Текст книги "[Magazine 1967-­05] - The Synthetic Storm Affair "

Автор книги: I. G. Edmonds

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"You saw what happens when you don't!" he snapped. "You almost got yourself killed. And now you almost made a mess of things by trying to shoot Kuryakin. Can't you understand? Murder must be handled with finesse in this town—especially murder of an U.N.C.L.E. agent."

"He tried to—"

"You were under my surveillance every second. He did not have a chance in the world of harming you," the tall man said impatiently. "I am not going to argue. This is your last chance. Play by THRUSH rules, or you may not play at all!"

"Are you threatening me!"

"Call it what you will!"

"I want to talk to Mr. Leach about this! We'll see what he has to say."

"Mr. Leach works for me. He does what I tell him. And you will be expected to do the same!"

Illya Kuryakin couldn't see the girl's face, but knowing her, he was sure that she was furious. It gave him a thrill of anticipation. He was sure now that the girl's resentment of THRUSH's regimentation could be used to his advantage.

He slowly reached his hand around where he could pull his pen-communicator from his pocket. While the man and Lupe were arguing he surreptitiously twisted the cap. The antenna shot up six inches. He pulled the tiny communications set down against his body where it would not be seen, but where it could pick up and pass to U.N.C.L.E. headquarters the incriminating conversation between the girl and her THRUSH boss.

But the only thing he was able to transmit was his own gasp of pain! A heavy boot caught him in the ribs. He doubled up with a groan. The same foot that kicked him ground a heel down on the communicator.

"What is it?" the THRUSH man cried, whirling about.

"He was trying to sneak a fast one, boss," the cab driver said. "Look here!"

"Did he get anything transmitted?" the man asked in alarm.

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"In this business you can't afford to think!" the man rasped. "We've got to get moving!"

"Get this rat into another cab. Get a driver who is expendable. Place some article of Lupe's in the seat beside Kuryakin. Then arrange a wreck. You understand?"

"Yes, sir, Mr. Martin," the driver said hurriedly.

"Good! Don't leave anything to chance. Be sure Kuryakin and the driver are dead. Have a prepared witness to tell the police what happened. Arrange a story that will look as if the girl was kidnaped and the two men killed by a South American revolutionary group who want the girl's knowledge of storms to help their revolution. Be sure THRUSH is not connected in any way."

Illya only dimly heard the man, Martin, reading his death warrant. He groaned and tried to sit up. Something like volcanic fire burst in his head as he took another savage kick. This time it was against his temple.

He pitched forward on his face.

Martin smiled down at his limp body.

"You see," he said. "The men from U.N.C.L.E. aren't at all the supermen some of our faint-hearted members seem to think. They are just human. They can be hurt and defeated, just as any other human can!"

He laughed softly and turned to the girl.

"You see, Lupe," he said, "you did not make a mistake agreeing to work with THRUSH. Nothing stands between us and total victory except U.N.C.L.E. and you see how we deal decisively with that organization!"

ACT V: "SO LONG, LUPE!"

When their cab's left rear tire started bumping, Napoleon Solo grabbed his pen-communicator.

He quickly transmitted his identification and added, "Mr. Waverly! Emergency!"

"Go ahead, Mr. Solo."

Alexander Waverly's quiet, confident tone was a direct contrast to Solo's clipped anxious voice."

"One moment, sir," Napoleon said. He turned to the two men with him. "Get out quickly! Try to thumb a ride from anyone who will stop for you. See if you can spot where that cab went with Illya and the girl!"

Then into the transmitter, he said hurriedly, "They're getting away from us, sir. The girl suddenly had a change of character and got chummy with Illya. I think now it was a trick. I think she's leading him into a trap."

"What can we do here to help you, Mr. Solo?" Waverly asked.

"I'd like an all-points alarm put out for this cab. You have the number. I phoned it in from the airport. I suspect it is not a regular cab driver. Possibly the cab was stolen. Also I'd like the tri-angular magnetic locators manned. Illya may get a chance to open his communicator. If so, we can get a fix on their location from it."

