Текст книги "The Final Affair"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“We’ve Just Been Destroyed.”

Breakfast was quieter. than usual in the tall old house on Alamo Square that Sunday. Ward Baldwin finished his oatmeal. his eggs and his kippers without a word. addressed a knifeload of marmalade to his toast and sipped his Earl Grey tea before speaking. His voice was harsh and level.

“In view of the continued silence from Central. which has now lasted nearly twenty four hours. I fear we have no choice but to assume that the Hierarchy has becomee at least temporarily, leaderless at the very highest level.”

“What can have happened?” Irene pondered.

“I’m sure Alexander Waverly would Know.” Robin volunteered. “In fact.

I’ll bet if I called U.N.C.L.E. and asked him, he’d even tell n’E. D’you think I should?”

“I dare say he’d relish tne opportunity to tell me it was his doing. It may be a matter of a rronth —perhaps as much as three rronths —before Central can be replaced and restaffed. and changes made in security systems. That electronic box in my study sits there with one sheet hanging out of its pri nter: ‘Due to circumstances beyond our control, all communication with Central and UlComp has been interrupted. Please stand by. This unit will be reactivated as soon as possible.’ Not very encouraging.” He cleared his throat and sipped his tea.

“It may rrean that the floating electronic crap-game will take a few days to assemble itself somewhere and resume operations on the old frequency. but in such a case The Islnd should be able to keep all their balls in the air during the interim. From here it is impossible to tell to what extent the top levels of the Hierarchy may have been damaged. I may call Victor after midnight by transatlantic telephone —I’m sure he still has his scrambler from that dreadful Guardian business in ‘6l and the old Krivan key should. be as good as it ever was.”

“What do you suppose The Island is doing?” Robin asked. “You could check through Vince and Fang.”

“The Men From Central took their leave quite late last night.” Irene said. “When I went into the library to announce breakfast. I found the sofa neatly made up and everything put away as though they’d never been here.”

“1 was still up when they left. my dear. They were in rather a hurry.

apparently having recef.ved an urgent sunmons from The Island. but they paused to invite me to join them in the incipient action. They gave me the impression it was being fortified to be held as a last redoubt in hope of evading U.N.C.L.E.‘s all-probing eyes —the picture they sketched reminded me strongly of Remington’s study of The Fall Of The Alarro. lacking the dedication of Colonel Bowie and the stamina of Congressman Crockett. I quoted my Selective Service classification of 7-J: to be mobilised only in case of an actual enemy invasion. and assembled in Union Square to pile sandbags around Huntley and Brinkley.”

“You’ll have to change that one. dear,” said Irene. .Huntley has retired.”

“What? At his age? This younger generation is soft. I’ve said it again and again.”

“You don’t suppose poor Mr. Stevens might have had something to do with all this.” Robin asked.

“I can’t see how. One day I may ask Waverly about it. He must know -no natural disaster could have been so devastating.”

“Well. we aren’t in any trouble with U.N.C.L.E., are we?”

“Of course not. dear.” said Irene. “Not legally. Though I suppose they can’t help but be suspicious of us, Besides, if they knocked over Central, any evidence they had seized in the course cf an illegal entry would be inadmissible in court.”

“Then all we have to do is sit still and wait for them to get a new Central running, After all. it1s not as if Ward’s whole livelihood depended on Thrush.”

“Essentially my own conclusion.” said Baldwin. “We may have to suspend portions of our operation and curtail some of the more expensiv! projects, and 1 shall be crippled without a computer —let us consider leasing a local service. life itself should go on much as usual. Probably quieter.” He sighed and finished his cup of tea. “Ah well, back to pure research,”

That afternoon, a few miles away in downtown San Francisco, Joan was officially Told All. Her clearance was granted in conjunction with Mr.

Waverly’s briefing of Napoleon and Illya on the earliest results of their successful capture of Thrush Central and the Ultimate Computer. She listened open-mouthed as the magnitude of the coup was gradually revealed to her.

“According to Mr. Gold. the emergency dump transmission from Darjeeling went perfectly. The Master Catalog Index has already been copied out and everything seemed to check as they began analysis, There are. by the way, a number of valuable programs we expect to adapt to our own system.”

“And you did all this through Baldwin’s old terminal?” Joan asked incredu1ously.

“Well. that was the keyhole we opened, and once we had a janitor inside to tap the wine-kegs, we were able to put a whole army through the keyhole and take over.”

