The Dolls of Death Affair Read online

  The English pilot-operative looked dubious. “Old fellow, are you balmy?”

  Illya Kuryakin joined Solo. “Of course he isn’t. They had to take off. There is no other way out of the station. We came up behind them a few seconds too late. If your helicopters are properly powered, you should be able to catch the escape craft and bring it down.”

  Farmingham massaged his nose. “Did you actually see a chopper take those THRUSH chaps out of here?”

  “No,” Solo replied. “But they must have had one standing by here, just in case.”

  “Bit of a stew, isn’t it?” Farmingham mused. Then he glanced down, eyes somber in the increasing brilliance of the Alpine sunlight. “You see, chaps, these choppers we came over in from Bern and Basel carry a ton of electronic gear. Radar and all that. My navigators were watching. There wasn’t a blip. Not so much as one bloody blip. And we’ve been hovering in this snowy soup round about for nearly ten minutes, waiting for things to clear up. We’d have got some electronic pick-up of a craft. Maybe even a visual pick-up too.”

  “Something took those men off of this landing pad,” Illya said.

  “There were seven of them up here, “Solo added. “And there’s no other way down.”

  “Not unless they went up to heaven like angels,” Framingham said. The pilot-operative saw that his humor was unwelcome, rubbed his nose again. “I’m telling you. They didn’t fly out in any ordinary aircraft.”

  “But they got off here somehow!” Solo insisted. “And they---what did you say?”

  “What?” Framingham blinked. “I said they didn’t fly out of here in any ordinary aircraft. If they were traveling by air, chaps, then they were traveling in some type of craft we don’t know about. Nothing outruns the electronic gear we’ve got aboard. You chaps ought to know that.”

  Illya’s bangs blew in the wind. The sun was beginning to set. Sharp, blood-scarlet patterns etched by the fading light stained the man-made landing pad.

  “How fast would a craft have to travel to escape detection by your gear?” he asked.

  “Several hundred of miles faster than anything that flies,” said Farmingham.

  “There could have been jamming equipment aboard a THRUSH plane,” Solo suggested.

  Now Farmingham was dead serious. “We carry the most sophisticated counter-jamming apparatus, Mr. Solo.”

  Angry, frustrated, Solo exploded, “What flies that fast, then? You tell me.”

  “Can’t tell you, old chap,” replied Farmingham somberly. “Because nothing does.”

  “Nothing,” said Illya Kuryakin, “that we know about at this moment.”

  Solo’s numbed fingers constricted into a fist. “Perhaps we’ve just found out about it.”

  Slowly the U.N.C.L.E. agents walked around the massive helicopters to the edge of the landing pad. The Alps spread out in savage, snowy panorama, tinged with sundown light. The skies were turning a luminescent vermillion in the east. The wind made Solo’s cheeks hurt.

  He wondered what could possibly have flown so swiftly, so elusively as to defy detection by the ultra-advanced hardware always carried aboard any U.N.C.L.E. aircraft.

  A new THRUSH plane?

  One capable of such fantastic speeds that it would be, for all practical purposes, incapable of detection?

  Was it possible THRUSH had some hellish new sky-weapon at its disposal?

  The empty world of Alps and sunset sky seemed to give back a frightening yes.

  ACT I

  WOULD YOU BELIEVE IN LITTLE GREEN MEN?

  A week later, toward ten in the evening, three men with grave faces discussed the baffling events that had taken place in the Swiss Alps, and tried to forecast what serious consequences those events might produce for their organization.

  The men were Napoleon Solo, Illya Kuryakin, and their chief, Mr. Alexander Waverly, the number one man of Section I, Policy and Operations. They conducted their discussion in Mr. Waverly’s office, a room equipped with computers, built-in TV monitors, and a large, circular, motorized conference table which revolved at the touch of a button. Few outsiders had ever seen the room. Fewer still of the millions in Manhattan were even aware that it existed.

  The headquarters room was the strategic center of the entire U.N.C.L.E. complex, which was hidden away behind the facades of a row of buildings a few blocks from the United Nations enclave on New York’s East Fifties. The buildings consisted of a large public parking garage, four dilapidated brownstones and a modern three-story whitestone.

