16 - The Splintered Sunglasses Affair Read online

  "Who? Did they notice the kidnapping as well as the car?"

  The Lieutenant pulled a folded paper from his breast pocket, opened it, and flicked his eyes briefly over the pencilled notes with which it was covered. "Zimmermann. Sol Zimmerman. Guy about fifty, runs the newsstand right across the street. Didn't see anything of the snatch, but he noticed the car because it was hovering about, trying to decide whether or not to park by a fire plug... and he knew the patrolman was due at any moment."

  "The patrolman notice the car?"

  "Yes, sir, he did. And his description tallies with Zimmermann's—so far as it goes. But he was too far away to see much. He was hurrying up to slap a ticket on them when they pulled away."

  "What make of car was it?"

  Trevitt spread his arms helplessly and shrugged. "One of the family ones you don't notice. A Plymouth or a Chevy. Maybe even a Dodge. A pale color: light blue, grey, biscuit. Might have been a silver that'd got very dusty, Zimmerman thought. But what's the point? You've lost that sort of car the moment it's past the first intersection. Hopeless. Mind you, we'll try, of course. But... " He shrugged again as his voice tailed away.

  "Did either of those witnesses notice whether all four of the kidnappers joined the two men in the car?" Illya Kuryakin asked suddenly.

  "Funny you should say that. The man from across the road didn't see. But the woman thought only a couple of them got in. She reckoned two of the men crossed the road—but then again she's not certain."

  "I see. No leads yet on the canister, the wires, anything like that?"

  "Not yet. The decoy phone call was made from a public booth in a saloon up in the East Forties—but that's about all we've turned up so far."

  "Never mind," said Mr. Waverly. "We'll see what our chief of security has to say." He thumbed the button on his desk again. "Miss Riefenstahl? Has Mr. McGrath arrived yet?"

  "Yes, with Miss Marsh."

  "Good. Have them come in at once."

  The blonde with the black hair ribbon tapped lightly on the door and ushered in a frail-looking redhead who had obviously been crying. With her was Jim McGrath, the 40-year-old ex-FBI man responsible for the internal security of the building. Behind rimless glasses, his eyes were angry.

  "I don't know what to say, sir," he began. "I... it's unbelievable! Right on our doorstep! Practically inside the place! Marsh here was on Reception. How she failed to give the alarm earlier, I cannot imagine."

  Waverly looked expectantly at the girl.

  "I didn't know," she burst out. "I was watching the monitor, honest. I saw Mr. Solo come in and reach for the handle. Then he seemed to... well, sort of stagger. I thought he'd been taken ill—kind of like a faint or something. Then Mr. Del Florio came in... at least I thought it was Mr. Del Florio... with a girl in a white overall."

  "Well?"

  The redhead hesitated. She stared at the edge of Waverly's desk and sniffed. "Gee, it's the last thing, the very last thing that I'd want... but I thought... I thought it was a nurse, you see. I'd of reported it but I never thought of sounding the alarm. They took him back into the shop and... and it was then that I remembered: nurses aren't there already when a person's taken ill. You have to send for them. So I sounded the alarm, but of course by then it was too late." The girl was weeping again, the tears coursing silently down her cheeks and floating off the mascara beneath her eyes.

  "That is perhaps understandable—if not forgivable," Waverly said severely. "What we want to know more about is the previous shambles."

  "The previous...?"

  "Miss Marsh," he glared, "a device was fixed up in that booth. It was intended to render Mr. Solo unconscious. It succeeded. But it must have taken several minutes to put in place. During that time the person or persons engaged on the operation must have been in full view of the monitor camera. You were watching it. What explanation have you to offer for failing to take action on that?"

  The redhead swallowed. "I guess it must have been a few minutes before."

  "It was. Between 11:19 and 11:24."

  "Yes, sir. Well, I saw Mr. Del Florio... was Mr. Del Florio... aware he was doing something there; I could see him out of the corner of my eye—"

  "Out of the corner of your eye!" Waverly shouted. "You're employed to watch those monitors, not see them out of the corner of your eye."

