The Radioactive Camel Affair Read online

  “I should think even one theft of 235 merited a great deal of attention,” Waverly put in dryly.

  “Oh, sure. Every one was a big deal. On file, top priority, kept very secret—and all hell breaking loose to try and get the stuff back, identify the thieves.”

  “Then…?”

  “What I mean is, we—the CIA—hadn’t paid much attention until we realized the thing followed an international pattern.”

  “International?” Illya echoed.

  “Sure. They lifted the stuff from Hanford, from Clinton, from Calder Hall in England and Dounreay in Scotland; from Chatillion, near Paris, France; and from Magnitogorsk—”

  “From Russia!” Solo exclaimed. “If it is a Thrush job, that was certainly a mistake!”

  “You mean tipping us off that it wasn’t the other side? Could always have been the Chinese. Or even the Soviets raiding their own places as a blind.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. What kind of amounts were involved?”

  “Individually, pretty small. But if you add it all together it amounts to quite a bit That’s why we called in your boys when we figured it was a planned series by persons unknown.”

  “You’re sure it’s not the Soviets?” Illya asked.

  “Absolutely. Why would they bother? They make more than we do.”

  “True. And none of it has been recovered?”

  “Not an ounce. They were clever operations, all right. Every one an inside job…not a man connected with the thefts identified.”

  “With the security setup surrounding nuclear physics, I should have thought that was impossible.”

  The CIA man shrugged. “Nothing’s impossible. It happened. The point is—who took it, and why?”

  “Perhaps General Powers could enlighten us at least on the latter point,” Waverly intervened. “He’s the thermonuclear expert.”

  Powers twitched podgy shoulders to resettle his immaculately cut olive-drab jacket. In contrast to the clipped Bostonian of Forster and Solo’s mid-Atlantic accent, his voice was harsh and twangy with the intonation of the Middle West. “Yeah. Well, I guess you gentlemen have gotten used to the fact that whoever took this U-235 took it for one purpose and one purpose only: to use in the manufacture of thermonuclear bombs.”

  Waverly had for some minutes been tamping the tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe with the forefinger of his right hand. Now he laid the pipe down on the table and leaned forward. “That was the obvious conclusion,” he said. “And since nations are very touchy on matters of their own defense—and since, furthermore, there were international ramifications to this affair—our friends at the CIA thought it best to hand the baby over to us, since we are ourselves an international organization. If, on the other hand, it is not some power-hungry nation at work, but Thrush up to its tricks again—then again we know more about their modus operandi than anyone else.”

  “Quite. Well, the first thing we have to consider,” General Powers resumed, “is how this stolen material can be used. First of all, we can rule out the crude atom bomb: that’s kid stuff now. Second of all, I figure we can forget the cobalt bomb. Most everybody’s too goddamned scared to touch it. And that leaves us with the conventional thermonuclear fusion bomb…Now, I guess you gentlemen are familiar with the principle of this device?” He looked around the circle of attentive faces and continued before anyone had time to speak: “As you are probably aware, there are three separate explosions involved here—or more properly four, if you count the original detonator. The detonator sets off a charge of conventional explosive which hurls together two quantities of fissile material together adding up to more than that substance’s critical mass. This initiates a chain reaction producing a fission explosion—and it is only in the immense heat generated by this that the fusion process involving the bomb’s main constituents can take place.”

  “You mean an H-bomb has to be triggered off by a small A-bomb explosion inside it?” Solo asked.

  “Er—yes. If you want to put it like that. Now, the odd thing is,” Powers continued, “that the light elements required for the fusion process—that is, the main explosive substance is an, er, H-bomb—can be acquired by any country or organization with resources. What stops every country in the world going nuclear is the difficulty and expense of obtaining the fissile material involved in the initial atom-bomb blast.”

  “And that is—Uranium 235?”

  “Or Plutonium 239. Precisely.”

  “So that whoever has this stolen Uranium 235—provided they can command reasonable resources—could be setting up a plant and manufacturing H-bombs in some secret place…say somewhere in Africa?”

