Volume 1, Issue 3
(Thanks to Ed 999)
If you would like a free kindle-friendly EPUB version of this story, email me: delewis1@hotmail.com
THE UNSPEAKABLE AFFAIR
by Robert Hart Davis (attributed to John Jakes)
ACT 1: IN THE BEGINNING WAS SILENCE
THE MAN was tall and
slender. He staggered as he walked, half ran, down the East Side street toward
the river. His head turned every few yards to look behind him.
There was no fear in
his eyes, only concern, worry, an anxiety that made him break into a full run
as he neared the first street corner.
The street he ran on
was in the East Fifties of New York. A dark night, with a wind; the street
lamps cast only feeble circles of light.
For all his haste
and anxiety, the man was clearly trained to danger. When he looked behind, it
was not under the street lights but between them, in the darker areas, where he
could have seen anyone following him as the follower was revealed by the light.
There was no one
behind the running man, and he turned into a street of small brownstones that
stood silent and innocent between a three-story whitestone building and a
public garage. He passed the three-story white building, a faint smile on his
face. His goal in sight, his guard down for an instant, he did not glance at
the three men in full evening dress who came out of the whitestone building as
he ran past.
The three men swayed
as if drunk, laughing, their voices slurred in the night. The running man
barely glanced at them, and ran on. The instant he was past them, the three men
in full dress ceased to sway. Their laughter vanished; their voices spoke to each
other sharp and crisp.
"Now!" the
tallest one cried.
The sharp hiss of
his voice was matched the next instant by three piercing spitting sounds.
Three, and no more. One short, harsh puh-puh-puh from
each gun that had appeared in the hand of each dress-suited man.
Puh-puh-puh!
The running man
seemed to leap forward, his feet off the ground, hurtling. His head jerked
back, his arms flung out, and he sailed through the air of the dark street like
some horrible, grotesque bird.
He seemed to hang
there in the cold air for a long minute, flung up and forward, suspended on
air. Then he sprawled face down on the hard concrete.
He did not move for
a moment. Then, slowly, impossibly, he began to crawl. Three holes in his back,
blood drenching the silent street, the man crawled. Slowly, painfully, like
some crushed insect that still weakly moved its legs.
The three men in
dress suits watched. Their pistols were still in their hands, the long, ugly
silencers pointed at the crawling man. One spoke.
"Stubborn,
these U.N.C.L.E. fools," the tallest man said. "They can't even die
simply. Dimitri!"
The heaviest of the
three nodded, stepped forward to where the man was still trying to crawl toward
the steps down to a small shop with the sign, Del Floria's
Cleaners & Tailors. He walked slowly, letting the wounded man crawl.
He raised his pistol again.
The shot never came.
From a doorway at
the top of the brownstone stoop above Del Floria's
another man materialized. This man, too, held a pistol, a strange-looking
weapon.
He was a slender man
of medium height with neat, dark brown hair. He looked like a young executive,
a rising young doctor, perhaps an athletic playboy still young enough to be in
good condition. He wore a conservative business suit, and looked like a thousand
bright young men of business in the great city. He was none of these things.
His name was
Napoleon Solo, and he shot the heavy man in the dress suit.
Puh!
A single spitting
sound even fainter than the three shots earlier from the silenced pistols.
The heavy man was
not knocked down; there was no blood. The dress-suited killer merely looked
once at Solo, tried to raise his gun, and slid to the concrete.
Solo moved down the
steps and out into the street with catlike speed. Incongruously, an easy smile
played across his almost handsome face.
"Your guns,
gentlemen, if you please," Solo said, smiling at the two remaining men in
dress suits.
The two men raised
their guns, fired wildly. Solo dove for cover. His pistol was up and aimed. The
two men turned to run.
Directly in front of
them, in the middle of the dark city street, there was now still another man.
This man was small, slender, his Slavic face crowned by an unruly thatch of
blond hair cut like the round-bowl haircut of some ancient knight-errant. His bright
eyes were shrewd beneath a habitually lowered brow as he watched the three men
in the dress suits.
He seemed to have
risen from the concrete itself, come up out of the earth. He watched the
surprised killers with a quizzical expression.
"I think you
should do as the man said," Illya Kuryakin said. "It's polite, you
know."
The two men
recovered from their shock, raised their pistols, and the blond man, Illya,
shot them both.
Puh. . . puh!
They slid to the
ground.
Illya did not look
at them again. The small blond agent of U.N.C.L.E. walked quickly over them to
where Napoleon Solo was already bending over the man they had shot. This man
had stopped crawling. Solo had turned him over, and he lay now on his back with
his eyes closed. Illya looked down at the shot man.
"He's
alive," Solo said. "But he won't be."
"Diaz,"
Illya said, speaking down to the man. "Diaz, can you talk? Why—"
The wounded man,
Fernando Diaz, agent for U.N.C.L.E. Section II, New York, opened his eyes. He
stared up, dying, at the face of his Chief Enforcement Agent, Napoleon Solo.
His lips moved, his tongue moved.
But no sound came.
"Diaz?"
Solo said softly. "Speak slowly."
The man opened his
mouth again. Strained, eyes bulging, the cords on his neck thick with effort.
There was no sound
from his open mouth.
Not a groan, not a
word, not a whisper...
Diaz fell back,
breathed irregularly. Then his hand began to move. Illya reached into his
pocket. The blond agent took out a small notebook and a pencil. He handed them
to Diaz. The fallen agent barely nodded, took the pencil and notebook.
The pencil drew
lines on the paper, circles. Diaz blinked, looked up. Solo showed him the paper
with the meaningless scrawls. Diaz tried again. On the paper there was nothing
but lines and small circles.
Diaz dropped the
pencil, dropped the notebook. He choked, blood welling up in his throat. His
eyes dilated, showed for one instant a small fear. Then he raised his hand.
Finger extended, he pointed at the sky. His hand moved in the dark air,
fluttered like a bird. He smiled and died.
Napoleon Solo and
Illya Kuryakin stood there for some minutes, looking down at the dead man. Then
they holstered their guns and bent to pick him up. They carried him into Del
Floria's cleaning shop, into a rear dressing room, and through the wall into the
clean, hospital-like corridors of the headquarters of the United Network
Command for Law and Enforcement.
Behind them other
men had appeared to carry in the three fallen killers.
TWO
THE ALARMS had
stopped now in the bright, windowless corridors of U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters.
Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, Chief and Number 2 man in U.N.C.L.E. Section
II—Operations and Enforcement in New York, hurried in grim silence along the
vaultlike corridors, past the closed and silent doors.
In its silence and
anonymous efficiency, the complex of U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, as impregnable as
a fortress, could have been anywhere on earth or a thousand miles underground.
Here there was no evidence of the city outside, or of the innocent seeming brownstones
on the street. There was no evidence from inside of the four known entrances,
nor of the tunnels out to the East River, one of which Illya Kuryakin had used
to make his seemingly miraculous appearance in the street through an ordinary
manhole.
There is a fifth
entrance to U.N.C.L.E. in New York, but that is known only to the man Illya and
Solo were hurrying to meet now. The last door in the corridor opened
automatically, the two agents having been thoroughly scanned and identified
electronically, and they passed through into the office of Alexander Waverly,
the only Western Hemisphere member of Section-I, Policy and Operations, and
their chief.
Waverly, one of only
five Section-I members in the world-wide operations of U.N.C.L.E., was not a
man who stood on formality. An aristocratic, tweedy, unsmiling and
slow-speaking man with iron-grey hair, Waverly was matter-of-fact and given to
absent-mindedness on small matters.
"Mr.—uh—Solo,
Kuryakin,"
Waverly said,
blinking as he remembered the names of his two best agents. "Sit down. I
trust you have examined Diaz?"
Solo and Illya sat
down at the circular revolving table and faced their superior. Waverly began to
look for a match to light the pipe in his mouth. As the bushy-browed chief
searched his pockets for the matches, he continued to speak in his unruffled
manner.
"The three men
you quieted with your sleep darts have revealed nothing, I fear. Typical Thrush
agents, of course—no fingerprints, no identification."
"How about
using our super-pentathol on them," Solo said.
Waverly nodded,
finding his matches. "We'll try it, of course, but I think with little
result. They appear to be the usual Thrush assassins. No knowledge of any
operations, and with no reasons given to them for their particular job. These
three are so low they did not even have the remote-destruct charge under their
skins."
"But they
killed Diaz," Illya said grimly.
"Yes,"
Waverly said, "they killed Diaz. Most unfortunate. Did you find anything
on his body that would help us learn why?" Waverly was not callous or
inhuman. Diaz had been a good agent and a good man, but the work of U.N.C.L.E.
in battling the cruelty and evil of the world did not allow its leaders the
luxury of sentiment or even compassion. All U.N.C.L.E. agents knew the risk,
and took that risk in full knowledge. They did not expect tears, only the
continuance of the work they died for.
"Nothing,"
Solo said. "And they had no time to search him, so he had to be bringing a
verbal message."
Waverly nodded,
lighted his pipe now, and puffed slowly. Illya and Solo looked at each other.
They had come to the important point. Waverly opened the subject that was now
on all of their minds.
"He could
neither speak nor write?" Waverly said.
"Not a sound,
and not a letter on paper," Illya said. "He tried. It was almost
frightening to watch him."
"He couldn't
make a sound with his voice, but he could hold the pencil," Solo said.
"He just couldn't write words."
"I simply don't
understand it," Illya said. "He seemed to be in perfect possession of
all his other faculties. There must be an explanation."
Waverly said,
"What does the laboratory show?"
Solo shrugged.
"A blank. No discoverable reason for it at all. The bullets were perfectly
normal. No trace of a drug."
Illya leaned forward
across the circular table. "There was no reason they could find, not in a
complete autopsy. But Diaz could neither speak nor write."
Waverly nodded. A
thoughtful expression crossed his craggy, bloodhoundlike face. The Section-I
leader puffed on his pipe, allowing the smoke to rise slowly to the ceiling of
the sunny room that could have been the office of any slightly over-age college
professor, except for the banks of electronic equipment that kept Waverly in
instant touch with his own headquarters, and with the world.
"Therefore, we
must look elsewhere, I should say," Waverly
said simply. "I
expect we will find our reason for this, shall we say, 'unspeakable' affair,
when we learn what Diaz knew."
"And just how
do we do that?" Solo asked.
Waverly looked
unsmiling at his chief agent. "That I believe will be up to you, Mr.—Solo.
Yes, I think this is a task for your particular talents. You will take over
Diaz's work immediately."
"Someday I'll
learn not to ask questions," Solo said.
"Perhaps there
will be a beautiful lady to compensate for the apparently short life span,
Napoleon," Illya said, and smiled.
"One lives in
hope, my fine Russian friend," Solo retorted.
Waverly coughed.
"I don't imagine there will be much opportunity for your well-known hobby,
Mr. Solo. Beautiful women are notoriously scarce on rocket bases, I hear.
Especially on secret bases."
"Montana?"
Solo and Illya said together.
"Yes, Montana.
The Elk River Project. Diaz was going there from New Mexico ten days ago. We
had a report to that effect from him. Apparently he arrived, checked into the
nearest motel, and then vanished. His appearance on our street was a complete surprise
to me."
"Why did he go
to Elk River?" Solo asked.
Waverly puffed on
his pipe. "It seems there are two rocket pilots here, test pilots for
United States experimental rocket aircraft, who have fallen ill of a strange
malady. A secret report went to Washington, and Washington saw fit to call in.
Wisely, I think."
"A
malady?" Solo said.
"Apparently,"
Waverly said.
Illya leaned
forward. The Slavic face of the small Russian was intense with excitement.
"They can
neither speak nor write," Illya said. "Is that the malady?"
Waverly sighed.
"I'm afraid it is. Diaz is the third case of unspeaking, not the
first."
THREE
NAPOLEON SOLO
whistled soundlessly, his boyish face showing neither fear nor caution, but
only a certain surprise. Illya hunched forward and watched Waverly.
"Washington was
disturbed, naturally," Waverly said. "They will be a bit more
disturbed when they learn that their malady appears to involve our old
adversary Thrush."
"And Diaz was working
on the malady of unspeaking?" Illya said.
"No, not
precisely," Waverly said..
"But you
said—" Solo began to protest.
Waverly blew smoke.
"I said, Mr. Solo, that Diaz had gone to
Elk River from New
Mexico. His actual assignment was something quite different. You have heard of
UFOs, of course? Unidentified flying objects?"
"Who
hasn't?" Solo said. "Half the crackpots in the world have seen them,
and the other half have ridden in them to Venus."
"Only a very
small percentage are actually unidentified after investigation," Illya
said.
"Approximately
one percent, to be precise," Waverly said.
"Small enough
to be explained by simple chance, lack of accurate information," Illya
said.
Waverly nodded.
"I quite agree. But what would you say to ten percent?"
"Ten
percent?" Illya said, his eyes narrowing.
"Exactly,"
Waverly said. "The percentage has suddenly risen in the last six months.
Of all reported sightings, some ten percent have not yet been explained."
"That's
statistically impossible," Illya cried, "unless—"
"Yes, Mr.
Kuryakin?" Waverly said, unsmiling.
"Unless we are
being invaded from outer space," Illya said.
Waverly rubbed his
chin. "We can't rule that out. It could very well be such an invasion, I'm
afraid."
There was a long
silence in the sunny office. Illya and Solo looked at each other. Both their
faces registered sheer disbelief. Waverly seemed to have forgotten them for the
moment. The U.N.C.L.E. leader was lost in thought. It was Napoleon Solo who
spoke first.
"You really
can't be serious, Chief?"
Waverly blinked.
"What? Oh, yes, Mr. Solo, I fear I am. We are dealing with true
unidentified objects, which means they could be from anywhere."
"Just how many
is ten percent?" Solo asked.
"Four, Mr.
Solo," Waverly said. "There have been forty reported sightings all
over the world in the last six months."
"Do we know
what they were like, the four unidentified objects flying around?" Illya
said.
"As it happens,
we do," Waverly said. "Long and quite thin. They appeared to be
painted black, unlike most such sightings, which are invariably silver colored.
They also glowed, as if red- hot, and moved with incredible speed. Fast enough so
that no one could get a really good look at them."
Illya was puzzled.
"You make it sound as if all four were identical."
"They
were," Waverly said. "Absolutely identical. And at least two were
seen by extremely reliable people." Waverly looked at his two agents.
"You can see why we are rather concerned. They seem a trifle too
real."
"Is there any
pattern, any correlation about where they were seen?" Solo said.
"Yes, a very
simple pattern—all four were seen over New Mexico, near Santa Maestre, a small
town at the edge of the Navaho Reservation."
Both Illya and
Napoleon Solo studied Mr. Waverly as if certain that their chief was playing
some kind of joke on them. When Waverly did not blink or change his serious
expression, the two agents looked at each other again.
"I see you've
grasped the significance," Waverly said dryly. "That was why we sent
Diaz to New Mexico to investigate. He had little luck. That he reported. But
when we called him about the two rocket pilots who were unable to speak, he seemed
really excited."
"He thought
there was a connection?" Solo said.
"He did, and so
do I," Waverly said. "Both of the sick men are rocket pilots. The
connection would appear obvious. I think Diaz believed they were faking the
inability to speak, but he had no chance to report, obviously. So I am afraid
it is now up to you gentlemen."
Solo grinned.
"It's my job to go to Elk River, find out what Diaz learned and how he
lost his speech, and try not to lose mine."
"I should say
that would be approximately correct," Waverly said dryly.
You don't want me to
accompany Napoleon?" Illya said.
"No, Mr.
Kuryakin."
Illya sighed. "Which
means that it is New Mexico for me, and l hate the heat."
Waverly was
unsympathetic. "We all must make our sacrifices, Mr. Kuryakin. I suggest
you both arm yourselves well, seeing what happened to Mr. Diaz, and we'll set
up a relay so that you can keep in touch with each other. And one more thing,
Mr. Kuryakin.
"I suggest you
begin your search it a village called Noche Triste, on the Navaho Reservation.
It seems hey had a mysterious explosion a mile from the village. Large hole in
the ground, considerable noise, and a very high radiation count."
"Nuclear
radiation?" Solo said.
"Very,"
Waverly said. "The Navaho medicine man attributed it to the indigestion of
some god. But I think that an unlikely explanation."
"I tend to
agree with you, sir," Illya said.
The two agents left
their chief staring into space, already concerned with some other problem that
had been placed in the hands of U.N.C.L.E.
They dressed and
armed themselves. Solo dressed in a well-cut suit; he would go to Elk River as
Mr. Roger Raille of the United States State Department, a cover already
prepared by Washington.
Illya wore old
clothes. Black, fit for hot work in the deserts of New Mexico. Both carried
small briefcases, Illya's containing a specially sensitive miniature Geiger
counter, which fitted his role as a uranium prospector.
Their jets left at
the same time from Idlewild, but they slipped out of U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters
separately. It was a sensible precaution.
FOUR
NAPOLEON SOLO saw
the two men run for a car that pulled out into the night traffic and followed
Illya's taxi down the East Side street. He ducked into a doorway and took out
the thin ballpoint pen that was not a pen at all but a miniature radio
sender-receiver. The latest U.N.C.L.E. communications improvement, he held it
to his lips and whispered.
"Bubba! This is
Sonny. Mayday. Over. Repeat, Mayday."
