Текст книги "The Dagger Affair"

Автор книги: David McDaniel

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He lost the signal briefly as they passed through Yerba Buena Island, and fiddled with the knobs as they came out the other side. "There seems to be some interference from the upper deck of the bridge," he said. "The signal is spotty. No, there it is." Suddenly he snorted. "He's coming right toward us! He must be westbound on the top level. Irene, how hard will be to turn immediately when we come off the end?"

"Illegal, but not difficult if you hold on tight. Will you fix the ticket if we're stopped?"

"Under the circumstances I think Mr. Waverly will allow it."

"All right, then. How far away is he now?"

Illya shook his head. "Hard to tell with all this steel between us. But he's getting closer."

Irene accelerated, and Illya focused his attention on the receiver. "Here he comes," he said at last, slowly, and then – "There he goes! He just went over us. Time check."

Napoleon looked at his watch and fixed the time in his memory. "Was he going any unusual speed?"

"About the limit, I think."

"Then we'll have his location pegged."

Two minutes later they came off the end of the bridge and out onto a long sweeping access ramp which swung them gently down toward land again. Irene hugged the left side, and slowed. Then a small U-turn curve opened in the low concrete divider. She cut the wheel hard, and the Rolls rocked as she touched the brake and throttle. Then they were back on an access ramp leading them to the upper deck and back to San Francisco.

"Time?"

"He's about four miles ahead of us. What does your gadget say?"

Illya listened, and frowned. He made an adjustment and listened again. "Very little. There is still unusual interference of some kind."

They sped on up the bridge and toward the island. After a minute or two Illya spoke again. "You did say four miles, didn't you?"

"Right. Why?"

"He may have been, but he's getting closer again."

"Oh, no! You don't suppose..." Irene began.

"He couldn't have seen us. And..." Illya paused. "Hm. He's not approaching very fast.... But he is below us." Then, just as they approached the face of the island, Illya said, "We just passed over him."

Irene looked sideways at him. "The way you said that, he didn't pass under us."

"I'm afraid he didn't. He's stationary, about two hundred feet below. In other words, he's on the bottom of the bay beneath the bridge."

"More likely just the tracer is," said Napoleon. "A body would be too obvious. But they could have flipped the pin out the window without even slowing down."

Illya said something rude. "That will tie up one channel for a month, until the battery runs down. I begin to understand your feelings of frustration, Napoleon. This entire affair seems to have become jinxed since we arrived in San Francisco."

"Please don't blame it on our city," Irene said. "You may not be used to working within the relatively open framework which the Hierarchy allows. Freedom does not come naturally, despite what your theorists would have you believe. Besides, while our subjects may have escaped our surveillance, we have by no means lost them – or vice versa. A little red car made the same highly unconventional U-turn we did at the east end of the bridge, and is presently about fifty yards behind us."

They knew better than to turn and look, but Napoleon shifted in his seat to take advantage of the side mirror. After a moment he smiled. "How considerate! But how do we induce them to let us reverse our positions so we can follow them back to their headquarters? That is, considering they are from DAGGER, and not from some other secret criminal organization dedicated to destroying the world – or just to destroying us."

"Napoleon," said Irene severely, "don't babble. Our first problem will be to lose them. It shouldn't be difficult."

By this time they were coming down the long slant toward the city. The tops of buildings loomed up on either side of them as they swung right to an escape ramp.

Irene continued happily, "Their car is smaller, faster, more maneuverable and less conspicuous than ours, but we have an advantage which outweighs this all. They are relative strangers to the city; I know it intimately. Pay attention, now – I have a special tour in mind which will prove educational as well as entertaining."

She swung left onto Mission Street and accelerated – and in two minutes Napoleon was hopelessly lost. Irene beat out stop-lights with fractions of a second to spare, made improbable turns, dodged up and down hills, into and out of alleys; ducked into cul-de-sacs and hid around corners. Once in a while he would recognize something like a corner of Chinatown going by, and occasionally Colt Tower would appear on a distant hill behind a building, but it never seemed to be in the same place. Whenever they crossed an open street, there would be a bridge far away down the hill at the end of it. And sometimes the street behind them would be clear, but never for very long. There was usually a little red car in it somewhere.

