WHEN SOLO AND Kuryakin emerged from the quiet brownstone they had the disturbing feeling that observant eyes were trained upon them. But they could not have said why, for the street was deserted along its entire length except for a parked limousine near the end of the block. The driver wore a chauffeur's uniform and he had descended from the car a was helping its three remaining occupants to descend to the curb.
The first was a young lady very curiously garbed. She wore a long yellow dress of shimmering silk which descended to her ankles and small golden slippers. Her hair, a lustrous black, was knotted into a double braid and coiled tightly around her head in over-lapping folds. Her skin was of a satiny whiteness, but even from so great a distance they could see that her features were of oriental cast, the eyes almond-shaped, the cheek bones high-arching and prominent. Whether she was beautiful, plain-looking or ugly was hard to determine. But it seemed extremely unlikely that she could be ugly, and the likelihood of her being beautiful Solo put very high.
A tall, gaunt man, also unmistakably an oriental, followed her to the curb and was in turn followed by a frail, birdlike old man who appeared to be the last of the car's occupants, for the chauffeur slammed the rear door shut the instant he reached the sidewalk. The gaunt man was carrying a brown leather attaché case and the elderly man—his complexion was more yellowish than that of Mr. Tall—was wearing a beautifully tailored gray herringbone suit and a pearl gray homburg.
"Well, what do you think?" Solo asked, nudging Illya's arm.
"Probably headed for the United Nations," Kuryakin replied. "It's anybody's guess why they stopped off here. Perhaps to have lunch at one of the restaurants around the corner."
"Then why didn't they park directly in front of the restaurant?"
"Parking restrictions would account for that," Illya said, smiling. "We can watch and see where they go, if you like. I've a hunch that if Miss Chin O.Boy happened to be alone you'd follow her right into the restaurant."
"That's nonsense," Solo said. "From this distance I can't even see what she looks like."
"You'd find out quickly enough. Even from here she looks like a stunner to me. With a figure like that you couldn't go so far wrong even if her face was a little on the plain side."
"I don't like it," Solo said abruptly.
"Her face, you mean? But you just said you couldn't see—"
"Come off it, Illya," Solo said, cutting him short. His expression had become serious. "They're coming our way and there's something about this I don't like at all."
"But what, for Pete's sake? They look like United Nations people to me. A diplomatic big gun from Formosa, accompanied by his daughter and a legation secretary or interpreter."
"I don't think they're from Formosa. Or the Chinese mainland, for that matter."
"You still haven't told me precisely what you don't like about it."
"Three things," Solo said. "They drive up and park the instant we walk out. They're not heading for a restaurant but walking our way and walking quite fast. And I don't like the look on their faces. I can see Miss Chin O.Boy's face quite clearly now and you guessed right about her. She is beautiful, a real stunner. But I think you got her name all wrong. It isn't Miss Chin O.Boy. It's Chin Quickie Deathie."
Illya's handsome Slavic features paled slightly. "You can't believe that! Napoleon, they'd never try it! Not in broad daylight!"
"Speed is of the essence," Solo snapped. "Watch that attaché case! I'll keep my eye on the girl!"
"We've just time to get back inside!" Illya said, his eyes darting to the quiet brownstone. "Perhaps we'd better—"
"And make them just suicidally frustrated enough to blow up the entire block before we can warn Waverly? It's unlikely, but it could happen. No, we've got to stay on the target range until it's over."
Illya nodded. "You're right, of course. One advantage, they don't think we suspect them."
Solo silenced him with a gesture. "We move first, but we have about ten more seconds. Tick them off in your mind. Start now. In ten more seconds, twelve at most, they'll be within a few feet of us."
Both Solo and Kuryakin knew exactly what to do when the countdown ended. The situation conformed to an Unusual Attack briefing which U.N.C.L.E. kept under double lock and key for the benefit of Section II trainees confronted with just such an emergency.
