The Thinking Machine Affair

by Joel Bernard

  His hands trembled with excitement as he pressed the knob on the closed circuit television set that linked his monitoring room with his superior at THRUSH'S office. As soon as the latter appeared on the television screen, he reported proudly:

  "Sir, I have obtained the requested information and data on Professor Novak's research. Do you wish me to play the tape for you?"

  "Send me the tape. I'll listen to it here," came the curt command, and the Chief Organizing Officer switched off the circuit.

  He hasn't said a single word of praise or expressed some appreciation, the Monitoring Officer grumbled to himself, but as he rewound the tape, ready for his superior to play back, and then placed it in a metal container which he sealed, hopeful thoughts ran through his mind. Perhaps once the Chief realized the importance of the news, he would praise and reward the work he had done. As he dreamed of promotion, he put the package containing the tape into a special channel which had been constructed to connect with the Chief Organizing Officer's office; through this tapes and other items could speedily and privately be transported in either direction.

  Later, when the Chief Organizing Officer had listened to the tape, he at once realized that immediate action was imperative. There was no doubt in his mind that an instant THRUSH Executive Council meeting must take place. He sent out appropriate commands which would at once convene the extraordinary meeting. This done, he flashed the necessary signals to the Armed Guards Commander at THRUSH'S European Center E to prepare for this meeting.

  As he approached the door of his office, the two steel sections slid silently into the surrounding walls, permitting him to enter the corridor where two armed guards stood watchfully. As soon as he had passed the door, the invisible electronic eyes moved the steel plates silently back to the closed position.

  The guards escorted him on his way towards the elevator which was at the end of the long, well-lit corridor with its numerous steel doors on either side. The elevator doors opened automatically and as soon as the three men entered, shut silently behind them. They descended at high speed to the eighth floor, where the doors again opened automatically.

  Once more the Chief Organizing Officer and his two armed guards walked along a seemingly endless corridor, until at last they reached a closed oversize steel door in front of which stood half-a-dozen armed guards of higher rank. They stepped aside to allow the officer to enter the Conference Room; concealed electronic eyes having opened the door for him.

  The Executive Council members of THRUSH arrived in rapid succession and the council was in session less than fifteen minutes after it had been convened.

  "Information of extreme importance prompted this meeting," said the Chief Organizing Officer, opening the convention. "I now propose to play a tape recording containing the said vital information so that the Council may decide what steps should be taken."

  After the assembled members had unanimously concurred with the proposition, the loudspeakers reproduced the sounds and words registered on the monitored tape.

  "This calls for immediate action," the Executive Council's Chairman announced, once the tape had been heard. Turning to the Chief Organizing Officer, he questioned: "How do you propose to get the Professor and his apparatus to our Headquarters?"

  "The simplest and speediest solution would be to send a special task force to the villa and bring him and the apparatus here," the Chief Organizing Officer replied.

  "Before arriving at any final decision on the operation, we should take into consideration the danger of a self-destruction gadget having been built into the apparatus, to prevent it falling into unauthorized hands," warned the Head of THRUSH'S Technical Department. "If this were so, forceful action might induce the Professor to destroy the apparatus, and thus thwart our plans."

  "There's no indication on the tape of any self destructing gadget on the apparatus," the Chief Organizing Officer countered.

  "That doesn't establish that there isn't one," the Technical Department head insisted. "The tape gives us a very good idea of what the invention is, and how the apparatus works, but it doesn't give us all the answers. If you listened carefully to the tape, you'd know that no opportunity arose for the Professor to say whether of not a self-destruction gadget is built in. Under the circumstances I must insist that we take every safety precaution to ensure that we get both the Professor and his apparatus undamaged."

  "Regardless of whether there is a self-destruction Unit or not, I am against a special task force being sent to the Professor's villa," the Executive Council's chairman declared. "I want the operation to be smooth and unnoticed. I want no disturbance that might alert Government Security forces. I propose that we use the information we have from the Ultimate Computer and carry out the operation smoothly."

  "I'm not with you, sir," the Chief Organizing Officer said uneasily. "I have no knowledge of this Ultimate Computer data."

  "You can't have it because I haven't made it known to anyone yet," the other replied sharply. "It would have been premature. But now, in the light of this important development, the time has come when all members of the Executive Council must know the facts to enable us to arrive at the appropriate solution for the problem."

  The eyes of the assembled men were now fixed on the speaker.

  "The information from the Ultimate Computer is as follows," the Chairman continued. "Professor Karel Novak's wife Dana was killed in a road accident in 1946 and left him with their five-year-old daughter Vlasta. He brought up the girl, whom he loves more than anything in the world. Here is the means of getting at the Professor and his apparatus without creating any special disturbance. Bring his daughter here, and the rest will be simple."

  "This solution is doubtless best," the Deputy Chair man seconded after a moment. "I suggest it be accepted unanimously."