One long sweep through Golden Gate Park lost their tail entirely, but within three minutes after they came out on Nineteenth Avenue the little red car appeared around a corner three blocks away.

Irene did impossible things up and down Twin Peaks and north toward Corona Heights, and Napoleon's stomach did not recover until they were rolling smoothly up Divisadero alone. Irene was about to turn right on Fulton and go home, when Illya said, "Don't turn if you don't want them to know where were going. They just pulled out of Fell and are behind us again."

"Fell?" said Irene. "Then they couldn't have been following us. They were waiting for us. And I burned all that gasoline and rubber being a wild goose without even being chased!"

They continued up Divisadero at a leisurely pace. The hill became steep up, and then suddenly even steeper down, but Irene down-shifted like a truck driver and kept the red car a neat two blocks behind. Then they came into a broad divided street running through a business district and she turned right. Obeying all the traffic laws, she let the red car get closer.

A hill rose at the end of the street, and a few blocks away from the foot of it she began to pick up a little speed. "Illya, you may appreciate the fact that we will dispose of our little following on Russian Hill."

"I do. How?"

"Watch."

The hill did not seem especially steep from the bottom, but it rose exponentially. It narrowed to four lanes, then to two as it made the final precipitous climb to the top. Irene came over it at forty, and the red car was still three blocks behind.

"Now," she said, "hold onto something."

She slapped the car into low, and the transmission howled like a trodden cat as they nosed over the crest into what looked at first glance like a colorful rock-garden. But there was a street after all – a narrow brick single-lane winding like a path among the flowers.

Irene swung the wheel to the left, hard to the right, hard to the left, back and forth, with the tires squealing protest on the bricks, weaving through the maze of switchbacks until Napoleon felt quite dizzy. They were just past half way down when he heard a dull whump behind them. He looked back but could see nothing over the flowerbeds.

Before they came off the bottom there were two more banging crashes from up the hill. Irene made a short right on Leavenworth and pulled to the curb. The sounds continued, coming down the hill and getting louder.

Whump! Pause. Cranch! Pause. Blangk! Pause. Wunk! And the red car came off the bottom of the hill at about fifteen miles per hour. It wove madly as it crossed the street and missed the next hill down. It swerved drunkenly to the left at the last moment and came to rest at an angle, one wheel resting against a fire-hydrant in front of an apartment house.

Napoleon and Illya piled out of the Rolls and sprinted across the street as the two men climbed dizzily out of the car. The car itself was a sight to sadden a body-shop. Every fender was dented, both headlights shattered; great pieces of paint were missing from the sides, and the front bumper would need a complete replacement.

They surrounded the two shaken DAGGER agents, who were unable to put up more than token resistance, and hustled them into the Rolls, where Irene produced two sets of handcuffs from a door-pocket and clipped them to unobtrusive ringbolts in the back seat.

Meanwhile Napoleon had discovered a small buzzing box in the glove compartment of the red car. Holding it up, he announced to Illya, "I think we have the secret of their luck. We're carrying a tracer!"

"Unfair of them," Illya said, and continued looking around in the front seat.

Napoleon carried the box back to the Rolls, and began going over the body with it. In short order he had located a small black case about the size of a matchbox, clipped under the running board with a powerful magnet. He turned off the receiver, then called over to Illya, "Keep looking. I'll be back in a few minutes."

A wry grin decorated his face, he started up the long flight of steps that ran up the side of the street, back to the top of the hill. It was a long climb, and his legs were tiring when he reached the top, but the pleasure of doing something to the enemy for change could not be dampened. He stood at the top of Russian Hill almost five minutes before he saw what he wanted – a cable car climbing up the hill toward him from the waterfront.

He stood like a passenger near where it would stop, and the car squealed to a halt in front of him a minute later. He leaned forward with a mildly frustrated look while his left hand slipped under the high framework and left the tracer. He said to the grip man, "Sorry. I'm expecting someone."

"That's okay," said the grip, and battered his bell as he caught hold of the cable and rumbled away, carrying the DAGGER tracer on its way by a devious route downtown – and eventually back – and a steady nine-point-five miles per hour.

Back of the bottom of the hill, Illya had a few things in sealed envelopes carefully labeled.