The new instrument,
developed by Section-IV, had an increased range of ten miles over the old sets.
Almost instantly, the voice of Illya answered.
"Sonny, Bubba
here."
Solo leaned over the
tiny instrument. His eyes watched the dark street as he talked.
"Bandits on
your trail. Two bandits in a black Mercedes. License begins with XB 12, three
other digits I missed."
There was a silence.
Solo listened intently in his hidden doorway. Then Illya's cool voice came over
the radio again.
"I have them,
just behind me, three cars back. Thanks, Napoleon."
"Be
careful," Solo said into the tiny pencil set.
"Have no fear,
and be careful yourself. I rather doubt our friends came alone."
"Roger,"
Solo said. "Meet at the BOAC information booth. They'll think we're going
abroad."
"Right and out.
I see my friends gaining on me."
In his dark doorway,
Napoleon Solo replaced his radio-pen in his suit pocket. His keen eyes scanned
the empty street. Illya was undoubtedly correct. If they had two men waiting to
trail Illya, they had probably not neglected him. The difference was that he
was warned.
He studied the dark
street intently, noting every detail. He knew every car, every face, every
shadow that moved or lurked on the street. One car, an old Cadillac, caught his
eye. He did not remember seeing the Cadillac before on the street. It appeared empty
and innocent. But Solo saw something else that made him smile to himself.
On the steps of the
brownstone near the old Cadillac he saw a man and a woman. They appeared to be
lovers dallying innocently with each other on the steps, with eyes and thoughts
only for each other. Even as he watched they embraced, and he realized that
they could see him clearly in his doorway.
They were putting on
an act because they saw him watching them—and there was only one way they could
have seen him where he was hidden in the dark shadows of the doorway. Infra-red
glasses, or the infra-red scope-sights of a Thrush rifle! He flattened back
against the wall.
But no shot came.
Either he was wanted alive, or else they were not ready to shoot.
Solo smiled. He
would have to see that they did not get another chance. And if they wanted him
alive, then he wanted them alive. He peered out, carefully. They were still
playing the lovers, the man and woman across the street on the steps.
He stepped out of
his shelter and hurried away down the dark street.
At the corner he
glanced back, so quickly no one could have seen him.
The Cadillac was
moving along behind him.
Still smiling, he
sprinted along the wide avenue he had turned into. The Cadillac came around the
corner behind him, speeded up. He ran across another cross street until he
reached a shabby tavern on the avenue. The Cadillac was close now.
Solo let it come
very close, watching it out of the corner of his eye. Then, as if seeing the
Cadillac and panicking, he looked wildly around, and dashed into the seedy
tavern.
Inside the tavern
the six or seven dilapidated customers at the long bar did not even look up.
They held their drinks in both hands, stared into the depths of the whisky or
at their own faces in the mirror behind the bar. They were long past caring
about anything that moved, cared only for the small glasses of golden liquid in
front of them.
Solo dashed through
the long, dirty room with its gaudy signs that advertised the various beers and
whiskies, and no one noticed—except the bartender and two drunks sitting in a
booth near the door.
The bartender turned
and touched a key on the cash register. Then the bartender reached under the
bar and his hidden hand held a strange-looking pistol that was a twin of the
pistol in Solo's Berns-Martin shoulder holster.
The two drunks in
the booth near the door did not change noticeably, but one of them staggered to
his feet and lurched across to the bar. He leaned there, asking drunkenly for a
drink. The eyes of both drunks seemed lost in some bleary dream world. They were
not. They were alert, watchful, and now there was one flanking each side of the
door.
Solo went through
the room without a glance at anyone, turned once to look back as if in fear.
Then he vanished into the men's room. In the men's room he stepped to a section
of wall and pulled a hook that was fixed on the wall for hanging clothes.
The wall opened, the
mechanism activated by the bartender touching the cash register key out front.
Solo stepped through. The door closed automatically, locked.
Solo stood in a
small room that contained a table and two chairs, a rack of weapons for
emergencies, and a small television set. Solo switched on the television.
Instantly he saw a view of the street in front of the shabby-looking tavern.
The Cadillac was nowhere in sight, but a shadowy figure stood only a few feet
from the door.
Solo smiled. The
missing Cadillac was what he had expected. He pressed a button on the
television set and another picture appeared. Now it was the side street, where
the alley behind the bar came out.
Another shadowy
figure stood there, watching the mouth of the alley.
He switched to the
third camera. The Cadillac was parked in the dark of the next avenue behind the
tavern. Somewhere they had picked up a third or even fourth man, probably
hidden on the floor of the Cadillac all the time.
They had covered all
exits.
Solo grinned to
himself in the hidden room. That anyone trailing an agent would have the sense
to cover all exits was precisely what U.N.C.L E. expected and planned for. This
room, one of the many escape routes involved in perpetual Plan 9, was designed to
enable an agent to evade any shadower.
The routes, the
locations, were changed every few days, of course. Tomorrow this would be only
a tavern again.
Solo switched back
to the camera that covered the front entrance. The shadowy figure out there
suddenly moved, came into the light from the tavern windows. A woman who held a
small, deadly pistol—a woman Solo knew only too well. Maxine Trent!
A Maxine Trent
returned from the dead—but Solo had never believed that the high-ranking Thrush
agent was dead. Maxine was too deadly to die easily. Maxine was no low-rated
assassin. U.N.C.L.E. could use her alive, and now she was walking into the
trap. He quickly switched to the other cameras—they were all closing in on the
tavern.
He pressed a tiny
button on the table. The warning light would flash out front where the
bartender could see it. The rest was in the hands of Section-V, Security and
Personnel. His own orders were standard and strict—the job came first; he had
to make his escape.
In the hidden room
he stepped to a closet, opened it, went in, closed the door and pressed the
switch. The closet began to move downward, a small elevator that stopped at the
sub-basement level. The door opened and Solo stood in a narrow tunnel.
Minutes later he was
four blocks away, out in the night, hailing a taxi.
FIVE
ILLYA KURYAKIN
leaned forward in his taxi and spoke softly to the driver.
"I think we are
being followed, driver. I suggest you attempt to lose them. It is me they want,
but they would be reluctant to leave a witness alive, I'm afraid."
The driver, a small
man, cast a frightened glance behind him at Illya. The small Russian smiled his
most reassuring smile. The driver saw the pistol in the agent's hand and his
eyes bulged. Then the driver faced front, watched his mirror, and began to weave
in and out of the airport-bound traffic.
After ten minutes,
Illya saw that it was no use. The taxi driver was not trained in evading
pursuit. He, Illya, would have to resort to more direct methods. And he would
have to pick his own ground, not their ground. He leaned forward again.
"At the next
street make a left, driver. Drive as fast as you can. We will be on a side
street and they will close in."
The driver nodded,
made the sharp left, barely missing an oncoming car, and drove fast down the
darker side street. Illya looked behind. The black Mercedes was already behind
them and gaining.
Illya narrowed his
eyes and made a rapid mental estimate. He nodded; they would reach the area of
open swamps that bordered Jamaica Bay before the Mercedes could catch them.
It would be close,
but that was just what the blond agent wanted. Close, but not too close. He
clicked his pistol on to bullets, and bent to his small suitcase. He came up
with two tiny round pellets. Then he waited.
The taxi reached the
deserted area of marsh and reeds and dark black water. The road had become a
dirt road. The Mercedes raced closer behind.
"When I give
the signal, slow down. When I'm out, drive away as fast as you can. Go to this
address, and you will be well paid. Report what happened."
The driver nodded
and took the piece of paper Illya gave him with the address of Del Floria's
cleaning shop on it. The taxi drove on into the depths of the marshy shore. The
houses were far behind now; to the left and right deep, wide channels of black
water led in from the open bay.
The Mercedes was
less than fifty yards behind and coming fast.
Illya leaned out the
window and tossed both small round pellets onto the road behind the taxi. Two
dense clouds of white smoke erupted in the night. In an instant the Mercedes
vanished from sight behind the clouds of smoke that merged and covered the
road.
"Now!"
Illya hissed.
The driver braked,
skidded, slowed. Illya opened the door and jumped out. He hit, fell, rolled,
and came up on his feet with his U.N.C.L.E. special in one hand and the small
suitcase in the other. The taxi roared off into the night.
Illya crouched at
the side of the road, his U.N.C.L.E. special ready and pointed at the cloud of
smoke. The Mercedes should come through any second, burst out of the smoke,
eager, unaware, and partly blinded.
The Mercedes did not
come.
Illya waited,
watched.
The Mercedes did not
come. There was no more sound of its powerful engine.
Illya waited no
longer. The trick had not worked. He did not hesitate another second. He turned
and ran away from the road toward the marshes and the black channel of foul
water that led in from the bay.
He moved not a
second too soon.
As he ran, a man
came through the smoke, his strange rifle held ready, its infra-red scope bulky
above the barrel. A second man came from around the right side of the
dissipating smoke cloud.
Both men wore
grotesque gas masks, the large round eyepieces making them look like monsters
risen from the swampy land itself.
The third man
appeared almost directly in Illya's path around the left side of the thinning
smoke. This man also wore a gas mask and carried the ugly Thrush rifle.
The two men Napoleon
Solo had seen, and a driver.
Illya and the Thrush
killer saw each other at the same instant. Illya was quicker. He fired a single
shot. The Thrush agent sprawled backwards in the mud and lay still. Behind
Illya, the other two Thrush men began to run toward him. They fired as they came.
Illya raced away across
the marsh, his feet sinking to the ankles, his face slashed by the tall reeds.
He found a narrow ditch, half-filled with water, and jumped into it. Behind him
the two Thrush men closed in. He raised his U.N.C.L.E. special and laid down a
withering fire.
The two Thrush
agents vanished.
Illya crouched low
in the ditch and waited again. His keen eyes glanced carefully around. The
ditch stretched straight in both directions and he was surrounded by the tall,
dry reeds. They could not come on him by surprise through the ditch, and if
they came through the reeds he would hear.
But they had no
intention of moving in.
First he heard the
crackling, like the snapping of many small sticks.
Then he smelled the
smoke. The flames licked upward in the night. They had set the reeds afire.
Instantly, with some chemical—a favorite weapon of Thrush.
Illya tested the
wind. It blew not strong but directly toward him. He stood. The now high wall
of flame, roaring toward him with incredible speed as the dry reeds burned, hid
him from the two killers. He looked all around.
They had set the
fire well, probably with bombs. There was no escape right or left.
Behind him was the
deep black water of the channel from the sea.
He could swim it
with ease, but he would be a perfect target when the fire burned out, and that
would be within minutes. He had no time to think of any plan but one.
He bent to his small
suitcase, jerked it open, and pulled out a small, flat package.
The flames rose
higher in the night. The heat was intense, growing hotter.
He tore open the
small package and unfolded a long thin sheetlike cloth cover. He crouched down
in the water at the bottom of the ditch, and covered himself with the thin,
shining cloth. The ends of the cloth dipped into the water. Under it, his head
above the surface of water in the small space beneath the cloth where there was
air, he waited.
The sound of the
fire roared in his ears. The thin cover blew in the wind made by the intense
heat. He held it down and crouched, the heat stifling, like an oven. He could
see the shadows of the flames above through the thin cloth—sheets of flame that
leaped across the narrow ditch, roasting, charring everything in their path.
But the special
fire-proof and heat-proof cloth did not fail. Slowly, above him, the flames
vanished, passed on. Wind died, the crackling stopped.
Quickly he threw off
the cloth and flattened up against the wall of the small ditch. They would not
be far behind their fire. Already the flames were almost gone, burned out at
the edge of the black channel of water.
Footsteps coming
steadily.
They reached the
ditch and looked down, looked for his dead and charred body.
Illya shot them both
before they could speak a single word.
They tumbled into
the ditch.
In the distance he
heard the sirens approaching. Someone had reported the fire. He jumped from the
ditch and ran back to the road. The Mercedes stood abandoned on the road. He
ran to it. The keys were still there. He jumped in and drove off toward Idlewild.
The fire engines and
police cars were in sight, but he had no time to waste. Thrush was very anxious
that no one reach New Mexico or Elk River.
* * *
IN FRONT of the
shabby tavern on the avenue near U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, Maxine Trent studied
the entrance. Her men at the side and rear reported that no one had left the
tavern. And yet she knew Solo would not have waited this long. Her beautiful
face was thoughtful. She reached into her handbag and took out a compact. She
pressed a button on the compact.
"Trent
ordering. Make your attack."
She clicked off her
transmitter and slid back into the shadows of the avenue. She waited. A minute
passed, two minutes. Then there were four shots. And silence. The shots had
come from the alley behind the tavern. She clocked on her transmitter compact.
"Trent
ordering. Report!"
She waited. There
was no response. Inside the shabby tavern all was quiet, normal. She began to
smile. A trap, of course. One of good old U.N.C.L.E.'s Plan 9 fronts. She
turned quickly and walked away down the avenue. She glanced behind her and saw
the bartender of the seedy tavern standing out in front.
She smiled again,
laughed a harsh, cold laugh. Well, two men lost, but you had to break eggs to
make an omelet. They had been lousy men anyway. And she had located an
U.N.C.L.E. front, not that it would still be there tomorrow. But it caused
U.N.C.L.E. trouble, and that was both her job and a pleasure.
Solo would not trap
her so easily any more. She had many a score to settle with the handsome
U.N.C.L.E. agent. It was unfortunate that he was what he was; she rather liked
him, he was so very handsome and virile.
Maxine sighed. It
would have been so good to have him make love to her. It was really too bad he
would have to die sooner or later.
She continued to
walk, smiling at the way she had guessed the trap. She had missed Solo again,
but one had to lose some battles. It was the war that counted, and she would
win the war. She was quite sure of that. She, and Thrush, would win because
U.N.C.L.E., for all its skill and power, still worked with principles of right
and wrong, and for Thrush only victory was right. Right and wrong did not
exist, only winners and losers, and Maxine was going to be a winner.
She found a
drugstore open and stepped into the telephone booth.
"Yes?" a
deep, cold voice said.
"Number four,
Row sixteen, Circle three and come in on forty-two," Maxine said crisply.
"Your report,
Agent four sixteen dash three forty-two. Name?" the deep voice said from
the other end of the line.
"Trent,
Maxine."
"Proceed, Agent
Trent," the deep voice said.
SIX
THE ROOM did not
exist. The building was on Park Avenue in the upper Sixties, a modern office
complex of steel and glass where giants of industry sat in their suites and
conducted the business of the nation. In this suite, there were six rooms, only
five visible, only five listed on the floor plan. The sixth room did not exist.
Windowless, without
doors, soundproof, and ventilated only by a secret, totally impregnable,
air-conditioning system, the room was the silent home of a machine. A complex
of metal and wheels and flashing lights—The Ultimate
Computer, the heart
of Thrush. One of the homes of the machine, it remained in no single place for
long.
Now, in the room
with the machine, in a silence of a tomb, three men sat waiting. Soon a fourth
man appeared as if by magic through the wall. This fourth man walked to an
empty seat.
"Trent reports
Napoleon Solo escaped her," the man said. "Our men sent after Illya
Kuryakin have also failed. Both Solo and Kuryakin were seen meeting at the BOAC
booth at Idlewild."
"They are not
going overseas," the man at the head of the table said. This man was a
well-known businessman, and the suite of offices nestled around the hidden room
was his. He was also "C" of the Council of Thrush.
"No," a
tall, gaunt man said. "They are not going overseas. What does the computer
say?"
The fourth man, the
one who had entered last, and who was Council Member C's assistant, spoke
deferentially to the tall, gaunt man.
"The computer
reports, Council Member L, that on the basis of Diaz's death Alexander Waverly
will connect Elk River and New Mexico. It says, further, that Waverly will not
guess the exact nature of the New Mexico project until he learns more details
of the explosion. "
There was a hollow
laugh from a small, fat man who was the last man in this hidden room. "Do
we need a machine to tell us those things? I am surprised."
"The machine
makes us certain, Dr. Guerre," the tall, gaunt Council Member L said.
"Go on with your report."
"The computer
says that Waverly will send Solo to Elk River, and Kuryakin to New Mexico. Our
field agents have already been alerted. The computer further says that Solo
cannot discover what he wants at Elk River, but that Kuryakin might discover
the New Mexico operation."
"Good,"
Council Member C said. "Then we must concentrate on the death of Kuryakin
at once. Solo can wait."
"Kill them both
at once," Dr. Guerre, the small, fat man said. "That is the only safe
way. The devil with your computer! I must have no interference. I am in the
crucial stage of the project at the island. I must get back, and I want them dead!"
"They will die,
Dr. Guerre, but it is efficient to kill the more dangerous first," Council
Member C said.
"The devil with
your efficiency!" Guerre roared. For such a small man, his voice had the
power of a giant. "Diaz almost fooled you and ruined the whole work, the
most important work we have ever done! With Operation Condor we will have all
the world begging to be ruled by us!"
Council Member C
smiled. "Almost, Doctor, but not quite. He fooled our people at Elk River,
but he did not fool the computer."
"Luck! Even
your computer would have been too late if Diaz had not been unaware of the side
effects of the stabilizer drug! How did he worm his way into our
confidence?"
"That error has
been eliminated. Dr. Guerre."
"I hope so.
Those men will be out of the side effects today; we must be sure they are
reliable. I must get back to the island."