"Very good, Mr. Solo," Waverly said. "Within five minutes every policeman and every cab driver in New York will be alerted to watch for this car and its passengers."

"Thank you, sir," Napoleon said. "I'll leave my pen-communicator open so you can contact me instantly as well as keep abreast of all our developments."

"Excellent, Mr. Solo," the U.N.C.L.E. chief said. "I do not understand your statement that Miss de Rosa led Mr. Kuryakin into a trap. Isn't it possible that THRUSH agents trapped both her and Mr. Kuryakin? After all, she was Santos-Lopez's assistant in his storm breaking activities."

"Yes, sir," Napoleon replied. "But it seems to me she had a definite change of character after she made a phone call on landing. Call it a hunch if you wish, but I don't believe she is a victim of THRUSH. I believe she is part of THRUSH."

"Mr. Solo, I personally would never rely on a hunch," Mr. Waverly said severely. "I must have something concrete and definite upon which to base my actions."

"Yes, sir," Solo replied.

"However, that is my personal feeling about my actions," Waverly went on. "I am also aware that on at least three notable occasions your hunches kept us from total defeat. So I am not going to stop you from following any hunch you may have, Mr. Solo."

"Thank you," Napoleon said. "I'll keep you informed, sir."

Traffic was partially stalled behind the stopped cab. Solo looked down the line for a likely car to commandeer. He hit on a hot rod driven by two teenagers as the most likely to give him cooperation. Although an international law enforcement group, he had no power to commandeer a vehicle as the New York City police could do. He could only request.

However, he found the two boys not only willing but absolutely eager to help when he flashed his U.N.C.L.E. identification.

"Gee!" one of the said. "Wait until I tell my girl I'm a genuine man from U.N.C.L.E.!"

"You won't be a man until you're twenty-one," his companion said.

"Just help me pull this off and I'll tell her for you that you're every inch a man and a big one at that!" Napoleon said.

"Hang on, Unk!" the boy cried. He must have been all of sixteen. "Awaaaaay we go!"

He took off with a spin of screeching rubber that almost threw Napoleon out of the topless car. They took the corner on two wheels.

"Where to now, Unk?" he yelled back over his shoulder at Napoleon.

"Take a left," Napoleon said, after the slightest hesitation.

"That's a dead end. It leads right down to the river," the other boy said.

"Then make a right," Solo replied. "Another hunch gone wrong. Just keep cruising up one street and down another. It's anybody's guess where the cab went. We—"

The open circuit on the pen communicator in his jacket pocket crackled into life.

"This is Waverly. We have a report. No cabs cross the bridge. They must be holed up somewhere in your neighborhood. We have another report that they did not go back toward the airport. I'm sending seven police cars out to ring in the area. I– Wait!"

Listening tensely to the micro-speaker hidden in the fake fountain pen, Napoleon motioned for the driver to stop. Both boys leaned back, fascinated by the tiny communications set.

"Waverly again!" the speaker crackled into life. "Evidently Mr. Kuryakin managed to get his pen-communicator into action for the briefest second!"

"Did we get sufficient reception to do any good?"

"They must have caught him just as he opened the circuit," Waverly said.

His voice still sounded calm to the unpracticed ear, but Solo knew his chief so well he could detect the thin note of anxiety under the outwardly steady voice. In a man with Waverly's self control this was about the same as sheer panic in another's voice.

It told Napoleon Solo how desperate their chief thought Illya's situation was.

"All we got was a gasp of pain from somebody, an angry shout from another, and the briefest snatch of voices in the background but blurred by the louder noises close to the microphone."

"Can the scrambler—" Napoleon began.

"We are working on it," Waverly said crisply. "Also we hope to get a tri-angular fix on the radio reception. There is a bare chance that the directional beam finder can work on so small a reception if we set up the microphone and keep repeating the reception signal. Stay where you are. I'll call you back as the scrambler starts feeding us data. I should have a preliminary report in three minutes."

"Yes, sir," Napoleon said crisply. "We'll stand by."

TWO

A car swung around the corner, its lights flashing on them. Napoleon Solo whispered an urgent order for the two boys to duck. He drew his gun from its shoulder holster.

