Nobody had gotten off the bus with him, but he suddenly had the feeling he was being watched. He’d been there half an hour and hadn’t noticed anybody eyeing him consistently —but then he hadn’t-been thinking about it. He looked around covertly.
The place was so dark he couldn’t even be sure how many other people were there. He suddenly decided it was time to leave. .He finished his second drink, picked up his jacket from the seat beside him, and found a cable car headed north. He boarded it alone, and clanged and clattered off into the night with twenty tourists around him.
‘ A distant boat whistle hooted mournfully across the moon-silvered bay as they paused for a moment at the top of Hyde Street, then plummeted jerkily towards the waterfront below.
He walked east from Ghirardelli Square until another nightclub caught his eye, promising a floor show and assorted distractions; inside he found a reasonably secluded booth and brought out his little treasure. Under a shaded lamp. his body concealing it from the outside. he released the catch and looked at the gamma laser for the first time in nearly two hours.
As he studied it he started to wonder whether he had really done the right things. Technically he had stolen this from Thrush. which wasn’t good —he intended to return it. but what would happen if he were caught with it when he tried to take it back? His hand started to shake. and he gripped the edge of the table hard. He’d be in serious trouble. After all. this was not just Thrush property —this was part of one of their more secret weapons projects and as such was subject to certain security regulations. To have violated them. even to this extent. would be grounds for severe disciplinary action.
There wouldn’t be any way he could convince them he’d only wanted to borrow it for the evening to admire it, and that there had never been any danger of it falling into the hands of anyone qualified to recognize it, let alone care what it was.
It looked like a rod of mirror-finished steel. 3/8 of an inch in diameter and three inches long. He couldn’t see his reflection in the general dimness.
but the slim shadowed cylinder itself seemed to have changed subtly. Its beauty was now somehow menacing. He had stolen from people who trusted him.
and how could he hope to keep it secret from them indefinitely? If they suspected him, he would be followed …
Without undue haste. he put the case away and took a sip of his drink before glancing around the floor of the club. Nobody looked like anyone he’d noticed at the last place, and nobody could have followed him on the cable anyway. He glanced at his watch. It was just short of twelve. and he really didn’t feel like leaving…Just then the lights dimmed around the small stage and a lime spot picked out an MC in skin-tight pants and a sequined jacket introducing a line of chorus girls. Harry decided to stay for the midnight show.
It was worth the two-dollar cover that had been tacked on his tab unexpectedly. but he left hurriedly after the show and another drink. He wasn’t cheered by the songs and dances. and the flat box in his lefthand pocket weighed on him like a millstone. .He was now convinced he had made a horrible mistake and would appear irretrievably guilty of treason while unprovably innocent of any wrong intent. Driven by a compulsion he could not have described, he fled into the night and was embraced by the cold streamers of fog.
“Maybe I just haven’t spent enough time here.” said Napoleon, “but I can’t help feeling San Francisco’s reputation for fogginess is greatly exaggerated.
It’s cold and clammy. and pieces blow through from time to time, but I’ve hardly ever seen really heavy fog here.”
The mottled sky overhead was paled with city-glow, but the gibbous moon appeared and faded, caressed by a hilltop to the west, and the lights beneath it were clear as they walked up from their car to “The Blue AngelMat half past twelve.
MI can’t tell whether you’re appreciating it or complaining about it,”
said Illya. “Do you wish there was more fog?”
“Not especially.” admitted his partner. “I just find it a little disappointing. Besides, we have forty-five minutes to kill, so I thought the weather might be a good subject to start a conversation with.”
The bar was about half full when they entered, but perhaps due to the lateness of the hour more customers were leaving than arriving. The two agents took an inconspicuous table in the corner where they could watch the front door and the back booth. Since their orders had included a repeated and specific injunction against attracting any kind of attention, they were informally dressed in the native style of turtlenecks and bell-bottoms, Napoleon with a mustard blazer and Illya in a dark green bush jacket. They ordered drinks and made idle conversation.
