The Thrush from Thrush Affair

by jhalpin322@aol. com

  “Especially now that Lilli has escaped,” Solo said.

  The petite blonde snorted. “What then lieblings, do we give up? Do we say, pfft! There is no chance?”

  Waverly considered the blonde singer. “You sound like a woman with an idea, Miss Kessler.”

  “Of course I have an idea!”

  “Very well, enlighten us,” Waverly said mildly, blowing smoke into the quiet room.

  “It is so simple! I have embarrassed them, yes? They will want me more than they want Solo or Kuryakin. Particularly will Burton want me now; I am a black mark against him. In THRUSH results count.”

  “True,” Solo said. “So what do you have in mind, Lilli?”

  The tiny blonde shrugged. “I am, as it happens, booked into San Francisco as my next engagement. It does not seem strange, yes? They will find me. When they do, and they take me with them, Napoleon and Illya will follow.”

  There was a silence. Solo did not look happy. Illya and Waverly were thinking. Waverly shook his head.

  “It is awful risky, Miss Kessler,” Waverly said. “Besides, they might not bother with you at all.”

  “Perhaps not,” Lilli said, “but I think they will for this!”

  She held up a thickly folded piece of paper. She unfolded it and showed that it was a list of names. She smiled.

  “When I borrowed the antidote and the key, I also borrowed this list. It is what I have been after---a list of THRUSH couriers in this country.”

  Waverly stared at the list. “They will know you have given it to us.”

  “They will not be sure,” Lilli said. “Especially if nothing happens to their couriers for some days, and if they learn that I am Interpol, which I think they will by now. THRUSH, too, has its ways of learning such things when they know what they want.”

  Illya Kuryakin shook his head. “They will suspect a trap.”

  “Why?” Lilli said. “What reason could they think of to account for U.N.C.L.E. not using the list? To make them think I had not given it to U.N.C.L.E.? All right, why? I mean, what does U.N.C.L.E. gain by making THRUSH think I did not hand over the list? What do you gain by exposing me to danger? They won’t imagine that it is simply to find where the meeting is.”

  Illya leaned forward. He watched the woman. Then he looked at Waverly. “She’s right, you know. THRUSH would be wary, but they really couldn’t suspect. It would be much more logical for them to think Lilli is holding out on us. It would be impossible for them not to take the chance that Lilli did not turn it over. They almost have to find out by contacting her.”

  Waverly puffed on his pipe. “It may be the only way.”

  Solo protested. “But the danger! They might kill her right on the stage.”

  “No, I know them too well. Burton will want to deliver me, ”Lilli said.

  “You’re sure, Miss Kessler, that you want to do this? You don’t have to. As Mr. Solo says, there is great danger,” Waverly said.

  “Can you get the plans otherwise?”

  It would possibly be the best chance,” Waverly said.

  “Then, voila, it is done!” and Lilli smiled. “Anyway, I will have the two strong men protecting me, yes?”

  “We could only protect you up to a point, Lilli,” Solo said. “After you go out of the that club with them, we can’t do much,”

  “It will be enough that you can protect me in the club.” Lilli said. Again she smiled. “Once I am with them, I can handle them myself.”

  “Yes,” Waverly said, “I’m sure you can. Well, then, I think we are forced to accept your offer, Miss Kessler. We will, of course, equip you with various homing devices. There is a certain danger of discovery, but less, I think, than if Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin lost you.”

  “I agree. I will be sure they do not find the devices. You have good ones, I trust?”

  Waverly smiled. “I believe we do.”

  “And I can hide them,” Lilli said. “I do not dress so well, or wear so much jewelry for nothing.”

  “No,” Waverly said. “Well I suggest that we all get to work. If you will be so kind as to come with me to our laboratory, Miss Kessler, I think we can start fitting you out. In the meantime Mr. Solo can arrange for the transportation, and Mr. Kuryakin can begin to study the layout of the club you will sing in. What is the club?”

  “The Barbary Parrot,” Lilly said. “Such names they have!”