Then he relaxed as he recognized the man leaning out the back window. It was one of the two U.N.C.L.E. agents who had joined them at the airport. Napoleon motioned for him to stop.

"Aw gee!" the younger of the two boys said in a disgusted voice. "No shooting!"

"Relax!" Napoleon said grimly. "You'll get shot at quicker than you need to be!"

He hurried over to the other car for quick conference. He sketched briefly for his co-agent what Waverly transmitted to them.

"That broken cry on the pen-communicator sounds like Illya got it," the other U.N.C.L.E. man said, his voice grim.

"Don't bet on it," Napoleon said, his voice growing harsh to hide his own grave concern. "Illya's lives can run any cat competition."

"Okay," the other man said. "I'll pull down to the intersection. That way, if we flush them out, we'll be set up where one or the other of us can take off instantly without having to turn around."

Napoleon nodded and went back to the boys in the hot rod.

"What's this scrambler thing?" they asked him, referring to the mysterious reference Mr. Waverly made in his transmission.

"The short reception U.N.C.L.E. headquarters got from Illya Kuryakin was recorded as all calls to headquarters are," Napoleon explained hurriedly. "The scrambler is an electronic means of separating the voices and rerecording each alone."

"Then you can tell what each said?"

"Yes," the man from U.N.C.L.E. replied, "but the big question here is how much was received. It might not be enough to do any good."

"Then—!"

"Wait! I'm getting a call from headquarters!"

Napoleon Solo pulled out his transmitter.

"Yes, Mr. Waverly?" he said.

"The first scrambler report is in," Waverly said crisply. "We converted the words unscrambled into oscillograph impulses and compared them with oscillograph voiceprints we have on record. The cry of pain came from Mr. Kuryakin. The curse of the man who evidently struck him is from a known THRUSH agent named Paul Wicker. We are working on the two voices in the background. That is all right now."

"Gee!" said the younger boy, his eyes big. "What's a voiceprint?"

"Everybody's voice has certain tones, just like your fingers have certain print marks," Napoleon explained. "When samples of voices are changed to lines on an electronic oscilloscope these tones show up as distinct marks which can be compared with records. It is as infallible as fingerprints for identification."

Before the boy could reply, Waverly called again. "The computers were successful in unscrambling the voices in the background. One of the voices is that of Lupe de Rosa. The other is Maxwell Martin. This man is a minor Wall Street stock broker, but we have good reason to suspect that he is an important THRUSH executive in New York."

"Was there enough of their conversation to give us any clue?" Napoleon asked.

"They were discussing the elimination of Mr. Kuryakin through a fake accident. That is all we could get.

The directional finders were unable to get a fix on Kuryakin's transmission."

"What does that mean?" one of the boys asked Napoleon after the Man from U.N.C.L.E. broke the connection with Waverly.

"It means these people are planning to murder their captive. We know they are somewhere in this area, but have no idea where to start looking. You boys know this neighborhood. Where would you go if you wanted a quick hideout?"

"There are some warehouses back on Fourteenth Street near the river," one of the boys said. "The company that owns them shut down about two weeks ago."

"But they have a watchman there," his companion objected. "I know. We tried to get in and he run us off."

"But THRUSH could have bribed the watchman to provide them a quick place to duck into. Apparently this thing was well planed in advance," Napoleon said. "Where is this place?"

"Hang on, Unk!" the youthful driver cried. "Awaaay we go!"

Rubber screeched on the pavement and the car shot forward. The hot rod careened around the corner on two wheels in a way that made Napoleon Solo wonder dismally if he wasn't in more danger from the driver than he was from THRUSH.

The car shot down along a railroad track and made another short right. The warehouses loomed dead ahead. The driver braked sharply.

"Do you want to go inside?" he asked.

The man from U.N.C.L.E. shook his head.

"They would spot the car," he said. "Park along the fence. Douse your lights when you drive up. I'll walk in."

"We'll go with you!" the driver said eagerly.