  “Certainly. Mind you, ‘reasonable’ resources are pretty astronomic by ordinary standards. But if they had the means, and a sufficiently isolated place, and the labor, and some way of getting equipment and material there; if they had all these things—and they’re big enough ‘ifs’ at that, gentlemen—then I guess it could be done.”

  “They couldn’t make it without the Uranium 235, though?”

  “Definitely not. Not unless funds were virtually unlimited and they’d been working on it for years. You see, first of all you have to get your Uranium ores. Then you have to extract and refine pure Uranium. Then the 235 isotope has to be separated from the natural Uranium in a nuclear reactor—and the yield is minimal: only seven-tenths of one percent. When you add to this the cost of the raw material, the cost of the plant, the time, the cost of the immensely thick shielding needed—”

  “Quite, quite,” Waverly interrupted. “I think you’ve made your point, General.”

  “I mean, sure, they could get their deuterium, their heavy hydrogen, their cadmium and their graphite moderators easy enough; they could build themselves a reactor—”

  “Why Uranium 235, though?” Illya put in, coming to the rescue. “I thought Plutonium was preferred nowadays.

  “Why bother when you’re stealing it anyway?” Forster said laconically. “I guess maybe security’s even tougher on Plutonium—or perhaps the guy masterminding the deal has some reason for preferring the other isotope.”

  “Yes, well, the point is, it’s 235 that’s been stolen and accumulated,” Waverly said hurriedly. “And what we have to do is track it down and find out where it’s going—and why.” He had pulled another pipe from his pocket, a short-stemmed cherrywood, and was absentmindedly filling it. The briar lay unsmoked on the table. He rose abruptly to his feet and moved to the projector.

  “If I may hold the floor for a moment, gentlemen,” he said, “I will tell you the little we have been able to find out so far…”

  Chapter 2

  A Message from the Dead

  “SOON AFTER THE CIA and the Pentagon had referred this matter to us,” Waverly said oracularly, switching on the projector and standing like a lecturer by the bright rectangle of blank screen, “we had a break: M15 in Britain reported a further theft of 235—from Aldermaston this time. But on this occasion they had a lead. You remember Martens?”

  “The physicist who went over to the Communists while he was on vacation in Czechoslovakia last month?” Illya said.

  “That’s the one. Apparently his nerve broke after he’d taken the stuff and he tried to seek asylum in Prague. But the Reds weren’t having any and they handed him back—which seems to confirm they had nothing to do with he theft. Anyway, he comes up for trial in two or three weeks’ time…But in the meantime his wife had found out something and contacted Scotland Yard. So when Martens was handed over, they had discovered the theft and knew what questions to ask. He only knew one contact, of course, but it was a start: they didn’t recover the isotope but they were able to trace it to Marseilles.”

  “And the contact?” Solo asked.

  “Unfortunately, he met with an accident,” Waverly replied dryly. “Apparently he fell under a train…”

  “That’s typical Thrush stuff—stop them talking at all costs.”

  “Yes. Anyway, with the information we rec
eived from Interpol, we felt we ad enough to start something. I sent Devananda Anand to Marseilles.”

  Forster, the CIA man, cleared his throat again. “You’ve had reports from him?” he asked eagerly. “He’s on to something?”

  “We’ve had… messages. No reports as such. A piece of film, a tape, a piece of paper. Obviously they were onto Anand, close behind—and presumably he was too closely watched to use any of the normal channels to report properly.” Waverly started the projector. Anand’s cover was as a newsman seeking colorful feature material for a syndicate. He managed to airmail one small can of 8 mm color stock purporting to be samples of the kind of pictures he was able to offer. Of course it’s in a kind of visual code, in case it fell into the wrong hands.”

