The Hungry World Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  “It will take some doing.” Marlene’s eyes glinted, weighing all the factors.

  “Really, Marlene! THRUSH can jet in the necessary girls for you to pick up outside Chambasa before you have time to arrange your makeup in the manner of Madame Reine, Head Mistress.”

  Marlene laughed, then made a face. “The role sounds dreary. School teacher---me!”

  “The courses you could teach, my dear, would not be for children! Meantime, let’s hope U.N.C.L.E. tries to get a finger into this one. They owe us for one specially built black limousine, wrecked. And three reasonably efficient, if stupid, agents, dead. It would be my pleasure to chop some U.N.C.L.E. finger off! Even heads!

  TWO

  The bar was called El Cerdo. El Cerdo. The Pig. Napoleon Solo reflected that the proprietor either had a sense of humor or a brazenly Latin contempt for his customers.

  Despite its name, the bar had certain things going for it. The potted palms were green, not droopy brown. The bar, if somewhat scarred, was a rare old piece of mahogany. The thick walls and high vaulted ceiling protected one from the glare of the Chambasan sun.

  The faded back-bar murals (playful nymphs tripping lightly across a jungle clearing) suggested that an artist of rare talent had frequented The Pig in some past, forgotten day. Perhaps he had traded talent for booze.

  This was the hour of siesta, and Solo was the only customer. He sat at a table near the dusty front windows, sipping amontillado. The wine was another thing El Cerdo had going for it. As the very dry elixir rolled across his tongue it left a pleasant, faintly nut-like aftertaste. Solo had never sampled better.

  But he couldn’t really enjoy the fine vintage. His mind and nerves were too keyed to the job at hand. He looked at the watch on his wrist, then at the town plaza outside. The broad sweep of the cobbled paving, the old faces of squat buildings of sun-baked mud brick and stone composited to form a study of almost total still-life.

  A lone woman in shawl, dirndl, and rope-soled guarachas was crossing the square to the fountain at its center. She carried a large clay pottery jar, leaning over the wall of the splashing fountain to fill it.

  Closer at hand, a peon in serape and sombrero dozed on the seat of a hay-laden cart. Between the shafts, a donkey drooped, as contented as the man to be useless in the time of siesta.

  And then Solo’s alert brown eyes quickened in his lean chiseled face. A jeep-type vehicle had appeared in the mouth of the broad avenue at the upper end of the square.

  The stumpy, open car raced beyond the mist that the fountain cast toward the brazen sky. It quickly completed the circuit of the square and came to a rocking stop near the hay-loaded cart. The jeep had a single occupant, who disentangled himself from behind the wheel and got out with a lack of grace that reminded Solo of a man trying stilts for the first time.

  Solo was already on his feet, a frown smashed into his forehead. He’d expected two people to keep the appointment, not this lone man in slightly dingy whites who looked as if he were a scarecrow no longer able to frighten the raucous birds.

  Under the circumstances, Napoleon Solo might have felt quick sympathy for the fellow. He was so incredibly tall and thin, at least seven feet if an inch, with just about the proportion of meat scattered over his bones that would have done nicely for a man a foot and a half shorter. In addition, he was about the most morosely ugly man Solo had ever met.

  His face was long and hungry looking, with the bones thrusting out over sadly shadowed caverns. His skin was as swarthy as dried mud. And to top everything else, he had but one eye, his left. It bulged, as if straining under the burden of doing double duty. The place where the other eye had been was covered by a black leather patch.

  Towering over Solo’s stalwart height, the man took off his floppy panama, wiped a sweaty forehead that was a series of corrugations.

  “Senor Napoleon Solo?” His popping eye bounced a look about the interior of El Cerdo. “You must be he, since no one else is present except a bartender who balances on his stool and snores. I am Pico.”

  Coming from its source, Pico’s voice was astonishing, warm, genteel, liquid.

  “Yes, I am Solo.”

  “It is a pleasure!” Pico extended a hand that gripped Solo’s like a band of case-hardened steel. It suddenly struck Napoleon that as skinny as Pico might be, so was a stick of dynamite! The guy’s reputation as a fighter probably wasn’t exaggerated after all.