  "There's only one thing to be considered and it is that, despite his great love for his daughter, the Professor might not after all be persuaded to come over to us with his apparatus." This was the opinion of the Chief of the Special Tasks Department. He liked the initial proposal made by the Chief Organizing Officer because it gave him the chance of displaying the efficiency of his Task Force section. "We mustn't overlook the fact," he added, "that Professor Novak is one of the most devoted of Czech Government scientists. Because of this, he might put his country before his love for his daughter..."

  "I don't think we need worry about that. We know from experience how well the hostage method works," the Deputy Chairman insisted. "However, should it turn out to be a futile modus operandi in this case, we can then switch to the Special Tasks Force for assistance."

  It was unanimously moved by THRUSH'S Executive Council that Vlasta Novak be brought to their European Center E.

  "This, I think, concludes our extraordinary meeting," declared the Executive Council Chairman. "All other matters can be dealt with at the next extraordinary meeting when the Professor's daughter has been brainwashed and conditioned for our plans."

  "There is one thing that, I think, should be decided at this meeting," the head of the Technical Department intervened.

  "What is it?" the Chairman inquired.

  "We have learned from the tape that Professor Novak is faced with stalemate in the development of his apparatus, and from what we've heard it seems unlikely that he and his daughter will quickly stumble on the solution to this vital problem."

  "I am confident that, aided by you and with the help of your assistants, Professor Novak and his daughter will certainly solve that problem, once he and his apparatus are safely here," the Chairman cut in.

  "That may be, but I'm afraid there's not much chance of us being successful, because none of us here have the slightest knowledge of this thought vibration transference business." The Head of the Technical Department looked wry. "By trial and error we might of course solve the problem sooner or later; but I consider it my duty to point out to the Executive Council that it may take a very considerable time before Professor Novak can achieve his goal."


  "Have you any constructive idea on the subject?" the Chairman enquired.

  "I have, but this entails overcoming enormous difficulties."

  "We are used to overcoming such difficulties," the Chief Organizing Officer remarked smugly.

  "Let's hear your idea and decide whether it is acceptable," said the Chairman.

  "My idea," the Head of the Technical Department announced, "is to strike first at U..N.C.L.E. because I believe that U.N.C.L.E. is our principal antagonist and must be wiped out before they can interfere with us."

  "What has U.N.C.L.E. to do with Professor Novak solving the problem of long-range thought transference?" the Chief Organizing Officer demanded.

  "My idea is to overcome Professor Novak's stalemate by linking his apparatus to an electronic beam transmitter and thus attacking the target," the technical expert explained. "But this is where the enormous difficulty comes in. My idea can only work if we can install special electronic beam receivers in the electronic communications circuits inside U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters. To do this, one of our people must penetrate U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, and that, you will agree, is certainly a great task."

  "If this is all that's worrying you, put your mind at rest, for it can be done!" the Chief of the Special Tasks Department exclaimed. "The only difficulty would be the actual installation of your special electronic beam receivers within the electronic communications circuits at U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters."

  "The installation of such gadgets shouldn't be difficult, for they are so tiny that they can be fixed anywhere along the circuits. As they are equipped with magnetic claws, no complicated fixing is required," the technical expert elucidated. "The man who has to install the beam receivers must of course know where to find the electronic communications circuits at U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, but once he knows the layout and penetrates U.N.C.L.E.'S stronghold, everything else will be simple."

  "Under the circumstances," said the Chairman, "I invite the Executive Council to move that 'Operation U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters', as we may as well call it, commences immediately, to make ready for thought transference to U.N.C.L.E. as soon as Professor Novak and his apparatus arrive here."

  This motion was approved, then before adjourning, the meeting proposed that the three chiefs involved should meet to finalize the details of 'Operation U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters'.

  Ten minutes later the Head of the Technical Department and the Chief of the Special Tasks Department met the Chief Organizing Officer and were discussing the problems before them.

  "To eliminate all possibility of failure, it is imperative to know every detail of the U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters," said the Chief Organizing Officer. "If you agree, I propose to feed all the relevant questions into the Ultimate Computer to obtain the necessary data."

  Following this, questions were fed into the Ultimate Computer, and soon this information began to stream out.

  The U.N.C.L.E. Organization (United Network Command of Law and Enforcement) is centered in a row of buildings in New York City, a few blocks from the United Nations Building. Starting from the south end, this row consists of a three-storied whitestone which appears fairly new in comparison to the brown stone buildings which make up the rest of the street. At the north end is a public garage an active, bustling place in parking-space-starved New York. The brownstones are occupied by a few lower-income families living above the decrepit shops and businesses which rent the space on the street level. Del Floria's tailor shop occupies the street level space in a brownstone near the middle of the block. The first and second floors of the whitestone are taken up by an exclusive "key-club" restaurant named "The Mask Club" which features fine food served by waitresses wearing masks (and little else) to patrons who don masks (covering nostrils to brow) as they enter.

  On the third floor of the whitestone is a sedate suite of offices, the entrance to which bears the engraved letters U.N.C.L.E. And in this suite of offices a rather ordinary group of people handle mail, meet, and do business with visitors, in general giving the appearance of some normal organization engaged in a special charity project, or perhaps a Fund Foundation Headquarters.