Gradually Napoleon became aware of an odd feeling of attentiveness in the room. He was sure they hadn’t been marked when they entered, but now, interested eyes from the bar strayed their way more often, and seemed strangely to focus more on Illya than on himself.
Unaware of this interest, Illya continued describing a particular chess strategy he had recently read about while Napoleon, half listening, stared past his shoulder and wondered at the inexplicable attraction he seemed to have.
Too many people were looking at them. Not with hostility, but rather with an opposite sort of look. Something had to be done, and until he knew what about himself and Illya —especially Illya —attracted their glances, he couldn’t tell what might be done. Then his eyes locked suddenly with those of a lean young man in leather pants and an open suede shirt, and held for a full fraction of a second.
Illya, said Napoleon under his breath, in case you hadn’t noticed, we are uncomfortably conspicuous.
“I’d noticed, said the Russian. Can you tell why?”
Napoleon thought a moment. Illya,” he said finally, we’ve been friends for several years now, right? Partners for six or seven years?”
Six this fall.
It seems longer. And you’ve saved my life a few times, and I’ve saved your life several times more or less.”
“And you trust me implicitly in odd situations..
“As a general rule. Are you leading –”
All I ask is that you trust me just this one time and I’ll try to explain later. Okay?”
“Okay “Hold my hand.”
“Hold your –?”
“Please,” Napoleon whispered intently. “Trust me. Hold my hand for a few minutes. And smile when you look at me.”
“Well…” Illya extended his hand across the table and Napoleon took it.
He looked defiantly along the bar and eight or nine pairs of eyes reluctantly returned to the big mirror on the wall behind the spigots and racks of multicolored bottles.
“Napoleon, I will take it on faith that you know what you are doing. But I must say—”
“Whatever you say, keep smiling while you say it. Look. Nobody’s watching us now. I promise I’ll explain it to you — but not right at the moment. Maybe tomorrow.”
“I trust your instincts, Napoleon —you’ve proven them often enough. But still, there are times when…”
“Hey —isn’t that him?
A thin, dark young man with an intense, hunted look in his eyes and nervous energy in his movements ducked around the partition at the door. nodded to the bartender. and walked unsteadily to the back booth on the far side.
Harry had been wandering aimlessly for some time, pausing now and then to check behind him, scanning anxiously over his shoulder. studying thinning throngs against the chiaroscuro of colored lights. He was somewhere in North Beach, and it was getting late. He didn’t want to keep walking much longer, but he didn’t know yet what to do.
He couldn’t keep it — he didn’t even want it anymore. He needed to sit down and think about it for a few minutes. Any place would do… He looked up and with a moment’s shock saw an angel waiting for him, outlined in flickering blue neon. Another bar. It looked open — he went around the partition and saw it was only about a quarter full. with a line of private booths running back to
wards a rear door.
Casually and a little unsteadily, he walked in, nodded to the bartender who didn’t notice, and made his way to the rear. A dyed blond young man in a tight sweater fetched his drink and left him alone.
Another minute or two passed. and another customer arrived, a young Falstaff in a flamboyant shirt and bushy red hair. He studied the room with a coolly appraising eye as he wandered along the bar towards the back, finally taking”a stool some twenty feet from Harry’s booth. He asked the bartender for something in a low tone and nodded at the answer before ordering a stein of beer. Napoleon and Illya, themselves unobserved. watched as he nursed it, his eyes on the back booth either directly or in the mirror. for most of the next twelve minutes.
Nobody could see into the back booth. and Harry, oblivious to his surveillance. took the little case out again and opened it on the table before him. What could he possibly have been thinking of when he took this? It was a beautiful thing —still the most beautiful object he had ever seen —but hardly enough to risk his entire career and perhaps his life for. He had been incredibly foolish. And now what could he do?
