Man From U.N.C.L.E. 23 The Finger in the Sky Affair[UK]

by Peter Leslie

  ‘Exactly.’

  Solo picked up the chart, scrutinized it, and laid it down on Matheson’s desk. ‘Okay, wonder boy,’ he said with a grin. ‘Sold to the gentleman with the rich uncle! And if the survivor was tipping us off that the crash was due to faulty evaluation of height by the Murchison-Spears box, that ties in with what we already know, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It does. Witnesses all say the aircraft “flew into the ground”; the survivor from the fast crash was babbling something about “it” being too high; Matheson advised us to look for a fault in that particular stage of the gear. It all ties in. I suppose the survivor meant that the ground, as it were, was too high: it rose up and hit them.’

  The door opened and Helga Grossbreitner came into the room. She hurried across to a filing cabinet, pushing a strand of golden hair that had worked loose out of her eyes.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt you, boys,’ she said absently, flicking through a stack of folders. ‘Oh, dear – those poor people. I’m trying to deal with inquiries from relatives and friends. It is really most distressing…’

  ‘It’s a tough job, honey,’ Solo sympathized. ‘But don’t worry: I think we may be on our way.’

  ‘You mean you’ve found out who’s fixing these terrible crashes?’

  ‘Not the actual individuals – though we know it must be THRUSH members. But we do have a line on how it’s being done…and once we’ve established that definitely, it should be easy enough to pin down the culprits.’

  ‘But that’s good. What have you found out?’

  Solo gave her a brief résumé of the conclusions they had arrived at and the evidence which had led to them, adding: ‘And I’m real sorry; Helga – I guess I have to stand you up on that date tomorrow night…tonight, I mean: it’s already past one a.m.’

  She flashed him her golden smile. ‘That’s okay, lover boy. It’ll keep – and me with it. What’s the big deal, then?’

  ‘We have to check our deductions, honey. No good acting on them unless we can prove they’re right. Illya and I will go to Paris and fly into Nice tomorrow on the T.C.A. Trident – the same flight as the one that crashed here this evening – and keep watch in the pilot’s cabin to see what we can see. They seem to be stepping up the disaster rate and there’s always a chance that we may find something out.’

  ‘Yes, I guess that seems sensible – but, darling, you will be careful, won’t you? I can’t have another date broken!’

  Solo patted her rounded shoulder. ‘I’ll take an ejector seat and a ’chute,’ he promised with a grin. ‘Expect me to drop in any time after nine…’

  After the girl had found the file she wanted and returned to the outer office, Kuryakin looked up from some notes he had been consulting. ‘You know, Napoleon, there’s one angle of this case that we haven’t taken into account at all,’ he said seriously.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘T.C.A.’s franchise to carry the fissionable material from here to the U.S. We haven’t looked into that end of it at all. Do you think we should?’

  Solo shook his head. ‘I guess that wouldn’t figure in the case until after THRUSH had gained control of the airline,’ he said. ‘From their point of view, the number one priority is to discredit the company to the extent that they can take it over. Until they have achieved that, they can afford to ignore the radioactive bit. It only goes on one flight a month anyway – and there’s a squad of men with automatic rifles guarding the armoured car that brings it to the airport…Besides there’s no question of the crashes being in any way connected with an attempt to grab the stuff.’

  ‘You are sure, Napoleon?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure. All the crashes are on incoming planes, and the fissionable material is flown out.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I just thought I’d mention it.’

  ‘Quite right, my boy! Quite right…And now let’s go grab some sleep. We have to be back here on the first available flight to Paris tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You really meant what you told Helga?’

  ‘Certainly. We’ll sit right up in the front of that Trident with our slide rules and our compasses, watching every move,’ Solo said with a curious emphasis. He opened the door and ushered the Russian out of the office.

