MFU Whitman - The Affair of the Gentle Saboteur

by Brandon Keith

  The Affair of the Gentle Saboteur

  By Brandon Keith

  1. The Quarry

  ON THIS HOT, bright, sunny Thursday in July, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin waited impatiently in the cool dimness of the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria. Their object of immediate attention was one Albert Stanley.

  Stanley had been spotted early Tuesday morning. McNabb, an experienced old-timer, one of UNCLE's field men on permanent assignment at Kennedy Airport, had recognized him at customs where Stanley had not been detained long. An ordinary passenger on an ordinary flight from England, his passport was in order and he had carried no baggage except a slender attaché case filled with proper commercial papers. He was a respectable salesman from a sedate London firm, International Plastics, Limited. Of course, McNabb had known better, and so he had tailed Stanley to New York and the Waldorf. There Stanley had confirmed his reservation and had been escorted upstairs by a bellboy. Then McNabb had called Alexander Waverly at UNCLE headquarters.

  "Oh, my," the Old Man said after McNabb, tersely, had made his report.

  "What are the orders, Chief?"

  "Stay with him. Don't lose him for a moment."

  "I don't intend to. What else?"

  "Nothing else. You're going to have a backup team, a lot of company, quite shortly. You just stay with him."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And, McNabb..."

  "Yes, Chief?"

  "Nice work."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "'Bye now."

  Waverly hung up and punched a button of the intercom.

  "I want Solo and Kuryakin. Right away!"

  As they came into the office, Solo lightly nudged Illya. For once the Old Man was showing excitement. He was lighting his pipe, but the fingers holding the match were trembling, however slightly. The Old Man puffed, blew vigorously on the match, and dropped it into an ashtray. He smoked, squinting through the smoke.

  "Gentlemen, have either one of you ever heard of Albert Stanley?"

  Solo shrugged.

  Illya said, "No."

  "You, Mr. Solo?"

  "No, sir."

  "You're young men. Thank heaven for McNabb."

  "Pardon?" Solo said.

  "That he's an old man," Waverly said.

  "I don't quite understand," said Solo.

  "The young have their usefulness, but so do the old, Mr. Solo. McNabb's been with the organization for thirty years. In his youth, like you and Mr. Kuryakin, he traveled and worked in far places, and saw much and learned much. Now McNabb's through with romantic derring-do. Now he's merely a pair of eyes for us at Kennedy International, but those wise old eyes are capable of seeing more than your wise young eyes, if you understand me. They saw and recognized, as an instance—Albert Stanley."

  "But who...?" Illya began.

  Waverly touched a button on his board.

  At once, from a ceiling loudspeaker, a metallic voice replied, "Photo Room."

  "Miss Winslow?"

  "This is she, Mr. Waverly."

  "Ah. Good. I should like you to set up a photo, please. Just one, the latest. We have a rather recent one and a fairly good one at that. Slide projector, color, full screen. Albert Stanley, THRUSH, British Sector. Immediately, Miss Winslow."

  "Immediately, Mr. Waverly."

  "Thank you." He tapped the disconnect ton, sighed, and stood up. "Gentlemen, if

  please..."

  They followed their chief through steel-walled corridors and many doors to the Photo Room.

  "Ready, Miss Winslow?" Waverly said.

  "All in order. Won't you sit down, please?"

  The room was like a miniature motion picture theater, the projection room up a stairway in the rear. There were eight rows of seats in the long narrow room, and up front, instead of a screen, there was a smooth white wall. They sat in the last row, Waverly between them.

  "All right, Miss Winslow," he called.

  She climbed the stairs in the rear. There was a click and the room went dark. There was another click and the slide projector produced a brilliant, life-size portrait that filled the smooth white wall. Solo sat forward.

  The setting appeared to be a garden. In the foreground, left, was a marble fountain bordered by many-colored flowers. Off to the right was a high, green, leafy hedge. In front of the hedge stood a small, slender, expressionless man. It was hard to describe him. He had brownish hair, brownish eyes, a brownish face, wore brownish clothes. There was not a single distinguishing feature. Nothing stood out. He was a small, slender, brownish, expressionless man.

