“Why would I want a cigar?” 99 hollered back puzzledly.
“You’re right, it wasn’t very far,” Max replied, getting out of the car.
They hurried across the apron to the helicopter. The pilot was in the cockpit, leaning out the window.
“We’re from Control!” Max bellowed up to him.
“Who’s standing in a hole?” the pilot yelled.
Max turned to 99. “He says to get aboard and bring the pole!” he hollered.
99 cupped a hand to her ear. “Stroll where?”
Max shook his head, indicating that he could not hear. Then he and 99 got aboard the helicopter and made their way to the cockpit.
The pilot was a handsome, blond, granite-jawed, steely-eyed young man. He nodded to them perfunctorily.
“We’re all set!” Max shouted.
The pilot shook his head. “I don’t bet!” he yelled back.
Max reached forward and closed the cockpit window, shutting out most of the engine racket. “Now then,” he said, “what pole was it that you wanted us to bring aboard?”
“Pole?” the pilot replied. “I thought you said hole.”
“I thought he said cigar,” 99 put in.
“Maybe we’d better start all over,” Max suggested. He extended a hand. “I’m Max Smart, Agent 86,” he said. “And this,” he added, nodding toward 99, “is 99, Agent 99.”
The pilot took the hand. “Lance Chalfont, silent birdman, here,” he said. “I don’t talk much about myself- that’s why they call me a silent birdman. The way I figure it, if a man is courageous, compassionate and conscientious, he doesn’t have to talk about it-folks’ll notice it. You’ll see. As the hours pass, and you get to admire me more and more, you’ll see that it won’t be because of anything I say, it’ll be because of what I do. Actions speak louder than words. You’ll wonder to yourself, you’ll wonder, ‘I wonder if Lance’d tell me about some of his hair- raisin’ adventures?’ But you won’t get a word out of me. Like that time I saved them pygmies from themselves. Want to hear that?”
Max shook his head. “No, I think we’d better get going.”
“Good thing you don’t want to hear about it,” Lance Chalfont said. “ ’Cause you’d never get a thing out of me. The way it happened was, you see, I’d crash landed in this jungle. Well, no sooner’d I crawled out of the wreckage than here comes these pygmies. ‘My Heaven! school must be out!’ I said to myself. A bunch of itty-bitty fellas, they was. No taller’n a second-grader that’d been brought up standin’ under a porch! And, the next thing I knowed, they started throwin’ spears at me. Didn’t hit me, of course. A man like me, courageous, compassionate and conscientious, can’t be hit. ‘Here, now!’ I said to them pygmies. ‘Is that any way to behave?’ Well, that caught ’em like a whack across the backside with a canoe paddle. They come in closer and started lookin’ me over. So I addressed them. ‘Boys,’ I said, ‘just look at yourselves! Runnin’ around the jungle like that! Throwin’ spears! You oughta be ashamed of yourselves.’ Then, lookin’ down on ’em from my towerin’ height, I said, ‘Boys! Grow up!’ ”
“Yes, well that’s very interesting,” Max said. “But now, could we-”
“Did ’em a world of good,” Lance Chalfont continued. “It was just what they needed-a good talkin’ to. And- you know? — today, them pygmies is six feet tall.”
“That is interesting,” Max said. “However-”
“You won’t get any stories like that out of me, though,” Lance Chalfont said. “The one thing a silent birdman won’t do, he won’t boast. Though, shucks knows, this one here’s certainly got reason to. You’ll look a fur distance before you find anybody as courageous, compassionate and conscientious as Lance Chalfont. Not that I’d say that myself. I’m just quotin’ what everybody else that knows me says.”
“Could we leave now?” Max said wearily.
“You wanta go? Shoulda said something. In this world, son, you gotta blow your own horn. If you don’t, nobody’ll blow it for you.” He smiled sweetly. “Where we goin’?”
“Oh, yes, that-” Max said. He opened the black satchel and got out a sheaf of official orders. “Ah… let’s see… Our first destination is KAOS’s Science Laboratory, and it’s located in… the Sahara Desert?”
“Know the place well,” Lance Chalfont said, revving up the engine. “I got a story about the Sahara Desert I could tell if I wasn’t a silent birdman. The way it goes is…”
The engine roared, drowning out Lance Chalfont’s words, and the helicopter rose from the ground and then, high aloft, swung east. Soon they were winging swiftly across the ocean.
“Hadn’t we better look at the fact sheet on the installation, Max?” 99 said. “We’ll want to know all we can about it before we try to infiltrate.”
“Excellent idea,” Max said, getting a second sheaf of papers from the black satchel. He studied the first page. “That’s odd,” he said. “This fact sheet says the installation is six fathoms below sea level. In the Sahara Desert? I didn’t think the KAOS people were that clever.”
“Max,” 99 said, looking over his shoulder, “you have the wrong fact sheet. That’s the fact sheet for KAOS’s weapons arsenal under the Atlantic Ocean.”
“Oh… yes.” Max got out another fact sheet. “Here it is,” he said. He shook the sheaf of papers. “Little sand in it,” he explained. “According to this,” he continued, reading, “the KAOS science lab is commanded by the infamous Dr. Yeh! Oh-oh!”
“What is it, Max?”
“Well, apparently the infamous Dr. Yeh! has been stationed in the desert too long. He thinks he’s a sheik. And he runs the KAOS science lab like a sheikdom.”
“Sahara Desert below!” Lance Chalfont called out.
Max and 99 looked out the window.
“But that’s water down there,” Max said.
Lance Chalfont frowned. “Accordin’ to my calculating that’s the Sahara Desert,” he insisted.
“Look for yourself,” Max challenged.
Lance Chalfont peered out his window. “That sure is wet sand, ain’t it!” he said. “A fella’d have trouble, all right, keepin’ it inside a sandbox.”
“Let’s keep going for a while,” Max suggested. “When you see some dry sand, sing out again.” He turned back to 99. “We better think up a story,” he said. “Something logical. If we show up in the middle of the Sahara Desert claiming that we took a wrong turn in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the KAOS people are liable to be a little suspicious. Now, think, 99, what can we use for an excuse?”
“Tell ’em you’re a couple secret agents,” Lance Chalfont said. “In the long run, honesty’s the best policy. When you lie, boy, speak right out, tell the truth. People’ll respect you for it.”
Max ignored him. “We could claim to be camel-herders,” he said to 99. “We could say that we’ve lost our herd.”
“Very good, Max,” 99 said. “It’s logical, at least.”
“Then that’s it,” Max said. “We’ll-’”
“Thar she blows!” Lance Chalfont bellowed.
“What blows?” Max asked.
“The sand! See it down there? Blowin’ all over the place!”
Max and 99 looked out again. “Yes, that’s it, all right,” Max said. He reached into the black satchel, got out a map, and handed it to Lance Chalfont. “This will give you the exact latitude and longitude of the KAOS science lab,” he said.
Lance Chalfont tossed the map back to him. “Can’t read them things,” he said. “They got lines drawed all over ’em. Every time I look for a place I want to go, it’s got a line drawed through it.”
“Then how do you find your way?” Max asked him acidly.
“Usually, I just stop at a fillin’ station and ask,” Lance Chalfont replied. He pointed. “There’s a fillin’ station up ahead. We’ll stop there.”
Max raised up and looked out the front window. “That’s an oasis,” he corrected.
“Call it anything you want,” Lance Chalfont replied. “To me, it’s a foreign fillin’ station.”
Lance Chalfont landed the helicopter near the oasis, then got out and walked to the well, where an Arab was watering his camel. He spoke with the Arab, then returned to the helicopter.
