The Stolen Spaceman Affair Page 3

  After assuring himself that he wasn't being shadowed, Mark went down the street toward the U. N. Building until he came to the Del Floria Tailor Shop, situated in the basement of a brownstone building.

  The little gray-haired tailor who was guardian of this secret entrance to U.N.C.L.E. New York headquarters looked over his old fashioned glasses at the young agent.

  There was a customer in the shop, so Slate did not walk directly into the back as he usually did. He waited impatiently until the little man looked up mildly and said: "Oh, yes, Mr. Slate. Your coat has been altered. If you will step into the rear dressing room and try it on, sir, I will take care of any additional alterations."

  "Thank you," Slate said.

  He walked back to a dressing room. It was a cubby hole with a curtain. He carefully closed the curtain behind him. A twist of a clothes hook on the wall opened a secret door. He stepped through into complete darkness and the door snapped silently shut behind him.

  For the briefest moment he was inspected by hidden TV cameras and then the door swung open on the other side. He stepped from the dark inspection room into a well decorated modern office. One of the nicer decorations in the room smiled at him from behind her receptionist's desk.

  "Good evening, Mr. Slate," she said, handing him a small triangular identification badge.

  Mark Slate pinned it on his lapel where it could be scanned by banks of intruder detectors set at strategic points along the U.N.C.L.E. corridors of the secret building. Anybody moving in the halls without the secret badge would set off a dozen alarms before he went ten feet.

  Behind the receptionist's desk were six small elevators. Each was marked with a number for one of the six subdivisions of U.N.C.L.E.

  There were:

  SECTION I: Policy and Operations

  SECTION II: Operations and Enforcement

  SECTION III: Enforcement and Intelligence

  SECTION IV: Intelligence and Communications

  SECTION V: Communications and Security

  SECTION VI: Security and Personnel

  As he took the elevator marked "I" Slate wondered, as he always did when he came to U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, what really went on behind this giant crime-hunting factory. As an international organization, it could cut across national borders and thus was the most effective group of its kind that had ever been devised.

  He knew what U.N.C.L.E. accomplished, for he had a share with April Dancer, Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo in many of U.N.C.L.E.'s hardest cases, but what really made the organization tick was still as much of a secret to him as it was the day he reported for training.

  As the elevator stopped, Slate stepped out into a corridor lined with closed doors. He walked past them to what appeared to be all oak panel door at the end of the hall. He knew, however, that it was only thinly veneered in wood for appearance. Actually it was solid steel.

  He pressed a recessed button. Suspicious TV eyes scanned him. He placed his hand against what appeared to be solid wood, but from behind a two-way mirror affair special TV scanners compared his fingerprints with a master admittance file.

  Then only did the door slide silently back. Slate stepped inside to confront one of the five men in the world who knew all of U.N.C.L.E.'s secrets.

  Alexander Waverly, Section I member and Operations Chief, looked up from the bank of recessed buttons arranged around the small TV screen on his desk. Behind him banks of computers stood ready to spew out information at the touch of one of those buttons.

  He leaned back in a leather upholstered chair and nodded to Mark Slate. "Come in, Mr. Slate," he said. "Please sit down."

  Waverly reached over and picked up a briar pipe from the desk. He thoughtfully rubbed its bowl as he listened to a coded report coming in. Slate could never recall seeing his chief actually smoking one of his pipes from his extensive collection, although Waverly almost invariably had one in his hand.

  Slate's practiced eye noted the deep lines in Waverly's face. He suspected the U.N.C.L.E. director had not been to bed in the last twenty-four hours. It was hard to place Waverly's age, but Slate put him down somewhere between fifty and sixty. His hair was iron gray and his eyebrows heavily bushed. He looked more tired than Slate could ever remember seeing him before.

  When he finished listening to the incoming report, Mr. Waverly opened a circuit by touching a color coded button. The chief communications operator's face appeared on the TV screen.

  "Record all incoming calls to me for future scanning," he directed, "Do not disturb me for anything less than the end of the world. I do not wish to be interrupted until I finish with Mr. Slate."