Illya choked and Joan laughed warmly. “You haven’t changed all that much,”

“Well, okay. It was a lot oore abstract and theoretical than that. But Illya explained it all to me as we went along,”

The intercom flashed and buzzed, and was answered, “Simpson here, I thought you’d like to know —we’ve just been destroyed, An outside source seems to have activated the terminal’s remote destruct circuit.”

“I’m gratified we came through it so well.” said Mr, Waverly. “When did this disaster occur?”

“About a minute ago, Before the terminal was brought in here, all the autodestruct devices had been neutralised, I thought we should know if anybody tried to set them off, so I traced that particular circuit and connected it to an alarm,”

“An alarm?”

“Just a buzzer and a large red light saying BOOM. I wanted to be sure and notice if it went off,”

“Baldwin?”

“No, the remote destruct command can only be generated by the Ultimate Computer, You can imagine the chaos that could result if any tenninal could blow up any other terminal.”

“I see what you mean,” said Napoleon.

“You also mean Thrush Island has a fully programmed standby unit running things,” Illya realised.

“Capable of running things,” said Mr. Simpson, “Or possibly with only a few transmission channels, so it couldn’t really handle the whole huge network. all at once,”

“If they have copies of the operating executive programs and data banks, which they should,M Waverly mused, “and adequate hardware. which they must, they might be able to recover their losses yet. Is there any way of telling how long it will take to find Thrush Island?”

“The data files we’re sorting now will take at least another week to reduce and cross-check. We’ll analyse the flight programs, all of which are coded, and find how far it is from two or three different airports.“No, you can’t.” said Joan unexpectedly. “It’s only served from Tokyo.

I don’t know where it is, but I was told that by everybody there.”

“You were there?”

“I spent about eight months on what must have been Thrush Island, from what you1ve said about it, thoughI don’t think it was ever referred to as anything but ‘here.’”

“How recently?”

“About four years ago.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. We left Tokyo in a sealed private jet and went back the same way.”

Mr. Waverly tapped his knobbly fingers on the black leather desktop and studied Joan from under bushy white eyebrows. “Mrs. —ah– Solo.” he cleared his throat. “What else can you tell us about this place? How long did it take you from Tokyo?”

“Quite a while. It was about two in the roorning when we took off, and there was quite a liquor stock on board. The crew never came out of the cabin.

and it was daylight when we were escorted from the plane to our quarters. And I remember I looked at my watch and said something properly horrified about it being eight o’clock already. And the maid said no, it was only seven. and I should reset my watch and go to bed because Orientation Tea was at four o’clock that afternoon.”

I’Very good,” said Waverly. “Do you remember what kind of jet?”

“A twin —custom interior like a club car. Oh. one of the other men on board was trying to impress everybody, said his Satrapy had one just like it; cruised at 500 miles per hour.”

“Capital,” said Mr. Waverly.

“Three thousand miles from Japan, and fifteen degrees west,” said Illya, who’d worked it out by eye on the huge polar projection wall map. “Was it wann or cold?”

“Oh, warm! I went swimming almost every day while I was there. I got the most beautiful tan —you should have seen me.”

Joan and Napoleon exchanged sappy looks as nlya continued. “Three thousand miles south puts it within five or ten degrees of the equator around 120 East longitude.”

“I don’t suppose you noticed the sun’s elevatioh much while you were there,” said Mr. Simpson’s voice unexpectedly.

“I’m afraid not. It did get pretty much directly overhead at noon.

And it got pretty hot. I burned badly my first week there, but after that I was all right. I remember the lagoon side faced east. if that’s any help.”

KIt could be.M Mr. Waverly addressed the intercom. .Hr. Simpson.

contact NASA for a full set of mapping photogr~phs, maximum siz~. covering the area from 5° South latitude, between 110° and 125° East longitude, omitting major land areas like Borneo, of course.”

Mr. Simpson recited the figures back and rang off as Waverly said.

“Mrs. —ah– Solo, you may have been of immense help to us. Every speck of land in that area has been photographed from space in recent years, and one of those pictures may strike you as familiar.”

He touched another intercom button. “Miss Hoffman, would you ask the correlation section downstairs to abandon analysis of flight-plan data in favor of a scan for anything we may know about small islands around the Equator near 120° East.” He turned in his chair and squinted up at the wall map. “It would appear to be somewhere in Central Indonesia: the Molacca Sea, the Celebes, the Banda Sea, the Ceram Sea —we have observers in that area. Check with the Djakarta office. See if they’ve heard anything unusual about an island.”