Illya counted slowly, his eyes on the approaching woman in shimmering silk and her two male companions. He appeared to be watching the three with the slightly heightened interest an average New Yorker would have displayed on seeing three turbaned East Indians walking down the avenue.
Far down the street the chauffeur had not moved from beside the car. He was leaning against the hood of the car, reading a newspaper.
SEVEN… eight... nine. Was Solo counting too? Illya wondered. He had a way of cheating a little at times when he didn't need to tick off the seconds in his mind to know exactly when to bring his hair-trigger reflexes into play.
The woman was walking between the birdlike little man and the gaunt Chinese near-giant with slightly downcast eyes, as if Solo's admiring stare, while pleasing to her, was making her blush inwardly. They were less than twenty feet away when Illya reached the count of twelve.
The tube which he removed from beneath his right lapel was just a little larger than a fountain pen, an all-metal job with a flaring tip. With quick and absolute accuracy of aim he trained it on the right arm of the tall, gaunt man. It vibrated slightly and made a faint hissing sound.
He sprinted forward the instant he fired and caught the briefcase as it dropped from the gaunt man's completely paralyzed hand.
Illya bent and set the attaché case gingerly down on the curb, not unmindful of what the destructive consequences might be if he made the mistake of jarring it. He had sufficient time to do this before turning to see what Solo had accomplished, because the paralysis he'd inflicted on the gaunt man's arm had been preceded by a pain so searing that a cry of agony had gone echoing along the street, to the accompaniment of retreating footsteps.
Not only did the gaunt Chinese go reeling backwards to the opposite curb. He kept right on screaming, as if he feared that his arm had been completely severed at the wrist and his hand was gone forever.
When Illya turned he saw that Solo had grasped the hem of the Chinese woman's long, flowing dress and wound it tightly around her ankles, tightening it until she could not move. He was now engaged in lowering her to the pavement and thumping her from hips to shoulder to make sure she was weaponless.
The small, birdlike man had turned and was racing back along the street toward the limousine, his homburg, caught in a sudden flurry of wind, spinning along the street in the opposite direction.
The shimmeringly attired woman was now lying stretched out at full length on the pavement and Solo was kneeling at her side. His voice rang out sharply. "You made it necessary for me to forget that you are a woman. Stay right where you are, and don't attempt to get up. If you do I'll forget again. You're in serious trouble."
"It is you who are in trouble!" The Chinese woman raised herself slightly, despite Solo's firm grip on her shoulder. Her eyes flashed defiantly as she went on, talking very rapidly.
"The two telecasts everything you thought would remain a secret are known to us. When you sat watching the screen you were under observation. Every word you spoke was recorded. And that surveillance will continue. We are so strong now we can afford to let you know this. Knowing that you are under observation, night and day, will make you more vulnerable."
Her voice rose mockingly. "Yes, a great deal more vulnerable. You will never know—"
Solo did not wait to hear more. He arose, whipped a flat-barreled pistol from under his coat and gestured Illya toward the woman on the pavement.
"Watch her!" he said. "If she tries to get up slap her. You'll have to. It may not be too late to get to that car before it turns the corner."
Illya shook his head and pointed, and Solo's gaze traveled swiftly down t
he long street to where the car had been parked. A look of astonishment came into his eyes, and he froze to immobility.
The car was in motion, but it wasn't turning the corner. It was coming straight down the street toward them, zigzagging a little because of the tremendous speed at which it was being driven.
In another instant it was abreast of them. Solo raised his gun as it screeched to a halt and sent two bullets crashing through the windshield. He saw the tall, gaunt man sway, clutch at his chest and sink below the level of the shattered glass.
But that did not prevent the chauffeur from leaping to the street with a pistol twice the length of Solo's in his clasp. He leveled it at Solo's head and fired.
It was a powerful weapon and the report was thunderous. Fortunately that had nothing to do with the accuracy of the chauffeur's aim. It was a clean miss, but it accomplished its purpose. So sudden and unexpected was the blast that Solo remained stunned for an instant. Illya had taken a quick step toward him, away from the woman on the pavement and was equally stunned by the nearness of the blast.