  "Yes, sir," the communications chief said.

  Waverly broke the connection and turned to Slate.

  "Tell me everything happened to you and April Dancer in Hong Kong," he said. "I want everything. Regardless of its triviality."

  Mark Slate started to talk, knowing that every word he said was being captured by a tape recorder. Later his statements would be fed into a computer with all the other information relating to the case. From this mass of data the computer would deduce the probable answers.

  Slate was impatient to learn something about the case himself, but he realized what Alexander Waverly was doing. Waverly was gathering all the information he knew before the top U.N.C.L.E. agent could be influenced by anything he heard.

  When he had finished, Waverly asked several pertinent questions, and then said: "Here is the situation, Mr. Slate. This astronaut who is missing was sent into space to set up a series of satellites which were designed to gather and concentrate cosmic rays. This would create the deadliest kind of a death ray "

  "Who is building such a monstrous weapon?" Slate asked.

  "It's not a weapon," Waverly said. "The United States CIA found evidence that the Chinese Communists are trying to devise such a weapon. In order to test possible defenses for such a death ray, the United States placed these death ray concentrators in space. Their main purpose was to permit military scientists to experiment with ways of counteracting their deadly beams at the earth."

  "I see," Slate said slowly. "And if this astronaut was stolen out of space, it would mean that the secret of concentrated cosmic ray beamer is in enemy hands also."

  "No," Waverly said, leaning back and rubbing the pipe bowl in his gnarled hand. "It does not mean that anyone has the secret. It does mean that two extremely vicious groups are using every foul means in an attempt to get it."

  "THRUSH---and who?”

  "The stealers of the astronaut, that's who," Waverly said, the lines of his face seemed to deepen as he spoke.

  "And the stealers are---?" Slate asked.

  "You tell me," Waverly said. "I don't know."

  "No leads at all, sir?" Mark Slate asked, slumping down in his chair.

  Alexander Waverly stared at the loud waistcoat worn by his agent. Then he said, "One lead, but it is not producing any fast results. Let me give you the full story.

  "First, this astronaut was stolen out of space because he knew the secret of the death ray. As I got the story from the space agency, these revolving satellites work like the electrical condensers in an auto mobile distributor. They gather up weak charges until they reach a certain concentration and then discharge them in an intensified burst of energy."

  "In effect," Slate said, "the satellites amplify the deadly cosmic rays. Is that it?"

  "Not exactly, but the effect is the same. Cosmic rays from space are absorbed by the earth's atmosphere, which is the only thing that keeps life alive. The condenser satellites store up these weak rays until they reach a point where their strength can, penetrate the earth's protective atmosphere. It is really a pulse rather than a ray."

  "I see, sir," Slate said. "I can see how an unfriendly nation would want to learn this deadly secret. But how did they steal the space man out of orbit? Our present day launch and rendezvous techniques aren't advanced sufficiently to do anything like that."

  "It was amazingly simple," W
averly said. "There was nothing Buck Rogerish about it. These people bribed or planted a spy in the astronaut control center. This spy was a punch card operator. She takes the control data figured out by scientists and punches it on to control cards which the computers transmit to the astronaut's little black boxes in space."

  "I am familiar with the system," Slate said. "The astronaut has little to do with flying his spacecraft. His problems are worked out by computers on the ground."

  "Yes," the U.N.C.L.E. operations chief said, "and one of the most vital functions of this telemetered data is to tell the astronaut the exact moment to fire his retro-rockets to reenter the earth's atmosphere."

  "I get it," Slate said. "This fake punch card caused the astronaut to come down prematurely, so that he landed where his kidnapers wanted instead of the regular splash down area."

  "That is correct," Waverly said.

  He leaned forward to touch a colored button on the desk control panel. A section of the wall rolled back to expose a huge lighted map of the world.

  Mark Slate stretched out his legs and turned so he could get a better view of the map. Three tiny lights glowed redly to mark critical points in the case. One was centered at a Florida missile launch base. Another glowed in Southeast Asia. The third burned in Hong Kong.

