The Assassination Affair Read online

  THE ASSASSINATION AFFAIR

  NAPOLEON SOLO came down the dilapidated stairway slowly, hearing the tired pad of Illya Kuryakin's feet following behind him. He glanced at his watch. Four-thirty. Four-thirty, and they still weren't finished with this dismal legwork. His feet were finished. Hot and aching, they screamed for a rest, and his calves and thighs cried for an end to stair climbing. But Alexander Waverly had handed out the lists of businesses to investigate, and that was that.

  Solo stopped at the foot of the stairs and leaned against the drab, plastered wall, as Illya negotiated the last few steps. Solo was a young man, of average height, his highly trim and fit body exuding a vitality that verged on magnetism. His eyes challenged the candid handsomeness of his face by looking at the world with the gleam of a rogue. "Playboy," strangers might peg him, or "Jet-set bachelor," unaware that his carefully tailored suit-coat concealed a deadly pistol, that his body was fit not because of tennis but from unarmed combat practice, and that his smile didn't always mean what it said. In reality, Napoleon Solo was no casual man-about-town, but Chief Enforcement Agent of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement

  Illya Kuryakin was an inverted image of Solo. Blond and blue-eyed, with his yellow hair cut in a "non-cut," he gazed at the world somberly, absorbing the humor of what he saw without acknowledgment, keeping his intellect and personality introverted to the point where it hit subliminally. He was small, but immensely strong; Slavic and stoic; and his associates guessed he played the brooding gypsy purposefully to throw them off the track of his true emotions.

  "Heads up," Illya said. "Every one down stays down. We don't have to retrace any steps."

  "I must be out of condition," Solo sighed, knowing it wasn't true, but wanting to gripe. "Three days of walking the cement of this town - I still say it's a waste!"

  Illya's blue eyes agreed, but he didn't voice it. "You must allow Mr. Waverly his flights of humor. If he wants us to pound the pavement searching for someone who has seen a mysterious man, then we pound the pavement."

  "Rule number one - Waverly is boss. Right."

  "But you think it's beneath your dignity," Illya prodded.

  "I can tell you, it's beneath the dignity of my feet." Solo pushed away from the wall. "Well - What have we accomplished today?"

  Illya reached inside his black jacket and pulled out the notebook that contained the list. A quick count, and he recited, "We've investigated twenty places. All with no result. We have eight left to go."

  "And the next one? By foot? Or, hopefully, taxi?"

  "Foot. It's only five blocks."

  "Okay." Solo straightened his coat, resigned to the five block walk, another narrow flight of stairs, another confused office girl, and another blank. "Maybe by tomorrow something big will have popped up so we can get out of the gum-shoe business and back into the action." He glanced around the small landing, decided it was deserted enough, and reached for his pen communicator. "Before we ruin our dispositions anymore, I'll check with Headquarters to see if it's necessary."

  Illya smiled a tiny smile and took his turn relaxing against the wall as Solo spoke into the transceiver. "Open Channel D, please."

  A girl's voice answered his sibilantly, "Channel D is open, Mr. Solo."

  "Thanks for recognizing me, dear. Now - and you'd better say yes - has anyone had any luck? We haven't."

  "It's the same all around," the girl answered. "Nothing has turned up. We're beginning to think this Mr. Dundee you're trying to track is really a ghost and doesn't exist except in someone's addled mind."

  "Don't knock it," Solo told her. "At least ghost chasing offers some exciting possibilities."

  Her voice came back intimately. "You poor thing. Do your feet hurt?"

  Solo smiled at her tone, envisioning her, a lovely among lovelies, and definitely alone in the Communications Room. Otherwise she wouldn't have dared make small talk over the channel. "Do you know a good remedy for aches and pains?"

  "Just try me, Napoleon. I'm the girl with all the remedies. But if you want in on them, first rule is that it must be evening, with a big moon, and -" Her voice broke off, he heard her cough self-consciously, and when she came back her tone was businesslike. "Your orders, Mr. Solo, are to complete your list and come back here to compare notes."

  "Right. But it's a long list."

  "Then get busy, Mr. Solo."