  "I know, sir. I know. Don't you think I haven't reproached myself a hundred times in the last hour? But there was this other commotion I was watching on Number One, you see."

  "Commotion? What commotion?"

  "Some nut tried to force his way in through the staff entrance in the garage," McGrath interrupted. "When they wouldn't let him by, he got violent and tried to start a fight. I went there myself to sort it out."

  "The classic diversionary tactic on the opposite flank," Waverly mused. "There's been some planning here! Why wasn't I told of this before?"

  "It's all in the reports, sir. On your desk."

  Waverly stirred the pile of papers and folders contemptuously with the stem of his pipe. "Reports, reports!" he snapped.

  "I want action. The man who staged this decoy routine—you let him go, I suppose?"

  "I'm afraid so, sir. Threatened him with an action for trespass and threw him out. It's standard procedure, sir. Of course, if we'd known..."

  The Head of Policy and Operations growled something unintelligible. He shot the girl from Reception a sudden glance from under his eyebrows. "You know what this means?' he rapped.

  The redhead gulped. She nodded. "I understand sir," she said in a low voice. "But I swear I'd no idea. Truly..."

  "Quite so. Miss Marsh. You'd better go and wait in Personnel, in case Mr. McGrath or the Lieutenant have any further questions they want to ask you. We can attend to the formalities later."

  "What do you think?" the policeman queried after the sobbing girl had left. "You know your staff. Was she in on the deal? Had someone got at her, persuaded her to take a bribe, look the wrong way for five minutes?"

  "I don't know," Waverly replied. "I'm inclined to think not. The screening is pretty tough here. But she has to go, of course. That's standard procedure, too. We simply can't afford to take chances... and even if we had the time to check it out, you can never be a hundred per cent sure of anyone after a thing like that. Not a hundred per cent."

  "I guess not," Trevitt said, "Now how shall we handle this, sir? The main thing, naturally, is to get your man back. We've put out a call on the car, of course..."

  "I'm leaving the outside angle to you. Lieutenant," Waverly cut in. "You're better equipped for it than we are. But since you don't hold out much hope of identifying the vehicle—which may have been stolen anyway—I imagine the best, if not the only, lead has to come from the scene of the—ah—snatch itself. We'll handle things inside the building: the Reception affair, checking on who knew Solo was coming, the diversion at the other entrance, and so on. Mr. Kuryakin here is in overall charge of the operation. I suggest the two of you liaise on the most promising aspect of the enquiry: the events inside Del Florio's and on the pavement outside."

  The Russian nodded. "I'll put a dozen men on the inside stuff," he said. "Mac, you can handle that, can't you?... You'd better keep an open line between your office and the squad room at the precinct house... Lieutenant, should we start, do you think, by talking to Sol and Del Florio and your lady witness again? We might be able to get something more definite on that getaway car."

  The policeman nodded and walked to the door. "Let's go," he said. "Del Florio's still in hospital and the dame's with my boys down at the station. But we let Zimmermann stay on at his stand. There's nobody to take over and he can't afford to lose the regular business."

  Outside, they stood at the edge of the sidewalk waiting for a gap in the lunchtime traffic so that they could cross the street. Trevitt waved cheerily to the news vendor. Zimmermann himself, two hundred and forty pounds of blue-chinned geniality sweating in the sun, shouted back something incomprehensible as h
e flourished a bottle he had produced from under the counter.

  "He's a character, that one," Trevitt said with a crooked smile. "No, wait a minute: he's going too fast. Those cab drivers!"

  Kuryakin nodded absently. "Tell me. Lieutenant," he asked, "what are the chances of our getting a lead on this car—assuming Mr. Zimmermann can tell us something a little more... definite?"

  The policeman studied the lock of tow-colored hair the breeze was stirring from the Russian's forehead. "Special friend of yours, isn't he?" he replied. "If you want a straight answer, I'd say absolutely nil... Come on. We can make it now, before that truck—Look out!"