  Letters and figures whirled across the small screen. Then suddenly it erupted into a blaze of light and color. A line of camels walked slowly in silhouette across a skyline of ridged dunes. There was an abrupt cut to a close-up of a revolving postcard stand outside a tourist souvenir shop. The gaudy photographs spun slowly to a halt and the camera tracked in and picked up a card showing a harbor scene against an improbably blue sky. Another cut was followed by a second view of camels against a background of storm clouds and minarets. Next came a street scene—the conventional Casbah shot: a crowded alleyway with brightly colored stalls at each side and a throng of veiled women and gesticulating men in robes. The camera panned along one side of the street and held a booth displaying Arab hardware—row upon row of copper pans, pots, beakers and other containers. Then the camels once more: a medium close-up of Arabs loading bales of merchandise onto three dromedaries. This scene was double-exposed at the end, the later shot emerging as a crossroads outside a mosque. Under a purplish, dusky sky, a signpost stood in the foreground. On it was written in French, English and Arabic BABH EL GAZZABA—235 KM. A final shot showed camels yet again: a long caravan winding into a picture-book sunset. Then the screen was blank once more.

  Waverly switched off tile projector. “That seems fairly clear to me,” he said. “What do you make of it, Mr. Solo?”

  “Camels,” Solo said with a grin. “They come over loud and clear, don’t they? Camels going to wherever that harbor on the postcard was—”

  “We’ve identified it. It’s Alexandria.

  “Camels on their way to Alexandria, then. I’m not too sure if the Casbah street scene is significant, but…”

  “The hardware shop must be,” Illya interjected. “All those metal vessels…couldn’t they imply canisters? Remember, it was followed by a shot of camels being loaded.”

  “Yes—I guess you’re right at that! And the signpost with the figures 235 just in case we missed the point. I don’t think the place it pointed at was relevant…So we have camels loaded with a canister or canisters of Uranium 235 on their way to Alexandria, then. That figures. But on their way to Alexandria from where…?”

  The film was taken in Casablanca,” Waverly said. “Anand sent a tape commentary to go with it by another plane. Most of it’s just cover stuff, of course, but there’s a message there as well.” He crossed the room and switched on the recorder in the recess by the door.

  “As I stand in the native quarter of this age-old city—the international melting pot where east meets west and plots a coup d’état—it is difficult to resist a twinge of alarm at the evidence of the twentieth century’s encroachment on centuries of tradition…” The soft Indian voice with its characteristically rolled r’s filled the room. “…Listening to the cry of the Muezzin as it wavers at dusk across the domed roofs and mud walls of the old town—”

  Anand’s voice stopped as Waverly switched the machine off. “That’s a prearranged cue,” he said. “From the word ‘wavers’ onwards, it’s a message for me.” He ran the tape back a couple of revolutions and pressed the plunger again.

  “…Muezzin as it wavers at dusk across the domed roofs and mud walls of the old town, one cannot help wondering where this modern age, this nuclear era, is leading Africa. Habib Tufik has run a coffee shop in Casablanca for forty years—and, if anyone has a finger on the pulse of North Africa, he has. But the things he told me of the impact of progress on this historic town are disquieting. The angular lines of this ferro-concrete block of flats are anything but wavering, for example, and yet despite their convenience, the Arabs shun—”

  “That’s all,” Waverly said, switching the machine off again. “The rest’s all travelogue material for his cover. The message ended at ‘anything but wavering.’ So we have camels loaded with the stolen 235 leaving Casablanca for Alexandria—and we have Mr. Habib Tufik and his coffee shop as a contact with disquieting news. The only other message I have is this.” He picked up the folder from the table. In it was a single piece of paper: a buff telegram form. He looked at it for a moment and then handed it to each of them in turn.

  “It was handed in at the main post office in Casablanca and sent in clear to his cover address yesterday afternoon,” Waverly said. “They must have been pretty hard on his heels. The strips of teletyped lettering spelled out:

  CASABLANCA FRA212 HEURE DE DEPOT 1415 DATE DE DEPOT 21/5 MOTS 8

  ELT WAVERLY COLORPIX NEW YORK

  FLYING EASTWARDS TOMORROW REGARDS — ANAND

  “Does that mean he’s leaving today for Alexandria?” Forster asked, handing the telegram back to Waverly.

  “No. If he were taking a plane to follow up something, he’d never have bothered to cable me—especially in clear. He’d simply have reported his arrival when he got there. Flying also means birds—and birds imply Thrush to me. I think he was trying to tip me off that the latest consignment of 235, the canister stolen from Aldermaston, is due to leave Casablanca for Alexandria today.”

