The World's End Affair Read Free

galley. Solo met her over the prostrate form of the co-pilot.
     
    Mr. Han's eyelids flickered open and shut. He seemed to realize that he was needed. He tried to lift himself on his right elbow.
     
    Kneeling, Solo propped him up. He tossed the champagne bottle to Illya, who thumbed the cork. A white foamy squirt sprayed across a couple who were silently praying.
    Solo tried to keep everything else out of his mind except the necessity to prop up Mr. Han and get the bottle to his lips. He could feel the accelerating downward plunge of the plane in his viscera.
     
    Han swallowed the champagne in great gulps. "Instant courage," Solo said. With his help Mr. Han lurched to his feet. The back of his uniform was bloody from shoulder to belt. Solo and Illya helped him forward to the cockpit.
     
    They settled Mr. Han in the pilot's chair. He groaned, swayed. Then he jerked himself to attention and blinked at the controls.
     
    Later, Napoleon Solo decided that they probably would have crashed had he not remembered something Mr. Han had said about Captain Loo's odd looking money belt. Solo left Han staring blearily at the controls, unable to comprehend them because he was having enough trouble simply keeping upright in his seat. Illya tried to steady him as Solo crouched in the semi-darkness of the instrument-lit cockpit
     
    The flight captain's eyes were rolled far up in his head in death, shining like little, moons. Something shiny-black gleamed beneath his flight blouse, where the bottom two buttons had come unfastened.
     
    With shaking fingers Solo undid the rest of the coat buttons. He fanned back the pilot's lapels. Around his middle Captain Loo wore what indeed looked like a fat money belt of tough black vinyl. Solo prodded the belt.
     
    Solid. As though a number of small steel units like cigarette cases had been sewn inside the vinyl carrier. Solo's hand brushed across something hard which protruded from the unit located at about the position of Captain Loo's right hip.
     
    Experimentally Solo felt around bit more. The device, which he could not see in the extreme shadow behind the pilot's chair, felt like an ordinary wall-switch.
     
    Under his breath Solo said, "Here goes probably everything," and threw the switch over to the opposite position.
     
    What happened in the next half minute left Solo and Illya slack-jawed.
     
    First the pelting rain seemed to lessen. The violent down and updrafts buffeting the airliner grew less formidable. In a matter of fifteen seconds they stopped altogether. The thick black clouds began to shred apart. It was all so fast that it beggared belief.
     
    Napoleon Solo stared at Illya. Illya stared back. Both of them stared down at Mr. Han.
     
    The co-pilot was talking to himself in what sounded like Thai. He had a sick, pained grin on his face. He had touched two controls, two switches, thrown them, and the aircraft's response had been satisfactory.
     
    Han raised his head. He started. "What has happened to the storm?"
     
    Ahead of the radar nose, blue sky appeared, then the tilted horizon of the South China Sea. The maelstrom vanished behind. Sunlight flooded into the cockpit.
     
    Now Illya could see what Solo had been doing down on the floor. He spotted the toggle device. Mr. Han let out a modest whoop, coughed violently, recovered, and repeated his question about what had happened to the storm. This time there was near-hysterical happiness in his voice.
     
    In reply, Illya said, "I believe Mr. Solo has switched it off."
     
    The full impact hit Solo. He stared down at the vinyl belt wrapped around Captain Loo's thoroughly dead midsection. He said, "My God in heaven."
     
    Mr. Han was finding his way out of his pain daze and into the routine of disaster procedures for the giant jet. The emergency and fire systems soon controlled the worst of the damage. Three engines were operating at full power. Mr. Han shut down the fourth and the plane began to fly steadily again through the