Council Member C
smiled. "They could not betray us and live if they wanted to."
"Then let us
hope they do not want to betray us," Dr. Guerre said. "We need them.
In Condor, the men are almost as important as the machines."
The gaunt Council
Member L looked coldly at Dr. Guerre. "I have guaranteed that Thrush
Council will give you complete security and material, I guarantee success. Do
not insult me with your doubts. But I agree on one point: we must get back. I
will be missed."
"Then I suggest
we start work," Council Member C said.
The tall man
bristled. "You suggest? You? May I remind you that this is my project,
Council Member?"
"Of course.
Council Member. I merely meant my part., the defeat of U.N.C.L.E. here in the
American phase."
"Very
well," the tall Council Member L said. "As long as it is understood
that Condor is my project."
T here was a low
chuckle. They all turned to look at the small, fat Dr. Guerre. His benign,
almost jolly, face beamed around the silent and secret room.
"No, gentlemen,
it is my project. Condor is mine, the child of my
brain. Thrush may rule the world— I care nothing of that—but it will be my
brain that brought it to pass!"
And the fat little
man beamed like some rotund and too friendly small-town businessman.
A round little
cherub smiling innocently at the stern faces around him.
ACT II: WHIZZ-BANG IN THE NIGHT
NAPOLEON SOLO
presented his credentials at the reception desk of the Elk River Project. The
pretty young receptionist checked his identity picture against his face. She
saw a boyishly handsome young man with a small black mustache and horn-rimmed
glasses.
The boyish face
smiled at her. It was not an innocent smile. The pretty receptionist blushed
and passed him on.
Solo grinned to
himself and looked back. The girl, who had been watching him walk away, blushed
again. Solo filed her face, and the name on her desk, Miss Rogers, for possible
future reference. Perhaps this would not be quite as dull an assignment as Alexander
Waverly had suggested.
Still thinking about
the possibilities of the nubile Miss Rogers, Solo entered the office of Elk
River Security Officer Max Smart. The security officer was a husky six-footer,
and he was not pleased to see Solo. Smart had been expecting the U.N.C.L.E. agent,
but he did not know who Solo was, or that he was Solo. Smart thought he was
talking to Roger Raille, representative of the State Department.
"Damned if I
know what State wants here, Raille," the husky security officer said.
"But you might as well sit down."
"Thank
you," Solo said.
Smart chewed on a
cold cigar. "I mean, damn it, we've got a smooth operation here, strictly
Space and Pentagon. I don't like other departments poking in."
"I just follow
orders, Mr. Smart," Solo said.
"Meaning that I
should do that, too?"
"It seems a
reasonable suggestion," Solo said.
"Don't get too
wise with me, Raille," Smart snapped.
Solo smiled.
"The State Department never gets wise, Mr. Smart. "
"Major, Raille!
Major Smart to you," the security officer said. Smart chewed on his soggy
cigar. "I might as well get it over and get rid of you. You want to know
about Caslow and Wozlak, right?"
"Right,"
Solo said.
Smart swiveled in
his chair. "Okay, here it is. Captain Caslow and Lieutenant Commander
Wozlak are two of our test pilots, experimental rocket craft, and that's all
you get to know. Top secret. About two weeks ago they came down with this
illness. They couldn't talk, make any sound, and they couldn't write. The docs
were baffled, and that's it."
Major Smart looked
at Solo as if he was more than pleased to be able to tell him so little. Solo
sighed inside. The problems of inter-service rivalry had caused him trouble
before. Sometimes it seemed that professional servicemen spent a lot more time
trying to beat their rivals instead of the enemy.
"The doctors
had no bright ideas?" Solo asked.
"Some,"
Smart said. "Some effect of cosmic radiation, possibly. Perhaps an effect
of the high speed, much faster than any other craft ever flew. Glandular
disturbances affecting that area of the brain. Some combination of, say,
radiation that high up plus the speed. They had a hundred guesses."
"With, I
gather, no results?" Solo said.
"Not so as you
could notice," Smart said.
"Any ideas of
your own?"
The major shook his
head. "No, except that we just don't know everything that can happen at
high speed up that high. Anyway, they're okay now, so no sweat."
Solo narrowed his
sharp eyes. "They're well again? They can talk, write?"
"Good as
new," Smart said. "They go back to work in a week."
"I think I
better talk to them," Solo said.
"I've told you
all there is."
"Orders,
remember?" Solo said. The security officer glared at Solo. The U.N.C.L.E.
agent smiled benignly. Finally, Major Smart shrugged, sighed, and pressed a
button on his desk. A white-helmeted MP appeared.
"Take Mr.
Raille to the infirmary. He's to talk with Caslow and Wozlak. Ten minutes, no
more. See to it, Sergeant."
"Yes,
sir," the MP sergeant said. And to Solo, "This way, sir."
Solo nodded to Major
Smart. "It's been fun."
The Security Officer
only glared at him. Solo grinned as he followed the MP sergeant. They went down
bright corridors until they reached the door marked Infirmary.
Solo was taken by a white-coated Army doctor into the private room of Caslow
and Wozlak.
"Amazing
timing," the doctor said as he ushered Solo into the private room.
"Absolutely no explanation that we could find. Oh, we know it was
something that affected only that particular part of the brain—the speech and
language part—but we can't get a clue as to why. "
But Solo was not
listening to the doctor. He was looking at the two men who sat on their
separate beds, their eyes on him. They were dressed in the usual Army hospital
bathrobes, but it was not their dress that made him look at them so hard. It
was their eyes—they were wary, a little afraid of him.
The doctor
introduced them, and Solo waited until he left the room. Then he turned to the
two men.
"What can you
tell me?" Solo said.
Wozlak shrugged.
"Nothing. All we know is that we woke up about two weeks ago and we
couldn't speak or write, not even our names. Last night it went away. You tell
me."
"You must have
some idea," Solo insisted. "Something that happened that was unusual."
"Not a
clue," Caslow said. "Nothing happened at all."
They were lying.
Solo sensed this. He could not say just why he knew it, or what the lie was,
but he felt that they were lying.
"Nothing at all
unusual happened?"
"No," they
said in unison.
"What do you
know about a man named Diaz?" Solo snapped.
It was Caslow who
blinked. Solo watched him. There was no doubt, the name had meant something to
Caslow. Wozlak covered for both of them.
"Diaz? Nothing,
I don't know any Diaz. And that's all we can tell you, Mr. Raille."
"I see,"
Solo said. "You're sure about that?"
"We're
sure," Wozlak said.
Solo nodded.
"All right, I'll just have to report a blank to the State
Department."
He was sure Wozlak
smiled. "I guess you will. Anyway, it's over now. We're okay."
"Nice and
safe," Solo said. Wozlak nodded as he looked straight at Napoleon Solo.
Caslow licked his lips. The Army man was nervous. But Wozlak did not flinch.
"Safe as we can
be," Wozlak said.
Outside in the
corridor, Solo stopped to think. The MP sergeant was down at the end of the
corridor, talking to a pretty nurse. Solo was about to go and remind the
sergeant of his duty, when he heard the noise.
He snapped alert.
A low, hissing
sound.
Without moving, or
showing that he had heard it, he let his eyes search the bare corridor for the
sound.
It came again,
"Psssst!"
Just behind him Solo
saw a door open a crack. His hand stole under his jacket for his U.N.C.L.E.
special. There was a face at the small opening in the door.
"Psssst! In here!"
The voice whispered
low. Solo glanced down the corridor. The MP was still in deep conversation with
the pretty nurse. The rest of the corridor was empty. His hand on his pistol,
Solo stepped to the door and entered.
He stood in a small
storeroom. The voice that had hissed at him belonged to a woman. A girl—
really, a very pretty girl. He had momentary hopes that it was him she wanted,
for himself. But the girl had something else on her mind.
"You're not
from the State Department," the girl said.
Solo clicked off the
safety on his Special. The girl was quite young and very pretty. She wore a
white smock, and her hair was dark red. Her green eyes were staring up at him.
"Why do you say
that?" Solo asked.
"I know you
have a gun under your coat, and you don't act like a State Department
man," the girl said. "Besides, you asked questions about Diaz. I'm
Penny Parsons—Penelope, but I hate the name."
"And just what
do you do here, Penny?"
"In the lab,
research assistant. I'm terribly bright, you know. Magna cum laude from Cal
Tech."
"Good for
you," Solo said. "Now what about Diaz?"
"He vanished. I
don't know why, but I do know he was working on a case for someone. He asked me
a lot of questions," the girl said.
"Why you?"
"I'm Mark
Caslow's girl, or I was," Penny said. "It was a secret. The powers
around here don't like romance among the minions."
"What did you
tell Diaz?" Solo said slowly.
"That they are
lying," Penny Parsons said eagerly. "Mark and that Wozlak are lying
in their teeth. A lot has been happening that's not usual. On half their
flights they stay away hours too long. They always report that they had some
troubles with the new engines up there, but Mark got drunk one night and let it
slip. They've been landing somewhere. In New Mexico, I think."
"New
Mexico?"
"They can fly
there in minutes," Penny said.
"How long has
this been going on?"
"Off and on
since they got back from vacation six months ago."
Solo released his
hold on his pistol in the holster under his coat. "Vacation? They went on
vacation six months ago?"
"And they were
overdue on their test flights by four hours the day they turned up
unspeaking!"
"Where did they
take their vacations?"
The girl looked
around, whispered. "In Santa Fe. At least they said it was Santa Fe, but
they weren't there! I went to surprise Mark. I never told him. They checked
into a motel at Santa Fe, but then they vanished."
Solo closed the door
of the storeroom. He stepped closer to the girl. Her eyes were bright and eager
as she began to whisper her whole story again.
TWO
ILLYA HAD almost
reached Noche Triste when the car had the flat lire. He had landed at Santa Fe
and hired the car at once. He told the car-rental people he was looking for
uranium, and he drove out toward the Navaho Reservation, and the flat tire was
actually a blowout. He fought the skid of the car to a halt.
He stood beside the
car on the deserted highway. As far as he could see in the hot sun there was
nothing but barren sandhills and cactus. A dry and desolate country fit only
for lizards. He looked down at the blown tire. Then he went to the trunk to get
his tools and the spare. The blowout would hold him up at least fifteen
minutes.
He saw the cause of
the blow-out. A large two-by-four studded with nails was lying on the highway.
Illya took his tools
and spare tire from the trunk, setting to work on his blown tire, but his eyes
beneath his lowered brow searched the countryside near the road. The
two-by-four could be an accident, or it could be a trap. The board was at least
six feet long, studded with nails all around. Nothing could have passed over it
without a blowout, yet his car was the only stalled vehicle.
It could have been
dropped, accidentally, of course, only a short time ago, and traffic was light
on this highway. Not another car had passed since the blowout. But it could
also have been placed in the road purposely to stop him. He was still puzzling
this out, and working on his tire, when it happened.
At first it was only
a low rumble, a rumble and a whine, distant and off to the north.
Illya glanced up.
There was a line of low brown mountains off to the north. The sound was behind
them, growing louder. Growing rapidly louder.
Incredibly louder—a
roar and a screaming whine—the road began to shake. His car began to shake: he
felt the ground tremble.
A fantastic noise,
roaring and whining, growing louder and louder.
Illya Kuryakin fell
flat to the ground.
It appeared over the
crest of the low brown mountains two miles away. The noise of its roar was
impossible, it was so loud.
It flashed over.
Was gone.
Illya whirled to see
it vanish, climbing high into the glazing hot blue sky.
Illya stood up and
stared after it. A long black cylinder, with stubby wings and glowing a dull
red. Without markings or identification of any kind.
He turned and stared
out across the arid land to the line of low brown hills. It had come from
behind there. And then, even as he watched, it appeared again. Miles away it
went past at its incredible speed, vanished behind the low hills, and there was
silence.
It had landed.
Somewhere out there behind those hills. Illya completed changing his tire, put
away his tools, and drove the car off the road. Then he stopped, gathered up
his kit and the small suitcase, and started to walk out across the dry land
toward the distant hills.
* * *
NAPOLEON SOLO faced
the sweating Army man. Caslow looked from Solo to the eager face of Penny
Parsons. The Army man looked past them both to the locked door as if hoping for
help, for a miracle.
"You might as
well tell us," Solo said. "Something happened on that last
flight."
"No!"
Caslow cried.
The trapped captain
still looked toward the door as though he expected someone or something to come
through its solid steel. With the help of Penny Parsons, in whom he had
confided, Solo had managed to get Caslow alone, away from Wozlak. Now the Army
captain sweated.
"You've been
making flights to somewhere," Solo insisted. "After your vacation you
started staying out too long on your test flights, both you and Wozlak."
"We've had
trouble with the ships!"
"No one else
has had that trouble. I've checked the flight reports," Solo said.
"So we got two
bad ships!"
"Both of you?
And then you coincidentally come down with a strange disease?"
Penny Parsons burst
out. "Tell him, Mark! I know you're in some trouble. It's that Wozlak, he
put you into trouble—I knew he would."
"Shut up,
Penny!"
The Army man was
deadly pale. "You've got to tell Mr. Solo. He can—" the girl began.
Caslow turned even
whiter. "Mr.—who?"
"Solo,"
the agent said. "My real name is Napoleon Solo, and I work for the same
people Diaz did."
"Diaz?"
Caslow almost whispered. "No."
"You know what
happened to him, don't you, Caslow?"
But Caslow did not
seem to hear. He was staring into space.
"U.N.C.L.E.!
You're with U.N.C.L.E.," Caslow whispered.
"Tell me what
happened to Diaz, and what you're mixed up in! We know, Caslow. We'll find out
what it is," Solo said.
"No more,"
Caslow whispered. "Don't ask any more!"
Penny Parsons
insisted. "Please, Mark, tell Mr. Solo!"
"No more! You
don't understand! No more!"
Solo leaned close to
the sweating officer. His handsome face was grim as he stared into Caslow's
eyes. His voice was low and insistent.
"We'll have to
turn you over to the CIA. You realize that? You might as well tell us. If you
don't I'll have to take you back to New York. We'll use pentathol, and—"
Complete terror
filled the eyes of the Army man. He seemed to be in the grip of a titanic
struggle. Then he went limp.
"All
right," Caslow said. "I'll tell you what you want to know."
There was a small,
sharp explosion. A tiny puff of smoke appeared over Caslow's heart. The army
man screamed once and fell off his chair to the floor. There was blood. Penny
Parsons stared in horror and then uttered a small cry.
Solo bent over the
man. Caslow was dead. Solo opened the uniform coat, looked.
"Thrush. It's
their trick," Solo said. "A lethal charge inserted under the skin
over the heart. It must have been programmed into his blood pressure."
Penny Parsons
stammered. "Blood pressure? Programmed?"
Solo nodded.
"Probably works like a lie-detector. Set to explode when a change in blood
pressure indicates a man under interrogation cracks, decides to talk. The blood
pressure would show that. Typical Thrush tactics. I should have guessed."
"Who is
Thrush?" Penny asked.
"It's better
that you don't know, Penny," Solo said. He looked down at the dead Caslow.
He felt sorry for the man, it was a hard way to go. Still, there was no doubt
that Caslow and Wozlak were somehow involved with Thrush. "What you don't
know can't get you to end up like this."
"But I do
know," Penny said, "Don't I? I mean, I know about Mark and that awful
Wozlak, and I know about you, and—"
"I get the
point," Solo said. "All right. It's possible we could use you anyway.
Let's go, before Major Smart gets smart and starts looking for Caslow. I don't
think the major would care for our explanation of how Caslow died."
"Go? Go
where?" the lab girl said.
"Why, New
Mexico, of course. I imagine we'll find our friend Wozlak there
somewhere," Solo said.
"But I can't
get time off to—"
"That will be
arranged, Penny," Solo said. "New Mexico is the next piece of the
puzzle. I think we will find more than our friend Wozlak —a lot more."
THREE
THE LINE of low
brown hills was farther away than Illya Kuryakin had imagined. All afternoon,
through the blazing sun and heat of the barren New Mexico land, he had walked
toward them. Land fit only to be given to the sad remnants of a proud people.
As he walked in the
heat Illya wondered again at the hypocrisy of those who were shocked by Siberia
but blind to the equal horror visited upon the Indians. At least, in Siberia,
the condemned sometimes got their release.
It was night when
Illya at last reached the line of low hills. Moving carefully, he made his way
up in the dark of the desert night. He reached the crest without seeing or
hearing anything. He crawled the last few feet and looked over and out.
He saw a long,
narrow valley, dark and indistinct in the night. Apparently, it was barren and
empty. And yet there was something odd. Nothing moved; there was no ray of
light. Yet Illya had the feeling that something, someone, was down there. He
opened his small suitcase and took out a pair of infra-red binoculars.
Through the glasses
the details were clearer in the night. There was nothing he could put his
finger on, but he still sensed that something was odd down there. He watched
for some hours, but there was neither light nor movement anywhere in the long,
narrow valley below. There seemed to be no defenses of any kind.
Could he be wrong?
He remembered the nail-studded two-by-four on the highway. Had they set a trap
to divert him, send him on a wild goose chase? It was possible, yet he did not
think so. Somewhere down there was the strange black craft that flew so fast it
glowed red.