  "Nondescript," Waverly said. "A part of his art. He blends with the background; he melts into crowds. Observe him carefully, gentlemen. A most dangerous man. Albert Stanley."

  "Who is Albert Stanley?" Illya asked.

  "A saboteur of infinite finesse. The best that THRUSH has ever produced. What baffles me is, what the devil is he doing here?"

  "Why not here?" Solo said.

  The Old Man's pipe was dead. He lit it. His fingers were no longer trembling. "To the best of my knowledge, Stanley has never been in the United States and now, certainly at this time in history, he doesn't belong. There are so many sensitive areas throughout the world where THRUSH can use his special services—Vietnam, Cambodia, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Bolivia, even the Middle East, or Germany. Sensitive areas, hot spots—where his kind of damage can have volatile effect. What the devil is he doing here?"

  "I take it that it's going to be our job to find out."

  "You take it correctly, Mr. Solo. But you'll tread carefully, you and Mr. Kuryakin. The man's a consummate artist, a highly valued gem in the British Sector of THRUSH, a top-echelon man who never makes a move without a top-echelon plan of counteroffensive even in retreat. You may use as many men as you wish and whatever equipment you wish. But you must not touch him unless you get him red-handed, or else we'll have all of international authority down on our heads. And there's time for a full briefing; I want to give you all the warnings on the man. There's time. He's only just arrived, and McNabb's tight on him. And make full use of McNabb. He's a wise old bird."

  "Do you know this Stanley?" Illya asked. "I mean, personally?"

  "Only personally—as opposed to business." The Old Man chuckled. "Met him three times in the past ten years but, as it were, socially. Once in Belgrade, once in Tokyo, once in Vienna. He knew who I was just as I knew who he was, and we displayed to one another—how shall I put it?—a grudging admiration. All right now, gentlemen, let's do our briefing." He turned and called, "Thank you, Miss Winslow. Let's please have the lights back on."

  And so Albert Stanley, a quiet, mild-mannered, if somewhat eccentric guest at the Waldorf-Astoria, had become the quarry.

  Solo, on arriving at the Waldorf early on Tuesday, had taken the manager of the hotel into his confidence. From the manager he had learned that Stanley had an excellent and expensive suite on the ninth floor. The suite had been reserved for Stanley on Monday by a tall, dark man, on a monthly rental basis, payment in advance. The man had brought two heavy-looking suitcases into the suite, returning the key to the desk for Stanley. The tall, dark man had not been seen again.

  On Solo's urging, the manager had removed the guests from the suite adjacent to Stanley's on the pretext that there had developed an unexpected need for repairs. McNabb and another agent had been installed in that suite. McNabb had wanted to pierce tiny holes through the walls in order to utilize the viewscope, but Solo, under instruction, had disallowed it.

  "Scare the hare and lose the snare," the Old Man had said. "No holes in the walls, not even an inspection of the suite when he goes out.
He's a wily old buzzard, knows every trick in the game. He'd know, just as you'd know, that there are self-protective inspection patterns. He's setting up his own traps against surveillance, I assure you. Yours is strictly a tailing job and a most delicate one. You either get him red-handed or you don't get him at all—but we must not scare him off."

  Instead McNabb had set up the rubber plungers of the audioscope against the walls, and he and his assistant, with headpieces over their ears, could hear every sound. Stanley had had no visitors. He had received no phone calls. He had eaten all his meals, delivered by room service, in his suite. But once every four hours, day and night, he had quit the suite, and immediately McNabb had alerted Solo or Kuryakin downstairs. Each time Stanley had gone to a telephone booth and each time to a different one. He had made a phone call and returned to his suite. That had been the extent of his activities. Nothing more.

  And so on this hot, bright sunny Thursday in July, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin lolled impatiently in the cool dimness of the lobby. It was ten minutes after eleven in the morning. At eleven Stanley had come down to make his phone call. This time he had gone out to the street and made it from a glass phone booth. Then he had gone back upstairs.

  Solo shrugged. "I'll go have a cup of coffee."

  "Sure. And when you come back, my turn." But suddenly Illya held his hand up, palm out.

