The Thrush from Thrush Affair

by jhalpin322@aol. com

  The Thrush from Thrush Affair

  By Robert Hart Davis

  Angel…femme fatale…or devil incarnate? Who was the slim blonde girl who spoke three tongues, charmed three spy rings---and killed with a smile? Today Solo and Illya must know---or die also…

  ACT I

  FOR SOME THE SONGBIRDS SING

  The Café Leider is on the East Side of New York, hidden in one side of the small, dead-end streets that border the East River. A narrow alley above the river itself leads to the stage door. The main entrance, on the small side street, is restrained---there is only a simple canopy marked, “Café Leider.”

  The people who went in under this canopy were well-dressed and animated, excited and on-the-town for the night. Inside, the café was small and dim and intimate. It was quite, almost silent, although it was crowded. People packed the tables and the small bar; the waiters could hardly move among the packed tables. There was smoke, and the movement of glasses.

  But no one spoke or made a noise. There was a reason for this---every face in the smoky room was turned to the tiny stage and the small woman who stood behind the piano and sang.

  She was a blonde, small and petite. She sang in a throaty voice that was all her own, and that seemed to hold, even transfix her rapt audience. She was no longer a young woman, but it did not matter. Her beauty was more than youth or prettiness. There was all the conventional beauty, the polished good looks, the bones that all great beauties have, but there was more. Hers was a quality of beauty years could never touch. There was a grooming that marks the woman of the Continent, a beauty that years can only enhance, an elegance that had to be born in a woman.

  She sang her low, phrased, throaty songs as if she sang each song to each single listener alone. The smoky timbre of her voice somehow made each song seem new, heard for the first time, and understood personally by each listener, whether it was a song in German, or in French, or in English. She sang the songs, old and new, in all three languages, moving easily from one language to the other as if each were her native tongue.

  On the stage she moved little, making each small gesture of her hands, each faint movement of her neck and face seem momentous. Her sophisticated style gave each song, no matter how small or banal or familiar, the style of the grand manner, the great world of life itself. She sang or Paris and of London; of Rome and of Vienna; of Berlin both before and after it was a divided city.

  Between songs she spoke, told anecdotes of Europe in her soft Viennese accent, and the tales charmed her silent audience as much as her song.

  Her name was Lilli Kessler, who was born in Vienna and had made the world her home, and she held her audience in rapt silence in the dim and smoky supper club. They drank, the audience, but they did not speak, and were content to sit there in the dim light and watch her, listen as if they were each sure she sang only for them.

  All except two men.

  One of these men was a heavy-set, burly man who walked into the Café Leider at that moment. He wore evening clothes of expensive cut, but he was not out for an evening of pleasure. He stood for a time in the entrance from the bar, surveying the room like a man studying flies pinned to a board. He paid no attention to the petite diseuse. He walked slowly through the crowded room, still studying faces as if Lilli Kessler were not singing at all.

  He reached a table that was empty despite the crowd. It was near the stage on the right side. He sat down. And then, as if to show he was interested in the petite blonde, he looked up at her, nodded and smiled.

  The second man who was not under the spell of the smoky-voiced chanteuse, was a waiter. He was a small, dark-haired waiter with a thick Continental mustache. He had barely looked at the blonde on the tiny stage. He, too, had been surveying the room. But he ceased his watch when the heavy-set man in evening clothes came in.

  The waiter stared at the burly man, his eyes following the man’s slow progress through the room to the table. When the man sat down, the waiter bent over the pencil he held ready to take orders.

  “Control Central, this is Bubba. Report Manfred Burton in Café Leider. Burton in Café. This is Bubba.”

  TWO

  In a small office crowded with electronic equipment, and hidden behind a row of innocent-seeming brownstone buildings on the East Side of New York near the United Nations, two men sat around a round table. This was the office of Alexander Waverly, Section I member, and chief of The United Network Command for Law and Enforcement---better known as U.N.C.L.E. The office of Waverly was the final heart of the great complex of impregnable corridors and rooms behind the innocent façade of the quiet brownstones.