At midnight, Illya
Kuryakin decided there was nothing more he could do until dawn. He needed
sleep. He found a small, but deep culvert on the other side of the hills, and
crawled in. He checked all approaches, set out four tiny alarm cells so that no
one could approach without warning, and then lay down to sleep because it would
be a long day tomorrow and he needed all his strength.
* * *
IN THE telephone
booth at the Elk River airport, Maxine Trent looked out through the glass sides
at a twin-engine plane taxiing down the runway. The deep voice at the other end
of the telephone line was concerned.
"Solo is
leaving Elk River? Why? He could not have found anything, at least not so
quickly. The computer said U.N.C.L.E. could learn nothing at all from Wozlak or
Caslow."
"Did the
computer know about the girl?" Maxine said into the black instrument, her
eyes still following the small plane on the runway.
"Girl? What
girl?"
"Caslow's girl
friend, a Penny Parsons," Maxine said. "Now Caslow's dead, and Solo
and the girl are flying out to New Mexico."
The deep voice
swore. "Caslow's dead?"
"The programmed
destruct device worked. He was about to talk," Maxine reported. "It
seems he neglected to tell us that he had a girlfriend, and our agents failed
to detect her."
"Someone will
pay!" the deep voice snarled. "And Wozlak? What about him?"
"Escaped to New
Mexico. With Solo on to Caslow, Wozlak was no more use here," Maxine said.
The voice cursed
again. "Follow Napoleon Solo, alert our people at Noche Triste. The
computer did not know about the girl."
"That's the
trouble with machines," Maxine said. "They can't think."
"Let us see
that you can, Agent Trent," the deep voice said. "Solo and the girl
must be eliminated!"
"A
pleasure," Maxine said, as she watched the small twin-engined plane take
off.
Moments later she
hung up and walked quickly to a second plane that waited on the runway.
* * *
ILLYA KURYAKIN
awakened at the first light of dawn over the barren desert land of the Navaho
Reservation. His hand on his U.N.C.L.E. special, he peered cautiously out of
the culvert. There was nothing in sight. High up a golden eagle soared looking
for food. The giant bird sailed high and undisturbed. Illya left his culvert,
retrieved his four tiny warning cells, and began to crawl up to where he could
look down into the long valley.
Nothing had changed.
The long, narrow valley between the brown hills was as empty as ever. Nothing
but rocks and dry ground, cactus and stunted trees gasping for life in the arid
land. And yet . . .
Illya trained his
binoculars on the bottom of the valley. Something was very peculiar. He studied
the hills, and the distant ends of the valley.
Then he started his
binoculars at the tops of the hills across the valley and worked slowly down to
the bottom.
And he saw it.
The contour was
wrong! The valley was too shallow!
The natural fall of
the land should have made the valley deeper, narrower at the bottom. Now,
studying the terrain carefully and knowing what he looked for, Illya saw the
places where boulders seemed to suddenly bend in the middle and become flat,
where trees on the slopes of the hills were too short. Camouflage!
Almost perfect, it
was. From the air it would have been totally impossible to see. Even as close
as he was he could not be absolutely certain. The entire bottom of the long
valley was camouflage, and beneath the false bottom—?
Carefully, carrying
his equipment, Illya began to work his way down toward the bottom of the
valley. It was hard going, steep, and he noticed, now that he was farther down
the side of the hill, the wide perimeter of completely open space, a wide lane,
just before the apparent bottom of the valley.
Illya studied the
situation from beneath his lowered brow. The sun was coming up over the rim of
the hills and there was not much time. He searched for a better approach route
to the bottom of the valley. There seemed to be no way. He would have to chance
crossing the open area.
He crouched very low
in the dawn light and stepped out from behind a boulder to start across the
cleared area. He took two steps and stopped again, crouched like a small animal
in the dawn. His eyes stared at a tiny projection in the ground.
He looked left and right.
Caught by the first slanting rays of sun, the tiny projections stood a quarter
of an inch out of the ground in a long and endless row all the way in either
direction.
Illya studied the
tiny projections. Mines? He reached into his small suitcase, laid carefully on
the hard earth, and brought out his small explosives detector. He placed it
beside the miniature projection in front of him. The detector did not register.
The projection was not a mine.
He returned the
explosives detector to his suitcase, and took out the flat, miniature
electronic activator. He set the miniaturized instrument on detect and placed
it next in the projection. The dial registered immediately. The small metal
projections were the sensors of an alarm system.
Smiling grimly to
himself, Illya returned his equipment to the briefcase, and crawled slowly
backward until he was again in the shelter of the boulder. He crouched again
and studied the terrain right and left. He could risk crossing the open space,
but he could not risk triggering an electronic alarm system. There had to be
another way down.
Carrying his
equipment, Illya began to circle the area slowly, keeping out of sight above
the cleared sector. He moved quickly and silently. At last he found what he
wanted.
A natural gully-like
arroyo cut into the side of the mountain and led all the way to the bottom.
There was cover from view all the way. There would be the electronic sensors,
but out of sight he could move slowly enough to avoid them. He smiled his quizzical
smile—no system was perfect.
He moved down the
arroyo, his eyes on the ground. He stepped carefully and lightly, avoiding the
electronic sensors that stuck up from the ground almost invisible. He had moved
halfway down to where a yawning shadow ahead showed where the space opened beneath
the camouflage when he heard the noise.
He jumped.
His eyes on the
yawning black opening ahead, aware of the alarm sensors, and yet hearing the
noise of footsteps approaching, Illya leaped to a small boulder where there
would be no sensors. On the boulder he saw an open space behind it, flat and
smooth and hidden. He jumped down.
His feet struck—and
sank.
In an instant he was
up to his knees, halfway up to his waist from the force of his leap. His legs
were under the smooth surface, held, immobile.
Quicksand.
Calmly, he laid his
flat suitcase on the smooth surface and pressed against it to raise himself.
Nothing happened.
The suitcase pressed
into the soft surface, but his legs did not budge. And slowly, very slowly, he
was sinking. He tried to raise each leg separately. He could do nothing. He
stopped struggling. The less he moved the slower he would sink. But he sank. Very
slowly, almost imperceptibly, but he sank.
He heard a noise and
looked up. A man stood on the rock above him. The man carried an ugly Thrush
rifle.
The man stood there
and looked down at him.
"Good morning,
Mr. Kuryakin," the man said. "Are you comfortable?"
"Quite
comfortable," Illya said.
"Good. Alas,
I'm sorry you cannot swim in that sand, or stand either. Interesting material,
quicksand. Too solid for swimming, too liquid for walking. You will have much
time to consider the error of your associations before you die."
Illya watched the
man. If he could shoot the man now, the man's body could fall across the sand
and give him a hold to pull out on. The man laughed.
"No, don't try
to shoot me. You'd never move fast enough," the man said. "You're a
rather small man. It should take about ten hours to sink all the way. I'll be
back for the final inch."
And the man was
gone.
In the quicksand,
helpless and sinking so slowly, Illya remained icily calm. Movement would only
sink him faster. He knew now that it was all a trap. The entire security set-up
had been designed to force him into the arroyo and, finally, into the quicksand.
And he had followed the path like a stupid mule.
But there was no
time to waste on his own stupidity. They had him, and there was only one way
out. He opened the small suitcase and took out his pencil radio
sender-receiver. He clocked it on.
"Sonny, this is
Bubba. Red alert! I need help! Sonny? Come in, Sonny."
There was silence.
The blazing sun was up above the edge of the arroyo now. As Illya Kuryakin
slowly sank, the sun burned like a red-hot flame against his bare head. He
continued to talk into his miniature radio as he slowly sank deeper and deeper.
Even with the
distance relay, there was no answer from the silent radio. Illya breathed
deeply, the quicksand up to his waist now.
"Sonny, this is
Bubba, come in! Red alert!"
FOUR
NAPOLEON SOLO led
Penny Parsons from the small plane at the Santa Fe airport. He looked up toward
the other small aircraft that was now circling the field. Solo grinned. They
were after him, but they were also telling him that he was getting warm.
"What is that
annoying noise?" Penny said.
The pretty young
scientist was staring at Solo. The noise was coming from his suit-coat pocket.
"What are you,
wired for sound?" Penny said.
Solo took out his
radio and clicked it on.
"Sonny? Relay
from Bubba. Acknowledge."
Solo bent to the
instrument. "Sonny here, relay Bubba."
Illya's voice came
on. A calm voice, yet Solo could hear the tension in the voice of his fellow
agent and best friend. Illya was in deep double. Solo looked around. No one
seemed to be watching.
"Go ahead,
Illya," Solo said. The voice of the small, blond agent had a faint edge.
"I seem to be
in a rather sticky situation, Napoleon," Illya's voice said.
"Literally, I fear. Where are you?"
"Santa
Fe," Solo said. "What's the trouble?"
"Quicksand.
About chest high by now. They led me into it very nicely."
"How long do
you have?"
"Perhaps four
hours, even five. You say you're in Santa Fe?"
"Yes. Where are
you?"
"A few miles
from Noche Triste," Illya said calmly. "That's about two hundred
miles from you."
"I'll get a
helicopter," Solo said. Penny Parsons was staring at the sight of Solo
bent over a shiny pencil and talking. The other small plane had landed and was
taxiing up. Solo watched it from the corner of his eye. Two men had appeared in
the Santa Fe Airport building. They were looking at him and the girl.
"No,"
Illya said. "One look at a helicopter and they would undoubtedly come back
and do the job more quickly. You'll have to drive."
"It'll be
close," Solo said. "I think I have company."
There was a silence
from the other end, the distant spot where
Illya stood up to
his chest and sinking in the blazing sun.
"We'll have to
chance it, and come carefully."
"Roger, right
now," Solo said.
"And
Napoleon," Illya's voice said. "Bring a rope."
There was no more
time. The two men were walking toward Solo and Penny Parsons. Solo clicked off
his set. The other small plane was halted, and Solo saw the woman emerge. He
smiled. Good old Maxine. He gripped the girl's arm. Penny stared at him.
"Now do just as
I tell you," Solo whispered. "We're going on a drive, but first we
have to get rid of some unwelcome friends."
"But I—"
the girl began.
"Just do what I
do," Solo said. Suddenly, his hand on the girl's arm, he began to walk
toward the exit. The two men speeded up to cut him off. Behind him, Maxine and
another man were in the door out to the field itself. Quickly, Solo doubled back
and dragged Penny toward the baggage exit. The two men whirled to follow.
In the doorway to
the field, Maxine sent the man with her to block the baggage exit from outside.
Solo doubled back again and headed for the restroom area, pulling the
protesting girl after him. He was watching his pursuers carefully.
He doubled back
toward the street door once more. As he pulled the girl on this last maneuver,
Maxine and his two other pursuers came after him on courses that converged. He
hurried closer to them until he saw that in a few more steps they would all be
at the same spot.
He dropped the smoke
bomb at the exact spot they hurried toward.
Thick white smoke
billowed up. People began to scream. A wild chaos filled the air terminal
building. Solo gripped the girl and dashed straight through the smoke, exactly
where his pursuers were struggling to break out of the smoke cloud. Maxine was
shouting.
"The other
door! Quickly, you fools!"
Solo and Penny
Parsons brushed right past them in the smoke and emerged on the other side just
at the exit. Solo grinned. He pushed the girl ahead of him through the exit and
out into the driveway area. A taxi stood at the taxi stand. Solo and Penny hurried
toward it.
The fourth pursuer,
the one sent to guard the baggage exit, came running toward the cab, his gun
out, all caution gone now. Solo dropped him with a single shot from his
special, a shot with a sleep dart. Puh! The man fell and skidded four feet.
Solo pushed Penny into the cab and jumped in.
"The nearest
car rental agency, driver," Solo said, his pistol still in his hand.
"I would suggest speed."
The driver needed no
further urging. Maxine Trent and her two henchmen were already coming out of
the terminal building. Solo waved to them as the taxi drove away.
* * *
ILLYA KURYAKIN
watched the sun going down behind the opposite rim of the valley. The quicksand
was up to his armpits now, and in the last hour he had begun to sink faster. He
had been in the sand over twelve hours, and all that had saved him was his suitcase.
Flat, the suitcase
presented a wider surface to the sand. Not enough to pull out against, it sank
much more slowly and by hanging onto it Illya had slowed his descent. But soon
the sand would reach his shoulders, and then his chin, and then—
Moving as slowly as
possible, using one hand, he raised the pencil adio to his lips again.
"Sonny this is
Bubba. How much farther do you have?"
The voice of Solo
came in. "About thirty miles, Illya. We're driving as fast as
possible."
Illya did not
answer. He was saving his strength. Each time his foot moved it sank another
fraction of an inch. He kept hoping to find some bottom. But there was no
bottom. Soon the sand was at his shoulder, then his chin would he readied, and
then . . .
NAPOLEON SOLO saw
the car off the highway in the last rays of the sun. It was Illya's car, there
was no doubt. A typical Thrush mistake, to leave the car. Solo stopped the car
and looked out toward the low line of brown hills. On foot he would never make
it.
"Hang on,
Penny," he said grimly.
The girl blanched.
"You're not! Oh no, the car can't make it!"
"Let's see if
perhaps it can," Solo said, and turned the car off the highway.
He drove in the
purple desert twilight, bumping and lurching across the barren land. Illya had
said there was a tall peak, flat on top, directly behind where he was. Solo
could see it clearly ahead against the purple twilight sky.
* * *
THE SAND reached his
shoulder, flowed up toward his chin. Illya clung to the flat suitcase that was
under the surface of the sand now.
It was dark.
The last purple rays
had gone behind the hills, and now Illya sank alone in the pitch dark. His
light was in his case under the sand. He had long ago dropped his pistol, it
was no use in this battle. Even his pencil radio was gone, slipped into the
sand and vanished.
With no radio he had
lost contact. There was no one now to talk to, to help him remain sane, to keep
up his faint last hopes. Was this, then, the end?
To vanish under a
surface that was neither sand nor water?
Gone, and no trace
to show where he had gone?
* * *
THE CAR gave out at
the base of the first hill, its axle finally breaking under the strain of the
impossible drive. Solo leaped out, took his briefcase and the rope, and
motioned to Penny Parsons to follow him.
Silently they
climbed the low hills. He was directly behind the tall, flat-topped hill, but
he could see nothing in the dark.
He put on his
infra-red goggles, took the girl's hand, and climbed.
At the crest he
looked down at the long valley. The small arroyo was off to the left. Sliding
in the dry dirt, he went down toward the dark arroyo.
He could see
nothing.
Then he saw the
boulder Illya Kuryakin had described. He motioned to the girl to stay where she
was, and moved cautiously toward the boulder. He kept his eyes on the ground,
stepping over the electronic sensors. He reached the boulder and looked down.
A flat, smooth
surface stretched in front of him like a pool of water in the darkness. Then he
saw the black object.
"I would
suggest speed, Napoleon," Illya said.
Solo smiled. The
black object was Illya's head. The sand had just reached the small Russian's
chin. As Solo watched, he saw the pale shape that was Illya's right hand.
"Here comes the
rope," Solo said.
He tossed the rope.
Illya caught it the first time, passed the loop over his hand and into the
crook of his elbow. On the boulder Solo began to pull.
Nothing happened.
"The
boulder," Illya said.
Solo stepped down
carefully, and passed the rope around the boulder. Then he leaned all his
weight against the rope end and dug his feet into the hard dirt.
The rope began to
give. Solo dug in and struggled ahead, the rope over his shoulder. Suddenly it
gave completely and Solo sprawled in the dirt. He jumped up and began pulling
more easily.
"All right,
enough," Illya called from the other side of the boulder. "I'm out;
you'll drag me half over the landscape."
Solo stopped pulling
and jumped up to the top of the boulder.
"Ingrate,"
Solo said, grinning.
Illya, on firm land,
stood up and began to pick the thick quicksand from his clothes.
Then the two men
moved cautiously back up the arroyo to where Penny Parsons waited. The girl
looked nervously around in the dark night.
"Now can we
go?" she asked.
"Not until
dawn," Illya said. "Much too dangerous to try to go down there again
at night."
"You're not
going—" Penny began.
Illya shrugged.
"Of course. I didn't come here for a swim in quicksand. We still have to
find out what there is down there that goes whizz-bang in the night."
Solo handed Illya a
spare U.N.C.L.E. special, and the two agents lay down to sleep and wait for the
dawn. Penny Parsons sat on the ground and stared at them.
FIVE
MOVING CAUTIOUSLY in
the first light of dawn, Illya and Solo reached the yawning black opening
beneath the camouflage. They had left Penny securely hidden in a narrow
culvert. Now they peered into the maw of the real valley floor beneath the
camouflage.
The camouflage
reached from one side of the valley to the other, some hundred yards, and
rested on supports some fifty feet high. Its length was impossible to
estimate—at least two miles along the entire valley floor.
Under the net there
were low, flat buildings that almost reached the camouflage above. The
buildings told them nothing, and there was no one in sight. Illya pointed to
the ground.
"Napoleon,
look!"
Solo looked at the
ground. He whistled low.
The ground was not
ground—it was a smooth cement road. A very wide road, with heavy black marks.
"A
runway," Solo said.
"I think we
have found where our unidentified flying objects come from," Illya said.
He had already described the glowing black craft he had seen fly over him.
"But it's only
two miles long, maybe even less."