  If one were to investigate (but thoroughly), he might learn that all these buildings are owned by U.N.C.L.E. It is doubtful that he would ever discover that all the personnel involved in the activities of the garage and the key-club are also in the employ of U.N.C.L.E., that many of "The Mask Club" are affiliated with U.N.C.L.E. that even the frowsy tenants of the brownstone, including old Del Floria, the tailor, are actually members of the organization.

  If it were possible to peel away the outer, decaying, brownstone skin of the four old buildings in the middle of the sandwich (as it were), a surprising edifice would be revealed. For behind the walls is one large building consisting of three floors of a modern, complex office building—a steel maze of corridors and suites containing brisk, alert young personnel of many races, creeds, colors and national origins—as well as a complex mass of modern machinery for business and communications. There are no staircases in the building. Four elevators handle vertical traffic. Below the basement level an underground channel has been cut through from the East River, and several cruisers (the largest being a sixty-footer) are bobbing at the underground wharf beneath the brownstone complex. If one could ascend to the roof and examine the large neon-lighted advertising billboard rearing up there, a trained eye might ascertain that its supporting pillars conceal a high powered shortwave antenna, as well as elaborate electronic receiving and transmitting gear.

  This is the heart, brain and body of the organization named U.N.C.L.E. The personnel of the organization is peculiarly multi-national, its line of work so tending to cross national boundaries, and with such nonchalance, that a daily shortwave message from the remote Himalayas fails to flutter any eyebrows, even though there is no recorded wireless in this Himalayan area according to the printed international codebooks.

  On making one's way through the building, one would find it highly discomforting to stray from within certain prescribed boundaries, which are measured by the color of the badge the "Admissions" clerk has pinned upon one's lapel. A chemical on the tips of the receptionist's fingers would have set up a reaction on each badge as she pinned it in place. Any persons passing through certain areas of the building will trip up an alarm unless they are wearing a badge which has been properly activated. On every desk in the building a small red light would begin to flash and a signal is heard beating in a repeating tempo of alarm. Steel doors would then start to slide shut all over the building, forming cabinet-like pockets in which to trap any unwanted intruders.

  The Red Badges will admit you to the ground floor which contains personnel and equipment for day in, day out routine operations. Should a Red Badge manage to rise above this floor, the entire unpleasant sequence of events described earlier would occur.

  The Yellow Badge will carry one anywhere on the ground and second floors. The second floor contains communications equipment of all sorts as well as various electronic code devices and, in general, any machine equipment necessary for the organization. By now you understand what occurs should a Yellow Badge venture onto the floor above.

  The third floor is White Badge territory, with the Policy and Operations offices, the interrogation rooms, the armory, and the various cubicles occupied by the elite of this organization, the Enforcement Agents, during their infrequent visits to this, their home base.

  If such a thing as an Organization Chart of U.N.C.L.E. were to exist, it might be found to break down the personnel into five Sections—each Section subdivided into two Departments, with one Department overlapping the Department below it. Thus:

  SECTION I: Policy and Operations

  SECTION II: Operations and Enforcement

  SECTION III: Enforcement and Communications

  SECTION IV: Communications and Security

  SECTION V: Security and Personnel

  There are four entrances to the Headquarters Area. The basic personnel enter through th
e public garage they drive their cars into the garage, along with the general public, and park them. At this point the paths of these (for the most part, attractive) men and women diverge from that of the "ordinary" patrons. The men make their way into the "Men's Locker" room, the women into the "Women's Locker" room. Behind a wall there is an elevator which descends to a subterranean passage leading to the brownstone area. Here an "Admissions" clerk sits at a desk scanning her closed circuit television receivers, which beam in the findings of hidden cameras in each locker room. "Admissions" will fix the Red or the Yellow Badges and the Admittee moves on to his (or her) respective work area.

  The Enforcement Agents will enter through the second entrance, which is located in Del Floria's tailoring shop. Each Enforcement Agent will enter the shop and usually hand Del Floria his jacket for pressing. The tailor will then push a small button on the side of his pressing machine. This releases the "lock", and the Agent will enter the third "try-on" cubicle and draw the curtain. He will turn the hook on the wall (really nothing but a door knob), swing open the back wall and walk through to the "Admissions" desk. "Admissions" would by now have seen his entrance on her closed circuit television viewer. She will fix the White Badge and the Agent is then free to move to an elevator and rise to his floor.

  The third entrance is to be found in the general offices above the restaurant in the whitestone building. Here is where the non-U.N.C.L.E. members may be brought in the brownstone area. At the rear of the suite of offices is an elevator. If you are permitted to, you may enter the elevator, which will take you back down to the first floor. A door at the rear of this elevator will open there, admitting you directly into the brownstone building. "Admissions" would, of course, have been watching you in her closed circuit television viewer as the elevator was traveling down and she will fix the proper colored badge to your visitor's lapel.

  There is a fourth entrance through the underwater channel in the basement of the building. Of course this entrance can only be used either by boat or a scuba suit—both methods inadvisable unless you are expected. "Admissions" waits for you here, too, with her badges. This entrance (and exit) is generally only used for extremely top-secret movement of the personnel.