  The communicator closed off and Solo put it in his pocket. Illya stepped away from the wall where he had been listening to the conversation with his usual imperturbable stare. "You're going to get one of those girls a reprimand some day, Napoleon."

  "Mr. Waverly won't be hard on them. He'll know whose fault it is. Now - lead the way, friend. The ghost of Mr. Dundee awaits us." As they started out of the building he added, "I had a date to go dancing tonight, but I think I'll arrange to sit the evening out."

  They emerged from the dark hall into a bright day. Little traffic moved and the sun shone dully, reflecting in streaks on the store-fronts. The building they came from housed a men's clothing store on the ground floor, but there were few pedestrians to window-shop. Solo stopped to do just that, his practiced eye scanning the falls of ties and oddments on display. Illya went on a few yards before he stopped to wait impatiently.

  The comparative quiet of the little-used street was shattered by the howl of rubber tires taking the corner with a burn of blue smoke, and the roar of a powerful engine. Solo spun around to see a great black Cadillac, old model, struggling to steady itself on four wheels as it thundered down the pavement. It was upon him before he had time to refocus his eyes, the tires yelping as the brakes were crushed by some heavy foot. But he saw the back window. It was open, and sticking from it in a deadly threat was the snout of a machine gun. There were eyes glinting behind the gun, but Solo had no time to identify them as the gun leaped into orange fire and sprayed death at him.

  Solo dimly heard the cries and running steps of the pedestrians as he fell to one knee, yanking out his U.N.C.L.E. Special to return the fire. Glass split and jangled to the sidewalk from the display window behind him, but he ignored the impact of it, trying to hold steady for a decent shot. A tire. A gas tank.

  The Cadillac sped ahead full tilt, careening, and his one reflexive round missed. The car swept by the place where Illya stood startled, and its brakes breathed blue smoke again, its gears ground into reverse, and it catapulted itself up the street on a suicidal backwards course. It passed Illya by, coming on for Solo.

  Solo sprang up and hurled himself into the shelter of the doorway, drawing a bead to meet the car as it came across his sights. It came too fast, the machine gun spraying lead, and he had no time for return fire. He counted a fast three and ran onto the sidewalk, but the car was backtracking across the corner intersection. It howled as it shifted gears, made a roaring U-turn, and sped away.

  Solo stood on the sidewalk, frustrated. It had been too fast. And too close. The aches had been driven from his body by adrenalin, but the adrenalin just sat in his blood, making his hands shake. He holstered his gun and brushed the glass fragments off his suit and out of his hair with short, angry motions. Then Illya was beside him, gun in hand, helping to pick the glass shards off his hack.

  "Welcome to sitting-ducksville," Solo spat. "Any license number?"

  "The numbers were blacked out," Illya said.

  "It figures. Anyway, that guy was the poorest shot I've ever seen. How could he have missed?"

  "Be happy he did."

  "But what do you suppose it was all about?" Solo faced Illya, his eyes still snapping black.

  "Attempted murder!" Illya said simply.

  "Gangster style? We're not after gangsters, Illya, so they shouldn't be after u
s."

  "Then perhaps it was Dundee's ghost. Don't argue with Fate. At least you're whole."

  The few pedestrians who had screamed and run had now gathered up their courage to stand in a semicircle about twenty feet away from the two agents. They hung there, curious, their bodies anxious, but their feet braced, ready to flee again if these two men repeated their performance.

  "There must have been more to this last place we investigated than we thought." Solo peered up to the third floor of the building where the list had led them.

  "We'll take that possibility up with Mr. Waverly. Right now, we're creating a scene." Illya pulled Solo's attention to the crowd of onlookers. "Let's move on be fore the police come. We don't have time to answer questions, and these people are nervous."

  Solo grinned, noticing Illya's one faux pas. "It might be tranquilizing to them if you'd put your gun away."

  Illya holstered his gun, a slight echo of Solo's grin pulling at his lips that so seldom smiled at anything.

  Solo headed straight for the crowd and pushed his way through, calling briskly to the people, "Excuse me, folks. Your neighborhood's just too noisy for a peace loving man like me."