Napoleon hesitated. He knew it was too dangerous for the boys to accompany him. Yet he was reluctant to tell them no after all the help he got from them. He was trying to think of some excuse to send them somewhere else, somewhere they would not be in danger but would feel that they were contributing.

Before he could make a decision, he saw a car move around the corner of the warehouse. It was just after dark, too dark to be driving without lights, but there wasn't the sign of a glimmer from the cab. A bigger car came right behind it. It also had its lights completely switched off.

"Look!" he said hurriedly to the boys. "I can't wait. Take this!"

He shoved the pen-communicator in their hands. "Just talk in the mouthpiece here where this tiny hole is. Tell Mr. Waverly what is going on. Tell him to call all our people and have them surround this area."

"We want to go with you!" the boy cried.

"This is more important," Napoleon said hurriedly. "There are too many for us to handle with only one gun between us. Now get me some help quickly—or a man's life may be lost!"

"Sure thing, Unk!" the boy cried. "Hey, Uncle. Hey, Uncle!"

This last cry was made into the pen-communicator. Napoleon winced as he jumped from the car and ran into the darkness. He could just imagine Alexander Waverly's startled anger at the boy's irreverant cry. But he had no choice.

He could not permit the boys to rush into certain death. He knew that they would follow him regardless of any orders unless he gave them something to do.

THREE

Napoleon bent low and ran along the side of the fence. The cab was moving slowly in order not to attract attention. Solo came to the gate. The truck gate was closed, but there was a small personnel gate open. Just beyond it was a guard shack.

Napoleon moved closer, hugging the fence. He could see the shadowy figure of the guard standing in front of the shack. The small personnel gate was ajar, but when Napoleon pushed on it, the un-oiled hinges squeaked.

The guard whirled. Napoleon saw the silhouette of the gun in his hand.

"Who's there?" the guard said in a harsh voice.

"Quick!" Solo cried. It didn't take much acting ability to put a lot of agitation in his voice. "Where are they? There isn't a second to lose. Those rats from U.N.C.L.E. are on to us!"

"What!" the guard cried. "Mr. Martin told me this was perfectly safe when I agreed to let them use this place. I don't want to get in any trouble!"

Napoleon Solo hesitated, wondering if he could trust the man to help him. He decided it was too much of a risk.

"Come here," he said.

When the guard walked closer, Napoleon's hand flashed up and hit him against the temple with the butt of the gun. Solo caught the guard as he fell. He pulled the man into the shack. Then he turned and scooped up the fallen man's gun. He shoved it into his coat pocket.

The two cars were coming closer. The driver of the cab stuck his head out and snarled, "Hurry up and get that gate open! We haven't any time to lose!"

"Okay. Keep your shirt on!" Napoleon replied in a muffled voice. "I'm coming as fast as I can."

He shuffled across the road, imitating the guard's dragging walk. He pulled open the gate and started to swing it back. Then before the driver could put the cab in gear, Solo leaped forward. He swung the gun in a vicious blow.

The driver squalled and tried to duck. The blow caught him on the side of the head. He slumped over the wheel. Solo whirled. The big limousine behind stopped with a squeal of brakes. The darkness was split with the red stab of muzzle blast. A bullet just missed Solo. It struck the car fender and carreened off with a deadly whine.

Solo dropped flat on the pavement to present as small a target as possible. He jerked up his own gun, but the trigger stuck. The blow he struck the driver had broken the trigger spring.

He twisted frantically, rolling back under the stalled cab. It was a moment of extreme danger. If the driver recovered and started the car, he would be run over.

He dug in his pocket for the guard's gun. It was a bigger, heavier .45 caliber. Solo's own gun was a snubnosed .38, carried because its smaller size would fit more unobstrusively under his coat. He wished desperately he had the supremely accurate U.N.C.L.E. gun, but its bulk prevented it being carried on the person.

He pulled himself up against the left rear wheel. The driver of the limousine and his woman companion did not try to escape by driving away. That made Solo suspect that Illya was a prisoner in the cab.