  The first two floors of the whitestone were occupied by an exclusive key-club restaurant, The Mask Club. On the third floor were sedate offices. These, a front, belonged to U.N.C.L.E. They interconnected with the maze of steel corridors and suites hiding away behind the decaying fronts of the brownstones.

  There were four known entrances to the three-story U.N.C.L.E. complex, one being through the third-floor offices in the whitestone, and another through a carefully-contrived dressing room in Del Florio’s tailor shop on the level just below the street.

  Within U.N.C.L.E. headquarters proper there were no staircases. Four elevators handled all vertical traffic.

  And inside the steel-walled rooms where signal lights of red, amber, purple, green, royal blue blinked constantly in coded sequences worked a crack team of alert young men and women of many races, creeds, colors and national origins.

  The equipment installed for their use was the most sophisticated available. The complex devices for communication included high-powered shortwave antennas and elaborate receiving and sending gear hidden away behind a large neon advertising billboard on the roof.

  Such were the resources of U.N.C.L.E. in Manhattan. But to Napoleon Solo and his companions on this particular night, they suddenly seemed far from adequate.

  “I am sorry to say, Mr. Solo, that our search specialists have turned up nothing at all to suggest that THRUSH has been developing a super-secret aircraft of the type that you’ve conjured for us.”

  Mr. Alexander Waverly made this remark while tapping the stem of his perpetually empty pipe against the conference table. He was a middle-aged, rumpled man with a somewhat battered face. His hair was the neatest part of him, combed down on one side from a precise part. His clothes were the baggiest of Harris tweeds.

  Deceptively slow to speak at times, Alexander Waverly was a seeming anachronism in the sleek metallic modernity of the conference room. But his looks and behavior failed to give an accurate reflection of the tough and tough-minded man he really was.

  “Then we really have nothing on which to base our suspicions except the mathematical certainty that no conventional aircraft could have eluded our helicopters in the time elapsed.”

  The speaker was Illya Kuryakin. He looked bookish and introverted as usual, his blond hair falling nearly to his blue eyes. His pensive face was troubled by a frown. Napoleon Solo had long ago given up trying to make Illya dress smartly. His Russian peasant background was against him, for one thing. And Illya would much rather spend equivalent sums of money on hard-to-find jazz records.

  To Illya’s remark Mr. Waverly responded, “Yes, in the time interval between your arrival on the upper landing platform and the arrival of our aircraft---and even if we add in a few extra minutes for good measure---no airplane of ordinary design could have eluded you gentlemen and Farmingham, and done it both visually and electronically. Are you certain the gear in the ‘copters registered nothing?”

  “Nothing,” Solo emphasized. “I teletyped Farmingham today. He reconfirmed it. He’s just had all the gear dismantled and checked again. It was functioning perfectly.”

  Napoleon Solo’s usual quick smile was gone now. His dark eyes brooded in the reflected glow from the computer lights flashing on the wall.

  Solo and Illya sat in large, comfortable chairs at the conference table. Solo’s shoes, seventy-five dollars the pair and hand-lasted in London, gleamed with a high luster. He wore dark slacks and a stylish double-breasted blazer with brass
buttons. White silk handkerchief points protruded at his breast pocket. “I can’t help but think, sir,” he said presently, “that we really unearthed a rat’s nest with this airplane business. And I’m sorry.”

  “Better to unearth it now, Mr. Solo,” Waverly said, “than to be surprised by it later.”

  “Yes, but we also let those cryptographers get away.”

  “I don’t feel so badly on that score,” Illya said. “We did go back and blow up the computers and dismantle the transmission machines. THRUSH had a sizable sum of money invested in that European code system. We’ve eliminated the network, and discouraged similar experiments.

  “Good positive thinking,” remarked Mr. Waverly with rather a cross look. “You would do well to emulate your companion’s attitude, Mr. Solo.”

  “How the devil can I do that?” Solo said jumping up. “Here we sit, not knowing whether THRUSH has dreamed up some new aircraft that could tip the balance in their favor. Think of the logistical possibilities! Operatives delivered or rescued from any location on earth in a fraction of the time it takes a jet to do the job. It could give THRUSH a devastating advantage.”

  Mr. Waverly tick-tocked his pipe against the table. “It may be sheer fantasy, you know.”