"What have you been doing while I was out taking some healthful exercise?"

"Why you were playing around with the toy trains, Napoleon, I was collecting some genuine clues. And that little car had quite a collection." Illya indicated the envelopes. "Some metal dust from the floor of the back seat. It looks like aluminum. Here are a few pieces of a fabric I couldn't identify. And here is something quite hopeful." He held the last envelope up. It bulged.

"Rain is the best ally of the detective ever invented. I have here some bits of hard mud, wedge-shaped, as though they had been between the heel and sole of a shoe. They are dry, but unbroken, which means they wouldn't have been kicked around the floor very long. There has been no rain on the peninsula for a week, but it rained across the bay just three days ago. Perhaps a competent geologist would be able to give us a definite location."

Irene spoke up then. "In case you're interested, I checked the registration on the car. Its home is in Berkeley, and its owner is the tall one with the sullen expression. By the way, they were becoming abusive, so I sealed the back seat and pumped in some knockout gas. They'll be quiet while we take them back to our place."

"Fine," Illya said. "Now let's get back to somewhere I can get an analysis run on these. Can you drop me off at the U.N.C.L.E. office?"

"Certainly. But can you spare some of that mud for Ward? I'm sure he'd love to see it, and he might be able to tell something about its origin."

Illya nodded and handed her an envelope. "There were wedges from both shoes," he said. "This is the more complete one. Now," he said, fitting himself into the front seat next to Napoleon, "let's go."

They went.

Chapter 14: "Such A Sloppy-Looking Thing To End The World With."

Supper was on the table when Napoleon came in. He hung his topcoat on a rack in the hall and joined the rest of the group. Robin was with them again, and rather to his surprise so was Garnet.

Waverly looked up. "Ah, Napoleon. Report?"

"Nothing much. The address in Berkeley was a dead end. An apartment; he'd been living there about five months. I was unable to get into his rooms, but we can pick up a warrant and examine them tomorrow if necessary. I think, however, that we're getting close to the finish of this problem."

"Why?"

"Oh, call it a hunch. Perhaps inspired by the grenade that was pegged at me as I left the apartment house.... It was tossed from a speeding car, late model, dark blue. I didn't get the license. Speeding cars are fine for protection and a quick get away, but they're rotten for accuracy. The bomb hit a telephone pole and went off in the street. Fortunately it wasn't a fragmentation type."

Waverly nodded. "Your hunch would appear to be correct. Miss Keldur here has brought us another piece of information of great value, which dovetails with data supplied by Illya and Mrs. Baldwin earlier today. It seems not unlikely that we may be involved in a permanent sheathing of this DAGGER tonight. But here comes your salad – Illya, fill him in while he eats."

Napoleon attacked the tossed greens with an appetite, while Illya began. "The mud I found is not from the peninsula, but is as I suspected from somewhere in Alameda County."

"Specifically, from one of about a dozen possible locations in Alameda County," Baldwin interpolated. "The areas are not small, but restrict the location somewhat. Also, if you recall, that most annoying incendiary that landed in our front room the night you arrived was packaged in a bottle of Oak Barrel Muscatel – this is packaged only by a small winery in Oakland, and is sold at comparatively few stores. There are only three spots in Oakland where this particular type of mud could have been picked up.

"Now, Miss Keldur, tell us again your news. Mr. Solo, Miss Keldur has pulled a bit of forgotten conversation from the depths of her memory, and the world may well be thankful for it. Tell him, my dear."

Garnet stammered a little bit, and Napoleon remembered all she had been told about Thrush before. But she caught her breath and repeated what she had obviously told several times before this evening.

"I remember...I remember Kim complaining about the noise I made while I was vacuuming. He said it was almost as noisy as the other place – that was where he was working half the time, up here I guess – with the airplanes buzzing overhead all day and half the night." She looked around at Baldwin and Waverly, and then at Robin, who was watching her intently. "And when I remembered this, I thought it was something you should know, and I didn't want to phone or wire, so I came myself."

"And a fortunate thing it was," said Baldwin, "because..." He paused as Irene set a platter of spaghetti before him. "Gentlemen, no more business. My wife's spaghetti sauce takes full attention and appreciation. The fate of the world must wait until after dinner. In the meantime, eat well. We may have a large night ahead of us." And so saying, he addressed himself wholeheartedly to his platter.