  Automobiles, cabs, trucks, buildings wheeled about Illya's head as he spun to the macadam, propelled by a violent thrust between the shoulder blades. The crump of the explosion was drowned in the clatter of his own feet as he went down.

  Three distinct impressions struck him as he caught his breath and sat up, one arm raised instinctively to cover his face; the smell of warm tar from a hand pitted by contact with the gritty surface of the roadway; the sight of the familiar plaster dust and cordite cloud; the sound of a car howling away in the indirect gears. It was only later, when the ringing in his own ears had stopped, that he noticed the woman screaming. Lieutenant Trevitt levered himself up from the ground with the palms of his hands. He shook his head like a dog leaving the water. "Too late," he panted. "Too late by the width of a street, dammit!" Scowling, he stared after the car from which the bomb had been thrown—a pale-colored, nondescript sedan hurtling towards the intersection by the garage.

  As the lights flashed from green to red, the sedan swerved out from behind a truck, pulled across to the left-hand side of the road, and rocketed past the line of slowing cars to take the junction across the surge of oncoming traffic. Over the outraged hooting of the other drivers, they heard the squeal of its tires as it lurched into a side street on the far side of the road. Kuryakin was staring at the opposite pavement. "So far as you and I are concerned," he said shakily, "I should say it was too early by the width of a street..."

  Through the dust, the splintered remains of the newsstand pierced the air like the spars of a sinking ship. Above the glass littering the sidewalk, thousands of pinups ripped by the explosion from Zimmermann's girlie magazines were still fluttering down through the spring sunshine like the leaves of some bizarre September Song. There was a great deal of blood.

  But of the man with the bottle himself, the witness who might have been able to give them some more definite information on the car in which Napoleon Solo had been abducted, nothing recognizable remained.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Back To Square One

  The atmosphere in Waverly's office was gloomy. Illya and Lieutenant Trevitt sat uneasily on one side of the big desk while the head of Section One's Policy and Operations department paced up and down on the other.

  "Twice in one day!" Waverly barked. "I'm not blaming you personally, mind, but after a couple of body blows like that, one begins to doubt the capabilities of the whole organization. It's too much. It really is too much!"

  After an uncomfortable silence, the policeman cleared his throat. "Still no news from the—ah—the other side?" he asked. "No ransom notes, no threatening telephone calls, no attempts to bargain?"

  "Nothing. And now I don't imagine there will be anything. In my experience," Waverly said oracularly, "the kind of kidnapper who abducts because he wants to use the missing person as a bargaining counter—whether for a sum of money or not is a detail—such a person usually makes his play almost at once. While the relatives or associates are still reeling from the shock, as it were."

  "And you think that, because we haven't heard by now, we never shall?"

  "I think we never shall in that sense. In other words, I believe Mr. Solo was abducted for reasons other than the one I have mentioned."

  "But what reasons could they have, whoever they are?" Illya objected. "Napoleon was not on assignment. If there's no intention of demanding money against his safe return, what could be the point of the operation?"

  Waverly slumped into his swivel chair and picked up the pipe he had thrown down among the files and reports that morning. Irritably, he ferreted about among the scattered papers for a book of matches. "Let's look at this objectively," he said at last. "Forget our personal feelings for Mr. Solo. Examine the facts: a top operative for an international organization devoted to the maintenance of law and order is kidnapped. Item, the crime was committed, prima facie, by those who are against law and order Now customarily persons are kidnapped for one of five reasons: to make them talk; to prevent them from talking; to stop them doing or completing something; to stop somebody else from doing those things—or to make somebody else do something, whether it be to pay a sum of money or follow a certain course of action. Item, since Mr. Solo is not on assignment, we can discount, I imagine, the second, the third, and the fourth of those categories. We are left with the proposition that he was kidnapped either to allow some person or persons unknown sufficient opportunity to persuade him to talk; or so that his capture can be used to blackmail us into some course we would not normally entertain."

  "But you yourself said the last possibility was remote, since we have received no kind of 'ransom' demand," intervened Kuryakin.

