18 - The Unfair Fare Affair (5 page)

"… And there are no such people under arrest. Sure, I know." Solo stared through the window. It was ten o'clock at night. Under the chestnut trees in the brightly lit
avenida
below, the crowds were strolling—shopping, pausing for a drink at a sidewalk café, gossiping with friends, or merely promenading to see and be seen. He drew a deep breath and tried again.

"Captain," he began, "if we might for the sake of argument, just for the moment and purely as a hypothesis, assume that two such illegal immigrants had in fact been smuggled into your country, how exactly would your undoubtedly efficient counterintelligence services start to—"

He broke off as the officer rose to his feet, an elegant hand upraised. "You must forgive me, senor Solo"—his smile was charming, a flash of white teeth in the tanned face—"but I cannot officially entertain such theories. We deal only in facts here. We cannot permit ourselves to make any such wild assumptions."

"But surely you could at least explain how a hypothetical—"

"You must excuse me, senor. I am desolated, but we can help you no further."

If the Spanish authorities were reluctant to admit the presence of an organization whose members were not yet behind bars, Napoleon Solo found no trace of this official reticence in Turin.

He called at an address not far from the Corso Alessandro, where a special branch of the Italian police allied with the S.I.D., the Defense Department, had made its headquarters, and asked to see the man in charge.

The Commendatore was an old friend—a huge man, fat and friendly, with a luxuriant black moustache sprouting above a sharkskin suit.

"But of course it exist, this organization!" he exclaimed when Solo put his usual question. "It has been working for some time now—maybe one year, maybe two. Many times we have been give the tipoff—raid this club, be at this house at this hour, search that apartment, go to a warehouse. But always it is nothing that happen. Each trail is a death's end."'

"A dead end," Solo corrected. "But if the network is so secret—if it is one hundred percent impossible to contact it— then how the devil do the crooks using it approach the organization and explain that they wish to use it?"

"I think the shoe is upon the other leg, signor Solo. I think—I am not sure, and there may be exceptions—but I think the person wishing to get away is being contacted by the organization and offered an escape for a certain sum. This way, they are avoiding a time waste with small fries who do not have enough money to tempt them."

"I see. And even if you can find out nothing about the operation or how it works, Commendatore, you are absolutely certain, are you, that it really does exist?"

"But of course," the fat man said, dabbing his neck with a vast handkerchief. Although it was winter, and the central heating was set very high, the outside temperature was 81 degrees. "We know of several cases where people have use it. I give you one example: you remember the men from THRUSH we have capture last year after that mysterious affair of the hologram at Buronzo?"[1]

"I certainly do," Solo said grimly. He had good reason to!

"Well, there have been a jail break at Milano, and three of them have escape."

"And they got out of the country using this organization? THRUSH operatives?"

The Commendatore nodded. "Others have use it also," he said. "We do not think it is a THRUSH affair. It was convenient for them at the time and so they use it. But that is all."

"It's a very interesting all," Solo said. "Thank you very much."

Superintendent Rambouillet sat behind his desk in a dusty office near the Palais de Justice three floors above the Seine. His eyes were watering and his nose was red. He had a streaming cold, and he was feeling very sorry for himself. Across the room, Solo had taken up what was becoming his customary position, leaning against the windowsill. Behind him, rain fell from a gray sky on the Latin Quarter.

"We got a line on Mathieu quite by chance," Rambouillet was saying. "He got through the cordon in a dust cart."

"A dust cart!"

"Yes—one of those refuse collectors' trucks that are the same the world over, the kind they empty the dustbins into. They must have had a spare set of overalls ready and he simply joined the team. After all, who's going to pay any attention to the dustmen?"

"I see what you mean."

"Naturally, they couldn't go far. They had to transfer to some other vehicle before they left the outskirts of Paris, or else the dust cart would have become too noticeable. As it was, they took too much of a risk using it, because that's how we got onto them: someone noticed that the truck was an old one—a model the Public Health Department had stopped using some years ago. But what the hell, they were through our cordon before they had to change cars, so they were home and dry."

"You got a line on the car he changed into?"