  Solo extended his hand, an invitation to a chair at his table.

  “Are we to await Princess Andra?”

  Pico shook his head. “She is not coming.”

  “But when I phoned her immediately on my arrival in Chambasa---“

  “Senor, remember---she made no promises.”

  “When she refused to extend me the courtesy of The Castle and mentioned a meeting here, I assumed---“

  Pico scratched his long chin. “I thought you U.N.C.L.E. people never act on assumption.”

  “Sometimes we have to. Solo leaned forward. “Perhaps I didn’t make the urgency of this meeting clear. We haven’t a moment to waste. While we sit here talking---“

  Pico lifted a palm. “How you English-speaking do rush! Senor, we are divorced from politics, since the death of her father, the Premier Chaupetl---“ His hand drifted to his eye-patch. “---when I also should have died.”

  “Just like that.” Solo snapped his fingers. “It doesn’t matter to you if the world---“

  “The world has always been in turmoil, Senor. Kings, dictators, presidentes, nations, they come and go. We are---neutral.” The final word seemed painful to him. He drew a breath. “We have retired to our world of science, where politics is a foreign devil.”

  Solo’s shoulders dipped under the weight of disappointment. For a moment he had a blind, savage wrath for this princess whom he’d never seen. Who did she think she was? An exception to the human race, on whom the most horrible devastation in history was about to fall?

  Pico’s good eye was penetrating. As one man of action to another, he seemed to sense a little of Solo’s urgency and desperation.

  “I’m sorry, Senor. Truly I am.”

  Napoleon ground out, “You think I’m disappointed for myself? I wish it were as simple as that! Your princess! She hasn’t retired to the ivory tower. She’s buried herself in a pile of vine covered rock that might just serve as a grave marker for millions!”

  Pico tilted his head. “Senor, that’s a large pill to swallow.”

  “But swallow it, you must. And Princess Andra also. Don’t you see, man? That’s the whole purpose of my mission here. To make her understand. Once she does, I’m sure, she’ll give generously of her time, work, talents.”

  Pico’s eye shaded with worry.

  Solo detected an advantage, and pressed it. “The work of U.N.C.L.E., the nature of the organization, is not entirely unknown to you?”

  “Of course not, Senor! U.N.C.L.E. never had occasion to deal with my commandante, the Premier Chaupetl, but I have knowledge of U.N.C.L.E.”

  “Then if I told you that we need you, would you refuse?”

  Pico smiled without humor. “Personally, I would jump at the chance. As old and worn out as I am, I could still savor the prospect of a first-class fight. But the decision, Senor, is not mine to make. The princess has decided once and for all. She will not again become involved with a political faction.”

  “There’s just one catch, Pico.”

  “Senor?” The bulging eye lifted.

  “Neither can Princess Andra make the final decision. It will be made for her.”

  “By you, Senor?”

  “THRUSH has already posed the alternative for us, and the princess as well. We win, Pico, or the world, as we know it, dies.”

  The words were not without effect. Pico’s long, ugly face tightened with indecision. “If what you say is true---but on what evidence do you base this mammoth prophecy?”

  “Do you believe that U.N.C.L.E. acts without evidence?”

&nbs
p; “Of course not, Senor! But how can THRUSH fit Princess Andra and her work into a scheme for world conquest?”

  “If I convince you, will you assist us?”

  “I enter no conspiracy, Senor!”

  Solo exploded a breath. “And no one suggests it. But you have influence with her. You could be invaluable in getting her to change her mind.”

  “I will listen to you, Senor,” Pico said stiffly. “From my youth, I have risked my life many times in the cause of justice. I will hear your charges against THRUSH.”

  Earnestly and rapidly, Napoleon Solo bit out the facts. The THRUSH attack on Dr. Doulou. The theft of the formula for the Doulou Particle. The devastation the particle could wreck on the food supply of the earth.

  At this point, Pico interrupted. His visage had chilled into lines that were absolutely demoniac. “I anticipate you, Senor. In this most cowardly and debased plan for conquest, the Doulou Particle sets the stage. But the monopoly of a new food supply is necessary for the final act.”

