The Sinister Satellite Affair Read online

  There was a perfectly good stairway still standing at the side of the apartment house, but the young gendarme was insistent that April was unable to walk and that he should personally carry her down the steps.

  Fortunately for international relations a car from the Surete pulled up. A tall Frenchman slightly past middle age got out.

  April Dancer waved down to him.

  “Inspector Gabin!” the girl from U.N.C.L.E. called.

  The inspector looked up. He had a perpetually sad expression on his face, but his eyes belied the lugubrious cast of his mouth. They twinkled like Maurice Chevalier's.

  The spotlight from the first police car had been turned on the front of the ruined building. It clearly outlined April and the discomfited young patrolman.

  April climbed over the wreckage and met Gabin at the top of the stairs. He looked at her reproachfully.

  “And you told me that you were working on a matter of small importance,” he said.

  “I honestly thought it was simply a missing persons investigation,” April replied. “But it seems to be something more than that.”

  “So it would appear,” Gabin said. “And I suppose you just happen not to have observed your potential murderer and therefore regret you cannot assist me---as usual.”

  “On the contrary, Inspector,” April said with a flashing smile. “There were two of them. And they should both be under the debris waiting for you to tell me who they are.”

  He gave her a straight look that seemed to April Dancer to penetrate right into her head. Gabin, as she well knew, was a man-hunter of more than average ability.

  “You don't know who they are?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, “and I certainly hope you can tell me.”

  “What is behind this?” he asked.

  “I wish I could tell you,” April said. “But I don't know myself.”

  He grunted and led her back dawn the steps. A rescue squad was already taking the two dead men from the wreckage. One had a gaping hole in his chest where April's bullet bit him. The second was crushed by falling masonry when the Girl from U.N.C.L.E.'s bullet deflected the bomb back at him.

  Gabin walked over and silently surveyed the corpses.

  “I will rush their prints to headquarters for identification,” one of the homicide team said to the inspector.

  “It isn't necessary,” Gabin said, an odd note in his voice.

  He straightened up and looked hard at April.

  “Young lady,” he said. “Come over here. I must talk with you alone. This is serious. Deadly serious. My information is that U.N.C.L.E. does not meddle in politics.”

  “But we don't,” April protested. Gabin turned and gave the dead men a final stare.

  “It would seem otherwise,” he said in a flat voice. “Your Mr. Waverly may have some difficult explaining to do. It could even cost your organization the right to operate in France in the future. What has happened is that serious, Miss Dancer!”

  THREE

  NO CHANCE FOR FAILURE

  In New York, Zurich, London and Hong Kong, four anxious men from U.N.C.L.E. sat hunched over the various receiving sets, hungry for word from April Dancer. Nothing came. Her pen-communicator had been lost in the bombing.

  When it became apparent that no further communication was coming from the girl in Paris, Waverly said to Mark Slate in London: “Charter a plane at once. Get to Paris and do what you can to help Miss Dancer in whatever trouble she is in.”

  “Leaving instantly!” Slate's clipped British voice said.

  His circuit went dead immediately.

  “Mr. Kuryakin, there is nothing more you can do in Zurich. Can you join Mr. Slate in Paris?”

  “I'll be there in two hours,” Illya's flat tones said quickly.

  “And Mr. Solo---”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “This matter is so serious that I think it best that you come back here and join me at headquarters. I think---One moment, please,” Waverly added. “I have an emergency call. Please stand by.”

  The U.N.C.L.E. operations chief leaned over and cut in a new circuit. He left the beam open to Hong Kong so his chief enforcement agent could listen in.

  “Alex---”

  Waverly's face twisted in surprise. He hastily cut off the beam to Hong Kong.

  “Yes, Jim,” he said into his speaker.

  “I have just received an emergency call from UN headquarters. They were disturbed enough to put a complaint to each of the governing board of U.N.C.L.E. You, as one of us, should get your copy any minute. What is going on?”

