The Unspeakable Affair Page 2

  "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.