"Enough with
booster rockets," Illya said. "Still, it would take very well trained
men to lift off just at the edge there from under the camouflage."
"That's
probably why they need expert rocket pilots."
"What I saw
flew even faster than a normal rocket," Illya said.
Solo rubbed his
chin. "There was radiation around the hole of that explosion. One probably
crashed."
"Nuclear
propulsion!" Illya said. "And no one has managed to use it for
aircraft before."
Solo looked around.
"One thing puzzles me. I can see how they manage to take off, but how do
they land?"
"Let's find
out," Illya said.
The small, blond
Russian led the way in a quick dash across the runway to the first low
building. The two agents peered in at a window.
Inside the building
a horde of black-clad men worked over a long, enormous engine. It was a strange
affair, unlike anything Solo or Illya had ever seen.
The agents continued
on, running crouched from building to building. Inside another building they
saw slabs of black metal-like material glowing in a wind tunnel.
"Heat shield
material. That explains the glow on the black plane," Illya said. "At
that speed, most materials would melt. They seem to have developed
everything."
The third building
proved to be a personnel testing installation. Inside it men were seated in big
pressure chambers; white-coated men worked over them. There were many glass
bottles. As the two agents watched, injections of some pale blue substance were
being administered to a group of men.
Then the three armed
men came around the corner of the building.
"Quick!"
Illya cried.
Solo and Illya ran
to a door in the building. It was open. They dashed inside. At the door they
listened. The footsteps were approaching the door.
"There,"
Solo whispered.
A metal door stood
open to the left down a dark corridor. Illya and Solo ran for it, entered a
large room with benches along the side, and slammed the door shut behind them.
Outside in the corridor the footsteps came closer, passed, and faded away.
"Close,"
Illya said. "Did you see those men being injected, Napoleon?"
Solo nodded.
"Yes, I did. I have a hunch that might explain our 'silent malady'. Some
effect of a special drug."
"You noticed
they were being injected before entering a pressure chamber. I also noticed a
jet sled for speed effect testing," Illya said. He nodded soberly.
"You know, Napoleon, that black ship I saw moved much faster than anything
else I ever heard about. That much speed would have effects on a pilot. I
wonder if they have developed a drug of some kind for that purpose, a drug
which has side effects?"
"Could
be," Solo said. "Let's get out of here and find out."
"An excellent
suggestion," Illya said.
The small, blond
agent walked in the metal door. He turned the handle, but it would not turn.
Illya Kuryakin tried again. Solo watched him. The handle would not turn the
fraction of an inch. Solo started toward the door to help.
Solo rose from the
floor, floated in the air.
Illya, his hand on
the handle of the door, was suddenly above the handle, floating, his body
higher than his hand.
Solo floated up and
crashed into the metal ceiling. The chief agent tried to force himself down
with a lunge. He careened across the room, smashed against a metal wall.
Illya lost his grip
on the door handle and tumbled through the air. The small agent cried out.
"Weightless!
It's a weightlessness test chamber!"
"You're telling
me!" Solo said, floating in the air, smashing against the floor on his
back and bounding up.
"We can't
handle it!" Illya cried.
"Try!"
Solo said.
"It takes
training," Illya said, fighting to remain upright in the air, unable to,
falling over horizontally.
There was a noise,
the sound of metal sliding. The two agents twisted in the air, saw that a metal
panel had slid back to show a thick plate glass window. A man's face watched
them from the other side of the window.
A fat, round face
that smiled benignly at them like a small, pink cherub.
ACT III: ONE EGG IN A CONDOR'S NEST
THE STEEL WALLS of
the room were windowless. The door was barred. Penny Parsons sat and was
afraid.
"They found me
an hour ago. I hoped that you—" she did not finish.
"We'll get you
out, Penny," Solo said.
The barred door
opened. A small, fat man entered with two silent guards dressed in black. The guards
carried Thrush rifles. The small man had the fat, round face that had watched
them through the window of the weightless test room. The fat man beamed at
them.
"I doubt that
you will, Mr. Solo," the fat man said, "but I must say I admire your
ability and resourcefulness. You got so much farther than the computer said you
would. I have little faith in thinking machines. A man is the true thinking machine."
"Meaning
yourself?" Solo said.
The fat little man
laughed. "Well, in all modesty, I think that you will find Dr. Ernesto
Guerre listed among the geniuses, especially after this project is completed. I
imagine Waverly has a fair dossier on me. Too bad it will not help you."
Illya studied the
little man from where he sat. The quizzical eyes of the small Russian were
interested.
"Dr. Ernesto
Guerre," Illya said softly. "I remember. You worked for the Soviet
once. Before that—"
"Before that
for that fool Hitler, yes. They all did not believe I could do it, but I have
done it. And with my brain, not with a computer! I warned them that Diaz was a
bad mistake, but they trusted their Ultimate Computer."
"Diaz found
out?" Illya said.
"He managed to
get past our personnel check and play the part of a rocket pilot," Dr.
Guerre said, and laughed. "Luckily, he did not know about the side effects
of metabala-G. You were quite correct, Mr. Kuryakin, metabala-G is a little development of mine to enable pilots
to stand the speeds of the Q-ninety-nine."
"It affects the
speech and language section of the brain?" Illya said.
"It does. We
are working on it. But, after all, pilots do not need speech," Guerre
said.
"The
Q-ninety-nine is a plane?" Solo said.
Guerre nodded.
"Nuclear propulsion, speeds never dreamed of, unlimited range. They all
said I was crazy."
"Maybe they're
right," Solo said.
Guerre narrowed his
small eyes, but the perpetual benign smile never left his fat face.
"Thrush does not think so, Mr. Solo, and I will give them rule of the
world! They are men of vision! Not like your soft world powers. With my work,
Project Condor will give Thrush complete world domination!"
"Not with a few
aircraft, no matter how fast," Illya said.
"No, but—"
Dr. Guerre started to say, and stopped. The happy- looking little fat man
laughed. "I think I have told you enough. I dislike men to die curious,
but you know enough. Now I think we will find out what you know. Personally, I
would just kill you. Very simple, a bullet in the head. But my Thrush friends
want to pick your brains."
The fat little man
turned and walked out through the door. His place was taken by a smiling Maxine
Trent. The two guards had not moved. Maxine smiled at Solo.
"My poor
Napoleon, caught again. I'm surprised at you, walking right in like this. I
believe you could have escaped after you pulled Kuryakin out of the quicksand.
Our man was very careless there. He's gone."
"Hello,
Maxine," Solo said. "You never give up, do you?"
"For you, my
dear Napoleon? Never. I really have a strong attachment to you. I wouldn't have
anyone kill you except me."
"I'm
touched," Solo said.
"Besides, I owe
you something for that Australian affair. My superiors were most annoyed by
that. I think I'll give them your brain on a platter."
"A modern
Salome," Illya said dryly.
Maxine looked at the
small Russian. Illya grinned at the Thrush agent.
"We won't
neglect you, Kuryakin. Our Russian section is most interested in you,"
Maxine said. "However, I think we'll start with the girl. I want our men
well warmed up by the time they get to Napoleon."
"She doesn't
know anything," Solo said.
Maxine laughed.
"Gallantry, Napoleon? How interesting. But I imagine Miss Parsons knows
more than even she is aware of. Take her out!"
The command was
given to the two black-garbed guards. They led the shivering Penny Parsons out
of the room. With a mocking wave, Maxine followed the guards and the girl.
The room became
silent.
"She doesn't
know anything," Solo said.
"They'll kill
her then," Illya said. "They won't believe her, she was with
us."
"I thought
she'd be safer."
"You were right
as far as it went," Illya said. "After she talked to you, they would
have gone after her anyway. The question now is, what can we do for her?"
"First we
better get out of here," Solo said.
"I agree,"
Illya said. "I'll watch the door."
Illya went to stand
at the small barred window in the door. Solo bent over and examined the cuff of
his trousers. After a few moments he reached down and gently pulled a long
thread out of the trousers. He laid it on the floor in front of him and turned to
the other trouser leg. He pulled out another long thread. He laid this beside
the first long thread.
Then Solo began to
twist the two threads together. He twisted them carefully, leaving the last
inch of each thread spread apart. He ended with a stiff, braided, stringlike
filament about a foot long.
"There are no
guards in the corridor," Illya said from the door. "I wonder
why?"
"We'll probably
find out," Solo said.
Solo was removing
the buttons from his suit coat sleeve. He took the four buttons, and tied them
together in pairs with a third thread from his trousers. He left an inch of
each thread protruding from the button hole. Then he stood up and looked at
Illya.
"Did they leave
you anything?"
Illya shook his
head. The search had been thorough and expert. Neither agent had been left even
his shoes or his belt. Nothing but the clothes they stood in.
"Nothing,"
Illya said. "We're lucky they left you your clothes. Mine were ruined by
the quicksand."
Solo handed Illya
one set of buttons tied into the tiny pairs.
"This will have
to do then," Solo said.
"Ready?"
Illya said. "I don't like there being no guards outside. They feel
secure."
"Well, maybe we
can change that," Solo said, grinning.
Solo picked up the
stiff, braided filament made from the two threads from his trousers and carried
them to the door. He doubled the string over twice, and pressed it against the
door exactly where the lock was on the outside. The string struck there with
self-adhesive.
Then Solo touched
the two separated ends, rubbed them lightly together, and jumped back.
There was a tiny
flash of flame at the ends of the braided threads, and then a blindingly bright
glow. The glow, white hot, lasted a full minute. When the glow faded, there was
a gaping hole in the steel door six inches across where the lock had been.
The door swung open
at a touch from Napoleon Solo.
TWO
THEY SAW a light at
the far end of the long corridor. Solo led the way in the opposite direction.
The corridor ended in a solid wall of rock. They retraced their steps toward
the light at the other end. The walls of the corridor were smooth, unbroken
rock.
"It must be a
cave in the hillside," Illya said.
"Which explains
no guards," Solo said. "Down there is the only way out. That's where
the guards are."
The two agents
reached the end of the corridor. They peered out and saw that the cave opened
into a room. This room was also steel, and two armed guards sat in chairs at a
desk. There were windows in this room with light coming through them from
outside. The windows were barred.
The two guards were
having an argument about the comparative merits of American and South American
women. It was a heated discussion, and they did not hear the faint noise made
by Solo and Illya as the two agents prepared the tiny buttons in their hands.
"Now,"
Illya hissed softly.
Both agents pinched
the inch of thread that protruded from the buttons, and tossed the tiny pellets
out into the room. The guards heard them, turned, their Thrush rifles raised
and pointed. That was the last thing they ever did.
Illya and Solo
dashed back into the corridor and fell flat.
Two shattering
explosions ripped the steel room.
The guards screamed
once and were hurled against the steel walls. The table in the room smashed
into pieces. The chairs hurled into the air.
Illya and Solo
leaped up and ran back into the room. They looked at the dead guards and at
their weapons. Both rifles were twisted shards of metal.
There were no other
guns in the room. The outside door, blown open by the explosions, hung crazily
from shattered hinges.
"No time!"
Illya cried. "We'll have to run for it! No weapons!"
Already voices were
shouting somewhere.
"Let's go!
" Solo cried.
The two agents ran
out of the steel room and into the open area beneath the high camouflage. Alarm
bells had begun to ring. Far off, near the building where they had been caught,
they saw the tiny, fat figure of the cherubic Doctor Guerre. The little round
man was bawling orders.
Black-suited guards
ran all across the area beneath the camouflage.
In the distance
there was a whine, incredibly high, and then the roaring of a motor. The
roaring came closer. Illya pointed far down the runway.
A black craft, long,
tubular and with stubby black wings, hurtled down the runway, a long tail of
vapor jetting out behind.
At this instant, the
agents were seen.
"Get
them!"
From all sides the
black-garbed guards converged toward Illya and Solo—from all sides but one.
No guards came at
them across the runway where the nuclear-powered aircraft was hurtling forward.
"Quick!"
Illya cried.
The small Russian
led Napoleon Solo across the runway directly into the path of the onrushing
nuclear craft. They crossed in front and fell to the ground.
The plane hurled
past them.
The force of its
passage picked them up and threw them across the runway like tumbleweed blown
on a high desert wind. They held their heads in their arms, taking the bruising
buffeting until they at last lay still.
Solo was up first, a
deep gash on his face where a rock had cut.
"Let's
move!" Solo cried.
Illya Kuryakin
staggered up. The small Russian's ear was torn, his face bruised, but there was
no time to assess damage. Black-suited guards were running across the runway
through the cloud of dense vapor left by the nuclear craft that was now
airborne.
"I'm right with
you," Illya shouted.
The passage of the
nuclear craft, and the dense cloud of vapor, had given them a head start and a
clear field ahead. They ran.
When they reached
the edge of the high camouflage, they ran on out into the sunlight and up the
arroyo they had crept down earlier that morning. They did not move carefully
now to avoid the electronic sensors.
Behind them more
alarm bells began to ring as they kicked the sensors.
"The car is on
the other side!" Solo shouted. "If we can reach it."
"If they've
left it!" Illya shouted back. "I suggest we try to lose our friends
first!"
The blazing earth
burned their bare feet cruelly. Behind them the guards were still coming,
threading their way up the arroyo.
Solo and Illya
reached the crest and looked down. Solo's rented car was gone. The two agents
crouched low and looked back. The guards were scrambling up behind them.
Solo went to work
removing four more buttons from his suit coat. He tied them together with the
last explosive threads from his trousers. The four buttons were the last tiny
bombs.
He handed one small
bomb to Illya.
They waited.
The black-suited
guards came closer. They were bunched up, the guards, like amateurs. Far down
at the foot of the arroyo, the fat figure of Dr. Guerre still shouted orders.
The guards reached no more than forty feet from Illya and Solo.
"Now,"
Solo said once more.
The two agents
stood, lobbed the tiny bombs stiff-armed, like hurling grenades. The two tiny
pellets arched through the hot sunlight and fell into the bunched crowd of
pursuing guards.
The explosions shook
the arroyo.
Rocks hurled, and
arms and legs fell mangled across the hot land. There was a silence. Then the
groans began.
They lay all across
the arid and sun-baked dirt. They groaned and screamed in their agony. None had
been left untouched in the first bunched group, and farther down the arroyo the
rest of the guards huddled out of range and stared up at the crest.
Behind them Dr.
Guerre was swearing, urging them on. But the guards were wary now. Two men they
had thought unarmed had proved to have sharp teeth after all.
It was then that the
helicopter appeared.
Over the desert from
the west, flying low and rising up over the crest of the hill. A hand waved
down at Solo and Illya, then the helicopter roared on over and down the hill
toward the packed guards.
A sub-machine gun
began to chatter from the helicopter.
The guards stared.
Two of them fell. The rest broke and ran. They ran down the hill, all the fight
gone out of them by the unexpected danger they had found in two defenseless
enemies.
At the foot of the
arroyo Dr. Guerre rallied his men. Some of them began to take cover and fire at
the helicopter. The helicopter came down on the fiat top on the crest of the
hill. A man leaned out.
"Hurry!"
the man called. "They'll get their guts back soon."
Illya and Solo
needed no urging. They sprinted for the helicopter. Already Guerre had rallied
his men down at the bottom of the arroyo. In a moment, they would be starting
up again.
The two agents
scrambled into the helicopter. At the bottom of the arroyo Dr. Guerre stood and
watched it lift off. Inside, Solo armed himself and handed an U.N.C.L.E.
special to Illya.
"How did you
find us?" Solo said to the pilot.
"Waverly,"
the pilot said. "He had your radio transmissions monitored. When you
didn't report in all day, he alerted us and sent us here."
"It's good to
have a smart chief," Solo said.
"Where to?
Santa Fe?" the pilot said.
"No, not Santa
Fe," Illya said. "Back to the Thrush project after dark. As soon as
it's dark, we have to go back. There's a girl there we have to help."
"Back?"
the pilot said.
"Back,"
Solo said.
"Back,"
the pilot said. "After dark. Where now?"
"Just set it
down near my car," Illya said.
They waited the few
hours before the sun would set again over the baked land of the Navaho
Reservation. Just before the sun was at the crest of the hills on its way down,
as Illya and Solo checked their weapons, the roaring began.
An endless roaring
sound like a thousand engines warming up.
Illya and Solo
looked at each other.
The roaring seemed
to shake the land. It came from behind the line of low hills, down where the
camouflaged valley was.
"I think,"
Illya said, "we will be saved the trouble of going back."
The first black
nuclear craft suddenly appeared in the sky, roared over, glowing red from the
heat of its incredible speed, and was gone.
Six in all screamed
over and vanished into the darkening sky.
The pilot looked
toward the hills through his binoculars.
"Look!" he
cried.
All across the hills
tiny figures were fanning out. Through the binoculars they were seen to be
unarmed and wearing, now, ordinary clothes. They moved quickly down the hills
and out across the desert, going in all directions.
"I have a
hunch," Illya said. "Let's get away from here."
The pilot started
his motors and the helicopter took off into the purple and orange sunset sky.
It turned toward Santa Fe.
Behind the
helicopter the sky suddenly turned a glaring white, and the line of low hills
exploded with one gigantic roar. The helicopter was buffeted by the force of
the wind from the explosion.
"They blew it
up," Solo said.
"Yes,"
Illya said. "And Penny with it."
"Unless they
took her in one of the aircraft," Solo said.
"Let's hope
they took her," Illya said.