It gave the chauffeur just enough time to lift the Chinese woman in his arms and stagger with her back to the car. Before Solo could fire again the limousine was roaring down the street in the opposite direction from which it had come.
FOUR
THE WEB TIGHTENS
ALEXANDER WAVERLY, for the second time that day, had ceased to be his usual business-like self. A small muscle in his jaw twitched as he stood staring down at the angular, somewhat flattened metal object on his desk.
The object had been removed from the attaché case which Solo had carried into the quiet brownstone, and turned over to U.N.C.L.E.'s most experienced bomb disassembling expert without delay. A number of unattached wires projected from a yawning cavity from which a metal cap had been lifted by Waverly himself, for the expert had assured him that the device was now as harmless as the paper weight which had been pushed aside to make room for it in the precise middle of the desk.
"You would both have been killed instantly," Waverly said. "It would have been hurled straight at you, and they would have dropped to the pavement and flattened themselves. The blast would have ripped through you at chest-level, and blown you apart. It has a built-in radiation dampening mechanism, which goes into operation the instant the concussion starts to spread."
Waverly nodded grimly, his eyes riveted to the dismantled instrument of destruction on his desk. "A self-limiting bomb with a vengeance—an achievement we've kept so secret, so scrupulously guarded, its theft would have seemed inconceivable to me if those two telecasts hadn't convinced me that all of our technological secrets are in jeopardy. From what you told me that long-gowned woman said—"
He stopped, as if the startled exclamation which the announcement had elicited from Solo had reminded him that an apology was due. "I had no intention, of course, of keeping it a secret from you, Mr. Solo. Or from you, Mr. Kuryakin. But its perfection was of very recent date, and for the past few days what you saw on the screen this morning has driven every other thought from my mind."
"It was natural enough for you to think that the telecasts had nothing to do with the perfection of a new kind of—hand grenade, I guess you'd call it," Solo said, nod ding. "If the theft had not occurred the matter would have been of no great importance. Field testing of such a device can't be hurried, as a rule. You'd have let us know about it before it became operational."
"It seems to have taken THRUSH a comparatively short time to duplicate it, make it operational right in front of this house." Waverly paused an instant to stare down again at the device on his desk.
"If the chauffeur had been willing to sacrifice his long-gowned girlfriend and had snatched up the attaché case instead we might have had a conclusive demonstration of the weapon's effectiveness in a field test. Only you wouldn't have been here to fill us in."
"I don't think she was his girlfriend, Mr. Waverly," Illya said. "Or the girlfriend of the man who was carrying the attaché case."
"Why not?" Waverly asked.
"The chauffeur must have been extremely fond of her, to take the risk he did. The chances were all against him, and if he hadn't fired at almost point-blank range and moved incredibly fast after scoring amiss—"
"I think I know why Mr. Kuryakin shares my feeling that she wasn't the girlfriend of the two younger men," Solo said. "Or of the elderly one, for that matter. Just the fact that there were no weapons on her person suggests that she had absolute confidence in the weapon they stole from us. She almost had to have another reason for being there."
"You've told me what you thought that reason might have been," Alexander Waverly re minded him. "To round out the picture in Chinese brocade. Take the long-gowned woman away and what reason would you have had to think that they were headed for the United Nations?"
"They could have made it look convincing in some other way," Solo said. "What I told you was true—up to a point. But I still believe she had another reason for being there."
"Well, let's have it," Waverly said. "I hope it's based on some thing more solid than conjecture."
"It may have to be partly conjecture," Solo said. "There's nothing about this affair that provides the kind of evidence a lawyer could use in a courtroom to convince a jury. We're dealing with an empire of crime that knows how to strike in the dark and leave plenty of misleading clues."
"An empire of crime," Waverly said, nodding. "I think I know why you referred to THRUSH in that way, Mr. Solo. You're going to tell me she impressed you as being— well, empresslike. By her manner, perhaps. An air of dominance about her?"