  A shutter fell noiselessly over the concealed lens of the video-tape camera which had been recording their conversation from its hiding place behind a relief map of Europe which hung on one wall.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SOLO AND ILLYA TAKE A BACK SEAT

  A FRINGE of waves laced the edge of the blue-green Mediterranean as the Trident turned in a shallow bank and headed east along the coast towards Nice, gradually losing height. There had been stray banks of cumulus building up over the Basses Alpes and their passage over the Rhone delta had been quite bumpy. Once they passed Toulon, however, the sky cleared and the air was calm and still as the giant plane sank into the dusk which was beginning to shroud the fishing villages south of the Massif des Maures. The creased, iridescent surface of the sea dulled to a sombre violet, reflecting the pinpoints of light beginning to twinkle among the craft massed in the harbours of Lavandou and St. Tropez.

  Illya Kuryakin crouched with Solo in the aircraft’s rear baggage department, fiddling with a mass of dials which studded the steel surface of a complicated chassis packed, with other electronic equipment, in a huge suitcase lying open before them. The whining roar of the three jet engines above their heads made conversation difficult in the confined space.

  Solo glanced at his wrist watch. ‘Stand by for action any time now,’ he shouted over the din. ‘We should be just about over Ste Maxime.’

  The Russian nodded, spreading a sheet of squared paper marked with labelled columns across a board and clipping it in place at the top and sides. ‘I hope your hunch is correct, Napoleon,’ he called back. ‘I should have spotted that camera myself. Where exactly was it?’

  ‘You know that enormous relief map fixed to one wall of Matheson’s office – the one with all the mountains in Europe humped up across the surface?’

  ‘Yes, I saw it.’

  ‘Well, you probably noticed that all the airports between the mountains – and those on the plains for that matter – were marked by small circles of coloured glass; presumably to light up when T.C.A. planes were using them, or needed maintenance there or something.’

  Kuryakin nodded again.

  ‘The camera lens had replaced the glass indicating one of the airports among the Alps – Zurich, I think – where it was least likely to be noticed among the relief. Fortunately, I happened to see it just when there was a slight movement…probably an alteration of aperture…and the movement drew my attention to it.’

  ‘In turn, I hope my hunch is correct also,’ Illya said.

  ‘It has a good chance. If what you tell me of your theory is true, the exact location of the Murchison-Spears box is critical – which is why we’re lucky that T.C.A. equip their Tridents with a baggage compartment as far back as this.’

  ‘Yes, our duplicate box is as far away from the one in the cockpit as possible. I suppose that’s why you made such a point of mentioning that we would be up front with the pilots – to tempt them to concentrate on that end of the plane?’

  ‘Sure. I figure that, since they know we’re aboard and that we know something of the system at least, then they’re bound to try and bring the plane down. But it’s a terrible risk, in a way – the crew’s lives are at stake as well as our own.’

  ‘But we did manage to get all the passengers transferred to a relief flight ten minutes later, Napoleon.’

  ‘True. Nevertheless I – Wait a minute! The inter-com’s coming on!’

  Over the noise of the jets, a metallic, disembodied voice was speaking: ‘Hallo, hallo. Third pilot here. We are just passing Fréjus and the M-S gear is in action. Are you ready to start operating? Are you ready to start operating?…’

  ‘Solo to Third Pilot,’ Napoleon Solo called crisply above the racket of the jet
s. ‘We are ready to start…And just for the record, here’s a recap on the M.O. You have the aircraft’s normal M-S box in your cabin, receiving signals from Nice and the ground, and the box interprets these and adjusts the plane’s controls in such a way as to effect a correct landing. We have a duplicate M-S box back here, receiving the same signals but not hitched up in any way to the controls. The aim of the operation is to check the readings of the two boxes one against the other – and spot any discrepancies if present; okay?’

  ‘Roger. Our box up here has dials indicating distance from touchdown in metres, glide angle, and height in metres. I am to read you the relevant figures from our dials at quarter minute intervals, and you will write these down and check against your own readings at the same time.’

  ‘Roger. You can start any time you want.’

  ‘Willco. First reading coming up in fifteen seconds.’