It would be insane to try to return it — he would surely be detected. It would be dangerous even to take to back to his apartment. He had betrayed his trust for this worthless bit of metal, and he could think of nothing but to get rid of it. He ordered another drink, hiding it in his pocket until the waiter had come and gone. .
He could throw it off the Bridge — but that was an awfully long way to 90
and it was late and cold, and besides, the Bridge was hard to get to on foot.
He could drop it in a trash can or down a sewer, but it seemed little less than blasphemous to treat this perfect, precious rod so badly.
For that matter, he didn’t want to have to carry it another step. Could he just abandon it here?
Why not? He could tuck it out of sight somewhere. and it might not be found until the building was torn down. Certainly they didn’t clean this place very thoroughly… He looked around. What would be a good place? There was no room under his cushion — the seat was a solid unit all the way to the floor; the table stood on a central pillar and was bracketed to the wall. But on his right there was a gap of half an inch or more between the end of the seat and the cracked plaster wall. Plenty of space for the rod if not the case.
But he couldn’t just drop the rod down there in all that dirt —it would be awful to mar that virginal surface. In quick improvisation he wrapped the napkins from his two drinks around the gamma laser and tucked in the ends.
Looking quickly around to be sure no one could see into the booth, he pushed the paper wrapped package out of sight — and out of his thoughts.
He stared at the empty case, gaping in mute reminder of his guilt, and quickly closed it. He couldn’t stay here any longer — he gulped the last of his drink, stuck the case in his pocket and left.
Napoleon and Illya saw Harry come out of the booth. He stood beside it a moment, pulling on his jacket, then walked unsteadily out of the bar. The young John Falstaff carried his remaining beer back to the booth Harry had just vacated, glanced in and was satisfied; he drained his stein a11d set it on the bar on his way out the door.
“So much for that,” said Napoleon quietly. “We will have to go to plan B, whatever that is.”
“I’ll give you odds that was one of them,” said Illya. “They get all the field work they can handle.”
“Stim-heads? I thought so the minute I saw him. Let’s pick up the baby and get out of here. Mr. Waverly will have something else imaginative to hit us with in the morning and I wouldn’t mind getting some sleep. All that briefing for nothing.”
“Well, we had a quiet evening out. We can report in, drop it off and check. out for the night. But I wonder what is going on in Harry’s head right now …”
A block away Harry chucked the plastic case down a storm drain. As it vanished forever into the darkness he felt a tremendous load lifted from him.
Still, he didn’t feel well — he’d probably had a little more to drink. than he should’ve. He’d had two at each place, after all — and he hadn’t even noticed the name of the last place he’d stopped. Well. he hadn’t felt good all day.
He should go home and get some sleep. He was glad that business with the gamma laser was over and he could forget about it; he’d been pretty silly, was lucky to have gotten away with as much as he had. Best to just forget about the whole thing …
He dozed off in the bus on the way home, and only just woke up in time for his stop. He had had too much to drink, he decided fuzzily, and wondered why he’d gone out in the first place. He seemed to remember he’d done something bad — he’d stolen something from the lab. Or had he dreamed that in the bus?
He couldn’t really tell, as he stumbled up the steps to his flat. He didn’t want to think about it, because it hurt. He undressed and tell into bed, to sleep the sleep of the damned.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Ready To Do It —”
“You mean he’s wired with a backup system?”
“Effectively. It would’ve been simpler if we’d been able to bring him in last night, but this is supposed to get the job done —and probably with a little less damage to Harry’s fragile mental condition.”
Napoleon and Illya sat over spread sheets of the Sunday Chronicle their U.N.C.L.E. Specials disassembled and a pack of linen rags between them. The office air conditioner strove in vain to pump out the heavy pungent odor of gun oil and solvent as they passed an idle hour stripping and cleaning their personal weapons in a quiet conference room, unused at this late hour. Napoleon sighted into his muzzle, tipping the receiver to catch the light. squinting along the spiral grooves for any grains of foreign matter which had missed his energetic swabbing. “How does it work?” he asked. “A big black Cadillac with drawn curtains pulls up beside him on the street and whisks him away to an obscure fate?”
