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

again in the direction of the school, using the hovering helicopter as a marker.
    Max smiled. “Something very funny just occurred to me, 99,” he said.
    “What’s that, Max?”
    “I was just thinking that, although we haven’t even reached the school yet, already we’re drop-outs.”
    “Pardon, Max?”
    “We jumped out of the helicopter in parachutes,” Max explained. “We’re drop-outs.” He chuckled appreciatively.
    “Wouldn’t that make us jump-outs, Max?”
    “99, you don’t understand. It’s a play on words. Parachutes. School. Drop-outs.”
    “But you said yourself that we jumped.”
    “Never mind, 99.”
    Soon the wall appeared. Once more, Max and 99 scrambled into the underbrush.
    “There are guards everywhere,” Max said. “I would say, roughly, that it’s absolutely impossible to get inside the wall.”
    “But, Max, we have to. The fate of Control depends on it.”
    Max sighed. “Well, maybe something will come alone.”
    “Max! Look! That’s it. Those two young men coming along the road.”
    Max looked. “I knew something would come along,” he said. “It always does on TV.”
    “They’re headed for the school, Max. And they’re walking along the road, in plain sight. That must mean that they’re expected, that they won’t have any trouble getting in.”
    Max’s eyes narrowed. “If you’ll look closely, 99,” he said, “you’ll see that those young men are walking along the road in plain sight. I’d go so far as to guess that they’re expected, and won’t have any trouble getting in.”
    “Max, I think you’re right.”
    “What else do I think, 99?”
    “Max, I think you think that if we waylay them we can take their places and get inside the wall without any trouble!”
    “99, I think what you think I think is right.”
    As the two young men neared, Max and 99 pulled their pistols, then stepped out of the underbrush and confronted them.
    “Greetings,” Max said. “On your way to the KAOS training school, are you, young men?”
    The two young men exchanged glances. Then the tall one replied, “Are you the welcoming committee?”
    “You might say that,” Max nodded. “Now, if you’ll just step into the underbrush . . .”
    “Is it some kind of a fraternity initiation?” the shorter of the two young men asked.
    “You might say that, too,” Max replied.
    “You’re probably going to bind us and gag us and leave us out here in the underbrush,” the taller young man smiled. “That way, we’ll be late reporting to the school and we’ll be punished severely by the school authorities.”
    “Yes, you might say—”
    “Great gag on us!” the smaller of the young men guffawed.
    “It is pretty funny,” Max smiled. “Now, will you step into the underbrush, please?”
    Eagerly, the young men plunged into the underbrush.
    “Bind and gag me first,” the taller of the young men said. “I’m taller than he is.”
    “No, me first!” the shorter of the young men said. “He may be taller than I am, but I’m shorter than he is,”
    “Now, now, let’s be fair about this,” Max said. “We’ll bind you and gag you both at the same time. I’ll bind and gag you,” he said to the tall one. “And, my cohort here will bind and gag you,” he said to the short one.
    “Couldn’t it be the other way around?” the tall one said. “She looks like a faster binder and gagger than you.”
    “Now look,” Max said irritably, “if we’re going to have a lot of bickering about this, we’ll just call the whole thing off.”
    The two young men immediately fell silent.
    Max and 99 bound and gagged them, then took their identification papers.
    “According to this I.D.,” Max said, “I am now Ronald J. Macy, VII. Who are you, 99?”
    “Arbuthnot L. Gimbel, Max.”
    “Hmmm . . . no wonder they didn’t get along too well.”
    Max and 99 returned to the road, leaving the two young men in the underbrush, and approached the gate. A guard raised his musket and