  "Our friend has gone out again," McNabb said in his ear.

  Illya removed the tiny electronic earpiece.

  "He's coming down."

  Solo smiled, nodded. "Good old Albert. At last. First break in the routine."

  He motioned Illya to the Lexington Avenue exit. He moved toward the Park Avenue exit. He was not worried. Stanley had no car. If he walked, they would follow, shifting the surveillance from one to the other to four others deployed on the street. If he took a cab, so much the better. Since Tuesday there had been two taxis in front of the hotel on the Park Avenue side and two on the Lexington Avenue side. These taxis accepted no passengers. Their flags were down. The excuse of the drivers was that they already had a passenger who had gone into the hotel and was coming out. The doormen had been instructed and had been shown pictures of Stanley. The few times Stanley had gone into the street to make his phone call, the flags had shot up and the taxis were ready. They were frequently relieved by other taxis, but always the drivers were agents of UNCLE.

  Now Stanley came out of the elevator. He was dressed in dark slacks and a brown sport jacket. He wore no tie. A tan linen sport shirt was open at the neck, its collar over the collar of the jacket. By a strap slung over his shoulder he was carrying a full-size portable radio in a leather case. He looked like a harmless little man going off to meet friends for a picnic. He chose the Park Avenue side. Illya, moving swiftly, joined Solo.

  The flags of the taxi meters were shifted upward. Stanley talked pleasantly to the doorman, who nodded, went forward, and opened a taxi door, Stanley following. Solo and Illya slipped into the taxi behind. Solo touched a switch and they could hear every word spoken in the other cab.

  "Yes, sir. Where to?" the driver said.

  "I wish to go to the ferry to Liberty Island."

  It was the first time they had heard his voice. It was soft, slow, polite, hesitant.

  "Oh? Gonna visit the Lady?" That was Jack O'Keefe driving the front cab.

  "Statue of Liberty," Stanley said.

  "Quite a sight, quite a sight," O'Keefe said. "Used to be called Bedloe's Island. Did you know that, sir?"

  "He's keeping the customer talking," Solo said. "That's for our benefit."

  "So we're going sight-seeing." Illya turned down the corners of his mouth.

  "Well, it's a lovely day," Solo said.

  "… and the name was changed to Liberty Island during the Eisenhower administration," Stanley was saying.

  "'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses..."

  "Beautiful, so beautiful," Stanley said. "You know where that comes from?"

  "I'm only a hackie, mister. I know it's got to do with the Statue of Liberty."

  "A poem by Emma Lazarus. It's engraved inside the pedestal of the Statue."

  "How do you like that?" Jack said. "Never knew it. I'm only born in this country. You guys, foreigners..."

  "Flow do you know I'm a foreigner?"

  "Heck, if that ain't a British accent..."

  "Yes, I am English," Stanley said. "Is it permitted, while I ride, that I play my radio?"

  "I got one right up front here, sir."

  "May I play my own?"

  "Sure. Certainly. Why not? It's a free country."

  The conversation ceased and the sound of music came back to Solo and Kuryakin in the other cab.

  Illya groaned. "He likes rock 'n' roll."

  "So do I." Solo grinned. "I go for the big beat."

  On the ferry in the sunshine Solo said, "I do hope, because it's today, that it is sight-seeing."

  "And I hope the opposite."

  "But the Old Man's in Washington."

  "That's why I hope the opposite."

  "You know his instructions." Solo's voice was flat.

  "If we have to take him in on Thursday—then that's what we do, period. And we do nothing else. No questions, nothing. He wants to handle it all himself. Important. Other aspects, the new changes in the British Sector of THRUSH, that whole bit—so he wants to handle it personally. So that's why I hope it happens today, whatever it is that does happen."

  "You're losing me, pal."

  "Waverly's not due back till one o'clock tomorrow. Right?"

  "Right."

  "So if it should happen our friend shows his hand today, then we take him in, and we're off till one o'clock tomorrow. Like that, the pressure's off. I can go home, relax, take a tub, get a good, long, wonderful night's sleep. We haven't had much of that since Tuesday, have we, Napoleon?"