  “You’re speaking of him in the past tense,” Solo said suddenly, accusingly. The gentle-voiced Indian agent was a particular friend of his.

  Waverly coughed. “I’m afraid so,” he said gruffly. “They must have caught up with him soon after he sent the telegram. His body was found in an alley in the Casbah this morning. He’d been beaten and robbed—and then knifed. Or so the local police say.”

  Solo’s breath hissed between his teeth. “You’re letting me handle this myself, of course,” he said. It was a statement rather than a question.

  “You and Mr. Kuryakin together, yes.”

  ‘When do we leave?”

  “Now.”

  “Okay, I’ll get back to my apartment and—”

  “I said now, Mr. Solo.”

  “You mean this instant? Right away? But…”

  “What about clothes and things?” Illya asked.

  “That will be taken care of. There are Thrush agents everywhere. I don’t want you two seen outside this building again—you may be being watched; you may be picked up, trailed. Anything might tip them off. Go to the armory and draw your weapons. Stores and Equipment already has the necessary clothes, documents, cover stories and so on. You will leave by the East River entrance in…” He consulted his watch. “…fifty-one minutes precisely. The launch will take you to a navy carrier anchored out in the Sound. General Powers has arranged with the Navy Department for a jet to take you to Nice. From there you can adopt your covers and fly to Casablanca on a commercial airline.”

  “And keep in touch, gentlemen, please,” Powers said heavily. Any shift—any prospective shift in the balance of nuclear power is vital, absolutely vital information for our strategic planners.”

  “Don’t forget, too, that the location of the destination of this material’s not the only thing,” Forster said. “Apart from Martens, every single man responsible for those thefts is still working undercover, undetected, in the nuclear plants where they occurred. We’ll have to have their names, please.”

  Solo smiled ruefully. “Any little commissions you’d like me to undertake for you?” he asked. “Some halva, perhaps? A nice rug? No? Oh, well—Mr. Habib Tufik in Casablanca, here we come!”

  Chapter 3

  Night in Casabla
nca

  AND SO Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin had found themselves—thirteen days before Solo sent his message from the camp in the uplands of southern Sudan—seeking a coffee shop in Casablanca.

  Contrary to all expectations, it was raining—a sullen, relentless downpour, slanting under pressure from a westerly wind, which bounced ankle-high off the shining runways, overflowed the gutters of the old town, and cascaded from flapping awnings over the deserted sidewalks. They had gathered from the buildup on Devananda Anand’s posthumous tape that the coffee shop of Habib Tufik might be something of a tourist attraction, the kind of place known to every hotel porter and cab driver in the city. But nobody in their hotels had ever heard of it, it rated no mention in the local guide, and—the first three taxis they hired had to confess themselves beaten after driving—it seemed to Illya and Solo—halfway around Morocco. At last Solo decided to try asking coffee wholesalers—for, presumably, if Habib Tufik ran a coffee shop, he had to obtain supplies from somewhere. And at their second port of call, they finally managed to get the address.

  By the time they had found a fourth taxicab, and the driver had found his way to the narrow alleyway in the Casbah where the place was supposed to be, it was well after dark.

  “I can go no further, Messieurs,” the driver said, looking at them curiously. “The road becomes too narrow. You will find the place, I think, up there on the left, in a courtyard. It is not my business to ask, but…” He paused.

  “Yes?”

  The cabbie shrugged. “Nothing. It is of no importance.” He slammed the big Chevrolet into reverse and began backing towards an intersection. “Just keep your hands on your wallets, that’s all!” he yelled as the car drew slowly away from them.

  Solo glanced at Illya and raised an eyebrow. “A word to the wise, eh?” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Rain was still pelting down. The alleyway, twisting uphill between tall, blank facades, was streaming with water. The gutters, choked every few yards with refuse, formed a series of dams which had spread out and flooded the glistening cobbles, and the agents’ footsteps, as they splashed their way towards a dim street light at a bend in the road, were almost drowned in the gurgling of water.