  On the roof of the buildings was a giant billboard that was actually an antenna that kept New York Control Center of U.N.C.L.E. in touch with all the far-flung operations of the secret organization that had been established to fight international crime everywhere. Beneath the street were the secret tunnels to the river. Under constant guard, No one entered U.N.C.L.E. headquarters without complete scrutiny and permission.

  Now, in his office that was the nerve center of the worldwide efforts of the U.N.C.L.E., Waverly held a microphone in his hand and listened to a voice that came from a speaker console to his right. The man with Waverly, Napoleon Solo, Chief Enforcement Officer, Section II of U.N.C.L.E. leaned closer to hear.

  The voice was that of the waiter in the Café Leider.

  “…Report Manfred Burton in Café Leider. Burton in café. This is Bubba.”

  Waverly pressed a button on his microphone. “Very good, Mr., uh Kuryakin. Continue surveillance. Do not do anything. I am sending Mr. Solo to join you.”

  “What if he leaves?” the voice of the waiter in the smoky club said.

  Illya Kuryakin, disguised as the waiter, bent over the pencil and watched all around at the same time, his eyes alert and bright beneath his lowered brow.

  “Then follow him, Mr. Kuryakin,” Waverly said dryly. “But do nothing if he does nothing. You understand? I don’t want them alerted.”

  “Yes sir,” Kuryakin said from his corner in the café, his disguised face set in an enigmatic smile at his chief’s dry voice.

  Waverly clicked off his microphone and turned to Solo. The chief enforcement agent for U.N.C.L.E. was a handsome man of medium height. Slender and well-dressed, Solo looked like no more than a minor executive, a gay young man about town, one of the thousands of elegant young men with too much money and too much time on their hands.

  But he was none of these things; he was a trained agent, deadly with all weapons, both hands, and his brain.

  “So, Mr. Solo,” Waverly said. “As you see, we have a new project. It’s fortunate you finished that Peruvian business when you did.”

  “Yes sir,” Solo said. “I gather, then, my vacation will be delayed again?”

  “Vacation? No time for that nonsense.”

  Solo sighed. He had visions of his planned days on the beach at Cannes with a lady he had met in Peru. She would expect him, and he would not be there. Poor girl. He sighed again, and smiled at his chief.

  “I gather that this is the big one?”

  “Big?” Waverly said. “Big?”

  The gruff chief of U.N.C.L.E. New York began to search in his pockets. His pipe, filled, was clamped in the center of his aristocratic bloodhound face, but there seemed to be no matches. A man who rarely smiled, Waverly’s age was hard to determine, but had to be between the late fifties and late sixties. His iron grey hair was shaggy, his eyes deceptively innocent beneath bushy brows, his face solemn as he searched in his old tweed suit for a match.

  Finally, Napoleon Solo handed him a package.

  Waverly took the matches with a muttered acknowledgement, bu
t with neither surprise nor the faintest smile. When he spoke again, his pipe lighted, it was in his usual calm, clipped manner.

  “Would you say, Mr. Solo, that the opportunity to perhaps destroy the entire THRUSH operation in North America was big?”

  “The entire operation?” Solo said.

  “Perhaps finish two of their leaders, and prevent a very bad triumph for them?”

  Solo’s eyes brightened. They almost snapped with eager interest. “I would say that was big, yes sir.”

  “That’s good of you Mr. Solo,” Waverly said drily. “I would say it could be the chink in their armor we have been looking. Perhaps the beginning of the end for THRUSH.”

  “But how sir?” Solo said, his eyes no longer the eyes of the young pleasure-seeker.

  “How? By taking advantage of the one major weakness THRUSH has--- their inability to transfer power in an orderly manner. In short Mr. Solo, I think we may have them fighting among themselves!”

  Solo’s eyes flashed in the silence of the office as Waverly let his words sink in.

  Three

  Solo leaned forward across the round table. “Fighting among themselves?”