  Waverly sat stunned for a moment. This was the first official complaint ever lodged against him. And for it to be addressed to each of the men who formed the board of directors of the famous crime-fighting organization bespoke a matter of extreme seriousness.

  “I haven't received my copy,” Waverly said. “It may be here. I gave orders not to be disturbed because of an urgent program I am working on.”

  “Well, the report I got was that U.N.C.L.E. is interfering with delicate international negotiations aimed at easing tension between Communist China and the West. Specifically, you are trying to find something sinister in Red Satellite I.”

  “I sent them a warning this morning that apparently THRUSH scientists are mixed up in the launch,” Waverly said. “I have done nothing more.”

  “This is more than that,” the U.N.C.L.E. governor said. “I don't know the details, but apparently it has to do with the killing of an important Chinese embassy official in Paris.”

  “I know nothing about that,” Alexander Waverly said.

  “The killing was supposedly done by our woman agent, April Dancer.”

  “What!” the U.N.C.L.E. operations chief burst out, startled out of his habitual calm.

  “That is the report. Do you know anything about it?”

  “Nothing---yet,” Waverly said.

  “We have lost contact with Miss Dancer. I have Slate and Kuryakin both headed for Paris. I should have a complete report in a few hours.

  “Fine. I wish you would keep me informed. This is an extremely serious matter, as you certainly know.”

  “I do know,” Waverly said soberly.

  “You understand, of course, that all of us have complete faith in your judgment. Whatever you decide to do in this matter---or any other matter---we will support you fully.”

  “Thank you, Jim,” Waverly said quietly. “I know you will.”

  “You know, of course, that if international cooperation is withdrawn from us, it will make our work exceedingly difficult. It might make it impossible. We are with you all the way, but if you are wrong---well, it could mean the end of U.N.C.L.E.”

  “I understand that,” Alexander Waverly said.

  “And you still think we should challenge the peaceful intentions of this Red Chinese satellite?”

  “I do,” Waverly said positively, “I do not know what China's motives are with Red Satellite I. But I do know what THRUSH's motives are. It is my sincere belief that no matter what China intends, THRUSH will dominate in the end.”

  “If THRUSH is really in this, I certainly agree,” the U.N.C.L.E. board member said. There was a strong undercurrent of worry in his cultured voice. “Do we have definite proof of THRUSH involvement?”

  “The proof at the moment is insufficient to convince the United Nations officials,” Waverly said. “But it is enough to convince me. In addition, before we broke communications, Miss Dancer indicated that she had found some definite evidence of great importance. I am willing to trust my future on this young woman's astuteness, Jim.”

  “Carry on, Alex! But somehow I feel that you are in for the hardest fight of your life.”

  When the connection was broken between them Waverly reached across the communications console and reestablished contact with Napoleon Solo in Hong Kong.

  “Mr. Solo,” he said, “I wish you would take the next jet back here. I need you badly.”

  “Has some
thing new come up?” Solo asked, his voice anxious.

  Waverly picked up another pipe from the desk. It was a meerschaum this time. Thoughtfully he rubbed the bowl.

  “We are in the exceedingly difficult position of walking a tight rope between international political traps. I can well understand international anxiety over the intentions of Red China since it developed the H-Bomb. The possibility of an atomic war has increased tenfold. Western diplomats are eager to avoid anything that might widen the rupture between East and West. They wish to give China the doubt until something definitely proves otherwise. “

  “The presence of THRUSH in this thing proves otherwise to me,” Solo said positively.

  Waverly laid the meerschaum on the console.

  “Yes,” he said. “I am certain that THRUSH would not be involved in anything unless it advanced its own evil designs against humanity.”

  “I will be leaving immediately,” Solo said.

  “Excellent,” Waverly replied.

  “Come here to headquarters first. I may send you on to Paris. Apparently there is where the weak THRUSH link is. If April Dancer is alive, we will be in an excellent position to strike back.”

  “And if not---” Solo said quietly. “Then I will send you on to Paris to join Mr. Slate and Mr. Kuryakin. The attack on Miss Dancer definitely proves that she had found something important. That lead must be uncovered again.”