  “Good,” Waverly said. “Perhaps we will get that film, and do a little damage to THRUSH in North America after all.”

  “I hope to do a great deal,” Lilli said.

  “Yes,” Waverly said.

  The chief led the petite blonde from the room toward the laboratory. Napoleon Solo went to transport section. Illya Kuryakin contacted files to get a complete floor plan and detailed description of The Barbary Parrot.

  FIVE

  The Barbary Parrot was a cellar nightclub on the edge of North Beach. It was one of the newer clubs that had grown up with the glamorization of the beach. Lilli Kessler’s picture was prominent outside. The petite blonde was an attraction wherever she went, and San Francisco was no exception. People went down the stairs noisily, excited by her return to the city on the Bay.

  Inside, the club was a large room with brick walls, bare brick. The bar was to the left as you came in, and if anyone had noticed they would have seen a handsome young man there every night when Lilli Keeler sang. He looked like one of the hundreds of rising young executives that frequented such clubs in San Francisco, Proud of their city and jealous of New York.

  If anyone had really watched, they would have seen the young man leave his seat every time Lilli Kessler left the stage. Unseen by anyone, the young man, who was Napoleon Solo, took up a position in a broom closet whenever Lilli was in her dressing room.

  From the closet he could see the door of her dressing room, and the stage door.

  When Lilli was on stage, another man could be observed, if someone had X-ray eyes, watching the entire room from a hidden vantage point behind the brick wall at the rear of the stage. A small hole had been cut in the wall. Illya sat on a ladder with his U.N.C.L.E. Special in his hands the whole time Lilli was performing.

  For two days the people entered noisily, and sat in silence. There was a magic in the presence of the petite blonde diseuse on the stage, on any stage. There was a spell in her movements, the small motions of her eloquent hands, the way she leaned on the piano and sang to each single person in the crowded room as if they were alone in some silent and dim room at the farthest edges of the world.

  There was more than magic in the smoky voice. No matter what the language, or whether they could understand her or not, they felt that the throaty voice, the soft lyrics, were for them alone. Sometimes she closed her eyes and sang to the dim light itself, and in the audience they closed their eyes and went with her. Few noises broke the spell, and many even forgot to drink.

  Two men on the second night neither shut their eyes nor forgot to drink. Solo had seen them the instant they entered. They did not come in eagerly and with noise. They came in silence and sat in silence, but they did not listen to the smoky songs of the far-off cities of the world, nor were they under any spell. They carried small black cases, and they watched Lilli Kessler.

  Solo watched them. But the two men did nothing all through her singing. They did nothing during her first intermission. They did nothing at all during her second stint at the piano. At the end of the second session, Solo saw them move and he became aware of a man and a woman standing in the shadows in the rear of the crowded dim room. It was Maxine Trent and Walter Hand! The fat little man was watching the stage. As Solo watched , Hand touched Maxine’s arm. Maxine stepped forward and walked to the two men. She whispered to them.

  Maxine walked back to Walter Hand. The two men stood and worked their way forward, one at each end of the stage. Lilli finished her last number, bowed, blew her kisses to the wild applause. She turned and walked stage left. One of the two men had his small black
case pointed nonchalantly at her. The man spoke low.

  “Miss Kessler, would you honor us by sitting at our table?”

  Lilli shook her head, “I’m sorry. I---“ She had seen the small black case. She looked behind her and saw the other man at the other end of the stage. The first man was humble. “I understand, but Mr. Hand remembers you from the old days in Vienna. Surely you can make an exception. It would please Mr. Hand so much.”

  Lilli hesitated only for the briefest second. Illya on his ladder behind the wall, and Solo at the bar, were alert. They could have shot the men down with sleep darts, but that was not the plan. Lilli smiled. It was clear that THRUSH was not going to kill her on the spot.

  “Mr. Hand? Vienna? Of course! For him I will make an exception. I even have some old papers he would like to see, but, alas, not with me. You understand?”

  “Of course,” the man said. “But you will join us?”