  Waverly puffed on his pipe, nodded. “Our information leaves no possibility of doubt. Augustus Bartz died suddenly last week while you were in Peru. Apparently of natural causes, although we can’t be absolutely sure.”

  “THRUSH has ways of inducing ‘natural causes,’” Solo said.

  “Precisely,” Waverly agreed. “But that, of course, is not our particular concern. The main thing is that Bartz is dead.

  “Which leaves THRUSH without an operational chief for all of North America,” Solo said, and he pursed his lips in a low whistle. “It means that all Bartz’s sub-leaders have no one to take orders from outside THRUSH council itself.”

  “Exactly, Mr. Solo,” Waverly said, “and at a very bad time for THRUSH. Only two weeks ago the full design details for the latest United States rocket were stolen. It had all the marks of a THRUSH venture, and of Bartz in particular. I would say with considerable certainly that Bartz had those design plans.”

  Solo whistled. “Two weeks ago? Bartz must have delivered them by now.”

  Waverly searched for a match; his pipe had gone out. ”No, I think not. Bartz only had the week, and we have it on reliable report that Bartz was anxious to deliver the plans himself---a coup. Apparently the North American branch had not done much of late, and you know THRUSH. Results, that is all that counts for them. No, Bartz had the plans on him when he died, I know that. The question is, who has them now? The THRUSH council has not met for some time. Their scheduled meeting was this month somewhere in Europe.

  “They know of the rocket plans, and of Bartz’s death. They will probably advance the date of their meeting to deal with the problem. As you know, only the THRUSH council has the right, or the power for that matter, to appoint a new North American operational chief. Even then, they cannot appoint just anyone. As I said, THRUSH has no machinery for an organized transfer of power. The death of Bartz automatically means a power struggle among his chief assistants. Council will have to accept the power structure here in North America. They will have to choose the sub-leader with the greatest power.”

  “That’s why you have Illya watching Manfred Burton?” Solo said.

  Waverly nodded. He had found a match. And now lighted his pipe again as he talked.

  “The choice must be between Burton and Walter Hand. There is no doubt of that. As far as we know, they are quite evenly matched---Burton in the East, Hand in the West. Only Bartz kept them from fighting each other before this. THRUSH will have the problem of choosing one, and risking the reaction of the other.”

  “They won’t choose.” Solo said. “They’ll let them fight it out and accept the winner.”

  “True, Mr. Solo, but in this case there is another factor---the rocket plans. As you are well aware, THRUSH operates on a pure free-enterprise principle. The unit of THRUSH that does a successful job gets all the profit from it, less only a share to the council. Which means---

  “Which means that whoever gets and delivers those plans will have a big reward to split up,” Solo said. “With that much money, and the power it brings, the winner can probably steal most of the losers’ men away!”

  “Yes, that is the way I think it must work. THRUSH people must serve only winners. A coup like the rocket plans would set up either Burton or Hand, and the loser’s men would almost certainly desert to the winner.”

  “And THRUSH will wait to see,” Solo said.

  “Exactly,” Waverly said. “Therefore your job, Mr. Solo, is to join Mr. Kuryakin and prevent either Burton or Hand getting those plans. You will have to locate them and secure them for us. If you also can help Hand and Burton to eliminate each other, so much the better.”

  “What makes you sure one of them doesn’t already have the plans?” Solo said.

  “That I’m afraid I can’t tell even you, Mr. Solo, but accept my word that they do not. They are much too busy looking to have the plans. Neither has left the country---as they would have if they had the plans to deliver.”

  “What made you pick the Café Leider as a starting place?”

  Waverly frowned as his pipe had gone out again. He drew strongly to see if he could light it. “Various reasons, Mr. Solo. First, Manfred Burton is known to frequent the place. Second, we have suspected it being some kind of link in THRUSH for some time. Third, Augustus Bartz was traced to the Café Leider only hours before he died.”

  “Three good reasons,” Solo said.”

  “I rather thought so,” Waverly said drily.

  Solo stood up, grinned. “So, then, all we have to do is get plans THRUSH already has, and help Burton and Hand eliminate each other.”