"It was a beat-up delivery van, actually. Yes, we did. They took the autoroute, and we can trace them to a place just beyond Avallon. After that, the trail goes cold—but there is a small private airfield between Saulieu and Changy, in the Morvan. Bel-Air, I think it's called. My guess is that they changed cars at Avallon and then took a plane for Corsica at Bel-Air."

"The guy's definitely in Corsica, is he?"

"Without a doubt," Rambouillet said mournfully. He sniffed and reached out his hand toward a tin of antiflu tablets on the desk. "I wouldn't mind being there myself at this minute," he added. "This perishing winter..."

Solo grinned. "No clues to pick up in the dust cart or the van?"

The superintendent produced a sodden handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and blew his nose violently. "No," he said. "The funny thing is, we couldn't find a single trace of either of them. Nobody has seen them, nobody knows where they are. Which means the whole team can't have gone to Corsica—some of them were evidently left behind to tidy up."

"So it was a highly organized deal, then?"

"Of course it was highly organized. You don't slip through a number one priority cordon by chance!"

"Sure. You believe this inter-European escape deal exists, then?"

"Believe it? I know it, monsieur Solo!" Rambouillet placed two villainous-looking green pills on his tongue and gulped water noisily from a glass by the telephone. "That is not to say, of course, that every person who flees from the law, every smuggler who crosses a frontier without having his passport stamped, is a client of these people. But certain— shall we say important?—escapes have definitely been arranged by them."

"Including Mathieu's?"

"Including Mathieu's. And that of Berthelot, who escaped from Fresnes after killing a warder. And those of Vanezzi and Ponchartrain. And of course that of Paschkov, whom I we had arrested and promised to extradite to Moscow. Very embarrassing, that!"

"Do they have anything in common, all these?" Solo asked. "I mean, can you tell at once whether an escape is an organization plan or simply a one-shot job, privately organized?"

Rambouillet rose to his feet and walked over to join Solo at the window. Beyond the quai des Orfèvres, the wash from a barge rolled slowly outward to fragment the dun reflections of the trees along the Left Bank. Traffic, shiny in the rain, swooped toward the Pont Royal above the parapet. The superintendent sighed, and blew his nose again.

"I cannot tell you whether the organization jobs have anything in common or not," he said finally. "Or at least, yes––one thing I can tell you: they have this in common… that we have been able to find out nothing about any of them. Nothing at all! No abandoned vehicles, no discarded clothes, no suspicious purchases in stores. Nothing. I have men infiltrated into every big-time racket in the country, monsieur Solo; I have a list of
indics
—of informers—that is the envy of my colleagues in Berlin and Rome. But from none of these people can I receive even so much as a whisper concerning the makeup of this network, the names of its members, the way it works, how to get in touch with it, anything."

"But that's incredible," Solo said.

"It is incredible. I agree. In the underworld, as you well know, there is always gossip. Jealousy or envy or greed or revenge inevitably leads somebody to talk. Sometimes. But not here. Every avenue leading to this organization is blocked."

"At least you can admit that it exists and that it baffles you! And that's more than our colleagues beyond the Pyrenees are prepared to do."

"Ah, but you see, you have to take into account the Spanish character," Rambouillet said. "They are a proud people, anxious not to lose face, and it is perhaps understandable that they prefer to ignore officially a problem until they can announce it has been solved."

"All the same, I can't see why—"

"One of their own proverbs sums up their attitude in this case rather neatly," the superintendent interrupted. "in Spanish, it says,
'No creo en brujas—pero que las hay, las hay!
'"

"Which, being translated, means

"Freely translated, that means roughly, 'Me, I don't believe in witches... but as far as their existence is concerned—oh, they exist all right!'"

Napoleon Solo spoke to Waverly on the ultrashort-wave transmitter hidden in a false chimney above the apartment of U.N.C.L.E.'s man in Paris.

"It seems," he said reluctantly, "that there definitely is such an organization—and there the story ends."

"I do not follow you, Mr. Solo." Waverly's voice crackled irritably from a speaker concealed in a bookcase. "Please be explicit."