  “Do you believe it’s sheer fantasy, sir?” Illya asked.

  Waverly’s eyes grew somber. “How can I possibly answer? We have no concrete information. I have interrogated our agents all over the globe. There is no news of increased research operations, specialized purchases, shifts of THRUSH personnel. But there is one disturbing bit of information which has surfaced in a dozen or more locales all around the world. Beirut, Bombay, Buenos Aires to name but three.”

  Solo felt a little heartened. “You mean information that tends to confirm THRUSH has something new? What’s going on, sir?”

  “Ah, oh,” mused Waverly, “Nothing is going on, Mr. Solo.”

  Illya Kuryakin brushed at his bangs. “Did we hear correctly, sir?”

  “Quite correctly, I’m afraid. Reports have reached me to the effect that all THRUSH stations are abnormally quiet. Known operatives have not been seen in their usual haunts. THRUSH villainy has slacked off to a virtual standstill. It all seems to point to the period of calm which typically precedes an all-out offensive. Given a new type of military aircraft, THRUSH may be preparing another such offensive. And it behooves us to be prepared in turn.”

  Illya Kuryakin sighed. “Well sir, since we have no solid leads, what do you suggest?”

  “I suggest we adjourn for this evening. I hate to waste a moment when serious trouble may be brewing. On the other hand, a night’s sleep may give us all some fresh insights. Oh, but I suppose you, Mr. Solo---“ Waverly gestured to indicate Solo’s sartorial splendor---“I suppose you have a date to do the night spots, eh?”

  Solo checked his watch. Almost 10:30. “Thanks for reminding me, sir. I’m late already.”

  Waverly waved again. “Really, Mr. Solo, why must you always go running round the gin mills and deadfalls? Couldn’t you find some nice, quiet, thoughtful girl, perhaps within our organization? A girl with whom you could share a good book, improve your mind?”

  Solo looked moderately dismayed. “But sir, I am going out with one of our own girls.”

  “You are? That’s wonderful, my boy! Tell me, who is it?”

  “Sabrina Slayton.”

  Waverly’s eyes glowed. “Oh, yes. Miss Slayton. Section V. Very efficient girl. Bright, too. Tell me, are you going to catch a foreign film together?”

  “No, sir,” said Solo. “We’re going to have dinner. Then we’re going up to one of the discos. I hope it isn’t treason to tell you, sir, but Miss Slayton loves to dance.”

  “I see,” returned Mr. Waverly as though he had been wounded.

  Solo laughed, called good night and shot out of the room and down the light-blinking corridor to the number two elevator. He was grateful for the banter that had helped erase, if only momentarily, the mounting tension building up because of the possibility of a new THRUSH offensive.

  The elevator arrived. A pretty, dark-haired girl in a smart suit and a pleasant-faced, capable-looking fellow in Carnaby Street tweeds came up behind and got into the car with him.

  “A penny, Mr. Solo,” said the girl teasingly as the doors silently slid shut. “April, that’s your New England parsimony showing again,” said the man. “A five-cent piece at least, can’t you?”

  Solo looked around. He smiled when he recognized two of his fellow agents, April Dancer and Mark Slate. “You two just coming in?”

  April shook her head. “Afraid not. Just going out. Tokyo on the night plane.”

  The car stopped and Solo stepped forward to get off. “I don’t know who’s luckier. Things aren’t too cheerful around here.”

  “Um, yes,” Mark Slate agreed. “Old Alexander W. was a bit garrumphy with us earlier. Nasty old Dame Rumor is making the rounds, too.”

  “Talk of a big THRUSH push,” April said. “Know anything about it?”

  “Trying to find out,” Solo said, leaving the car. “Luck, you two.”

  “Luck, Napoleon,” April replied.

  Slate waved and the closing doors hid them.

  Solo walked past a busy lab where scientists were dismantling a captured THRUSH incendiary device masquerading as a portable weed sprayer, turned a corner at an L intersection and came face to face with a beautiful young lady tapping her foot.

  “Hi,” he said. “You look gorgeous, as usual.”

  “Thirteen minutes late, Mr. Solo,” said Sabrina Slayton with a gleam in her violet eyes.

