And now the operation was at last under way. Waverly had driven off in the Cadillac with O'Rourke and Raoul and Rafael - who had refused point-blank to be left out of it - and was to wait within transceiver call of the tunnel in case they might be able to fight their way out and could use assistance.
Illya and Coralie, gleaming in skin-tight suits of black rubber, sat just behind the double doors of the bay. In front of them, the midget submarine with its perspex blisters lay sleekly in its specially rigged davits. It looked as frail and crushable as the fabric of the aircraft itself in the faint light drifting back from the instruments showing through the half-open door of the cockpit. Presently the copilot emerged from the cabin and shut the door. He sat down next to Illya and began to speak. He was a navy man, crewcut, with a Bostonian accent.
"Just to check out the details with you people," he said, "I'd like to repeat, one, that you take your places and we screw you down before we lose height at twenty-seventeen. You've already been briefed on how to release the hatches from inside. Two, we shall set her down to within about twenty feet of the surface and then lower away. You'll have to be prepared to get bumped if there's anything of a breeze down there, anything enough to make a wave on that lake. Three, in her present trim, it would be most unwise to go lower than about forty fathoms - this hasn't the depth capability of that Squid you used on your last assignment,*See THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. #8, The Monster Wheel Affair. and we didn't have time to fly the Squid here for you. Besides it wouldn't have worked in this lake - it's fresh-water, not salt-water. How far below the surface is this underwater pen, d'you know?"
"We have no idea," Illya said. "Deep enough, obviously, for the buildings to escape detection from the air."
"Well, even with nearly vertical sides and good camouflage, that would need a good twenty to thirty fathoms to the top of the buildings.
"I know. We'll just have to hope the entry to the pen is on an upper floor, that's all! The place is built up from the floor of the old valley of course, but we don't know yet how many stories there are."
"I see. Now, what. else? Oh, yes: radar. The equipment's the usual gear, handled by the back-marker. There's not much room in there, as you can see, but there's a miniature aqualung each. If you do have to get out, though, remember you have only thirty minutes of oxygen in them. Now I have to ask you a question. Number One wants to know: Do they have any AI at all? Can they spot a UFO and if so will they open up? It's a question of being prepared to take evasive action," he said apologetically.
"We don't know," Illya said. "Our whole scheme is predicated on the assumption that they don't. Having taken all this trouble to build a secret place where nobody can observe them, making their own sea to sail on as it were, we imagine they'll feel secure enough not to have bothered. No scheduled air corridors cross the region and we can see no reason for them to have guarded against air or water invasion - in the first place, there's nothing for a plane to see; and in the second, how can there be any other craft on the lake when it's just been made and their underwater base is the only dock on it?... All the same, to be honest, we don't actually know. And if they can tape planes, they'll be on to us!"
"We'd better keep our fingers crossed for each other, then, hadn't we?" the navy man said agreeably. "Now come on - in you go."
The girl bunched her hair on top of her head and dragged on the tight-fitting rubber helmet. Highlights slid along the surface of the polished latex as she reached up to set the oval mask in place. A moment later she was lowering herself into the tiny rear compartment of the submarine.
Illya climbed into the forward cockpit, turned to give her the thumbs-up sign, and lowered the perspex nacelle over his head and shoulders. The navy man screwed down both the transparent hatches and shortly after wards they felt the helicopter sinking towards the lake invisible in the darkness below them. The cigar-shaped craft with its twin blisters, despite its aerodynamic shape, lurched sickeningly and swayed from side to side on its guide ropes when the bomb bay doors were opened and the helicopter crew winched them slowly down towards the water. Through the perspex, they could see the drowned valley curving away to the southwest, fifteen or twenty miles of smooth lead foil among the darkness of the jagged hills. Lights pricked the dark to the south and northeast, but they were a long way away. Immediately below, there was not a sign of life.
They hit the water stern first with a ringing slap that echoed thunderously in the tiny craft. Half a minute later, they were pitching uneasily in the choppy waves agitating the surface of the lake. The helicopter, having activated the automatic release grapples on the guides, rose into the night and clattered away towards Brasilia
Kuryakin immediately switched on the motors and took the sub beneath the surface. Coralie Simone had a fleeting impression of waves splashing towards her up the inclined surface of the screen that was so close to her eyes, and then they were in a blackness so intense that it almost hurt. She was aware of a complex hum from the electric propulsion system and its auxiliaries - and of a dark and heavy chill that pervaded the air in the minute cockpit and numbed her senses.
"We shall have to hurry," Kuryakin's amplified voice split the silence from the intercom by her ear. "The air's very limited and we don't dare use the cylinders in case we have to get out underwater. Can you get the equipment working right away?"
"Of course," the girl said, and she willed her hands to the tasks they had learned that afternoon. There were two systems aboard: the usual echo-sounding device for revealing subterranean topography, other shapes in the sea and so on, and a more modern technique, analogous to the system used in air-to-air missiles, homing on the heat energy released by the motors of the quarry.
"Do you think they'll have the same equipment on their submarine?" she asked as she busied herself with dials and indicators.
"I would guess not," Illya said. "We hope not, anyway. Even if they have it, they'd hardly have it in use. I mean, they'd use the navigational aids, of course - but why would they watch a screen for possible enemy ships when it's their lake and they know they're the only ships, in it?"
"I suppose you're right. But if they did have it... and use it?'
"Then we'd be lost," the agent said shortly. "Are you getting anything interesting yet?"
"It's a bit difficult at first - especially since I'm not really a trained operator. And there are still so many objects on the valley floor - houses, I suppose, and trees and walls and so on - that it's really impossible to sort out... Wait a minute! Here's something... It's something big, very big!"
She began reading off figures and Kuryakin concentrated on his dials and controls. "It will be the nuclear submarine, will it, if it proves to be moving?" she asked.
"Bound to be. According to Napoleon, they only test at night - to avoid any possible witnesses, no doubt. What do you see?"
"It is moving. - And my goodness, Illya, it must be enormous!"
Kuryakin switched on his monitors. "Yes, you're right," he said, "It is pretty generously built. Seems to be on a cross-course some way above us."
"How deep are we?" the girl asked.
"About ten fathoms. From the disturbance, I should judge that the sub's actually on the surface - or at the most only half submerged. We'll go on up and see bow near we can get."