Behind them as they
flew on toward Santa Fe, the sky glowed a dull red as the hidden valley burned
in the now dark night.
THREE
ALEXANDER WAVERLY
filled his pipe and looked for a match. His bony fingers searched in the
pockets of his tweed suit. Patched up and with a day of sleep behind them,
Illya and Solo sat at the revolving table. Waverly found his matches.
"Ah,
there," Waverly said. "Well, the Army reports your camouflaged valley
is totally destroyed. No bodies were found, and the radiation count was high. I
think it is clear that our friends have shifted operations."
"They knew we
would bring help," Illya said.
"Quite,"
Waverly said. "They realized their game was up in New Mexico, and
shifted."
"Which leaves
us on a limb," Solo said. "They could have gone anywhere."
"Er, not quite, Mr. Solo," Waverly said.
"You have a
lead," Illya said quickly.
Solo leaned.
"If Penny is still alive we owe her—"
"Indeed we
do," Waverly interrupted. "But let us start with Dr. Ernesto Guerre.
We know a great deal of him, although little about his early life. He was born
in Costa Rica, we know, but little else until he appeared in Nazi Germany
during the war."
Waverly pressed a
buzzer on his desk. The wall behind the desk opened, revealing a screen. A
picture appeared on the screen. Dr. Ernesto Guerre smiled out at them from a
group of men. All the men wore the field grey of the German Army. The cherubic
little fat man seemed ridiculous in the military uniform.
"Colonel Ernest
Guerre," the voice of May Heatherly intoned. Solo pictured the beautiful
redheaded chief of Communications-Research, Section-IV, and sighed. May was so
efficient.
"Guerre headed
a secret project on nuclear development, but the Germans were too far behind at
the time," the pretty girl's voice went on.
Waverly broke in.
"Guerre was considered unstable even by the Nazis—a monomaniac, given to
daring mental leaps but with a tendency to sloppy groundwork. The Soviet
government found the same problems."
The next picture
flashed on. It showed the tiny little fat man wearing a typical ill-fitting
Russian suit and standing before a rocket on a launching pad.
"Dr. Guerre
appeared in the Soviet Union after the war. He again headed up a secret project
on nuclear propulsion. This time he supposedly got some results, but two
engines exploded and killed many technicians and some high-ranking officials.
The project was shelved and Guerre vanished," May Heatherly went on.
"But not
quite," Waverly said.
Now a series of
pictures flashed on and off the screen. They showed a man, in various disguises
and places, who could have been the cherubic little Doctor. None of them was
very clear.
"These were all
taken in various South American cities over the past few years. None of them
prove that Guerre is there, but taken with the rumors, I would say our man had
been working somewhere in South America recently," Waverly said.
"Those
guards!" Solo said. "They were talking about South American
women."
Waverly tapped his
pipe and nodded. "Precisely. That is another clue. But we can do better
than that." '
Another picture
flashed onto the screen. It was hazy and dark, but it showed what both Illya
Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo knew was one of the black nuclear- powered aircraft.
"This was just
radioed to us from Venezuela," Waverly said. "It was taken last night
near the coast. As you can see, the craft is moving more slowly than you
reported, and its wheels are down, hence a landing. It was radioed directly to
us by our Section-II Chief in Caracas. It is top secret."
Solo was studying
the picture. "Most of the background detail is indistinct."
"Yes, the exact
location cannot be guessed," Waverly agreed.
"But surely the
man who took the picture can tell us where he took it," Illya said.
"I'm sure he
can," Waverly said. "But that we will have to learn in Venezuela. Or,
rather, you two will have to learn it. You see, General Hoyos, the defense
minister, insists that he will give the exact location to no one but our
agents. He fears internal troubles if the news leaked out. He has instructed us
not to tell even Washington."
Illya narrowed his
eyes beneath his lowered brow. "Isn't that a bit unusual?"
"It is, but
General Hoyos was adamant. As a matter of fact, he does not wish the Venezuelan
government to officially appear in this at all. You will deal with his
assistant. Major General Valera."
"I can
understand that," Solo said. "It could hurt him at home if it got out
that his office had allowed a foreign power to build nuclear-powered aircraft
on Venezuelan soil."
"Precisely, Mr.
Solo," Waverly said. "At least, that appears to be the general's
thinking on the matter. I'm not sure I agree, but he is insistent that we try
to handle this as quietly as possible."
"What more does
the general know?" Illya asked.
Waverly puffed on
his pipe. "Should he know more?"
"I do not think
that Project Condor, as Guerre called it, consists only of the nuclear-powered
aircraft. That would not be like Thrush. When they develop a weapon, it is for
a definite purpose. Nuclear-propulsion alone would not give Thrush world power,
as Guerre implied Project Condor would," Illya said.
"Yes, I tend to
agree with you," Waverly said. "But General Hoyos has told us nothing
more if there is more to tell. If there is more, it seems that you and Mr. Solo
will have to find it."
Solo nodded.
"Anything else?"
"Yes, you are
aware that the Thrush chief for the area is Council Member L. We know that
much, although we have never managed to penetrate his cover. He is a clever
man, as we have had reason to learn. Our organization in the country has never
been strong, largely due to his efforts and constant harassment."
"Do we know
anything about him?" Illya asked.
"Only that he
is a very ambitious man with strong insistence on running his own show,"
Waverly said. "We have long suspected that he has hopes of moving to the
top in Thrush, and this affair could be his stepping stone."
"And that's
it?" Solo said.
"Except that
his hobby is growing roses," Waverly said.
"I doubt that
he will invite us to his gardens," Illya said.
"You never can
tell," Waverly said. "I suggest that you be very careful,
gentlemen."
* * *
AT A WINDOW high
above the city of Caracas, a tall, gaunt man stood looking out over the city.
Behind him men in army uniforms hurried about the room. This man, too, was
thinking about the care of Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin. A small smile
played across his emaciated face.
Even as he smiled,
his office door opened and a powerful, swarthy man entered. This newcomer wore
the uniform of a full general of the Venezuelan army. The gaunt man turned
smartly from the window and bowed deferentially to the general.
"You have news,
General Hoyos?" the gaunt man asked.
"I do. They are
on their way, two of them. They assure me that no one else knows about our
problem," General Hoyos said. The defense minister showed more worry on
his face than his voice would have indicated.
"I wonder if we
are being wise," General Hoyos went on. "To keep it so secret. This
U.N.C.L.E. organization, can they handle it all alone?"
"With our help,
sir, they can." The tall man smiled. "After all, Rudolfo, they will
not be alone. I will personally lead the Sixteenth Regiment to help them."
"A good
regiment, the Sixteenth," the defense minister agreed.
"You trained
them yourself, Rudolfo," the gaunt man said.
"With your aid,
Miguel," General Hoyos said.
"We make a good
team, General," the gaunt man said.
Hoyos looked at him
shrewdly. "I wonder why you have been content to remain behind me all
these years, Miguel?"
"Because I am a
soldier to serve," the gaunt man said with a smile.
General Hoyos
nodded. Then he turned and strode to the first telephone. He barked an order.
"Colonel Montoya? This is General Hoyos, yes. You will prepare the
Sixteenth Regiment for immediate duty, yes. Immediate. You will report at once
to General Valera in his office."
The defense minister
hung up. "The rest is up to you, Miguel. I know you will not fail."
And the defense
minister was gone. The tall man walked slowly out into the full light. He wore
the uniform of a major general. He smiled his thin smile.
"Yes, the rest
is up to me, Rudolfo Hoyos," he said in a soft voice. "And the time
has come. I will not be behind you much longer, dear Rudolfo. I will certainly
not fail."
And Major General
Miguel Valera began to laugh a soundless laugh as he turned and walked into a
private office. He locked the door behind him and picked up a telephone.
"Bring Dr.
Guerre to the telephone," he barked.
FOUR
THE RAVEN-HAIRED
young girl looked up from her desk at the Defense Ministry. She saw a small,
slender, blond young man smiling down at her. She touched her hand to her black
hair, and her full red lips were moist. She wondered if this young man was
married. His clothes looked American—a fine suit and white shirt, and the thick
horn-rimmed glasses suited his lean face.
"Yes, Senor?" she said.
His clothes were
indeed American, and the girl liked Americans. They were rich and very
important, at least under the present regime. She believed in the present
regime, whatever regime it happened to be at any moment.
"Max Derwent to
see General Valera," the young man said in perfect Spanish.
The young girl
frowned for an instant. Then she brightened again. He spoke fine Spanish, true,
but there was an accent. He was not of her country, and that pleased her. She
had plans to see the world, become rich. Yet she was puzzled. The young man
wore American clothes, was clearly of the North with his fine blond hair, and
yet his accent in his perfect Spanish was not quite American. Perhaps an
Englishman? That was not so good, but not too bad.
"Of course, Senor Derwent," she said. "And your
business?"
"Uniforms, I
sell uniforms," the young man said.
The girl nodded,
smiled, and moistened her lips again. Illya looked at her fine full lips, red
and soft. He looked at her raven-dark hair, and at the figure. What he could
see made him glad that Napoleon was not here. He did not have Napoleon's way
with women. Still, after this was over, perhaps he could try with this girl.
"General Valera
will see you," the girl said.
Illya frowned at
himself. The mind on the job, that was his code. He had not left his own
country, joined U.N.C.L.E., to meet pretty young girls. A man had his work, his
studies, the millions of facts about his world he did not know
but wanted to know.
Self-discipline and control, that was what Zen had taught him, and that was how
he lived. Still, a pretty girl—
"Thank
you," Illya said.
The supposed Max
Derwent entered the office of Major General Miguel Valera, assistant to the
defense minister. He carried his small suitcase that, supposedly, contained
samples of military uniform cloth, and approached the smiling Valera. The
general stood up to greet him. Illya saw a tall, gaunt man.
"Ah, Mr.
Derwent," Valera said. "Or perhaps I should say Mr. Kuryakin."
"You can say
that if the walls don't have ears," Illya said.
Valera laughed.
"I assure you, Mr. Kuryakin, my office is not, how do you say, bugged. Not
that such is not done here, but the penalty is rather severe, and, anyway, I
check carefully each day."
"It must be a
difficult way to live," Illya said dryly.
"Alas, ambition
and the desire to serve have their penalties in my poor country," Valera
said. "We do not have your, shall we say, orderly minds. But then, I
forget you are a Russian. Still, the Russians, too, have orderly minds."
Illya watched the gaunt general. Valera seemed to be talking a great deal, but
that could be just the Latin temperament, as Valera was implying. Valera smiled
and waved Illya to a seat.
"General Hoyos
has, as you say, filled me in on all this. A terrible affair," Valera
said. "I imagine you are anxious to start, as I am myself. We have the
Sixteenth Regiment standing by in the area, but out of sight, eh? But first,
please, your credentials."
Illya Kuryakin
handed over his identification. His quizzical eyes were lowered beneath his
brow. He watched Valera. The general read the credentials. Illya smiled.
"You're too
modest," Illya said innocently. "I understand this was entirely your
idea, not General Hoyos's."
"We work as a
team," Valera said crisply. He handed back the credentials. "Now, I
am ready if you are. Mr. Solo is waiting, I hope; we have little time to
lose."
"Not with those
nuclear planes running loose, I agree. You have accounted for all of
them?" Illya said quickly.
Valera nodded.
"Yes, all six. They were seen to land."
"Excellent,"
Illya said. "It is important that we get them all."
He talked to cover
the slip. But inside he was alert. It was always the same thing that tripped up
a liar—too much knowledge. Valera had slipped—not because he knew too little,
but because he knew too much. All six, the general had said, but there had been
only one in the picture, and Hoyos had not mentioned six to Waverly.
Illya smiled, but
his eyes darted around, alert. He was sure that if six had been seen, Hoyos
would have mentioned that important fact. No, Valera had said six planes
because Valera knew there were six. Only two groups of people knew that there
had been six nuclear planes in New Mexico—U.N.C.L.E. and Thrush!!
Valera smiled.
"We really better have Mr. Solo join us now, don't you think?"
"Of
course," Illya said. "I'll call the hotel. He'll be ready by now, I'm
sure."
"Time is of the
essence, Mr. Kuryakin," Valera said.
"Of
course," Illya said. He picked up the telephone on Valera's desk.
"Hotel
Splendide? Mr. Solo, please. Room four-sixteen."
Illya waited,
smiling at Valera. The general smiled back, and then busied himself over papers
on his desk.
"Napoleon?"
Illya said as Solo came on the line. "Yes, Illya here. I am with General
Valera. Yes, all is correct, naturally. The general is anxious to get started.
Will you meet us—"
Illya stopped and
looked at Valera. The general stood behind his desk.
"At my car out
in front. A grey Bentley touring car. He can't mistake it. My general's license
plate is on it. Please urge speed; this is an urgent affair."
Illya spoke into the
telephone. "Out in front of the Defense Ministry. Valera's car is a grey
Bentley touring car with his license on it. And, Napoleon, hurry please."
As Illya put down the instrument he pretended to let it slip to the desk. He
picked it up again and replaced it in its cradle. But he had heard the faint
but tell-tale click on the line—someone had been listening to his call. He
grinned at General Valera.
"We won't have
to wait long, General," Illya said. "But, you know, I wonder if I
shouldn't meet General Hoyos after all?"
"Hoyos?"
Valera said. "But we agreed that it was imperative to keep the government
officially out of this? I can pass all but unseen, but General Hoyos could
not."
Illya still smiled.
"Of course, you're right. How are your roses growing?"
Valera stood
immobile behind his desk. "Roses?"
"You do grow
them?" Illya said.
Valera smiled.
"Ah, yes. That would be in my dossier at U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, wouldn't
it?"
Illya watched the
general quizzically. "You admit it?"
Valera shrugged.
"That I am Council Member 'L'? Why not? You must know, but—"
The U.N.C.L.E.
special appeared in Illya's hand as if by magic. It was aimed at Valera. The
general did not move.
"I think we
will talk to General Hoyos," Illya said.
Valera laughed.
"No, I think not."
"This is no
joke, Valera," Illya said. "I have you—"
Illya said no more.
Hands grabbed him from behind. His gun was knocked to the floor by a paralyzing
blow. Before he could utter a sound, he was held as firmly as a trussed goose
by three men who had crept up behind him silently. Valera bent and picked up
the pistol. The general was smiling.
"It was the six
nuclear-craft, wasn't it?" Valera said. "Yes, I realized that was a
slip the instant I said it. I was not sure you had caught it, but I do not
underestimate an opponent. That is why I am where I am, and why I will go
farther."
Illya nodded,
understandingly. "You alerted your men with some phrase in the message you
gave me for Napoleon."
"You see, you
are intelligent. Yes, the phrase 'an urgent affair' is my warning signal,"
Valera said, and the general motioned to his men. "Take him into the next
office. We must wait until they bring Solo to me. It was very good of you to
tell me just where to find Solo, Mr. Kuryakin. We will not have to wait
long."
Valera laughed
again. But this time, for once, the general was wrong.
FIVE
IN THE ROOM in the
Hotel Splendide, Napoleon Solo put down the telephone receiver and rubbed his
chin. So it was a trap, as they had suspected it might be. The utter secrecy,
the dealing with Valera instead of General Hoyos, had had a false ring to it. Nothing
the two agents could put their finger on, but a little odd. Everything had been
too carefully arranged to send them straight to this country and General
Valera.
Now Illya had
confirmed their suspicions. The phrase "All is correct, naturally"
was the signal that all was far from correct. If it had been correct, Illya
would have said, "All is right," and not added the word, naturally.
The call, then, was Valera's way of locating him. They would be knocking on the
door in minutes.
Solo moved rapidly.
He needed time now. It would not be enough to simply escape, to not be here
when they came. If he did only that, they would immediately alert Valera, and
Solo needed time. It was possible that Illya would escape, but he had to assume
that Illya would not escape the trap.
He went to work.
There was no telling how many of them there would be, and he would have to get
them all and fast. He took the miniature tape recorder from his briefcase and
set it in the bedroom of the suite. Across the door into bedroom, low near the
floor, he set a trip wire attached to small gas bombs on either side.
This done, he took
his briefcase and his U.N.C.L.E. special and went out into the corridor. He
crossed the corridor to the room across the hall, an empty room rented by Illya
for just such a purpose. Inside this room he stood just behind the door, with the
door open a crack, and the door of his suite across the hall clearly visible.
In his pocket his
left hand rested on the remote control of the tape recorder.
He was just fast
enough.
The four men came
down the1 corridor from the elevator—four soldiers with the insignia of the
Defense Ministry staff. They were armed and they moved swiftly and with expert
silence. They stopped in front of the door to 416. Solo clicked on the tape
recorder with his remote control.
The four men
cautiously opened the door to 416. Napoleon Solo smiled as his own voice came
to him from the bedroom, his own voice talking to Waverly in New York. The four
soldiers nodded to each other and entered the suite. Solo waited.
There was a short
silence.
Then he heard a door
kicked in, two sharp explosions low and muffled, and sudden screams.
Men were choking.
Solo stepped out into
the corridor.
One man came running
from the door of room 416. Solo shot him with a single sleep-dart. The man
collapsed in the corridor. Solo grasped the heels of the man and dragged him
into the suite. Inside he saw the other three men sprawled in the doorway to
the bedroom. He dragged them all into the bedroom, closed and locked the
bedroom door, and again left the suite.
He hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the corridor door, and walked away,
grinning.
The whole incident
had taken less than two minutes. The four soldiers would sleep for at least
five hours. Solo went down the stairs and out into the street in front of the
hotel. He saw the military car. The driver was reading a newspaper. Solo
stepped into the rear seat and closed the door. His U.N.C.L.E. special rested
with the muzzle against the driver's neck.
"The Defense
Ministry, and very fast."
The driver said
nothing, but put the car into gear and drove off. Five minutes later they
pulled up a block from the Defense Ministry. Solo reached out and gently
squeezed the driver's neck. The driver collapsed where he sat. Solo pulled the
man into the back seat, bound and gagged him, and locked the car.
Moments later he
stood in front of the Ministry of Defense. The only men in sight were two bored
guards on the entrance. Solo saw General Valera's grey Bentley.
Casually, Solo
walked past the grey touring car. As he reached the rear bumper he appeared to
drop his briefcase. He bent to pick it up and then walked on and away around
the nearest corner.
The soldiers on
guard had seen nothing, but in the instant of bending Solo had placed a tiny
vial beneath the rear bumper of the grey Bentley.
Then he returned to
the military car, got in, and sat waiting where he could see the grey Bentley.
* * *
UPSTAIRS, in the
office of General Valera, the general himself paced and looked at his watch. A
half an hour had passed and there was no Solo and no report from his men.
Valera pressed a button. Three armed guards brought Illya in from the next
office.
"So,"
Valera said, "you warned him. I should have guessed. However, it will do
you no good. He will be found, and you will not be found. Prepare him!"
Two guards held
Illya's arms. The third stood in front of him with a hypodermic needle filled
with a pale blue fluid. The third guard bared Illya's arm and injected the
fluid. Valera smiled.
"A small
precaution," Valera said,
Illya tried to
answer, but nothing happened. He tried again. He could not speak.
"You have seen
the effects of metabala-G, I believe?" Valera
said. "That is one of the wonders of science. Dr. Guerre made the drug to
counteract the effects of excessive speed on a human. It proved to have an
interesting side- effect that may be of even greater use, eh? Now, even if you
escape or your friend finds you, you will be able to tell him nothing!"
And Valera laughed
aloud, as if mocking Illya with the sound of his voice. Then he went to the
telephone and ordered Solo located and captured if possible, killed if
necessary.
"Come,"
the gaunt general said. "We have wasted enough time. Your friend will be
found, and if he isn't he will not escape the city anyway. You wanted to find
Project Condor, and now you will!"
Valera led the way
from his office down a secret stairway where no one could see him, or his men,
or his prisoner. In the street he strode straight to his grey Bentley. Moments
later the car drove away.
Some five minutes
after that the stolen military car, with Solo at the wheel, drove after the
Bentley. Solo wore a pair of strange goggles. On the road he saw, through the
goggles, the trail of small red dots that dropped from the vial he had planted.
The vial would drip for twenty-four hours, could not be erased in any way, and
could be seen only through the special goggles.
Sixteen hours later,
just as dawn was breaking over the coast and the thick jungle-like swamps, Solo
followed the tell-tale trail of the Bentley to the edge of a narrow stretch of
open water. He saw where a ferry-boat had picked up the car and carried it
across into what looked a like an island in the coastal swamps.
He left his car,
took his briefcase and weapons, and eased into the water. He swam softly in the
still dark morning. He crawled cautiously out on the other side. The trail of
his vial led off along a narrow dirt road. He followed it silently.
The sun was up when
he reached the end of the trail. The grey Bentley stood in front of a
strange-looking windowless concrete building.
Solo could guess
what the building was—an immense atomic reactor pile.
But it was another
odd-shaped building that caught his eye. He crept through the jungle-like
growth to this building.
Its size was
staggering to the mind, at least as wide as a regulation football field.
It was shaped like
the dome of an observatory, like a giant beehive. Above it was heavy
camouflage. Solo studied it and saw a ring of windows at ground level. Up close
it was so large it faded away out of sight on either side as it curved in its
circle. He reached a window and looked in. What he saw was more staggering than
the size of the giant building.
He saw a tall metal
column. It towered high into the dome, and seemed to stand in a deep hole in
the ground.
The column itself
was at least a hundred feet wide and over a hundred feet high.
Attached to the
column half way up he saw the six black nuclear aircraft with their stubby
wings.
For a long minute he
could not believe what he was seeing. Men climbed ladders and went in and out
of the giant column. He looked at where it entered the earth and faded away
below.
He knew what he was
seeing, but he did not want to believe it, in all its horror.
The column was the
payload end of the largest rocket he had ever seen.
A rocket that could
only lift off under more concentrated power than he had ever heard could be
developed.
And the payload end
was only one possible thing—a space station intended to orbit. A space station that carried six deadly nuclear aircraft.
A space station that
could dominate the Earth.
Project Condor!
ACT IV: FOR WANT OF A NAIL
THE FOUR SOLDIERS of
the 16th Regiment rode in the jeep through the swamp, driving carefully on the
dirt road. A scouting party, they watched the jungle and narrow waterways
carefully. It was the corporal himself who saw the man come out of the brush.
"Look
there!" the corporal cried in Spanish.
The man who came out
of the bush was covered in mud from head to foot, his clothes dripping. He
waved frantically at the soldiers of the 16th Regiment. The soldiers slowed and
kept their weapons pointed at him.
"You will
remain completely motionless, Senor," the
corporal said in Spanish. And to his men, "Search him."
"Listen, my
name is Napoleon Solo. I have to see your commander immediately!" Solo
said.
After his one long
look at the gigantic rocket with its deadly space station, Solo had managed to
retrace his steps and swim back to the mainland. But his stolen car had been
gone, and he had seen the tracks of many men wearing boots. He was sure that no
Thrush men had left the swamp island, and realized that the Government had
undoubtedly sent men, probably under the command of General Valera. Only Valera
was on the island, not with the soldiers.
He had begun to look
for the soldiers.
He searched as
quickly as he could in the trackless jungle swamps—there was no telling just
when the space station would be launched. Valera had come here, so it was
probably soon. Now, with the soldiers watching him suspiciously, he tried to
convince them of the urgency.
"It's vitally
important," Solo said in Spanish.
The corporal eyed
him suspiciously. "You are not of our country, Senor?"
"No, I'm an
American: I'm working with General Hoyos!" Solo said.
"North
Americano?" the corporal said, in English now.
One of the soldiers
who had searched Solo showed the U.N.C.L.E. special and the briefcase filled
with strange-looking objects and weapons to the corporal. The corporal looked
at Solo's equipment.
"So? A Yankee
who carries a pistol and is found walking alone in a swamp? I think the
commander, he will also want to see you, Senor."
Ten minutes later
Solo stood before a short, dark man in the uniform of a full colonel. The
colonel, one Colonel Montoya, Commander of the 16th Regiment, had examined his
briefcase and pistol.
"You say this
is an U.N.C.L.E. weapon, that the case is the same, and that you are named
Napoleon Solo, an agent for that organization?"
"Yes, Colonel,
and can we hurry? They have a space station they are going to launch!"
Solo explained.
"A space
station? From the island in the swamp?" Montoya said. "It is quite a
story, Mr. Solo, if that is indeed your true name."
"You have my
credentials!" Solo snapped. "Colonel, I have friends, prisoners on
that island. I have to get in there and help them! I came out to give General
Hoyos a chance to get here and stop the launch."
Colonel Montoya sat
down on his camp stool inside the field tent. "Mr. Solo, again if that is
truly your name," Montoya said. "Do you take me for a fool? You think
I do not know that my men are here for some important project? Only you continue
to talk about General Hoyos, when it is General Valera who commands this
mission. If you were what you say you are, would you not know that? Would you
not ask for General Valera?"
Solo studied the
short, dark colonel. The soldier had the ring of truth in his voice, and yet?
Thrush men were well trained. If Valera was a Thrush man, then why not Montoya?
Only Solo had a hunch. In a country like this, men protected themselves. With Valera
in command, General Hoyos would probably have assigned a second in command
loyal to himself, Hoyos. Anyway, he had to take the chance.
"Because I am
pretty sure that General Valera is the leader on the other side," Solo
said. "I think General Valera is the man in charge of Project Condor. He
has taken my partner prisoner, and has him on that island in the swamp."
Montoya slowly
twirled his dark mustache. "General Valera, you say?"
The dark colonel
stared hard at Solo. Montoya did not leap to Valera's defense, did not fly into
a rage of outraged honor. Instead the colonel seemed to be thinking,
considering, watching Solo very carefully.
"You tell me
that General Valera is actually a traitor?"
"I think he is
a top leader of Thrush. You've heard of Thrush?"
Montoya nodded
slowly. "I have heard of this Thrush."
"Then you know
how dangerous this affair is. You have to get through to General Hoyos,"
Solo said. "You can check up on why Valera isn't here where he should
be!"
A tall, gaunt figure
loomed in the entrance to the field tent. The cadaverous face stared at Solo
and then at Colonel Montoya. Montoya had leaped to his feet at the sight of the
tall man.
"But he is
here, and if you have anything to ask, ask Valera himself!"
General Miguel
Valera stood in the doorway flanked by four of his special staff. They were all
armed. Solo looked at the armed men, and at Montoya.
"Who is this
man, Colonel Montoya?" General Valera asked.
"He claims to
be one Napoleon Solo of an organization named The United Network Command For
Law and Enforcement."
Valera snorted.
"A spy! Shoot him!"
"His
credentials seem genuine," Montoya said.
"Forged, my
dear Montoya. Anyone can forge a set of U.N.C.L.E. credentials, especially a
Thrush agent," Valera said.
"He claims that
you are a Thrush leader, General," Montoya said.
"And do you
believe him, Colonel Montoya?" Valera snapped.
"Of course not,
but, with your permission, his credentials should be checked," Montoya
said.
"Shoot him! I,
Valera, take responsibility!"
Montoya stared
straight ahead. "With your permission, my General, you are not empowered
to shoot without a trial."
"Empowered?
Fool, I command in the field! That is all the power I need, you know
that," Valera snapped.
"With your
permission, such power was removed by General Hoyos when he assumed the Defense
post. Article Twelve of the new Military Code."
"The devil with
Article Twelve," Valera snapped. "But if it bothers you, Colonel, I
will simply take your prisoner off your hands. You agree I am 'empowered' to do
that much?"
"Yes,
General," Montoya said "But, with your permission, I think the matter
should be taken to General Hoyos. This man has, of course, made some mistake
about you, but he may well be who he claims to be, and—"
Valera stared at
Montoya. The eyes of the gaunt general were grim and careful.
"I see,"
Valera broke in. "General Hoyos, eh? And if I take your prisoner, you
will, of course, immediately inform General Hoyos of that fact?"
"Of course. It
would be my clear duty." Montoya said.
Valera nodded. A
pistol seemed to appear in his thin hand. There was a sharp, soft cracking
sound. Montoya seemed to leap backwards and sprawl out flat on the ground.
Valera held his silenced pistol and looked down at the dead man. Then he
holstered the pistol.
"Come,"
Valera said to his men. "Bring Solo."
Outside, Valera
called over two of the soldiers of Headquarters Company of the 16th Regiment.
The soldiers stood at rigid attention.
"Colonel
Montoya does not wish to be disturbed," Valera said crisply. "Is that
clear? I will return later, see that no one bothers the colonel at his
work."
"Yes, General,"
the soldiers said in unison.
"Very
good," Valera said. And to his men, "Bring the prisoner." Solo
was marched to the grey Bentley and pushed inside. The touring car drove off.
Once out of sight of the soldiers of the Sixteenth Regiment, the grey car
turned toward the island in the swamp where the space station waited to be
launched. Valera smiled.
"So, Mr. Solo,
now we have you all."
"They'll find
Montoya," Solo said.
"Of course. But
what will they learn from a dead man?"
Valera began to
laugh aloud.
TWO
SOLO STOOD in the
dark night. The four guards watching him. Valera faced an angry Dr. Guerre. The
cherubic little man still looked like some rotund pixie despite his anger.
"Kill them or
throw him into the pit with the others, Council Member," Guerre said.
"We have wasted too much time on them as it is. We will have to launch at
dawn; they will find Montoya! Did you have to kill him? Stupid!"
"They will
learn nothing from a dead man," Valera snapped. "And may I remind you
who is in charge here?"
"You may remind
me forever," Guerre roared, "but it is my project! I have waited too
long to let you ruin it. Do you think I need a computer to tell me that Waverly
will put two and two together once Hoyos informs him of Montoya's death? Those
soldiers saw you in that tent, you fool! They will talk to anyone."
Valera turned purple
with anger. "How dare you call—"
"Oh shut up!
The space station goes at dawn; we cannot risk discovery! When will you Thrush
fools learn that Waverly is as good or better than your damned computer!? Kill
them now, if you have to. That is about what you are good for, to kill gadflies!"
Valera boiled with
rage. "You take care of your project, Dr. Guerre; leave U.N.C.L.E. to me.
You did not do very well with them in New Mexico. I think they are too valuable
to kill. Once Condor is in orbit, we will still need other information. Condor
alone will not bring us the world."
"Then throw
this one into the pit with the others and be damned!" Guerre raged.
"I have work!"
The fat little man
turned and waddled off into the night. Valera, still in a rage, barked an
order. The four men hustled Solo to the edge of a yawning pit. Valera turned
and strode off after Guerre, his eyes blazing with rage against the fat Doctor.
The four men bound Solo's hands, looped a rope under his arms, and lowered him
into the pit.
On the bottom Solo
lay in soft dirt. He felt the rope jerk; then it was loose and going up. He saw
the faint faces of the four soldiers far- off above. The pit was at least
thirty feet deep. Solo lay there struggling in his bonds. Then he heard a
noise. The face of Illya Kuryakin peered down at him. The blond agent grinned
and went to work on his ropes.
A few moments later
Solo sat up, free. He smiled at Illya.
"At least we
can play cards, if we had any cards," Solo said.
Illya shook his
head.
"You don't feel
like talking?" Solo said.
Illya shook his head
again, pointed to his mouth. Solo stared. Illya pointed to his mouth, shook his
head, shrugged.
"You can't
talk?" Solo said. "They used that drug on you?"
Illya nodded,
pointed off into the dark at the bottom of the pit. Solo looked and saw a
figure. The figure moved, sat up. It was Penny Parsons. At least the girl was
still alive, but there was fear in her eyes.
"Did they drug
her too?" Solo asked.
Illya nodded. The
girl just stared as if in a trance. Solo looked around.
"At least they
left us our clothes again. Shoes, too, this time," Solo said.
Illya held out his
flat suitcase. Then the blond agent pointed up, and at the walls, and shrugged,
tossed the case away. Solo watched Illya, and then walked and touched the walls
of the pit. Soft dirt everywhere.
There was no hold,
nothing but dirt towering thirty feet up.
Solo nodded. "I
see what you mean. Our weapons are all designed for the twentieth century;
they're useless against a pit of simple dirt. So they didn't bother to take
them."
Illya nodded.
"We can cut
through metal, wood, concrete. We can blow up doors and locks. But what do you
do against dirt?"
Illya shrugged. Solo
laughed.
"Well, nothing
is all bad," Solo said. "It's the first time I've ever seen you
speechless."
Illya glared. Solo
laughed again. The girl, Penny Parsons, began to cry. Solo looked around.
"There must be
some way out," Solo said.
Illya nodded and
pointed off to the left. Solo saw a hole in the side of the pit. A large hole
like a passage that seemed to lead downward. Solo studied it and nodded.
"This pit is
connected to something else," Solo said. "Do you know where it
leads?"
Illya nodded, and
shrugged.
"Well, we have
to try something. Maybe you missed a way out. Let's go."
Illya nodded again.
The two agents took hold of Penny Parsons and led the girl to the large hole.
They crawled into the hole with Solo leading.
The passage led
downward at a sharp angle. It seemed to go on and on. But at last Solo saw
light ahead. They emerged in an enormous underground chamber. Solo looked
around. Many other holes led off all around the circular chamber. Illya pointed
up.
Solo looked up and
saw the gigantic base of the space station launching rocket. The rocket engines
protruded from the base, ten of the largest engine cones he had ever seen. And
they were different in appearance. Solo looked at Illya.
"Nuclear
engines?" Solo said.
Illya nodded.
"This is the
blast chamber. The passages to the pits are to give escape for the exhaust
gases when it lifts off," Solo said.
Illya nodded. The
small Russian indicated a sudden explosion, gas spreading out and into the
exhaust holes, and filling the pits beyond. Then Illya indicated the end,
finished. Solo nodded.
"The gases will
finish us. Is there a way out of this chamber, maybe up along the rocket?"
Solo asked.
Illya indicated that
they could try. Solo looked around and saw the steel ladder that led up the
side of the chamber to a platform on a level with the engine above. He walked
to the ladder and climbed up to the stage. Illya came up behind him. On the platform
the two agents looked at the rocket, and then upward.
There was no way up
the sheer steel sides of the rocket pit. Solo shrugged and leaned out. He
reached the tail section of the rocket itself and pulled himself up. Illya
walked around and did the same on the other side. Slowly, painfully, both men
pulled themselves up over the gigantic tail section.
Solo reached the end
of the tail section. Above him the monster rocket stretched round and smooth.