With a smile and a reassuring wink to Garnet, Napoleon did the same. And only idle conversation was permitted for the next half hour.

* * *

Later, in the library, Baldwin brought out an Ordinance map of the Oakland area, and spread it out on the oak table. Certain areas had been carefully cross-hatched.

"Here is our area," said their host. "The Oakland Airport is so located that few of the flights go low over occupied land areas. But it is indeed open, as Miss Keldur's memory indicates, all day and half the night. There are no scheduled flights in or out between 12:30 and 6:30 a.m. You will notice this entire artificial semi-island on which the airport is located is cross-hatched. This indicates that it is made of the same sort of soil which Mr. Kuryakin so cleverly retrieved."

His long forefinger glided along Earhart Road, indicating a row of large buildings, all numbered. "There are in this area quite a number of airplane hangars of various sizes. The evidence indicates that we may have been blinding ourselves by looking for a warehouse. An aircraft hangar could draw a great deal of power, could be locked securely, could be convenient for unobserved comings and goings, and right here" – he touched a small point of land – "is a large public boat ramp, where supplies of material too large even to be easily trucked through the streets could be brought ashore under cover of darkness. And finally, it has more space for the construction of something gigantic and devilish than any but the largest warehouse."

"I might also add," said Waverly, "that there were recently several unexplained crashes here. It seems that about three or four months ago there was a series of incidents in which in aircraft's engine stopped suddenly while actually on the glide path. There were three such incidents in the space of a week, and one since, according to our reports. They no longer appear coincidental."

Baldwin said, "I am expecting momentarily a call from our intelligence branch, who were instructed to trace the ownership on every one of those hangers. Some are deserted, some are in full-time commercial use. One of them has a faulty cover story, and when we find it, we will have found our DAGGER."

Exactly on cue, the telephone rang. Baldwin limped over to the stand, and picked up the receiver. "Baldwin. Yes...Yes...Very good. Thank you." He replaced the receiver and returned to the table. He leaned his cane gently against it with an almost exaggerated carefulness, and looked around the group clustered about the map.

"That was, of course, the expected report. There are two possible sites which could not be absolutely guaranteed. One is owned by the Flaherty Air Taxi Service, on which no information could be found. The other is in the name of Miss Gloria Fisher, of Ascot Drive, Oakland. Yes, Mr. Solo?"

"Miss Fisher was one of the larger contributors to Kim Keldur's work. I was visiting her just yesterday, trying to get some information on DAGGER. She – ah – knew nothing."

"Circumstantial though this evidence may be, I think we have now come to the end of the search." Baldwin's long forefinger touched lightly on the map, and this time it did not move but rested steadily on one building. "Gentlemen," he said, "this is the place."

* * *

Half an hour later the attack party set out for Oakland. They had discussed the idea of a full-scale raid, but Waverly had pointed out that any advance warning could let Keldur escape, and the area was probably guarded. Surprise was the most important factor in this operation.

"All indications are that the full-scale Energy Damper is almost ready to go into operation. If it can be captured intact, an examination of its circuitry could be of inestimable value. If Keldur is allowed to escape, he can build another one with the support he will get when his supposedly peace-guaranteeing project is actually raided and destroyed." He paused, then added thoughtfully, "I suppose in a way it is something that would guarantee a permanent peace to the entire world. But there are a few things worse than war..."

After some discussion Robin and Irene were to be left behind. More than one car would double the chance of detection as they approached, and the Rolls would be full. Waverly was opposed to Garnet's coming, but she remained absolutely adamant. "Kim is my brother, Mr. Waverly. If I could just talk to him for a few minutes, I'm sure you would be saved a lot of danger. He's sick. He needs help." Waverly made irritated noises, but finally gave in and allowed her to be the fifth in the party.

At 9:00 P.M. they started for Oakland.

At nine forty-five the Rolls stopped without a sound some hundred feet away from the hangar they had picked, and they made their way on foot across grass and soft bare earth.

Napoleon had retrieved his own U.N.C.L.E. Special from the warehouse that afternoon, and had taken some time to check it over and clean it, so that it was in perfect functional order again. He felt much better with it tucked back in his hand.