“No, he comes willingly. You should know enough about Dr. Grayson’s technique to be able to figure that out. Sometime early this evening Little Sirrocco called him up and in the middle of an apparently harmless conversation she slipped him the pre-arranged cue phrase, which triggers a series of subconscious reactions to bring him to her place within an hour or two. Then he’s debriefed, re-briefed, re-programed if necessary. and sent out.”
“Uh-huh. He did volunteer, right?”
“It couldn’t have worked if he hadn’t. Thrush has the technology to make it work. but it’s surgical, irreversible. and has several unpleasant side effects. I’d like to think nobody but they would use it.”
Solo snapped the slide closed and wiped his fingerprints off the metal.
“What’s the key phrase she uses? Anything to justify the behavior pattern it initiates?”
“You might say so. I think it’s something like, ‘I’m lonely, big boy.’ She was going to call him about 7:30, which means he should be under at the moment.
He’ll be sent home about half past two.”
“Shouldn’t we be there to participate in the briefing?”
“Napoleon, you want to be in on everything. My extraneous presences would complicate Dr. Grayson’s task. Besides, he might recognize us if he ever got a good look at us.”
“You’re being reasonable again. I just like to keep track of what’s going on. I presume we’ll be called if anything develops?”
“I have Mr. Waverly’s word on it. After all. it’s’ only 11:00.”
Napoleon finished repacking the kit and wiped his fingers fastidiously on a rag. “There are a lot of places I’d like to go and spend a couple of hours -no reflection on your company, but U.N.C.L.E. HQ gets pretty quiet between midnight and six a.m. If it wasn’t for the fact that Baldwin probably has bugs under some of the most interesting beds in San Francisco I’d be out investigating the Barbary Coast. Any ideas?”
“Not while we’re collecting duty pay. I have a landlord to feed in Brooklyn Heights.”
“If you d
idn’t throw all your money away on riotous living, you mad Russian, you could afford to live as well as I do.”
“And you don’t have a cent put away, and your checking account runs into Ready Reserve about five times a year. You live like Aesop’s grasshopper.”
“While your savings balance as of last month was $14,582.07. Why don’t you buy stock with it or something?”
“It’s against my principles. Don’t you expect to live to retire?”
“I trust in Social Security and U.N.C.L.E.‘s retirement plan. I’ll move to the Maldives, after sailing the Pursang around the world just to prove I can, and chase native girls until I’m shot by a jealous husband at the age of 102.
I’m essentially a man of simple tastes.”
Illya scratched a speck from the white inset initial Kin the broad square butt of his special. and didn’t look at Napoleon as he asked casually. “Have you thought about getting married?”
“Thanks awfully, but it would never work. We come from two —.”
“Cut it out.”
“Sorry. Actually I hadn’t thought about it. I wouldn’t say it couldn’t happen, but don’t count on it. He fitted his Special back into its lowslung shoulder rig and jerked it in and out a couple of times. I’d demand a lot in a girl. I don’t really think I’d care to try it again. But look, are you really that interested in the $30-a-day bonus for the 24-hour alert scene?”
“You seem to know my financial situation better than I do.”
Solo stood and stretched. “Same to you, fella. You spend 60 cents a day on transportation.”
“The subway’s convenient and it gives me something to do for twenty minutes while I’m waking up.”
“yeah. The spy who came in from Brooklyn — on the IRT.”
Both communicators chirped in chorus, and Illya barely had time to react before Napoleon flipped out his silver pen, drew down the short antenna and removed and reversed the upper point to expose the cylindrical speaker and mike. “Solo here.”
The Final Affair: A Man From U.N.C.L.E Novel Page 4