The Finger in the Sky Affair - Leslie Peter (читать книги без TXT) 📗

"That's certainly remarkable. And it's obviously far too-er-far-fetched for coincidence. It must be some kind of foul play..." Solo paused. "Even so, I'm afraid I don't quite —"

"You don't see why we bother with it? You can't see how it affects U.N.C.L.E.?"

"No, sir—to be frank, I can't."

"Then I'll tell you. There are two reasons. The first concerns the Murchison-Spears gear mentioned in the report. Know anything about it?"

"It's got a bit of a lead on the stuff most of the airlines use, hasn't it?"

"Yes, B.E.A., B.O.A.C., PanAm and most of the European companies use Smiths-Elliott-Bendix gear. This fixes the plane on a 'localizer' beam from the landing strip which puts it in line with the runway and then automatically controls its height and the glide angle until the moment of touchdown. But the crew still have to control the 'roll' of the wings."

"Of course. I remember reading —"

"But in the case of the Murchison-Spears equipment, this factor too becomes automatically controlled—in fact the aircraft is completely under automatic direction when it lands."

"How often are these boxes of tricks used, sir?"

"The Smiths-Elliott-Bendix gear is still used mainly for fog landings, and sometimes at night. But T.C.A. have gone out on a limb with the Murchison-Spears equipment—at present they are the only airline fitted with it—and they use it as company policy on all planes for all landings at any time."

"But isn't there some kind of tie-up-?"

Waverly nodded his head and began to stuff tobacco into the bowl of the cherrywood. He turned back one page and glanced at the typed sheet before speaking.

"T.C.A. and Murchison-Spears are controlled through the same holding company," he said. "The electronics firm is a joint Anglo-American corporation—with the governments of the two countries between them holding forty-nine per cent of the shares."

"Only forty-nine per cent?"

"Yes—the remaining fifty-one was carefully split among very many small investors as the directors didn't wish to appear to be government controlled...but of course the equipment was so good that nobody envisaged a situation where a buyer's market might set in. Yet that's exactly what the high accident rate of planes using the device has caused: there's been a loss of public confidence in the gear and the shares as plunging."

"Is anybody buying?" Solo asked.

"Not obviously. But it is conceivable that, through careful buying by nominees, an evilly intentioned organization could in fact gain control of the company and its secrets."

"And this would mean gaining control also of T.C.A.?"

"Yes, it would. Which brings me to the second reason why we are interested. Because, you see, T.C.A. holds the franchise to transport to the U.S. a rare fissionable material extracted from a vein of igneous rock in the Maritime Alps behind Nice..."

Solo frowned. "Even so, sir," he objected, "I can hardly see- You mentioned 'an evilly intentioned organization'. Do you mean an organization like THRUSH?"

"Yes, I do."

"Well, excuse my ignorance, but I can't see how such an eventuality would help them. THRUSH's aim is world domination, right? Well, how does gaining control of an airline and a company which manufactures a sophisticated automatic pilot advance this aim?"

Solo's chief put down his pipe and rose to his feet. He began to pace up and down the long room. "You're too inclined to view things in blacks and whites, Mr. Solo," he said. "The international power game is infinitely complex and—to use your own word—infinitely sophisticated. Those of us who have anything to do with its policies are like the players in a monster game of chess, always trying to think nine moves ahead. And the real reason for any move is never what it appears to be on the surface. Why—you must have asked yourself -do the governments, for instance, not buy up the remaining shares themselves?"

"The thought had occurred to me," Solo admitted.

"Because such a move could not be kept secret—and the repercussions, on other shares, on the market, on the economies of the two countries, would be incalculable. The effect of an apparent move to gloss over a para-military failure is far-reaching...apart from which it might not succeed!"

"I see."

"So far as THRUSH is concerned, this conspiracy—if such it is—would not be designed to advance their plans directly; it would be more in the nature of a fund-raising operation. They do need funds, you know! Despite the financial power of some of their Council members, their schemes have to be financed."

"So I would imagine, sir."

"And gaining control of Murchison-Spears at a comparatively low outlay would help in this direction. More importantly, they would have a foot—owning T.C.A.—firmly in the enemy camp. And worst of all, a single small canister of that nuclear material—if 'accidentally' misrouted to certain Eastern countries, for example—could bring them enormous revenue. Even if they did not intend to make use of its secrets themselves."

"So in fact it's up to us to stop them?"

"It's up to you, Mr. Solo," Waverly corrected with a dry smile. "You and any other Enforcement Agents you may wish to assign..."

Chapter 3 — A question of asking questions

Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin was young, tow-haired, blue eyed and of a solemn expression. He was five feet ten inches tall. He was born in Russia. And next to Napoleon Solo he was the most valued and trusted of all the Enforcement Agents in Section Two of U.N.C.L.E.

Illya was straightening a dark crimson knitted silk tie in the cheval glass of his wardrobe when the buzzer of his pocket transmitter sounded its urgent summons from the top of his bureau. He reached the tiny device in two strides, picked it up, thumbed the button and spoke.

"Channel open," he said.

The voice of the girl in the Communications Section at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters came flatly from the receiver. "As soon as possible, please. Priority One. Head of Section One."

"Right. Subject?"

"Something new, I believe. May I please have your E.T.A.?"

"Twenty minutes from now," the Russian said crisply. He snapped off the radio, put it in the breast pocket of his light gray suit, and shut the doors of the wardrobe on the meticulously arranged rows of jackets, trousers, shirts, shoes and ties inside. Hesitating, he looked around the rest of the one-room apartment. Unlike the wardrobe, it was in chaos. The divan bed was unmade, papers strewed the bedside table, the chairs and part of the floor. There were books, opened and unopened, everywhere. Maps and sheets of graph paper were spread over the hi-fi and the television set. On a low coffee table, a paper sack of groceries spilled its contents among the used crockery of Illya's breakfast.

The agent took a half step towards the table, looked at his watch, shrugged, and then—with a resigned gesture—turned his back on the room and went out the front door.

It was windy for August and the bright sunshine was not too warm. He walked the half block to his car with the breeze whipping his pale, forward-brushed hair off his forehead, collected his ticket from under the windshield wiper, and drove away from the fire hydrant where he had parked earlier in the morning. It took him twelve minutes to get to the shabby block hiding the headquarters of U.N.C.L.E.

He swung the car into the garage at the end of the row of brownstones, left it with the attendant, and walked out into the street again. Like every building on the block, including the seedy shops and the apartments above them, the garage was a front. U.N.C.L.E.'s basic personnel gained admission to the steel-shelled headquarters through the men's and women's locker rooms in the garage itself; such few official visitors as the organization had were show to a door above the club in the whitestone at the far end of the block. But the Enforcement Agents on their rare visits to base used the third entrance inside Del Floria's tailor shop.