  Solo picked up the board with its prepared paper and poised a ballpoint over its surface as Illya Kuryakin threw a switch and studied the needles trembling across the dials in the suitcase. In the dim lighting of the baggage compartment his bland face, normally so placid, appeared strained and anxious.

  ‘First reading,’ the clipped voice on the inter-com was saying: ‘Distance seventeen thousand five hundred; glide angle five per cent; height five thousand and forty.’

  ‘Seventeen thousand five hundred; five per cent; five thousand and forty,’ Solo repeated, writing the figures on the chart as Illya bent over the dials.

  ‘Check,’ the Russian called. ‘One seven five double-oh; five; five-oh four-oh.’

  Solo wrote the second set of figures below the first.

  ‘Second reading: fourteen six fifty; five per cent; four thousand six hundred.’

  Solo repeated the figures, wrote them down and looked across at Illya.

  ‘Check,’ Kuryakin called again. one four six five-oh; five; four six double-oh.’

  ‘Third reading: twelve thousand; eleven per cent; four thousand and fifty.’

  ‘Check. One two oh double-oh; eleven; four-oh five-oh…’

  Through the small double window on the port side of the baggage compartment, isolated lights spangled the dark bulk of the alpine foothills massing against the sky to the north. Something on one of the luggage racks creaked protestingly as the Trident’s angle of descent steepened. Over the clamour of the engines, now altering in pitch, a faint rumble followed by two distinct thumps marked the lowering of the undercarriages.

  ‘…Fifth reading: six thousand and twenty; fifteen percent; one thousand six hundred.’

  ‘Check…’

  The lights of the coastal strip streamed past the port window, long chains of street lamps, illuminated hotels and automobile headlights whirling past them into the blackness as the great plane forged inexorably onwards towards the invisible runway. Through the starboard porthole, a lighthouse far out to sea winked twice against the dark.

  ‘Sixth reading: three thousand two hundred; eleven point five per cent; eight hundred and fifty.’

  ‘Check. Three two double-oh; eleven point five – No! Wait, wait…the altitude reading’s different! Napoleon – look!’

  Solo was beside the dials in a flash. The needle of the height indicator was sinking steadily from 830 to 820.

  The equipment in the cockpit, which was directing the plane’s controls for landing, was registering the ground as between twenty and thirty metres lower than it really was…

  ‘Seventh reading: eight hundred and fifty; seven per cent; two hundred and ten…’

  The needle on the altimeter dial trembled past the 170 mark.

  In seconds, the pointer would be at zero – while that on the gear controlling the aircraft would still show between 40 and 50…

  ‘Emergency!’ Solo shouted into the inter-com. ‘Emergency! For God’s sake take over on manual and overshoot – your altimeter reading’s all to hell!’

  ‘Willco.’ A different voice spoke coolly from the amplifier. ‘Second pilot speaking. Hold on – I am going to overshoot…’

  The thunder of the jets rose to a shrill scream; the Trident lurched forwards and up under the surge of power. Illya saw trees, airport buildings, car parks, a Boeing 707 being refuelled on the floodlit apron, whisk past and down, and then they were away and climbing over the glittering crescent of the Baie des Anges with the twin ribbon of the Promenade des Anglais dwindling beneath them.

  ‘…and tell your Navigator for God’s sake to get a fix on the position where the readings began to differ – the sixth, I think it was,’ Solo was calling as the Trident banked seawards in a steep climbing turn and headed back for its second run-in.

  A few minutes later they made a perfect touchdown under manual control and taxied slowly back to the apron.

  Matheson and the airport director met them in a jeep. ‘I thought we’d be going back with two empty seats for a moment,’ Matheson said as they climbed down the portable companionway to the ground. ‘You were flying straight in to the deck like the one last night. Still – Warwick caught her just in time and all’s well that ends well, eh? I expect you could do with a drink…’

  Solo mopped his brow with a handkerchief. ‘I guess it was a pretty close shave at that,’ he admitted. ‘As for that drink – the answer’s Yes, please!…Illya’s just superintending the unshipping of both sets of Murchison-Spears equipment that your boys can get to work right away on comparison tests. Now perhaps we’ll be able to say just how the deed is done…’

  But at midnight, Matheson came up to them in the airport restaurant, where they were sitting over coffee and cognac, and dropped into a vacant chair at their table with an expression of astonishment on his face. ‘It beats me,’ he said blankly. ‘We’ve really done the most exhaustive tests on both sets of equipment – even had them taken up in a helicopter to check them under operating conditions – and what do you think we found?’