  No one else in the room had noticed a thing. To any stranger, the polite man with the black case was making a friendly invitation, nothing more. The people had watched for a time because they adored Lilli, but when she came down and walked with the man they went back to their affairs.

  Lilli Kessler reached the table and sat down with the two men. They all ordered a drink. Walter Hand joined them. When the drink came, Lilli excused herself. But she did not walk to the ladies room. She walked back to where Maxine stood. She went out with Maxine. Moments later, the two men and Walter Hand got up and walked out. Solo had slipped out after Lilli and Maxine. Illya came out after Hand and his two men.

  Hidden on the quiet North Beach street there were other U.N.C.L.E. agents. But the THRUSH people made no attempt to harm Lilli. They simply put her into a large black car and drove away.

  Solo and Illya were in there own car. Illya turned on the instrument that tracked the homing devices. The two agents waited until the black car was out of sight. Then they drove off after it, with Solo driving and Illya watching the dial of the tracking unit.

  ACT IV

  SING ALONG WITH THRUSH

  The building was at the edge of the bay in Oakland. It was a large, squat, windowless building of the type seen on all waterfronts of the world---a warehouse at the land end of a long pier. All around it there was nothing but other warehouses, darkness, silence and the soft lap-lap-lap of the water of the bay.

  The bridge towered in the distance, a blaze of lights high in the damp sky. Far off was the other bridge, the famed Golden Gate Bridge. But it was the near bridge, the long Oakland Bridge, that Solo and Illya had come across, led by the homing device somewhere ahead on the diminutive person of Lilli Kessler.

  The homing signal had led them to this looming, squat building at the edge of the water. A rusty freighter was tied up at the end of the pier. It was as dark as the windowless monolith of the warehouse in the night. Napoleon Solo pointed to the freighter’s superstructure. What looked like a rusted tangle of wire was in reality a highly modern radar device.

  “That freighter is more than it seems,: Solo said.

  “So is this warehouse,” Illya said drily. “The question is, how do we get inside?”

  “We follow Lilli,” Solo said.

  “After you,” Illya said.

  Grinning, Solo led the way out of their car, hidden out of site from the warehouse, and moved silently through the dark and deserted night to the shadows. Illya came up behind, carrying a small, portable tracking unit. The signal was strong.

  “She’s just ahead,” Illya whispered.

  “So far she was right---They are taking her in alive,” Solo said.

  “So far doesn’t count in a matter like this, Napoleon,” Illya whispered.

  “There is your gloomy Russian soul,” Solo whispered.

  “I suggest we move on,” Illya said.

  Solo moved ahead. They came around the corner of the warehouse and saw the black car. There was no guard. Solo crept slowly along with Illya following. They reached a set of low steps that led to a door. Solo went up the stairs and inspected the door while Kuryakin covered him.

  “Alarm,” Solo whispered.

  “The broken circuit kind?” Illya said.

  Solo nodded and reached into his pocket. He brought out the electronic device he had used on the door of Manfred Burton’s vault. He attached it to the door frame. It was the work of only minutes to pick the lock. Solo opened the door. No alarm had gone off.

  “Remind me to thank the lab boys for that circuit closer,” Solo said.

  “If we get out, I will,” Illya said.

  Inside the door the two agents waited for a few minutes until their eyes became accustomed to the darkness inside. After the few minutes they saw that they were standing on a raised platform above a flight of wooden stairs. Below on the floor of the warehouse there were rows and rows of large crates piled almost to the ceiling that towered two stories above.

  Solo led the way down to the warehouse floor. There was no hint of light anywhere. Illya Kuryakin bent over his tracking unit. He pointed directly ahead. Solo nodded, and the two agents began to glide silently along the dark aisle between the piles of crates. They seemed to walk softly for a long time. At last they came to the end of the piles of crates. They looked ahead and saw absolutely nothing.

  They came to the far end of the warehouse. There were no rooms, doors or offices. Illya and Solo looked all around. The tracking monitor showed the signal to be close. Illya moved the small instrument around in a circle.