  Looking at the third light, Slate moved his legs uneasily. Since his arrival Mr. Waverly had made no mention of April Dancer. Slate had heard nothing about her since that first flash that she was missing. He was in an agony of suspense to know what had happened to her. Twice before he asked Waverly about April and had gotten no answer.

  Now he leaned forward expectantly, hoping that the Hong Kong warning light would cause his chief to bring up the subject of April's disappearance.

  Waverly disappointed him. The U.N.C.L.E. chief walked over to the map and touched the tiny light glowing in Southeast Asia to the east of Hong Kong.

  "This," he said, "is Khmerrania. You are familiar with it?"

  "Yes, sir," Slate said, "It's a feudal kingdom that mixes the cultures of its neighbors, Thailand and Cambodia."

  "That is where the astronaut's capsule landed," Waverly said, turning away from the map. "Khmerrania is an extremely back ward country. It does not have the technological development to exploit this death ray from space."

  "I understand sir," Slate said. "The astronaut was pulled down in this country because his kidnapers could make a deal with the Khmerranian government," Waverly said. "You know, don't you, that even though we tracked the descent of this capsule and know definitely that it landed in Khmerrania, we cannot enter that country to rescue him without that government's permission? The United States cannot send men across an international border without declaring war if the other country objects. The Khmerranians object."

  "So what do we do?" Slate asked.

  "We get him out," Waverly said positively. "Since the United States cannot do it officially, U.N.C.L.E. has been asked to recover this man. You see, although there was a space weapon involved, this is not known to the world. To acknowledge it might precipitate an arms race in space which the U.S. wishes to avoid. So the government in Washington must keep up the fiction that this was a peaceful scientific exploration."

  "How can Khmerrania refuse to let an American search party come in and look for him?" Mark Slate asked.

  "Shortly before this, and I think in preparation for it, the government there broke diplomatic relations with us. The British government asked them to permit an American scientific team to cross the border. The Khmerranians refused. They said they would locate the fallen astronaut and return him to the U.S."

  "And you think they will?" “

  We don't know. I hope they can find him before THRUSH does. That evil organization is aware of this also and intends to beat us and the Khmerranians to the secret. If they get him first, he cannot hold his secret. Not with the kind of truth drugs manufactured today."

  "Do we know the exact spot he landed?" Slate asked.

  "Yes," Alexander Waverly said. “There was a Khmerranian patrol waiting for him, but he gave them the slip. He is lost somewhere in the jungles along the Mekong River. We must find him."

  "I understand, sir," Slate said. "Shall I leave immediately?"

  "There is additional super-secret information which you must be briefed on. And then there is the matter of Miss Dancer's whereabouts."

  "Yes," Slate said eagerly. "Is there any word from her?"

  "Not yet," Waverly said. "The hotel reported that she arranged to have a fishing junk leased for a sail to Macao. The boat was to be ready at eleven o'clock tonight our time here in New York. If she does not report in by then, we will have genuine cause to worry. I have great faith in Miss Dancer. I am sure that something irregular has happened, but I think she will come out of it. I am certain of it."

  "I wish I knew what happened when I left her with that THRUSH girl," Mark Slate said uneasily.

  "She returned to her hotel after that," Waverly said. "We---"

  A brilliant light flashed on the desk console. The U.N.C.L.E. chief strode quickly back to his leather chair. He punched the connect circuit and said, "Waverly here."

  "Mr. Waverly!" an excited voice said. "This is Randy Kovacs!"

  "Yes, Randy, go ahead," 'Waverly said.

  Mark Slate leaned forward expectantly. Randy Kovacs was U.N.C.L.E.'S teenage on-the-job trainee, the first in the organization's history. On several occasions, the boy had proven himself surprisingly capable for a beginner.

  "She's dead, Mr. Waverly!" Kovacs said excitedly.

  "What!" the U.N.C.L.E. chief cried.