There was nothing more to hold on to and the steel-sided pit faded away above.
Solo tried, but it was no use. He slid, slipped, and fell back to the tail
section. There was no way up.
On the platform he
waited. Illya appeared. Obviously the small Russian had had no better luck. The
two men descended the ladder and rejoined Penny Parsons on the bottom. The
deadly engines towered above them. Solo looked at the hundreds of holes all
around to allow the ignition gases to escape.
"Well, we might
as well see if they lead anywhere better than our original pit," Solo
said.
Illya shrugged and
the girl began to cry again. Solo patted her heaving shoulders.
"We might find
something," Solo said.
But they did not.
They searched all
the exhaust passages, but found nothing but more pits exactly like the one they
had been dropped into. They split up and searched. There was nothing.
Dawn light tinged
the open space above the pits. A hum had begun somewhere. The rocket was being
readied. Then Illya came out of a side passage and nodded his blond head
eagerly. The small Russian picked up his flat suitcase and motioned for Solo
and the girl to follow.
The hum of engines
warming grew louder.
Solo crawled along
the dark passage behind the girl. Illya was up ahead. They emerged into another
pit—a pit exactly like all the others they had reached. Solo swore.
"Damn it,
Illya, this is—"
Illya pointed up.
Solo looked up to where a very faint dawn light showed some kind of object
hanging over the pit.
Solo narrowed his
eyes and looked at the object. Then he saw what it was—a crane!
Above this pit there
was a crane and boom hanging out over the hole itself. A crane intended to
lower material into the pit. The cable of the crane dangled tantalizingly over
the pit.
If they could
somehow manage to reach it.
THREE
ILLYA OPENED his
small suitcase and brought out the tiny electronic meter and activator. Solo
looked at the tiny instrument designed to activate any electrically-controlled
device. Then he looked up at the crane. It was just possible . . .
"If it can
range that far," Solo said.
Illya's quizzical
eyes smiled, indicated that the range was okay; the question was whether or not
the crane was electrically operated and controlled.
"What have we
got to lose?" Solo said.
Illya set the
controls of the tiny actuator and aimed it upward. There was a silence.
Illya increased the
power in the actuator.
Nothing happened.
The two agents
looked at each other. Somewhere the hum of the nuclear engines pre-heating grew
louder.
Illya slowly changed
the direction of the electronic signal from the actuator, revolving the
instrument in his hands.
Above an engine
coughed, missed, struggled—and went on.
The crane began to vibrate.
The sound was that of a gasoline engine, started by an electric spark.
"Now, are the
controls electric?" Solo said. "Give it the gun, my Russian
optimist."
Illya twisted the
control dial on the actuator. There was a grinding of gears above, a whirring
of a drum, and the cable began to move upward.
"Quick!"
Solo cried. "If it reaches the top it could jam!"
Illya reversed the
controls. There was a loud grinding of gears. The crane boom above shuddered as
the gears reversed. The whole machine above shook, hesitated.
At the bottom of the
pit, Solo and Illya watched.
Illya increased the
power on the actuator the fraction of a turn. The crane shook—and the cable
started down. It came down fast now. When it reached the bottom Illya stopped
it with a flick of the control. There was a large cargo sling at the end.
Solo went first, his
foot in the stirrup of the cargo sling, holding to the cable, riding up. He
crouched and peered out as he was raised clear of the edge. There was no one
near.
Penny Parsons came
up next, then Illya.
In the faint light
of dawn a thick mist rose from the swamp all around the island. Vague figures
moved in the mist far off. Solo and Illya kept the girl between them as they
advanced warily, unable to see more than twenty feet.
The mist that hid
their enemies from them, hid them from their enemies. Men passed close to them
in the thick white mist and did not even glance at them. The base was a beehive
of activity. None of the men who passed them were armed until, suddenly they came
out into an open space in front of a thick- walled concrete building.
The mist has
thinned. It still hung heavy over the water of the swamp that surrounded the
island, but here it had thinned. Two armed men stood in front of the main
doorway into the building. Illya nodded to Solo. The two agents warned Penny
Parsons to stay where she was, and vanished into the swirling mist.
They appeared from
either side at the same instant, each creeping up close along the wall behind
one of the two guards. Both guards fell without a sound, chopped across the
neck. Solo and Illya scooped up t heir weapons, motioned to Penny to come
ahead, and the three of them went into the building.
Solo led the way
down broad corridors that were strangely deserted. Illya pointed to an open
door far down a wide main corridor. There was light in the doorway. The three
approached the doorway carefully. Solo peered around the corner, his Thrush
rifle ready.
He saw a large
office. There was a desk, leather chairs, all the appointments of the office of
some high executive—and a large computer! A door stood open to the left. Even
as Solo watched, the computer began to operate, flashing lights and the
whirring of a thousand tiny electronic circuits.
Solo looked at
Illya. The blond agent came to the door and looked in.
"The Ultimate
Computer?" Solo said, watching the awesome machine blinking and whirring.
Illya shook his
head. No. With his mobile hands the Russian indicated that this was a smaller
copy, a field model of the heart of Thrush operations, but worth destroying.
The two agents stepped into the room.
As a man came
through the open door to the left.
General Miguel
Valera froze as he saw them. His hand moved to his holster. Illya motioned with
his stolen Thrush rifle. Valera hesitated, seemed to glance for an instant
behind him, then shrugged and moved his hand away from his weapon. The gaunt
Thrush council member walked casually into the center of the room.
"So, again you
surprise us. Someday, perhaps, we will learn not to underestimate the
resourcefulness of U.N.C.L.E. agents. Or perhaps it is just you two, and, of
course, Waverly. Guerre was right; I should have killed you. Now, of course,
you will kill me."
Solo smiled.
"Not necessarily; we need information, too. Where is Dr. Guerre?"
Valera shrugged.
"Alas, I do not know. Preparing the launch, I imagine. I suggest we all
leave here very soon. You have noted, I trust, the absence of personnel in this
building?"
"What does that
mean?" Solo said.
Valera looked at
Illya and Penny Parsons. The gaunt Thrush leader grinned. "I see your
friends are still speechless. Too bad."
"What do you
mean by the absence of personnel?" Solo said again.
Illya suddenly
touched Solo's arm. The small blond agent made motions to indicate a rocket
flight and an explosion. Valera watched, nodded.
"Yes, Mr.
Kuryakin understands. You see, Solo, the launch will go off any moment, and
this building will not be safe. All our men are in their shelters. I think you
would do wise to give yourselves up to me and allow me to lead you to
shelter."
The tall, gaunt
Valera was a man of cool nerve. In the face of two rifles trained on his heart
he was making his threat, his bid to reserve the situation. But Illya shook his
head, pointed to the sky and then the ground. Solo nodded.
"Yes,"
Solo said. "I think, General, it would be better for you to lead us to the
control room so we can stop the launching. You must know—"
Solo sensed, rather
than heard, the movement behind him. He whirled. Illya whirled. There was a
single shot and Illya fell, clutching his shoulder.
Maxine Trent stood
in the doorway, her pistol in her hand.
"Drop it,
Napoleon," the beautiful agent said.
Solo hesitated.
"Come, come,
Napoleon. You must know that this is it. I will really have to kill you this
time. General, take his weapon!"
The general stepped
forward. Solo raised his rifle. Maxine smiled viciously and swung the tiny
muzzle of her pistol down to point straight at Solo's heart. He knew that she
would beat him.
But she did not. She
had forgotten Penny Parsons.
The lab girl,
against the wall and out of Maxine's sight, jumped forward. Maxine, her eyes
concentrated on Solo, her mind already enjoying this moment when she would at
last kill Napoleon Solo, did not see Penny until too late. The lab girl struck
her with the full force of her body. Maxine's shot went wild into the ceiling.
The pistol skidded
away across the floor. Solo leaped after it. Maxine whirled, clawed at Penny
Parsons. The lab girl, in a fury of rage at all that had been done to her,
attacked in silence and Maxine sprawled on the floor, her skirt flying up above
her beautiful legs. Solo dived for the pistol.
Valera reached the
pistol first, grabbed it, dropped to one knee, raised the small gun and aimed
straight at the onrushing Solo. There was a shot, a second shot, and Valera
fell over backwards.
Solo reached the
pistol and picked it up. He whirled to see Illya lying prone on the floor, his
rifle still pointing at General Valera.
Solo bent over
Valera. The General opened his eyes.
"Damn
you!" Valera whispered. "Gone—all gone. Damn you . . . I would
have—ruled . . . the . . . world!" And then Valera smiled once more.
"But . . . too . . . late . . . for . . . you . . . too! I stopped . . .
you! The . . . door ... too late . . . "
Valera fell back.
Dead.
Illya, his left arm
dangling, struggled to his feet. Solo faced around to cover Maxine Trent. Penny
Parsons sat dazed on the floor, and Maxine was gone. Illya limped across the
room to the door that stood open in the left wall of the large office. Solo went
to stand with the Russian.
They were looking
into a small, steel-lined room with walls covered with filing cabinets. Across
this room was a wall half glass and half steel, with another room beyond the
glass-and-steel wall.
The room behind the
glass-and- steel wall was filled with instruments and consoles. Lights blinked
all through this second room. On the far side of the second room there was a
large window, and through the window the launching area was clearly visible.
They saw the
gigantic nose section of the launching rocket through the far window, the space
station with its six deadly nuclear aircraft.
The space station
and nuclear aircraft were quivering out on the launching pad.
The room behind the
glass-and- steel wall was what they had been looking for—the main control room!
And the cherubic
face of Dr. Ernesto Guerre smiled at them from inside the control room.
"Valera fooled
us!" Solo muttered. "He held us out there in the office while the
control room was here all the time!"
Illya raised his
stolen Thrush rifle and fired a point-blank burst at the glass-and-steel wall.
The bullets bounced
off.
Inside the control
room Dr. Guerre laughed, and reached to press a button. A voice suddenly seemed
to fill the steel outer room.
"Three hundred
and counting down. Two-ninety-nine . . . two- ninety-eight . . .
two-ninety-seven . . . two-ninety-six . . . two- ninety-five . . . "
Solo said,
"Five minutes. Maybe we have time to blast through that door!"
Illya grabbed his
shoulder, pulled him.
"Do we have
enough explosive?" Solo asked.
Illya shook his
head, pulled Solo.
"But we've got
to stop the launch!" Solo insisted.
Illya shook his head
again, negative, and turned and ran from the room. Solo went after him. In the
large office Illya was helping Penny Parsons to her feet. Solo grabbed him.
"We've got to
stop it, Illya!" Solo said.
Illya motioned with
his hands, a motion of flight and then diving back to earth. Illya motioned an
explosion and laughed. Then the small Russian indicated the need for quick and
determined flight.
The counting voice
continued. "Two-hundred-sixty . . . two-fifty- nine . . . two-fifty-eight
. . . two- fifty-seven . . . two-fifty-six . . . "
Solo had one last
look at the grinning and triumphant face of the cherubic Dr. Ernesto Guerre as
the fat little man stared at them through the glass-and-steel wall of the
control room.
FOUR
THE MIST HAD begun
to burn off out in the open beyond the main building. Solo, Illya and Penny
Parsons ran across the deserted swamp island toward the narrow stretch of water
that separated it from the mainland of the swamp.
There was no one in
sight; the entire secret base was deserted. In its launching silo the gigantic
space station quivered on the end of the giant rocket.
The three reached
the edge of the water and plunged in without an instant of hesitation. They
swam across and emerged wet and sliding in the mud on the far side.
They staggered up
the bank and into the first line of swamp jungle growth.
Illya Kuryakin
looked at his watch and urged them on.
They came out on a
dirt road. Voices shouted at them. Six soldiers wearing the insignia of the
16th Regiment covered them. A captain stepped forward.
"Who are you,
quick?" the captain snapped in Spanish.
"Agents of
U.N.C.L.E., we're working with—" Solo began.
The captain broke
in. "You are Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin?" he said in English,
"Yes,"
Solo said, "but how—"
Illya caught his
arm, indicated speed and quick escape. Solo faced the captain.
"We better get
away from here fast, Captain."
The captain nodded.
Already the earth was shaking as the space station was about to blast off. The
captain whistled and a command car appeared.
They all piled in
and the driver tore off along the road away from the swamp land.
They drove fast and Illya
sat in the rear looking back. The whole land was shaking now as the nuclear
engines of the launching rocket began to gain full power.
The command car
heaved and lurched on the road as the ground shook. Illya looked at his watch.
They passed other
vehicles with soldiers, and the captain waved them all to go to the rear. The
soldiers needed no urging, the ground trembling as if in the grip of an
earthquake.
There were more and
more soldiers now, all wearing the insignia of the 16th Regiment, and all armed
in full battle gear.
Suddenly, Illya
touched Solo's shoulder and pointed to the direction from which they had come.
The earth was shivering madly now.
Solo looked back and
saw it.
The space station,
with its six black nuclear craft attached, had risen above the swamp, far back.
Half the rocket was
visible now, rising slowly, so very slowly.
Solo could not
believe, even now, the size of the gigantic launch vehicle. It seemed to fill
the horizon. So big it seemed on top of them, although it was many miles away
now.
The vehicle climbed
so slowly higher, gathering speed.
The tail section
appeared.
Then the mighty
engines, blasting great sheets of flame that seared the swamp growth beneath
them.
Illya gripped Solo's
shoulder.
The rocket moved
clear of all the vegetation, seemed to hang there in the air, an impossibly
giant rocket moving slowly upward, gathering speed.
"It's making
it!" Solo cried.
Illya's fingers dug
into his shoulder.
Then the monstrous
space vehicle seemed to hesitate, falter.
For a long second it
hung there, still moving, but somehow leaning.
It seemed to shudder
once.
And then it tilted,
turned, began to shake like a tall tree in a high wind.
With a final shudder
it fell over on its side and crashed back to earth. It fell over so slowly and
seemed to float gently back down. Slowly, and then faster, and faster, until it
hurtled down sideways and vanished beneath the swamp growth.
A mighty sheet of
flame shot skyward.
The flames engulfed
the entire island like a giant tidal wave.
Then the shock wave
came.
The command car was
picked up as if a giant hand and hurled off the road. It landed upright in the
swamp, men flung all around.
Napoleon Solo picked
himself up out of the mud. Penny Parsons was sitting up, grinning as she looked
back to where the swamp island was a mass of flames.
Illya Kuryakin
struggled in the muck, holding his wounded shoulder, but grinning as Solo came
to help him up.
"All right, my
grinning Russian, how did you do it?" Solo said.
Illya reached into
his pocket and held up a tiny threaded bolt. The bolt was two inches long, no
more than a quarter of an inch wide.
"You took it
out of the rocket?" Solo said. "When we climbed up the tail?"
Illya nodded and
began to laugh soundlessly.
On the road many
soldiers were slowly advancing. Solo and Illya turned to face them. Walking
calmly ahead of the soldiers they saw General Hoyos and the tweedy figure of
Alexander Waverly. The U.N.C.L.E. Chief was tapping at his pipe, looking
annoyed.
* * *
IN THE SMALL, sunny
office of Alexander Waverly, the New York skyline outside through the window,
Solo, Illya and Penny Parsons sat around the revolving table.
Alexander Waverly
sucked on his cold pipe.
"So, I imagine
it's good to have your speech back again, Mr.—uh —Kuryakin. And you too, Miss
Parsons. No serious ill-effects, I hope?"
"No,"
Penny said, smiling. "I'm glad I was able to help. I feel I owed it to
Mark. He got mixed up in something evil and it killed him. I wanted to try to
help make it up."
"And so you
did," Waverly said. "General Hoyos informs me that they identified
the bodies of Wozlak and Dr. Guerre in what was left of the Thrush
installation. Everything was totally destroyed; there will be no space station
or nuclear engines. Our various governments are still checking on any other
rocket pilots involved in the affair, but the matter is essentially
closed."
And Waverly smiled
one of his rare smiles toward Illya. "Destroyed for want of a nail, you
might say, eh, Mr. Kuryakin?"
Illya grinned.
"Even a rocket
is no better than its smallest part," the small Russian said.
"The removal of
that one bolt destroyed the operation of the tail stabilizers," Solo said.
"Boom! Was there much nuclear radiation as a result?"
"Very little,
actually. Dr. Guerre was a good scientist, if not quite sane. The nuclear bombs
in that space station were not armed. The only radiation came from the rocket
engine."
"I was
wondering about my friend Maxine?" Solo said. "Were there any
survivors on that confounded island?"
"None, Mr.
Solo," Waverly said, and began to light his pipe. "However, General
Hoyos later learned that you were not the first one off that island. It seems
one of his patrols, like the one that picked you up, picked up a lone woman
earlier. She fits the description of Maxine Trent, I'm afraid."
"What happened
to her?" Penny Parsons asked.
"No one seems
to know," Waverly said. "It appears that the entire patrol deserted
after capturing her. The various men of that patrol have been found all over
Caracas, in varying stages of drunkenness, but Maxine has vanished. The
soldiers do not appear to regret their escapade. They say it was worth
it."
"That's my
Maxine for you," Solo said.
Illya smiled his
enigmatic smile. "Some day that woman will finish you, Napoleon."
"I know—but
what a way to go," Solo said.
Even Waverly smiled suddenly as Napoleon Solo sighed in the sunny room.
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