“First Kashmair. now Indonesia…” Illya mused. “Thrush seems to like the security afforded them with an insecure and touchy host.”

“Nevertheless. even if it means massive paramilitary action against a fortified base. they must be found and rooted out before we can count this Hydra-headed bird rroribund.”

“Unless we could convince them logically to surrender.” Napoleon said.

“Or asked them politely.”

“We’ll have to start with some sort of infiltration to hit power and communications.” said Illya. “as soon as we know where we’re going.”

“Napoleon.” Joan asked, “are you likely to lead the infiltration force?”

“I’d expect to.” said Solo. glancing at his chief.

“I don’t know anything about offshore contours or outer defenses, but I can tell you a lot about the island you can’t get from satellite photos, like what’s in which building. and what goes on where. They might have rroved one or two of the test shacks, or put up a new quonset in the last couple of years, but the main buildings looked as if they’d been there quite a while. I could probably draw you a rough map —not really detailed, but I think I remember the layout pretty well.”

Illya pushed a blank manila folder with a nylon-tipped pen clipped to it across the table towards her, and she began.

First she sketched an emaciated crescent moon. remarking. “It’s about two hundred miles from end to end around the lagoon beach and maybe two hundred yards across at the widest. Maybe less.”

She placed a hundred-yard square, according to her scale, on the inner side of the island. about the middle. “That’s the Big House. Maybe not that big,” she added, and corrected the sketch messily. “But pretty big. Therels a dock right in front of it, and I believe a submarine pen opens into-the lagoon. Then along here are three narrow buildings side by side —they’re big enough to fly a srrall plane into. I don’t know what’s in them, probably shops; nothing to do with my job. On this side is the staff housing —it’s as old as the Big House, at least a hundred years. and so are the long buildings.

And one other: it looks liKe a big stone and roortar barn. It’s back behind and to the side from the Big House. almost touching at this corner. I think that’s where the generators are.” She added the described structures to her map as she spoke.

“Guard housing is here and here, sort of bracketing the center of the island. I think there’s a Guard staff at the Big House. too —there’s a total garrison of at least three or four hundred. Then this big open space is the combat test area. launch site, landing strip. parade ground and soccer field; past it is a big blockhouse and a couple of test shacks way out on that point. I know this enj better because I always went out there to go swimming. There’s a nasty undertow along the southern tip. and no sand at all. I usually had to wear sneakers when I went in because of the coral, but the water was about eighty degrees the whole time we were there. I didn’t have much to do —mostly some psych testing. and one or two routine jobs assisting at a drug-therapy interview —so I had lots of time to myself.

“Anyway, in the other direction, past Staff Housing, there’s ten or twelve —probably fifteen by now —lab huts. They’re all painted different colors. light green was Psych, yellow was Chem, blue was Human Factors. I think red was High Energy Physics, and I remember black was something terrible.

Nobody told me .and quest.ions are rude when everybody is under SO~ kind of security restrictions. If you need to know, you’ll be told —that sort of thing. r don’t remember what the rest of them were. Beyond them was another test area —I think it was materiel and equi~ent exposure tests. Some of the larger lab animals were penned out there. too; they needed room to run around in and stay healthy. The big transmitter was past the zoo. and there’s a test shack with a big dish antenna on top right at the tip. I think it1s focussed on a synchronous satellite. How’s that?”

“Satisfactory,” said Mr. Waverly, studying her work carefully.

“Good. I want to go along.”

“I’m afraid —”

“That’s my price for all this information. I spent two years as a field Thrush; I’ve stayed in training. I also know your target better than anyone else available.”

“You must understand your recent —ah —change of heart seems comparatively sudden…”

“It wasn’t so much a change of heart,” she said, exchanging another sappy smile with Napoleon. “Thrush just prevented me from finding where it really was all those years.“How fortunate,” said Illya, “that you found out just before Thrush was effectivelyannihilated.”

Napoleon nodded. “luck,” he said, nruns in our family.”

The requested satellite photographs arrived Tuesday morning and went with xeroxes of a cleaned-up version of Joan’s sketch map to teams of photointerpretation experts. By lunchtime Wednesday nothing had turned up.