Baldwin was in the lead, picking his way through the darkness with his cane in one hand and a Thrush infra-red spotlight in the other. He and Waverly were equipped with goggles, and as they approached the building he gestured the rest of the group to stop.

He moved carefully up to the small door at the side, and checked it over carefully. He leaned his cane against the wall, and bent over the doorknob in a position Napoleon recognized. Again in some fifteen seconds he straightened up, and returned to them.

He gestured them to gather closely, then whispered, "Mr. Waverly, they shouldn't know you are here, so I would like you to be our hole card. Come in after either five minutes or a distress call, and be ready for anything. Garnet, you will wait with Mr. Waverly. If we can catch your brother off guard, you will have your chance to talk to him. Napoleon, Illya, you will go in first. Keldur will certainly recognize any of us, and I am somewhat limited in a fight. This is our order of battle. Don't fire unless fired upon, and have your gas-filters in. And try not to damage any more equipment than is necessary."

They all nodded, and Waverly checked over his pet Webley. Garnet noticed his use of non-standard equipment, and asked if it were a special kind of gun. Waverly said, "The best gun depends on the man behind it. I prefer the way this one handles. Besides, we've been through a great deal together, and we've always taken good care of each other."

Napoleon and Illya made one last check around, and then, side-by-side, started for the door, Baldwin stumping along behind them. They paused at the door, which stood ajar a crack, and listened.

There was a distant hum of power and an occasional clatter that told of machine tools in use. Napoleon gave Illya a brisk nod, and they pushed the door open.

It led into a small cubicle, an office of some kind, with a second door and window facing out into the hangar itself. And under a few glaring lights high overhead squatted a huge tangle of cables, panels and circuitry. It looked somewhat as he had expected, Napoleon thought – as if half the mad scientists from countless films had combined their efforts in one superhuman attempt to create some ultimate horror.

The Energy Damper stood almost thirty feet high and over fifty feet square. There were jury-rigged scaffolds around it, and electric cords draped like festoons over an idol. Rising from the top of the machine almost to the roof of the hangar was weirdly twisted coil, about ten feet in diameter. It appeared to be made of some heavy cable, each strand of which had been wrapped with a finer wire which shone under the lights. The panels around the base were a maze of meters, switches and tally lights.

Some of the panels were polished and gray, some of them rough and blue, or green. Some were unfinished aluminum sheeting with holes cut and dials stuck through. The whole machine gave an impression of a gigantic experimental rig put together by a theoretician or a technician who was only interested in the insides. And since most of the equipment was probably there only to be used once, it somehow seemed reasonable to put less effort into a neat appearance. Still, Napoleon thought, it's such a sloppy-looking thing to end the world with.

* * *

A weapon to destroy ten thousand years of human development – or half a billion years of evolution – should be sleek and polished, bright and deadly. A cobalt bomb the size of a submarine, fat, streamlined and gleaming. A clear glass vial of mutated virus, almost indistinguishable from distilled water. A glittering crystal of ice-nine. It should look...efficient.

This faintly ridiculous conglomeration of junk looked no more deadly than another collection of miscellaneous parts Napoleon had seen pictures of – a stack of graphite blocks and U-235 slugs which had been constructed on a handball court in Chicago, and had been the world's first atomic power pile.

There were only a few people in sight – most of them in makeshift coveralls of one type or another. There were no guards; even the workers were unarmed. It looked like a movie set, or a graduate research project built with limited funds.

Baldwin murmured, "We have them entirely by surprise. The day is ours. Pardon me...." And he opened the door into the shop.

He stepped forward two paces, allowing Napoleon and Illya to stand flank to him, guns drawn. Then he rapped his cane on the floor twice. The thumps echoed through the chamber, and heads turned.

"Attention, please," he announced. "Put down your tools and raise your hands. You are all under arrest, and anything you say may be taken down and used as evidence. Everyone come off the scaffolding and out of the machine; line up here on the floor before me."

A few of them started to move, and then a distorted metallic voice rang from over their heads.

"Stay where you are. Before you try anything, Baldwin, look up and look around."