  ‘That both sets were working perfectly – and giving precisely the same readings all along the line,’ Solo said with a grin.

  The Technical Director started, absently catching his empty pipe as it fell from his mouth. ‘But that’s just it!’ he exclaimed. ‘How on earth did you know? What have you chaps found out?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Illya said. ‘It was a reasonable deduction; it fits the pattern, that’s all.”

  ‘Well, I’m blessed! You mean something or somebody distorts the altitude stage of the gear as the plane lands – but that it’s returned to normal a short while afterwards?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that whatever it is has such a fine adjustment that it’ll bitch up equipment in the nose of the plane – but leave similar gear in the tail unaffected ?’

  ‘That’s what we think.’

  ‘Well, I’m blessed,’ Matheson said again. ‘All the same, it doesn’t really get us much forrader, does it? I mean we’re confirmed in our ideas of what happens – roughly – but we’re no nearer to finding out who does it. Or how.’

  ‘I think you mistake our aims, Mr. Matheson,’ Solo said. ‘The point of the operation was, of course, to confirm this – but the main idea was to find out where it’s done from. And that in turn will give us a lead to who.’

  ‘Can you find out where it’s done from, then?’

  ‘If your Navigator has been able to fix the position of the place where the readings began to differ – yes, we should be able to. Has he managed, do you know?’

  ‘Yes, he has, as a matter of fact. He asked me to tell you. All the gen’s up in the tower, if you’d care to come along.’ Illya went to see if he could find any news of Sheridan Rogers while Solo and Matheson made their way to the chart room of the control tower. He joined them a few minutes later with a long face. ‘I’m very much afraid, Napoleon,’ he said shaking his head sadly, ‘that things look very black for that girl. She hasn’t been seen since the night she came out to dinner with us at Villefranche – apart from that disagreeable incident at Haut-de-Cagnes, that is.
She didn’t show up for her shift yesterday morning – and there’s still no reply from her flat.’

  ‘Relax, Illya,’ Solo said soberly. ‘Whatever’s happened to her, she’s not the bird we’re looking for: the thrush flies in quite a different direction.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Take a look at this.’ The Chief Enforcement Officer of U.N.C.L.E. was sitting with Matheson at a huge table strewn with papers. In the centre was a large-scale map of the coast from Fréjus to the Italian border.

  ‘We’ve charted the Trident’s flight path here,’ Solo continued, pointing with a pencil at a dotted red line running approximately south-west to north-east a few hundred metres off the coastline. ‘And the Navigator has given us a fix on the position where the two sets of gear began to register differently – that is, the place where whatever it is began to affect the box in the cockpit. We were exactly here’ – he leaned over and made a mark across the dotted line – ‘when the Third Pilot was reading out the details of the sixth check. Right?’

  Kuryakin nodded, looking intently at the chart.

  ‘Right. Well, here’s the touchdown point.’ He made another mark a short distance from the end of the runway indicated on the map. ‘And we have already agreed that whatever device is beamed at the planes must be pretty short-range.’

  ‘Yes – otherwise it could presumably reach them when they were flying in from the other side of the airport…landing from north-east to south-west.’

  ‘Sure. So looking at these two points and the distance between them – and bearing in mind the distance between each of them and the far end of the runway – would you agree that ten kilometres would seem a fair estimate to allow for the range?’

  Illya studied the chart for a few minutes in silence.

  ‘Ye-e-es,’ he said slowly at last. ‘Yes, I guess so, Napoleon.’

  ‘Okay. And we have further agreed that the device is probably operated from one of the hill villages just inland from the coast, right?’

  ‘Right.’