Solo found it difficult to conceal his astonishment. "That hits it pretty squarely on the head," he said. "She didn't do any actual commanding. But there was something about her, all apart from her striking beauty, that made me feel she was accustomed to giving orders and would if the need arose."
"I got that impression too," Illya said. "I think Mr. Solo means that she was there because the attack was so important that she felt her presence might be needed. She wanted to make sure it went off as planned."
"There's one thing that strongly supports that conjecture," Waverly conceded, nodding. "What she said to Mr. Solo. 'Knowing that you are under observation, night and day, will make you more vulnerable. We are so strong now we can afford to let you know this.'"
"That's about it," Solo said. "I was so concerned about what was happening at the end of the street I didn't catch everything she said."
"You caught enough." Waverly said. "Only someone very high up in THRUSH would have talked that way. She was deliberately revealing something that ordinarily would have been kept a carefully guarded secret, in a clear attempt to spread demoralization throughout our entire organization."
"But she must have been lying, Mr. Waverly," Illya said. "If everything that takes place here is instantly known to THRUSH, including what we're saying right now, we'd be facing a threat to our survival that could destroy us in a week. The blueprints alone—" Something in Waverly's eyes stopped him from going on.
"IF THEIR eavesdropping capacity had reached that stage we would have been destroyed already," Illya Kuryakin said. "Make no mistake about that. A continuous conversational pickup would be a weapon we'd have no way of overcoming."
"But what about the Newfoundland and Gobi telecasts?" Solo said. "And the theft and swift duplication of at least one of our weapons? The failure of their surprise attack doesn't strip it of its eavesdropping implications. They undoubtedly knew just when we'd be leaving this house, after looking at the telecasts and discussing the Gobi assignment. Their timing was perfect."
"That observation is very much to the point," Waverly said. "But to me it's far from conclusive. They must have possessed the stolen weapon long before they planned the attack, for they could hardly have duplicated it overnight. A minor consideration, but an important one. It suggests that they've been gathering information piecemeal, sporadically, over a considerable period of time."
Waverly remained silent for an instant. Then he said: "I mentioned operational delays in connection with the actual field testing of a new weapon. The weapon may work very well once or twice and then develop defects which it may take a long time to overcome."
Waverly's expression became increasingly grim. "Sometimes it works perfectly for ten or twelve test runs and then breaks down completely. Or it may not work at all at first, and suddenly be just right."
"Then you're suggesting—" Solo paused, waiting for the older man to continue. He had spoken more to reassure his chief that he had been listening intently than because he was impatient to know what Waverly was going to say. He had very little doubt on that score.
"I'm almost certain that THRUSH'S new eavesdropping weapon is still in the experimental testing stage," Waverly went on earnestly. "Apparently they are having difficulties with it, despite the Newfoundland and Gobi telecasts. If it worked to perfection we'd know about it, because we'd be in immediate trouble on a global scale. That hasn't happened so far."
Waverly's expression made it plain that he shared their belief that U.N.C.L.E. had never before been confronted with quite so grave a peril.
He said: "I am advancing your departure by fifteen hours. Any further delay would be extremely unwise and there is no actual need for it. All of the arrangements which must be made can, I'm confident, be completed before you arrive in Tokyo."
FIVE
TOKYO BRIEFING
THE MAN WHO had met them at the Tokyo airport a half hour previously said: "Setting you down in the Gobi by helicopter will be no problem at all. You can forget all about the political hazards. You'll be nondescript Europeans on an archeological junket."
He was a small, gray man with a neatly trimmed Van Dyke and he displayed the kind of assurance that Napoleon Solo liked. His name was Roger Harris and he spoke with a slight Scottish accent.
"The Gobi has a way of making both Americans and Europeans invisible," he went on smilingly. "You'll be swallowed up in its vastness. Security barriers are practically nonexistent in the area where Blakeley vanished. A dozen 'copters could cross that area fifty times a week, and no one would be the wiser."
The Electronic Frankenstein Affair Page 3