  The crowd parted at the banter and the two agents walked down the street, feeling stares on their backs like hard pinpoints. They turned the first corner and hailed a taxi. As they climbed inside and rested their tired bodies against the cushions, Solo asked, "One thing, Illya. How is it that you weren't any part of the target? They had clear shots at you, but they passed you over as though you were bulletproof."

  "One never can guess about such things, Napoleon. It's better not to try."

  ---

  The two agents went into U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters through Del Floria's Tailor Shop with only a wave for the oldish man who pressed the proper buttons to give them access to the vast honeycomb of the Command. The girl at the reception desk who pinned their badges on today was Illya s particular subject for teasing, so Solo didn't glance at her a second time. She went all out for the somber Russian, her eyelashes fluttering, and a flirtatious smile on her pretty face as she pulled her shoulders back, but Illya only murmured to her, "Careful, Lynn - you'll pop your buttons," and led the way to the automatic doors that took them into their second home.

  Second home, Solo thought, as he walked side by side with this wiry man who was more of a friend than be liked to admit. Solo's life was completely segmented, split down the middle. One part was steel corridors and dark alleys, guns, bullets, and desperation. The other half was soft lights and softer music, good liquor, and heady women. But even the pleasant side always carried an overtone. Always there was a gun nestled under his arm; always there was a communicator in his pocket that could launch him out of warm, soft arms back into the alleys. As Chief Enforcement Agent for U.N.C.L.E., he was definitely agent first and man second. He relished it that way.

  They stepped into the elevator that would whisk them to Mr. Alexander Waverly, the man who bore the weight of making policy for U.N.C.L.E. and, thus, for the world; the man who never gave praise, who put up with a carefully balanced amount of horseplay from his agents for the sake of morale, but who really would have preferred a carefully groomed line of robots to take and obey his commands. Indestructible robots, of course, that couldn't tire, fail, or die.

  They went directly to his office, knowing Waverly expected them. He had eyes throughout the building. He was waiting in his place by the big revolving table. Solo and Illya sat down as his gaze swept across them, assessing, bright, and cool.

  "Well, gentlemen," Waverly said, "since I know you have nothing to report on the Dundee affair, why have you come shoulder to shoulder to see me?"

  "You know we have nothing to report, sir?" Solo asked. "Quite. Archer was the one to find the treasure trove this time. He reported in ten minutes ago. He found the chemical supply office that has done business with Dundee and his mystifying chemicals. We can go on from there."

  "We have no idea of what Dundee is doing, as I understand it," Illya put in.

  "Precisely, Mr. Kuryakin. Hopefully, we'll discover it - and soon."

  Solo remembered the flurry that had set the legwork in motion. An agent named Randolph had gasped out a final report from a shabby hotel in Chicago, groaning a bare, few words: "Dundee – chemical – plant - check chemical supply - New York. Thrush." And Randolph had died on that word, as too many U.N.C.L.E. agents had died on it.

  Waverly had immediately thrown the organization into action and the computers had divested the fact that Dundee was a medium-high Thrush official, generally a supplier. Following the dead agent's last request, the legwork had begun, trudging from one chemical supply house to another, armed with a picture of Dundee, hoping to find where he had done his business and what he had purchased. Now that part of the affair was complete. They had found the place and the product.

  "What was the chemical, sir?" Solo asked.

  "Blasted if I know, Mr. Solo. Our chemists are working on it. Oh, we have the name, but no idea how it might be used. The entire message from Randolph is a puzzle. It has so many possible resolutions."

  Illya jumped in on that cue, eager to explore the resolutions. "I've been trying to decipher it, as a matter of fact, sir. And just that one phrase, 'Chemical - plant,' could mean three different things."

  Solo grinned at Illya's eagerness. "Now we'll get a list of the three."

  Illya ignored his friend's thrust. "First, he could have meant an actual chemical plant - a factory or lab. Second, he could have meant a plant in the form of a drop, a cache. Or, he might have simply meant flora - a real, living, growing plant. And the chemical would have something to do with plants, then."