  “If they get hold of your princess and her process to harvest plankton from the seas, it’ll be the final curtain, Pico. The last act will be over. Only the epilogue will remain. It can be told in two words: world enslavement,”

  Pico towered his great height over the table. “I believe you suggested that I undertake the role of diplomat, Senor.”

  “Indubitably!”

  “Will you accompany me while I acquaint the princess with the facts?”

  “I’d be delighted!”

  THREE

  In later times, Napoleon Solo was to be soberly grateful that dry hay cannot be shifted without a distinct crackling sound. On such trifling physical qualities the life of a man from U.N.C.L.E. may sometimes depend.

  Out of habit so long engrained it had become instinct, Solo let the glare of the sun catch his face, adjust his eyes, before he stepped into the blinding glare of the street in the wake of Pico.

  Beside Pico, he was halfway across the dusty sidewalk when the whisper of sound reached his ears. Again, his sharply honed instincts reacted.

  He flipped a glance over his shoulder. The donkey remained droopy between the shafts of the hay-laden cart. But the man on the seat had come to violent life. So had the hay. It was exploding and spilling out of the cart as if a violent dust devil had struck it.

  Rearing up amid the shower of hay were two men.

  Pico was in the act of getting in his jeep. Napoleon Solo turned and jack-knifed his body into the tall man. They tumbled, as angry hornets buzzed through the space they occupied a split instant before.

  Solo shoved the scrambling weight of Pico behind the protective steel tail gate of the jeep, fell on his knees beside him.

  “I believe we are entertaining a THRUSH delegation, my friend.” Solo’s words were emphasized by the snarl of a bullet from a silenced gun.

  For the first time, Pico’s face relaxed, a smile splitting the homely visage. He had recovered from the surprise of the attack instantly. Solo had to afford him a quick moment of admiration. This kind of thing was something that Pico understood.

  “They’ll try to rush and flank us, catch us in a crossfire.” Pico had pulled a murderous looking Luger from under his dingy white jacket. Solo had his U.N.C.L.E. Special in his hand.

  Pico’s trained eye had already latched onto a tactical position, the mouth of an alley a few yards down the sidewalk. Pico was no longer the awkwardly tall freak. His body had the silken resilience and limberness of nylon as he fired himself from the cover of the jeep. He hit the sidewalk rolling, the protection of the alley his destination. As he moved, his Luger cannonaded, shattering the peaceful stillness of Chambasa’s siesta.

  A man screamed on the sidewalk, hidden from Solo by the jeep. Solo slithered around the street side of the jeep. Sure enough, there was a second man jerking to a stop and flipping a glance at his cohort who’d been hit.

  The THRUSH agent jerked his mind back to his job, but not in time. Even as he fired, a slug from the U.N.C.L.E. pistol caught him in the solar plexus. A rattling gasp was knocked from him. His body snapped like a book closing. His hands grabbed at his middle. He struck the cobblestones on his back, pitched to one side and lay still.

  The startled donkey had lifted his head, twitched his ears. He trotted across the square, the cart behind him spilling wisps of straw.

  The third THRUSH agent had dived beneath the cart. Now without cover, he rose to a half crouch, savage curses ripping from his lips.

  Pico, on the sidewalk, was exposed to him for a moment. As he fired, an U.N.C.L.E. bullet struck his shoulder. The impact knocked the weapon from his hand, half turned him.

  Clutching his shoulder, the man reeled on spraddled legs toward the square in a blind, reasonless attempt to escape.

  After half a dozen steps, his knees gave away. He crumpled in the middle of the street, teeth set, eyes hot with hatred.

  As Napoleon Solo ran toward the wounded agent, Pico fell in step behind him.

  “Senor,” Pico grinned, “I rather liked that bit of work. They expected us to hold cover, to shoot if we ventured a look or a shot from behind the jeep. Then I suppose they had the pervertedly funny idea to toss a plastique behind the jeep when they were in position. But we pulled a surprise of our own, did we not?”

  Solo flipped a glance up at Pico’s swarthy face and found the smile infectious. “Yes, Pico. You did. Your gambit was both quick and unexpected.”

  “Useful elements in dealing with an enemy, Senor.”

  They reached the fallen man, coming to a stop on either side of him. All about them, life was quickening in Chambasa as people appeared in windows and doors, aroused by the thunder of Pico’s gun.