  “Not outside,” Illya said. “It seems to locate her very close to here.”

  Solo looked up and down. He looked up again. “The next floor? This warehouse must have about five floors.”

  Illya shook his head. “It doesn’t seem like it. I---“

  Illya stopped. His wary eyes had seen the door. It was a heavy fire door, with a lever lock, that was like all such doors in warehouses. It had the red light over it, and should lead to the street. Illya stared at it.

  “Do you remember a door outside, Napoleon?” the small, blond Russian said.

  Solo looked at the door. It was set in the wall near the rear of the warehouse. The two agents walked softly to the door, then looked back along the whole side wall. Four more tiny lights glowed all the way back to the front of the warehouse.

  “Five,” Solo said. “I thought there were only four.”

  “So did I,” Illya said.

  The two men inspected the door. It seemed like no more than a normal fire door. Illya studied his tracking monitor.

  “She could be somewhere inside there.” Illya said.

  “The wall is thick,” Napoleon Solo said.

  Illya glanced around, his eyes narrowed beneath his lowered brows. “Have you noticed that there are no guards, Napoleon?”

  “I noticed,” Solo said.

  “Which means that they are not worried about anyone being in the warehouse.”

  “And THRUSH is always careful,” Solo said.

  “So the warehouse itself is only a cover. The real THRUSH installation is somewhere else. Like through that door and---“

  “And down below,” Solo said.

  Illya nodded. “That is what I think. The door will have an alarm, and there will probably be guards on the other side.”

  “They have to have light and air,” Solo said.

  “Light!” Illya said. He turned and began to walk carefully around the walls of the silent warehouse. The crates towered into the gloom above. Solo followed.

  They found the fuse box on the wall near the door they had first come in through. Illya opened the box. He pointed to a large fuse.

  “Master fuse for a high-voltage line,” Kuryakin said. “I thought they would have a line like that to operate their electronic equipment.”

  Solo began to follow the high-voltage cable. It led them back toward the fifth door. It ended about halfway along the wall toward the fifth door. There was a metal cover plate in the stone wall of the warehouse. Without more words, the two
agents removed the cover plate. They revealed the opening areaway just big enough for one man. It was the service crawlway. Illya went first.

  The crawlway paralleled the warehouse floor for some distance. Then it angled down. Illya crawled ahead with Solo close behind. After a time, the crawlway straightened out again, running once more horizontal. The two agents crawled on. Twice they heard footsteps close below them, the heavy footsteps of booted feet.

  At last the crawlway ended in a sharp down turn. There was a narrow ladder. They went down the ladder and found that they were in a closet where the power lines went into a main box and came out in many smaller lines.

  They listened but heard no sound beyond the door. Illya opened the door a crack. The grey-painted steel corridor was empty. He opened the door farther and peered around. The grey corridor was empty in both directions. The two agents emerged from the closet and listened. There were voices to the left. The tracking monitor showed that Lilli was in that direction.

  Solo led the way cautiously along the corridor. The voices grew louder. They reached a door. By their calculations they were now beyond the warehouse and beneath the pier. There were quite a few voices talking beyond the door, some very loud. Illya pointed up at the ceiling of the corridor, Solo looked up.

  The corridor, in fact the entire hidden installation, was of the ultra-modern type that builds walls and ceilings of steel panels away from the actual retaining walls. The ceiling especially is a hung ceiling, quite a distance from the real ceiling. In the space between there are the air ducts, the wiring, the water lines, all the necessary utilities. It was obvious from the light fixtures that this was such a ceiling---the fixtures were flush-mounted in the ceiling panels.

  Illya had pointed to a recessed panel, an opening into the space between the hung ceiling of the corridor and the actual load-bearing ceiling. Solo nodded, and bent.

  Illya climbed onto Solo’s back, pushed open the panel, and hoisted himself up. He leaned down and helped Solo up and into the space between the real and the false ceilings.

  Below in the corridor someone was coming. Illya got the panel closed just in time. The guard passed below, stopped outside the door, turned, and patrolled back the other way.