  "Well reasoned." Mr. Waverly nodded. "We're assuming our chemists will give us the answer when they discover what use the chemical could possibly be. I don't like this business, I can tell you. When an agent is killed it can only mean something big." He dismissed their rising curiosity quickly. "But it doesn't concern you two anymore. Unless it evolves into something, you have no further need to study it."

  "At least the legwork is finished," Solo sighed.

  "Too much for you, Mr. Solo?" Waverly looked at him, the ice in his eyes melting into a twinkle.

  "Frankly, sir - yes."

  Illya said, "Not even meeting a long line of office girls could alleviate it for Napoleon, sir. So you can see how hard it was on him

  Solo cast Illya a quick glance. "The machine gun fire alleviated it nicely."

  "I don't make the connection between office girls and machine guns, Mr. Solo." Waverly sat forward. "Explain, please."

  Solo recited exactly what had happened without attempting to excuse his or Illya's ineptitude. "We fouled it up completely, sir," he concluded. "There was no reason why we couldn't have stopped that car, but neither of us managed. I got off exactly one shot, and that missed."

  "Perhaps the element of surprise, Mr. Solo." Waverly was frowning in thought, envisioning the scene Solo had described. "They didn't try for Mr. Kuryakin, you say?"

  "Not one bullet came my way," Illya admitted.

  "Odd. And what conclusions have you drawn from it?"

  "None," Solo said. "An attack like that seems too crude for Thrush. Out in the open – daylight - we should have been able to bring them down easily. Thrush wouldn't be so careless."

  "Personal enemies, Mr. Solo?" Waverly's stare rested on Solo curiously.

  Solo's face broke into the grin Waverly expected. "Hardly. I haven't dated any gangsters' molls lately."

  "Whatever initiated it, it's most interesting. I would suggest that you be particularly careful for a time." He cleared his throat, symbolic of clearing the decks. "For the moment, you two can return to your desk work. I may want you in a day or two, but I'm sending someone else to investigate Randolph's death in Chicago."

  Solo stood up, glad for the respite. All he could see now was a hot bath, a change of clothes - especially socks - and the best method to use to talk Rachel out of the
dancing date and into a quiet dinner at home.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter

  1: "There is a Coffin Waiting for You"

  2: "A Spy in the Ointment"

  3: "Go Practice Your Karate"

  4: "I'd Hate to Die for a Parking Space"

  5: "Never Insult a Neanderthal"

  6: "Most Accidents Occur at Home"

  7: "A Do-it-Yourself Murder Scene"

  8: "Shotguns, You Know"

  9: "I Prefer the Yellow-Bellied Thrush"

  10: "A Plague of Locusts, Maybe"

  11: "Illya Draws the Short Straw"

  12: "Chicken Feathers!"

  13: "Kiss the Maiden All Forlorn"

  14: "If Solo Comes, Can Kuryakin Be Far Behind?"

  Chapter l

  "There is a Coffin Waiting for You"

  THE ROOM was lit softly with one lamp, muting the bright, masculine colors and easing the lines of the contemporary furnishings into a pure bachelor's den. Napoleon Solo sat on the big, soft sofa in a dreamy state. He approved of the room. Over the years, he had carefully collected everything that was in it with an eye to its elegance, comfort, and effect. Women liked it because it definitely bespoke a man and held a hint of sensuality that warned them to run for cover or stay at their own risk.

  Two doors opened from the room - leading to the bedroom and kitchen - and at the back were French doors giving out onto a little terrace, well above the traffic lanes below, separated from the neighbors' terraces by low stone walls and planters filled with evergreens. Solo changed addresses often, for security reasons, and of all his apartments this was the first one with a terrace. He'd had to argue with Mr. Waverly to get it.

  The coffee table in front of the sofa was laden with the remains of a simple dinner for two, and nestled beside it was a champagne cooler. Solo leaned against the cushions, glass in hand, his senses bound in the Bossa Nova that came from his stereo, and even more bound in the fragrance and form of the woman who cuddled beside him.

  Rachel was tall, but never coltish. She followed his preference right down the line - full figured, heavy lashed and languid eyed. She was a redhead with hair that caught the light and reflected gold.