  As Pico started to drop to one knee beside the writhing THRUSH agent, Napoleon reached out and gave the man a hard shove backward.

  Pico blinked his eye. “Senor?” He stumbled back, caught his balance on his heels.

  “Don’t touch him, Pico.”

  “But Senor---I would wring a truthful cackle out of this rooster!”

  “I doubt if he knows anything beyond his simple assignment to assassinate us if it appeared you were relenting and taking me to the princess.”

  People began to gather, men, women, even children.

  “Pico!” Napoleon clipped. “Keep them back until the policio arrive. Someone might stumble, touch him.”

  Solo spread his arms and began hammering out orders to the crowd to stand clear.

  Pico joined the effort, threw a question over his shoulder. “Senor, this talk of touching him---“

  “He may be wearing hot togs under that peon outfit,”

  “Hot togs, Senor?”

  “Made from a highly conductive material,” Solo explained, “energized with a mini-pack. The agent is insulated, but anybody who touched him might take a quick trip into eternity!”

  A group of four policemen cleared a way through the crowd with shoving hands and a stream of Spanish.

  Solo had dropped in a crouch beside the THRUSH man, reached and taken a stick from the hand of a small boy who’d crawled through a forest of legs to the forefront of the crowd.

  With the tip of the stick, Solo parted the front of the agent’s shirt. Apparently THRUSH hadn’t had time to get hot togs to the assassins, or---Solo fervently hoped this was the case---the suits were as yet in short supply. At any rate, nothing glinted beneath the man’s shirt except his sweating flesh.

  Napoleon Solo rose as the shadows of the policemen fell across him. The one in charge was short, stocky, agitated and shocked by the violence that had erupted in his usually-peaceful village.

  “Senor!” he demanded. “What terrible things are going on here? I warn you---“

  “One moment,” Pico shoved between Solo and the police capitan. The words of the tall man had an instantly calming effect.

  “Ah, Senor Pico! But don’t tell me you have a part in all of this!”

  “Very much,” Pico said. “This wounded one is the agen
t of enemies who would enslave us all.” A murmur passed through the crowd.

  “Take him to your jail, Capitan, and find an undertaker for the two dead ones. I will personally vouch for Mr. Solo here and stand responsible for a full official report at the quickest opportunity.”

  The officer thumbed back a battered peaked cap and scratched his forehead. “It is most irregular, Pico.”

  “I know. I make a personal plea for the stretching, not the breaking, of a rule. I want Mr. Solo released temporarily into my custody.”

  “Coming from anyone but you, Pico, I wouldn’t consider the request. This man who looks so Americano would cool his feet in our jail until the facts are all amassed.”

  “Capitan,” Pico said in tones of a commander, “Mr. Solo may be vital to the safety of Princess Andra and a deadly plot that has been hatched against us all!”

  A gasp rippled through the crowd. The princess’s name flashed from lip to lip. Clearly she was literally their princess to most of the villagers. The policeman’s eyes darted about the crowd as if seeking advice or other shoulders on which he could park his responsibility. And while the little man endured his moment of indecision, Pico took Napoleon Solo by the arm and simply walked him through the crowd.

  Behind them, the villagers pressed in on the police and the wounded THRUSH man, chattering like magpies.

  Pico and Solo covered the last few yards to the jeep in a dash. They tumbled into the seat, Pico behind the wheel. “We must get out of here before this man has a second thought and decides to detain us,” Pico said.

  Solo braced himself as Pico U-turned the jeep in a wild slithering of screaming tires. “Your courage is matched only by your wisdom, Pico!”

  FOUR

  Dion Gould skulked unseen across the hot, barren waste of jagged rocks. The view from his vantage point was breathtaking. But he was not interested in the vista of the blue Pacific far below.

  His attention was centered on The Castle and its approaches a little more than a quarter-mile away. At a slightly lower altitude, The Castle, with its tall rounded towers, looked like a painting from a child’s picture book. Trimmed hedges and flower gardens graced the walkways of the courtyard. The massive outer wall looked deceptively vulnerable, covered as it was with its soft growth of moss and ivy.