  “That’s all,” Waverly said, once again drawing on his cold pipe. “I’m sure you’ll find a clever way to manage it, Mr. Solo.”

  Four

  Napoleon Solo entered the Café Leider wearing the evening dress worn by most of the other patrons of the swank supper club. The maitre regretted that he had no tables, and Solo went to the bar. From the bar he watched the crowded café. The petite blonde was still singing her smoky songs in the elegant Continental style. The patrons still sat in transfixed silence, caught by her spell. Solo watched her with interest. There was a strange magnetism to Lilli Kessler, a quality of warmth and sympathy for all men in trouble. She sang of a sad world, but bittersweet sad, sadness with a beauty of hope.

  Solo tore his eyes from the elegant blonde singer, and saw a small, dark-haired waiter watching him. Solo gave a slight nod to indicate to Illya that he had seen the small Russian. Illya, in turn, inclined his head toward the front table. Where the heavy-set, burly man sat all alone and watched the petite chanteuse.

  Solo studied the man. This, then, was Manfred Burton, one of the two men who had the power to take over all of THRUSH in North America.

  Burton looked like a well-to-do business man who had come up the hard way. He had the aura of a self-made man, and Burton was. Solo knew his history only too well. Born a simple Iowa farm boy, Manfred Burton had cheated his first victim at the age of sixteen. The proceeds from this swindle, too clever to be detected, had enabled the simple farm boy to enter and leave Harvard Law School with highest honors.

  From there his rise had been meteoric, if not always legal or savory, until he became one of the most successful and feared corporation lawyers in the country. At the pinnacle, it had seemed that there was nowhere for Burton to go, but he had found a place---THRUSH. He was known to own two governors and countless mayors, and to wield a sinister power up and down the Atlantic seaboard.

  Now, Burton was at his ease watching the petite blonde Lilli Kessler. The elegant woman had begun to walk slowly around her tiny stage as she sang to special men in the audience. Solo felt his eyes drawn as if by a magnet to her. But he saw something from the corner of his eye.

  Illya was signaling. Solo looked at the Russian in
the waiter’s disguise. Illya nodded to a table near the front.

  A tall, thin man in evening clothes was staring at Lilli Kessler and slowly writing on a pad in front of him. Solo narrowed his sharp eyes. A man does not usually take notes in a supper club. In the crowd of Lilli Kessler’s devotees, the writing man stood out like a fox in a chicken yard. But no one seemed to be watching him. All eyes turned still to the blonde Lilli Kessler and her songs.

  Then the petite blonde saw the man writing. Her eyes seemed to flash fire as she watched the man. Her slow progress around the tiny stage came to a halt. She stared at the man, her eyes fiery and her aristocratic nostrils flaring as she watched the man who continued to write, oblivious to the stare. She had not stopped singing, but now she stepped forward to the edge of the tiny stage, and sang directly to the man, stopping in her song from time to time to make comments.

  “Are we bothering your concentration, sir?”

  And she sang a line, two lines, soft and low and smoky as the room itself.

  “Writing a letter to his wife, darlings; how sweet.”

  Two more lines, a third, and into her chorus, her throaty voice vibrating the room.

  “Liebchen, a poem to me! Of course, ah, romance is not dead.”

  The full chorus, amid, now, the laughter of the patrons, necks that craned to see through the room. The man himself suddenly aware of what was going on. Until now he had been so wrapped up in what he was doing that he had not heard. Now he looked up, flushed.

  “There, he isn’t deaf! Forgive me cheri, I was sure you were afflicted. Perhaps you rewrite the lyrics, yes? Of course, that must be it. Darling, they are such nice lyrics. Ah, but I am tired of you. You bore me Liebchen; you write when you must listen. Good-by!”

  With a final chorus of her song, the petite blonde turned and walked away, waved to her admirers, and left the stage. There was a wave of violent applause. She came back, blew kisses, and the applause doubled. Solo smiled as he watched her. She was an expert, a professional, and she held the room in the palm of her small hand. All eyes were on her as she blew one more round of kisses and left.