  Solo inhaled the scent she wore, took her elbow, guided her quickly down the corridor toward the check-point.

  “Sorry Sabrina. Urgent conference with Mr. Waverly. I got so engrossed I forgot for about five minutes that---“

  “Napoleon Solo, I don’t know why I let you put me on the way you do. Everybody knows Mr. Waverly left headquarters at six o’clock tonight.”

  “Yes, but he came back at seven. Things really are in quite a state.”

  Sabrina’s lovely face grew serious. “That bad, is it? Then I shouldn’t have teased you. Can you tell me?”

  They were at the check-point. An electronic scanning beam played over their shoes, his brightly polished ones and Sabrina’s bright scarlet evening pumps. Her cocktail dress matched her pumps as did her bag and other accessories. The white eye of the scanning beam traveled slowly up over them as they stood waiting before an apparently blank steel wall.

  Sabrina was a tall, graceful girl in her early twenties. Her violet eyes sparkled with animation. She had advanced three grades in Section V, Communications and Security in just a year. With this talent she combined a fashion model’s taste for smart clothes, which fitted her superb figure splendidly.

  “Tell you?” Solo repeated. “I wish I could. I’d better not until Waverly issues a directive to the whole organization. We may be borrowing trouble, but I really don’t think---“

  He bit off his words. But I don’t think we are, his mind finished. Whatever it was, highly advanced jet airplane or modified helicopter, Solo was convinced that some kind of new and sinister means of transportation was now the property of THRUSH.

  And in a world-wide battle of the kind U.N.C.L.E. waged around the clock, transportation was a key. Careful logistics planning and capability for swift movement were often all that stood between the collapse of a tenuous balance of terror in the world. If THRUSH acquired the means to move men and materiel faster than U.N.C.L.E. could---

  Sabrina linked her arm him his. The warm, exhilarating pressure of her gloved fingers brought him awake. She added, “The doors been open a whole minute.”

  Solo saw that the steel portal slid aside, and also the inch-thick reinforced glass barrier beyond. He forced a smile. In a moment, with a little more effort, it became genuine as they entered the darkened halls of the whitestone. They took the elevator down to Del Florio’s.

  “No g
loom,” Solo promised. “Absolutely no gloom tonight. Only guaranteed non-stop hilarity.” And he caught her by the waist and whirled her against a section of wall which promptly revolved them into the steamy tailor shop.

  Mr. Del Florio jerked the pad of the steam presser down onto a pair of pants and did not give them a second glance as they exited to the street arm in arm.

  A light rain was falling. The street reflected car lights and colorful neon signs in glistening squiggles. Traffic was not especially heavy, since it was a little while until the theatres let out. Solo and Sabrina waited in the protection of Del Florio’s for about five minutes until a vacant cab came along. Napoleon Solo whistled and dashed out from the curb.

  He handed Sabrina inside, gave the address of a posh French restaurant, The Bonaparte, a few blocks uptown. “Always like to patronize a relative,” he said as he ducked to jump in after her.

  A burst of headlights caught his eye. The headlights belonged to a car parked further down the block behind them. Solo thought no more about it until Sabrina turned around in the seat when they had gone about a block.

  “Napoleon, can you tell whether that car following us is a taxi?”

  Solo craned. Their own cab turned a corner. As the car behind passed into the light of the intersection, Solo sighted an orange-yellow fender.

  “Yes, I think it is. Why?”

  Sabrina shrugged. “Oh, I just thought---never mind.” She put her glove into his hand. “No gloom. No brooding. You promised and so do I. Tell me as much as you can about the Alps affair. Did you meet any female skiers?”

  “Swinging from a rope at several thousand feet? Are you kidding?”

  The conversation took off from there, warm, intimate, easy-going. Solo liked Sabrina very much. Their work was a common bond. Their mutual affection was an even stronger one. Solo had almost forgotten about the latest THRUSH threat by the time the cab pulled up.

  A gold-braided doorman handed them out under a discreet neon sign reading The Bonaparte. Solo noticed Sabrina search the street behind them. No other car moved for an interval of two blocks. But she appeared concerned all the same. Her eyes were troubled as they went up the wide granite steps and into the candlelit, velvet-walled charm of the restaurant.