This supposition was borne out when he heard the man yell at the girl: "Hurry! The shots will bring the police in a few minutes! Take this package of gas tablets! I'll keep that U.N.C.L.E. rat pinned down! Throw one of these pellets in the back of the cab. Suffocate our prisoner. He may have heard too much and can incriminate me. We've got to remove him."

"Okay!" the girl gasped. "How do I use them?"

"They're glass. Just throw one inside. Hurry! We haven't a second to lose!"

The two split, coming on opposite sides of the car. Napoleon groaned. There was no way he could cover both sides of the car. He tried to move toward the side the girl was approaching, but a bullet ripped the air at his ear. He whirled and fired back, but his shot went wild.

He whirled. He saw the girl's ankles. It was all of her he could see of her from his position under the car. He realized then that he made a tactical error in climbing under it. He would have been better off taking his chances in the open. That way he could have maneuvered. Now he was completely pinned down!

He tried to draw a bead on Lupe's ankles, hoping he could knock her off her feet before she could hurl the suffocating gas in on top of Illya Kuryakin.

But she moved too quickly. The right wheel got between them. He tried to snake his body around for a better shot, knowing that he was exposing himself to a deadly shot from the gun of Maxwell Martin. It was a chance he had to take. Otherwise his U.N.C.L.E. partner would die!

As he turned he saw the girl stagger back. He couldn't understand what hit her. Maxwell Martin also was so startled that he whirled to face this new danger without shooting at the exposed Napoleon Solo.

Solo, suddenly suspecting the truth, ignored the girl. He whirled and fired at Martin. The THRUSH man staggered, falling with a wailing cry.

Solo rolled the rest of the way from under the cab. He saw Lupe stagger to her feet. She was holding a handkerchief to her nose. A greenish phosphorescent cloud was swirling about her. In her fall she broke the suffocating gas bulb.

Solo took a deep breath and held it as he whirled to aid his companion in the back of the cab. The cab door was open. Kuryakin lay on the floor. It was obvious to Napoleon what had happened.

Although bound, Illya managed to pull down the door handle to open the door, but keeping it pulled closed. Then, when the girl approached to drop the gas pellets inside, he kicked the unlatched door with his bound feet. The unexpected blow knocked her back and down against the pavement.

The extreme danger was not over. The gas cloud was a terrible threat to the bound man. Illya sat up. Napoleon gasped out a quick order for his partner to hold his breath.

He grabbed Kuryakin about the middle, pulling him from the cab. Then, swinging his co-agent up over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, Solo staggered back away from the poisonous green cloud.

He dropped Illya beside the guard shack. Kuryakin was bound hand and foot. He had a gag in his mouth. Solo jerked out the gag and cut the bonds on Illya's wrist.

"You can get out of the rest," he said hurriedly. "I'm going after Lupe. She's getting away!"

"Let her go!" Illya gasped. "If she's free, there may be a chance we can follow her to the THRUSH cell operating this storm gimmick."

"You're right," Napoleon said. "I'll shadow her. Are you in shape to come along?"

"Get moving!" Illya snapped. "Don't waste time on me. I'll be right behind you!"

But before Solo could leave, one of the hot rod boys yelled from the gate: "We got her! We got her! Hey, Mr. Uncle! We got the woman who was running away!"

"Who's that?" Illya asked, getting to his feet after cutting his leg bonds.

"Two boys helping me," he said exasperated. "They are too much help!"

"Yell for them to let her go!"

"No," Napoleon replied. "We'll have to think of some way to let her escape. Otherwise she will know we released her just to follow her to THRUSH headquarters."

Illya rubbed his wrists. He said wryly, "You can always get more than enough help when you don't need it any more!"

"Oh, don't start blaming the boys. They thought they were being helpful. And they were helpful. It was their idea that you might be here. Otherwise we might not have found you in time."

"Then I change my mind," Kuryakin said with a grin. "There is hope for the younger generation!"

"And I'd say there is hope for the older generation to muddle through while we have kids like these to help us!" Napoleon said with a grin. "I'm going to ask Mr. Waverly to write them an official U.N.C.L.E. letter of commendation. I'll mean a lot to them."

"And I want to add my thanks at the bottom," Illya said. "I was in one tough spot."