  As soon as he finished his talk with Waverly via pen-communicator from Hong Kong, Napoleon Solo took a plane from Kai Tak International Airport. In Tokyo he found that Waverly had arranged for a faster U.S. Air Force jet to bring him the rest of the way.

  Eleven hours after he left Kai Tak on Kowloon, Hong Kong, Napoleon Solo was walking down a street in the lower Fifties on Manhattan Island in New York. Behind him loomed the lighted bulk of the United Nations building.

  He turned into a basement tailor shop in a brownstone front in the middle of the block. A girl was trying to repair the peeling gold paint that spelled “Del Floria's Tailor Shop” on the window. She waved the plastic tube of glue toward the back of the shop.

  “Your order is ready, Mr. Solo,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Napoleon replied and went directly back to the dressing room.

  The girl laid down the glue and went to the pressing machine, where she touched a hidden button. Immediately the back of the dressing room wall opened for Solo. He stepped into a tiny room. It went totally black as the wall closed behind him.

  After infra-red scanners verified his identity, the other wall opened, permitting the chief enforcement officer to step into the U.N.C.L.E. reception room.

  The pretty girl at the reception desk smiled and handed him a triangular badge. It was his passport through the super-secret corridors of U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. Without its emissions to the hundreds of secret scanners, a hundred alarms would be ringing before he took two steps out of the elevator that carried him from the lobby to the floor where Waverly's office was situated.

  As he walked to this elevator, the receptionist called after him:

  “Mr. Solo! Mr. Waverly is on the speaker. He is inquiring if you have arrived.”

  Napoleon walked back to the desk speaker.

  “Solo here, sir,” he said.

  “Never mind coming up, Mr. Solo,” Waverly said. “I have just contacted April Dancer. The situation is worse---far worse than I ever dreamed! We do not have a second to lose. Take a plane immediately to Taipei on Taiwan. You will be met there by a Mr. Chu Ching Sun. He will assist you in making arrangements with the Nationalist Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek to fly the four of you into Communist China.”

  “Yes, sir,” Solo said.

  Curiosity gnawed at him, but he would not venture to ask what was going on. He knew that Mr. Waverly would inform him as quickly as possible.

  “And, Mr. Solo---”

  “Yes, sir?” Napoleon replied.

  “I am sending all four of you on this mission,” Waverly said. “I have never found this necessary before. But this is so grave, so terrible, so utterly devastating that we cannot afford to take any chance of failure. I am doubling our small chances of Success by sending all of you!”

  FOUR

  APRIL IN PARIS

  In Paris April Dancer accompanied Inspector Gabin back to police headquarters. Ordinarily Gabin was friendly to the point of flirtation with the Girl from U.N.C.L.E. But tonight he sat glumly wrapped in thought as the car took them through the dark streets.

  After waiting impatiently for him to explain his curious words after viewing her dead assailant, April asked for an explanation.

  Gabin shrugged.

  “Who knows?” he said. “One was a professional assassin we have sought for some time. The other---well, he is a man who has aroused considerable curiosity in Parisian police circles.”

  “Yes? April asked, her impatience stretched to the breaking point by Gabin's avoiding a direct answer to her question.

  “He is believed to be the man who assassinated Prince Von Bulow, the international freelance spy, here in Paris last week,” Gabin said slowly. “He also was the last person seen with Franklyn Pierce, the American nuclear scientist who quit the United States in a huff because his advanced ideas were not acted upon.”

  April leaned forward. Her eyes were suddenly alert. “I am most interested in what happened to Dr. Pierce.”

  Gabin shrugged again.

  “I fear that will never be known,” he said glumly. “The man who last saw him is dead, slain by you.”

  “I could backtrack on him. He could not have been completely alone,” April said. “Who was this man? You seem to be deliberately avoiding telling me. Is that fair, Inspector Gabin? Haven't we worked closely on cases before?”

