Free Get Smart 4 - Max Smart and the Perilous Pellets by William Johnston Page A

You’re not authorized to put dresses on the phone bill.
    Max: Then how about this, Chief? The Operator can charge her new dress to our phone bill, and when I get back to Headquarters, you can inform me that charging dresses to the phone bill is not allowed, and that you’re going to take it out of my salary.
    Chief: That may be the solution, Max. Operator, how does that sound to you?
    Operator: I’ll do it. So don’t be surprised when you see a charge for a $20 dress on your phone bill.
    Max: $20 dress, Operator? You said it was a $7.95 dress.
    Operator: $12.05 for mental anguish. I’m sitting here in a wet dress.
    Max: Oh.
    Chief: Do you have anything to report, Max?
    Max: Yes, Chief, I can report that 99 and I have successfully planted the second explosive. And, we are now on our way to the KAOS training school to plant the third explosive. How’s that for action, Chief?
    Chief: Not quite good enough, Max. The KAOS agent has already planted his second and third explosive and is on his way to the fourth installation.
    Max (chagrined): Are you sure, Chief?
    Chief: Well, a KAOS agent was seen slipping away from our undersea weapons arsenal and our training school.
    Max: But are you positive that he’s headed for our fourth installation? Maybe he’ll stop for lunch.
    Chief: That’s possible, Max. Maybe you and 99 can skip lunch, and, in that way, catch up.
    Max: Fine. That fits right in, Chief. It just so happens that Lance Chalfont threw the picnic basket into the ocean, anyway.
    Chief: Good luck, Max!
    Max: Thank you, Chief.
    Operator: And, Max, take care of our shoe. Don’t step on any tall prairies.

    Max hung up.

6.
    “T HAR SHE blows!” Lance Chalfont cried.
    Max and 99 looked out the front window. “Yes, that’s it, that’s the KAOS training school, all right,” Max said.
    Below, situated on a mountain peak, they saw a complex of ivy-covered stone buildings, surrounded by a high stone wall. They could see KAOS student agents moving about on the grounds.
    “Sure surprises me,” Lance Chalfont said. “You take a training school, a fella expects to see a lot of trains. Where you suppose they keep ’em? Downstairs?”
    “I think you’re attaching the wrong meaning to the term ‘train,’ ” Max said. “In this case, train means to instruct. At this school, young men are trained—or instructed—in the methods used by KAOS. When they graduate, they are fully trained KAOS agents. Now, do you understand?”
    “Just about,” Lance Chalfont replied. “There’s just one thing I don’t get. Where do they keep the trains?”
    “Downstairs, I suspect,” Max replied. He turned to 99. “Well, somehow we have to infiltrate that school,” he said, “But, first, we have to get over the wall. And since we left our collapsible pole back there in the desert, we are faced with a bit of a sticky wicket. Do you have any suggestions?”
    “Couldn’t Lance Chalfont land us inside?” 99 said.
    “Too noisy,” Max replied. “We would be bound to attract attention.”
    “We could glide in,” Lance Chalfont said. “To glide, what you do is, you just turn off the engine and glide.”
    “That’s an idea,” Max replied. “That would be quiet, anyway.”
    “They don’t call me the silent birdman for nothin’,” Lance Chalfont said.
    Max pointed. “See that clear space behind that large building?” he said to Lance Chalfont. “Could you glide the helicopter down into that space?”
    “Don’t rightly know,” Lance Chalfont replied. “I never glided this crate before. Every time I turned off the engine and tried to glide it just fell right smack-kaboom right out of the sky.”
    “Like a rock?” Max asked.
    “Yup. Just like a wounded rock.”
    “In that case, we better think of something else,” Max said.
    “Max, why don’t we parachute?” 99 said.
    “Wait a minute! I just had an idea!” Max said. “We’ll parachute!”
    “Max—that’s clever!” 99 applauded.
    Max and 99 put on