There weren't many men on the roof of the little office room, no more than half a dozen. But each of them had a heavy caliber rifle pointed downward toward the three invaders.

As they looked up the office doors slammed behind them, cutting off their only retreat. The man with the bull-horn aimed his voice at the machine. "Don – Leo. Come over here. Some people you should say goodbye to."

Two men, the only ones wearing white coats, appeared and approached. One was husky and blond, the other slight and slender, with a vague face. There was a rustle and a thump, and the tall, slender young man with the cold glittering eyes was standing beside them, loud-hailer by his side.

"Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin. You will remember me. So will you, Mr. Baldwin. Now would you please put your guns away? Any sudden moves would result in your untimely death in a much less pleasant manner than you have earned."

Napoleon and Illya replaced their automatics, and Kim Keldur continued, "Too bad you came tonight. Tomorrow the Energy Damper will be ready for its final tests, and you should be allowed to see it. But we can't keep you very long. You are very hard to capture or kill, so we will take advantage of our position while we have you.

"Get them back to the corner," he said to the men on the roof. Three of them shouldered their weapons and climbed down, then took up the guard again while the other three joined them. Napoleon and Illya were hustled off, and one guard tried to grab Baldwin's cane.

"I warn you, young man," said the Thrush chief sharply, "I cannot walk without my stick. If you take it, you will have to carry me, and I am not an easy load."

The DAGGER looked at Keldur, who nodded. "Let him keep it, but watch him. The old devil is tricky."

As he and the other two stood with guns bristling around them, Napoleon thought, Mr. Waverly was scheduled to come to the rescue in five minutes. I hope he remembered to wind his watch this morning.

Chapter 15: "Mr. Solo, We Are DAGGER!"

They were taken to the next corner of the hangar, where there were a few folding chairs and a table, and directed to sit down with their hands under them. Keldur leaned against the table.

You have been looking for us for some time. I am Kim Keldur. This is Don Chernik" – he indicated the husky blond – "and this is Leo Holt. The device you see before you is ours."

"And who do you think you are?" Napoleon asked.

Keldur smiled a thin, hard smile. "Mr. Solo, we are DAGGER. We will open the throat of the world with our blade, and bring antiseptic peace to this crawling cesspool of a planet. Our goal is the most noble in the history of the foul human race, and we are about to achieve it. My discoveries, the designs and constructions of my friends here – fate brought us together like parts of a supercritical mass which will irradiate and cleanse the globe.

"Rather an ambitious statement, my boy," said Baldwin. "The world is a very large place, and quite full of life."

"Words mean nothing," Keldur said. "The only proof is experimental proof. Two days from now, if anything lives on this planet, it will prove my theories wrong. But I have more evidence behind my prediction." He rose, and stalked over to a cabinet. "Would you like a demonstration? You shall have one."

Napoleon recognized the device he brought out, and his heart started to pound. It was the first working model – the one Illya had smashed just before it could claim its first victim. And now it would claim three. Napoleon Solo was afraid of very few things in the world – but this was one of them. He knew its effects too well. The back of his neck tightened until his scalp ached.

Keldur carried it lovingly back to the table. "Unfortunately, we cannot maintain you until the final test tomorrow. A less humane man than I would simply shoot you and throw your bodies into the Bay. But then you would suffer needlessly. This will be most gentle."

He stroked the coil gently with a fingertip. "This coil is directional. The one up there" – he gestured – "is non-directional. That and the size are the only essential differences between the two. All those controls are simply to check separate parts of the circuitry. One master switch will send a sufficient surge of power to all parts of it at once when the time comes, and the field will begin to spread out. Only a few connections remain to be made in the final stages. I really wish you could be with us to watch. Your world ending – and mine beginning. But you are too dangerous. You would try to interfere, and too much must be done. Now you will have to be content with this small-scale version – which will be quite large enough for you. Goodbye, gentlemen." And he twisted the knob on the side.

Napoleon wanted to scream, but his throat wouldn't open. And then his legs and arms were growing numb, and time was slowing down. The room grew darker and began to fade....

And then the light was there again, and the echoes of thunder were filling the hangar. He turned his head, and saw Waverly standing in the entrance from the office, his Webley smoking in his right hand. "The first man who moves will die on the spot," the familiar firm voice barked.