  “And I hope we will again,” Gabin said warmly. “But not on this one. Forget it. Go back to the United States. Forget Pierce. Forget the dead assassins. Forget everything except me, of course! I should be most desolated if that were to happen!”

  “Please, Inspector!” April said impatiently. “Who is this mysterious man who tried to murder me?”

  “Pao Shu Ping,” Gabin said. “That in itself means nothing. But it happens to be the real name of The Black Shadow. You have heard of him, of course.”

  “Yes,” April said grimly. “The Black Shadow is the most feared professional assassin in Asia. It was said that he never fails.”

  “Well, he failed this time,” Gabin replied. “But I am sure he has not ceased giving trouble. You see, I recognized him from a clash we had when France still held Saigon. But I have been unable to convince anyone in the higher echelons that he really is the assassin.”

  “I know how that can be,” April said, thinking of Alexander Waverly's troubles convincing the UN that the Red Chinese satellite in space posed a world threat.

  “In fact, I was given strict orders to see that he was not interfered with by the police,” Gabin went on. “You see, international relations with Red China are in a delicate state of negotiation right now. There is great fear that something will disturb them at a time when it appears that China is willing to end the war in Viet Nam. This man came to France as a member of the Red Chinese peace mission. He had diplomatic immunity. I am dead certain he murdered Prince Von Bulow, but I could not arrest him.”

  “I see now what the trouble is,” April said.

  “There will be quite a disturbance over his death. It cannot be covered up. He was shot in the chest. The newspapers will make much of it because of his connection with the peace mission.”

  “I can see that,” April said. “Unfortunately,” Gabin went on, “you are very well known, Miss Dancer. It will be impossible to cover up the fact that the Girl from U.N.C.L.E. was registered in the apartment. A lot of people are going to wonder about your connection with the peace envoy. It may prove embarrassing to U.N.C.L.E.”

  “It certainly will,” April replied.

  “I can arrange for you to talk to Waverly from my office
,” Gabin said. “But I cannot guarantee that you will not have the wire tapped. For that reason, I hope you will keep what I said about The Black Shadow in strict confidence. It is for Waverly's ears alone.”

  “Thank you, inspector,” April said, her voice sober. “I will only report that I am alive. I'll say nothing about the other matter until I can replace my pen-communicator.”

  At police headquarters they were met by a secretary who informed Gabin that the Commissionaire de Police wished to see April Dancer. Glumly the inspector conducted April to the top official's office.

  After the typically Gallic introductions had consumed more time than the impatient girl thought necessary, the commissioner got down to business.

  “This is a most unfortunate affair, Mme. Dancer,” he said. “I am quite familiar with the work of U.N.C.L.E. and of Alexander Waverly in particular. However, there is considerable political agitation about the death of this Chinese official. Our minister of Foreign Affairs has already sent a strong note of protest to the members of the U.N.C.L.E. governing board concerning your organization's interference.”

  “That is most unfortunate, sir,” April said.

  “I feel so myself, mademoiselle,” the official said. “But it is out of my hands. This could easily upset the peace negotiations which are now going on here in Paris between representatives of the East and West. I understand also that the U.S. representative to the peace talks has wired his government a strong protest about U.N.C.L.E. activities against Red China at this time.”

  “Well, it wasn't me,” April said defensively. “I didn't know who he was. He tried to kill me first.”

  “That, I think, everyone understands,” the commissioner said. “But what they do not understand is why U.N.C.L.E. continued to concern itself with the Red Satellite at this point. It is something like the U-2 affair which broke off a summit meeting between President Eisenhower and Premier Khrushchev of Russia.”

  “And they are all too blind to see the terrible threat behind all this!” April cried.

  “What threat?” the commissioner inquired, raising his eyebrows slightly. “There is a single satellite in space. Suppose, for sake of an argument, that it is an H-Bomb. Could that one bomb alone destroy the world? Hardly! If a threat develops, or if Red China starts putting a large number into space, then you may rest assured there will be action.”