  For a brief moment Alexander Waverly was jolted out of his usual calm. Slate leaped to his own feet.

  "Yes, sir!" Kovacs repeated. "The report just came in! She's dead!"

  FOUR

  THE MEN FROM PROJECT X

  When April Dancer walked away from Mark Slate in the Hong Kong air terminal, she ordered her captive to go straight to the taxi which she asked to wait for her.

  The driver looked up dully when they approached. He was a perfect picture of complete stupidity. But behind the yellow mask of his face he was one of the most valuable men attached to the Hong Kong bureau of U.N.C.L.E.

  "Get in!" April ordered the other girl.

  "You won't get away with this!" captive said in a low voice.

  "Come, let's not argue the point," April said tersely. "Just do what I tell you!"

  The other girl tossed her head, making her shoulder-length bob swirl angrily. She raised her purse as if to strike April with it. The girl from U.N.C.L.E. raised her own handbag so that the concealed gun built into the clasp pointed directly at the angry blonde.

  "As you probably know," April said in a hard, steady voice, "these guns can fire bullets or knock-out pellets. If you---" She looked up suddenly.

  "Don't make a move!" a harsh voice said from outside the car.

  April Dancer stiffened. A contemptuous smile crossed the lips of the blonde captive. The girl from U.N.C.L.E. bit her lower lip in vexation. She realized then that the brief argument started by the girl was just to divert her attention. Now the girl's male companion stepped up close to the taxi.

  He held a lighter in his hand and an unlighted cigarette dangled from his lips. But the way he handled the lighter told April that it concealed a deadly pellet gun. April had had experience with such a gun on her last case. The pellets, thin as needles, penetrated deep into the flesh and then exploded with a savage burst that ripped a savage hole in the unfortunate victim.

  The moment she saw this one in the grim-faced man's hand, she knew for sure that she was in the presence of THRUSH. The gun was the giveaway.

  "Move away!" April snapped. "I have your confederate covered. If you try to shoot me, I'll kill her first! "

  The man chuckled. The cigarette waggled in a falsely friendly manner from his lips. "She's expendable!" he said in a mumbling voice.

  The THRUSH girl's eyes narrowed slightly. It was the only
sign she gave of resentment at her companion's callous dismissal of her life. The smile stayed fixed on her lips.

  However, that slight betrayal of her true feeling gave April a slight hope that she could use the THRUSH girl's sudden anger to a good advantage.

  "Take her bag," the THRUSH man commanded the blonde. "These U.N.C.L.E. agents carry a storehouse of cute booby traps in it. Take them away and she's helpless."

  Suddenly April's eyes widened. The fear she was starting to show now broke into a look of relief. She was looking beyond the THRUSH man.

  Startled by the relief on her face, he whirled to see what brought on her change of feeling. In the brief second he jerked his eyes around to discover that she had seen no one at all, the U.N.C.L.E. operative disguised as a cab driver, touched a hidden button on his steering wheel.

  Instantly the door glass shot up. The THRUSH man jerked his head back and pulled the trigger of the gun concealed in the lighter.

  The needle pellet smashed against the bullet-proof glass in the U.N.C.L.E. cab. It rebounded, burying itself in the man's arm. The explosion shattered the bone and ripped out a huge gouge of flesh. The dying man fell, his face turning green as poison from the pellet raced through his body.

  April did not have time to feel fear from her narrow escape. She held her own gun steadily on the THRUSH girl.

  "What do we do?" the Chinese driver asked in a heavily British accent that contrasted oddly with his oriental features.

  "No one seems to have seen us," April said hastily; "I don't want to get detained for a police inquiry. You stay and make a report. This woman and I will take another cab."

  She motioned for the girl to get out. The blonde opened the door and slid out on the other side. She kept her blue eyes thoughtfully on the gun purse in April's hand.

  Together the two girls walked across the parking lot. Shortly after, April signaled another cab.

  They drove back to the heart of Kowloon. The THRUSH agent looked surprised when April moved the purse gun to a position where it no longer pointed at her captive.