"There appears to be an organization, strictly commercial and apolitical, which arranges for people to pass clandestinely from one country to another. It does not seem to effect the actual escapes—that is to say it won't spring a guy from jail. But once he is sprung, it'll get him away. It's never failed yet, and it leaves no clues."

"Ha! So I was right! Proceed, Mr. Solo."

"That's all there is. End of story. Since nobody's ever been caught and no traces are left, every single angle leading to the organization turns out to be a dead end. I've talked with the big noises in Amsterdam, Vienna, Madrid, Turin and Paris. Most of them admit the existence of the network. None of them has a single line on it. In between times, I've been to Warsaw, Prague and Munich—and I've spent a few days delving about in the underworld myself."

"And?"

"And I have to report that they seem to be right. There's not a whisper to be heard about this group all the way from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. Not a single cheep from a single bird."

"Why not?" Waverly demanded. "Are they scared? Intimidation?"

"I guess not. Personally, I think it's simply because they don't know. It must be a very tight group—and if the regular boys don't know a thing about it, obviously they can't sing."

"But how do criminals wanting an escape arranged get in touch with these people? If nobody knows who they are, I mean."

"That's the whole secret, I imagine," Solo said. "They don't, you see. Because they can't. If they need the service— and if they're lucky—they get contacted." He paused and chuckled. "You know the line," he said. "Don't call us; we'll call you…"

Chapter 5

Open Hostility

SOON AFTER he had finished talking to Waverly, the first attempt on Solo's life was made.

He had left his colleague's apartment in the rue Francois Premier and had just crossed the avenue Georges V when a flock of pigeons wheeling away from the plane trees abruptly changed direction and swooped toward him. Solo was thinking of something else. From the corner of his eye he sensed the approach of something shadowy as the birds momentarily veered in his direction. With some sixth sense reflex he started back a pace and half-ducked.

The instinctive movement saved his life.

Before he had time to succumb to the feeling of foolishness that always sweeps over people in such circumstances, he was hurled to one side by the passage of a small van that had cut off from the traffic roaring up the avenue and, after executing a U-turn on two wheels, had rocketed down the road between the trees and the buildings.

Solo had been just about to step into the road. The pigeons had caused him to falter and check his stride, and the vehicle that would otherwise have cut him down merely struck him a glancing blow as it sped past. Fortunately he was off-balance and thus rode with the impact up to a point.

He was spun across the sidewalk, to slam into a wooden seat and collapse giddily to the ground.

Passersby ran up as he sprawled there, panting for breath. Willing hands helped him to his feet and assisted him to the bench. A man rushed out from a wine store on the other side of the road, carrying a stiff Cognac in a glass, and an elderly lady kept telling anybody who would listen to call the police. In no time at all, quite a crowd had gathered.

"It's a scandal, the way these deliverymen drive," some one said.

"Only boys in their teens," another voice added. "It shouldn't be allowed!"

"Perfectly. I entirely agree," a third chimed in.

"Did you see? He shot down here like a racing driver after making a U-turn in the avenue—a thing expressly forbidden in the Code of the Route."

"He must have been doing sixty kilometers an hour!

"Why, only last week a friend of my uncle in Clermont Ferrand…"

"The foreigner didn't have a chance..."

"Has anyone telephoned for an ambulance?"

"Is he hurt?"

Solo struggled to his feet, brushing aside the offers of help as politely as he could. His head was spinning. He was bruised and shaken but otherwise undamaged. "No, no," he said. "Thank you very much, but I am quite all right... I assure you... a glancing blow only. There are no bones broken... I was very lucky, really."

"Are you certain you wouldn't like a doctor?" a woman inquired.

"Perfectly sure, thank you, madame."

"Did you get the number of the assassin?"

Solo shook his head again. It would have done no good if he had. The vehicle had been one of those small gray Citroen vans with corrugated sides that can be seen by the dozen in any street in France. It had probably been stolen, and even if it hadn't the plates would undoubtedly have been false. In any case it would turn out to be totally unidentifiable—for the man who had used the word "assassin" in the normal motorist's hyperbole had unknowingly been speaking nothing less than the literal truth.