‘Hands behind, my dear boy.’

He twined the chain round my wrists and clicked on both padlocks. Tossing the keys on his palm he stood up and came round in front of me. All five of them stared down with varying degrees of ill-feeling and I stared glassily back.

‘Right,’ said Yardman after a pause. ‘We’d better get out and finish the painting. But this time we must leave someone with him, just in case[456]’. He reviewed his available troops, and alighted on Rous-Wheeler. ‘You sit here,’ he said to him, picking up a chair and taking it over beside the switches, ‘and if he does anything you aren’t sure about, switch on the runway lights and we’ll come at once. Clear?’

Rous-Wheeler was delighted to avoid any more painting and accepted his new task with enthusiasm.

‘Good.’ Yardman looked at his watch. ‘Go on then, Billy.’ Billy, Alf and Giuseppe filed out and Yardman stopped as he followed them to say to Rous-Wheeler, ‘The cargo will be arriving soon. Don’t be alarmed.’

‘Cargo?’ said Rous-Wheeler in surprise.

‘That’s right,’ Yardman said. ‘Cargo. The reason for this… um… operation.’

‘But I thought…’ began Rous-Wheeler.

‘My dear Rous-Wheeler, no,’ said Yardman. ‘Had it been just you, I could have sent you down the usual discreet pipeline from Milan. Your journey would have been just as secret as it is now. No, we needed the plane for a rather special cargo, and as you know, my dear boy,’ he swung round to speak directly to me with a small ironic smile, ‘I do hate wasting space on flights. I always try to make up a full load, so as not to neglect an opportunity.’

‘What is this cargo, then?’ asked Rous-Wheeler with a damaged sense of self-importance.

‘Mm?’ said Yardman, putting the padlock keys down on the bench. ‘Well now, it’s the brain child of a brilliant little research establishment near Brescia. A sort of machine. An interesting little development, one might say. Broadly speaking, it’s a device for emitting ultrasonic rays on the natural frequency of any chosen mineral substance.’

‘Ultrasonics have been extensively researched,’ Rous-Wheeler said testily.

Yardman smiled tightly. ‘Take it from me[457], dear fellow, this particular development has great possibilities. Our friends have been trying to arrange photographs of the drawings and specifications, but these have been too well-guarded. It proved easier in the end to… er… remove some vital parts of the device itself. But that of course presented a transport problem, a difficult transport problem, requiring my own personal supervision.’ He was talking for my benefit as much as Rous-Wheeler’s: letting me know how expert he was at his job. ‘Once we were committed to the plane, of course it was the easiest way to take you too.’

No opportunity wasted. But he hadn’t originally intended to take me as well: to give him his due.