After lunch a pair of pages arrived on Mr. Waverly’s desk, a staple through their corner. A complex file code filled the top line and was translated by the second. third, fourth and fifth lines which.identified the paper as selections from the monthly summary filed 23 July, through Djakarta -specifically the text of a report from an U.N.C.L.E.-supported marine research station in Makasar. Mr. waverlyscanned the next twenty lines and his hand reached out to the call button before he turned the page.

Illya, Napoleon and Joan assembled within two and a half minutes to be met with a precis of the report. One of several dolphins who came in regularly for conversational practice and a game of checkers had mentioned passing an atoll far to the south (location uncertain but apparently within a hundred kilometers of the lesserSunda Archipelago) which was ringed with small floating things, made of metal and plastic, spaced every kilometer or so around the atoll at about a sixty kilometer radius. They were apparently connected by wire to the island, and made no sound at all according to the dolphin, who had been asked to go back and find out more. He seemed curious about it; he’d mentioned the subject hoping Dr. Kajat the marine biologist who operated the research station and who had filed the reportt.could tell-him what they were.

He’d asked a couple other dolphins he’d met on the way back; they’d noticed the things and supposed they were listenin9 devices, but they didn’t particularly care.

“The island would have to be between seven and eight degrees south,” said Illya, studying the wall map and tilting his head to read the angled lettering.

“listening devices?” said Joan.

“Sonar and radar and other detection systems mostly emit loud signals which tell the whole world somebody’s there,” Napoleon explained. “The same reason to use photomultipliers to see in the dark instead of an infrared searchlight.”

“And floating like that they can listen in the air and underwater,”

Illya added. “They will be very difficult to sneak up on.”

“While you’re on your way up here,” Mr. Waverly said, “I filed a revised request with NASA specifying high-resolution mapping shots of the apprbpriate quadrangle. This request is being processed at the moment. Apparently, r1rs.

–ah —Solo, that twin-jet had a somewhat higher cruisinq speed than your travelling companion knew.”

“Oh, I learned long ago never to trust anythino a T;hnJsh tell JTle. Told me,” she corrected herself.

The deskside telephone chimed and Waverly answered it. “Yes? Ah. Very good… Oh. Oh? Have you compared —” His eyebrows knitted as he bent full attention on the telephone and his audience sat silent and staring. “I see.

Yes, that is in itself infonnative. Can we arrange to have that particular set of coordinates photographed again as soon as possible? I see. Yes, by all means use my name if necessary to get it done. Thank you.”

He hung up and drulTl11ed his fingers for a mooent. “One frame is missing from the series, replaced bya re-coded duplicate of another frame of vacant sea. Apparently that one negative has been tampered with in the JTlaster files.”

He cleared his throat and looked sharply at Joan. “Are you still as anxious to rush into the jaws of death?”

“Absolutely,” said Joan, gripping Napoleon’s hand and smiling up at him.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“You think the missing negative is proof enough, then?” said Illya.

“I believe its absence is most eloquent, Hr. Kuryakin. We will not rush into action before spying out the terrain, but we might do well to transfer our central operation, quietly, to Makasar pending an interview with Dr. Kaja and his trained fish. Mr. Solo, what do you feel about taking your wife on such a business trip?”

“Frankly, sir, I wouldn’t want to leave her behind. I think I’d be afraid something would happen to her before I got back. Even under the circumstances, I’d feel better if she was with me.”

Waverly nodded. “Very well. Her knowledge of the terrain will be useful, especially if we are unable to get that satellite picture. It will require re-positioning one over the Gulf of Tonkin. and may take s001e time.” He fumbled his pipe and rolled leather pouch out of a side pocket and dipped a pungent bowlful which he tamped with stained thumb and forefinger. “I presume you can be ready to leave for Indonesia tomorrow evening. The sooner we get there. the sooner we will be acclimatized. This week we can spare three days —next week we will need all our faculties at optimum pitch.”

“Next week?”

“Thrush Island knows we’ve been tapping the Ultimate Computer —the remote destruct command directed at our illicit tenninal demonstrates that. Beyond a doubt they are racing to replace their lost hardware and renew the offensive.

If I knew absolutely that this unnamed island was the Thrush base we seek, I would order an attack on it at once. But pending verification by a NASA photograph —or positive identification bya qualified dolphin —I plan to be ready to move against them.”

“Next week?”

“I confidently expect so.”

“Then.” said Illya, “Southward, Ho!”