  "You've got a point there," Solo said.

  Stanley mingled with the crowds. Many went up into the Statue; Stanley did not. The day was hot; the sky was blue; there were no clouds. Stanley sunned himself. He mingled with the crowds, as did Solo and Kuryakin. And now as they moved with a crowd toward the elevator, Stanley was in a shadowed, isolated area. Suddenly Illya grasped Solo's wrist, his nails digging in, his mouth at Solo's ear. "Look!"

  Stanley had wedged the radio into an aperture behind a granite slab. Now he strolled away, slight, casual, a harmless little man, strolling out of the shadow and into the sunshine toward the returning ferry out of New York Harbor.

  "Go with him," Illya said.

  "There's time for the ferry."

  "Go with him!"

  The elevator opened. The crowd was swallowed. Solo made the turn behind Stanley. Illya was alone, moving out of the hot sunshine into the shadowy area. He knew what he was doing. He knew the risk. Waverly had briefed them well. He pulled the radio from behind the granite slab. He set it down on the ground, went to his knees, covering it with his body. Gingerly he turned it over. It was heavy. He released the snaps of the back cover, opening it. He heard the thin whine of the batteries coursing the current through the fuse. He plucked at the mesh of wires, carefully disconnecting them. The whine ceased. The triggering apparatus was dead. He sighed on his knees, a long, deep sigh. He snapped the back cover shut. He stood up, lifting the heavy portable radio by its leather strap.

  He walked swiftly, made the turn, saw Solo quite near to the right side of Stanley waiting for the ferry. He moved to the other side and took hold of Stanley's left arm.

  "Albert Stanley?"

  "I beg your pardon?" But Stanley's brown eyes were riveted to the radio hanging from Illya's hand.

  "How do you want it, Mr. Stanley?" Illya said. "Rough or peaceful?"

  "I beg your pardon?" Stanley said again.

  Solo, smiling, took the other arm. Stanley's head oscillated between them. "Like the man said, rough or peaceful?" Solo repeated. "Either way, we can oblige you."

  "I'm a peaceful man," Sta
nley said.

  "Of course you are," Solo said. "Thus we would prefer you to come with us, Mr. Stanley. Peaceably."

  He agreed to the preference. He went with them, all the way, peaceably.

  2. Dinner With the Old Man

  WASHINGTON THIS Thursday was dreadfully hot, but it was cool in the King George Tobacco Emporium, a vast, quiet, clean store with long flat counters and shiny showcases. The clerks wore rubber-soled shoes and gray linen jackets and spoke with English accents, which was perfectly natural, as Alexander Waverly knew, since the King George Tobacco Emporium was a subsidiary of a British firm and all the salesmen were Englishmen.

  Waverly, patting his forehead with a folded handkerchief, entered from the steaming street and was instantly recognized by one of the clerks.

  "Mr. Cunningham," the clerk said. "So good to see you. Visiting our Washington again?"

  "Hot," Waverly said grumpily. "Beastly hot, this town."

  "Awfully hot, sir. This isn't our best season of the year in Washington, is it?"

  "July—definitely not. Quite an inferno out side."

  "Yes, so the customers tell us. What with the air conditioning in here, we don't feel it. How've you been, sir?"

  "Fine, thank you. Would you please tell Mr. Montgomery I'm here?" H. Douglas Montgomery was the proprietor of the King George Tobacco Emporium.

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Cunningham, he's not in right now."

  Waverly patted his forehead again and put away the handkerchief. "He'll be back, I take it?"

  "Oh, of course, sir."

  "When?"

  "I don't rightly know, sir. He's out on some errands. I can take your order, if you wish."

  "I want five pounds of my pipe mixture—my special mixture. But nobody mixes my special mixture except Mr. Montgomery himself."

  The clerk inclined his head, smiled. "Oh, I know that, sir. Of course, Mr. Cunningham. It shall be prepared for you by Mr. Montgomery himself. And where would you like it delivered? Where are you stopping this trip, Mr. Cunningham?"

  "Hotel Vesey. Suite eight-oh-three. I'll be there the rest of the day."