  Waverly picked up the twist of tobacco which had earlier spilled on to his desk and dropped it into the bowl of his pipe. "It's unlikely," he said, "but it is possible." He rammed the tobacco home with his thumb and jammed the pipe into his mouth.

  "But if your man isn't working on a case at the moment," said Trevitt, "what would anyone want him to talk about? Specifically, I mean."

  "That suggests a number of alternatives," Waverly said. "Finding the answer would depend on knowing exactly who it was that had got him. We have a double choice for this—either the wrongdoers of the rest of the world; or—Thrush."

  "Thrush?" The Lieutenant looked at him inquiringly.

  "Thrush. A consortium of evil, Lieutenant. Little known, but deadly just the same. In brief, a conspiracy of financiers, scientists, industrialists and criminals who employ their unlimited funds and their not inconsiderable intelligence in a persistent attempt to take control of the world." Waverly struck a match and held it aloft.

  Illya Kuryakin repressed a smile. His chief possessed an apparently inexhaustible supply of pipes, which he was always filling. Indeed, Waverly's pipes were one of the Command's favorite in jokes. But, however many he filled, it was rare indeed for any of his staff to see him actually smoke one. If, as now, a lighted match even approached the bowl, it was a sure sign that the old man was more than usually perturbed.

  "But we must not guess," Waverly was going on. "Let us examine the data and see what conclusions we can fairly draw. Our antagonists have already killed once to stop the possibility—not the certainty, remember—of our being given information leading to the getaway car. Item, either they are exceptionally ruthless, or the fact that they have Mr. Solo is of paramount importance to—Blast!"

  He dropped the remains of the match into an ashtray, took the pipe from his mouth to lay it on the desk, and sucked his scorched finger.

  "While we're on the subject, sir," Trevitt interjected tactfully, "may I ask one or two questions—about the conditions surrounding the snatch, that is?"

  "By all means."

  "I take it that we are agreed that, at least as far as entrances and exits go, the kidnappers must have been familiar with your security set-up?"

  "Intimately."

  "Does this imply an inside accomplice to you, then?"

  "Not necessarily. Lieutenant. You're thinking of the girl again, I suppose. But although we're pretty strict on the secrecy angle, we do have visitors, you know—quite often. Army officers and police officials from various countries, people from the Pentagon, operatives from the CIA, the Deuxieme Bureau, the FBI, MI6, the MVD. Even journalists, sometimes.

  "Any of them could have pieced together enough to plan the kidn
apping and the diversion which preceded it, once they'd been here a few times. It's not even beyond the bounds of possibility that one of the less reputable intelligence agencies could kidnap a man like Mr. Solo—if they thought he had information which might help them against an adversary."

  "After all," Illya put in, "all they needed to know was the fact that operatives entered through Del Florio's shop, that there was another entrance through the garage, and that a single person monitored the closed-circuit TV covering all the entrances. The details of how Del Florio's worked they could learn in time by becoming customers... once they knew was something there to look for."

  "Ah, yes. The entrances. There are just the four you've told me about. Is that right?"

  Waverly coughed. "That is correct," he said after a moment's hesitation. "Just the four."

  Illya grinned inwardly again. Nobody had ever seen him use it, but it was widely believed in U.N.C.L.E. that there was in fact a fifth entrance, known only to Waverly himself. If there was, it was staying a secret, obviously!

  "And, if you don't mind telling me," Trevitt continued, "how about the security arrangements once you're in? These things, for example." He fingered the triangular white badge pinned to his own lapel.

  "Once you're in," Waverly echoed, "they're tight. Very tight indeed. The badges, now: there are three different colors. Red, which restricts the wearer to the entrance floor, where we only carry out routine work. Yellow, for people allowed on that floor and also up to Communications, on the second. And white, which permits the wearer to visit any floor."

  "When you say 'restricts'...?"

  "I mean just that. The badges are sensitized by a chemical on the fingertips of the receptionist who pins them on you. Once it has been transferred to the badge, the chemical will activate an alarm system immediately that badge ventures higher than its color coding permits."