Pulp Fiction | The Finger in the Sky Affair by Peter Leslie (2 page)

"They do. They're among the six biggest in the world."

"These crashes must be of some importance to them, in that case."

"They are of importance to everybody, Mr. Solo. Take this last one at Nice three days ago. I have here a digest of the inquiry carried out jointly by the French ministry of aviation and T.C.A.'s own investigators—among whom we, too, had a man." He flipped over two pages of the typescript and read aloud: "
We are of the unanimous opinion that no physical or mechanical reason can be found to which this disaster may be attributed. A playback of the tape recording in the fire-proof black-box confirms that verbal communications between the pilot and the control tower were normal right up to the moment of the crash. The aircraft's three jet engines were all functioning perfectly. Our experts can find nothing wrong with the controls or control surfaces...The Trident was landing automatically—via the Murchison-Spears Automatic Landing Equipment housed in a container in the cockpit—and since the container was thrown clear of the flames, the investigators were able to test this also. Even after the impact, it was functioning one hundred per cent accurately...
"

Napoleon Solo whistled softly but offered no other comment.

Waverly looked up at him over the papers in his hand. "Exactly," he said, leaning forward and selecting a rugged cherrywood from the pipe rack. "Why, then, the crash? How can it have happened? And in particular why did it happen again to T.C.A.? As I have told you, this is the fifth disaster they have suffered in two months. You have doubtless read about the others without specifcally noticing which airline they referred to."

"I probably have, sir. Where were they?"

"Two of them were here in the US—a plane blew up in mid-air; another stalled on take-off. But the remaining pair were carbon copies of the one we're discussing—absolutely identical. Both were at Nice, both involved Tridents, and in both cases, again, aircraft, crew and conditions appeared to be in perfect order."

"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..."

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.

There were two other entrances: an underwater channel leading from the basement to the East River; and a fifth way in that was only known to Mr. Waverly and his four colleagues of Section One.

Illya walked halfway down the brownstone frontage and went in Del Floria's door. The dimly lit front room was damp with steam from the pressing machine and at first the old man did not see him. Then he looked up and caught sight of the Russian standing over against the rail of suits basted ready for fittings. He opened the two white, padded halves of the big machine and hurried over with a smile, the orange tape measure draped around his neck swinging as he went.

"Mr. Kuryakin!" he beamed. "Some days it is since I see you. I am hoping you do well. Everything, she is fine, yes?"

"Hello, Del," Illya said easily. "Yes, I'm fine, thanks. How are you?...There is some kind of a panic on up there, so I am afraid that I have to hurry. See you later, maybe?"

He took off his jacket and handed it to the tailor as though he wanted it to be pressed, passing through to the fitting booths in the back of the shop. Del Floria slung the garment over one arm and pressed a button set into the side of the pressing machine. In the third cubicle, Illya drew across the curtain and twisted an ordinary-looking brass hook on the back wall.

The wall swung silently inwards, and he walked through into the Admissions foyer of U.N.C.L.E. headquarters.

The girl at the reception desk was a redhead. She had watched the agent's approach through the tailor's shop on her T.V. monitor screen and now she looked up with a five-star smile shining through her freckles. "Morning, Illya," she said cheerfully. "You're a minute early, you know: the old man'll be pleased!"

Kuryakin nodded seriously. The fact that he found his job of more importance than human relationships did not make his boyish charm any the less compelling on the personable young women with whom U.N.C.L.E. was liberally staffed.

"Good morning, Miss Merrell," he said. "I was fortunate with the lights today in the crosstown traffic. Do you have a badge for me?"

"Do I!" the girl said. "I have a whole chestful, if you must know. But I'd be out on my ear if I mentioned it!" She reached into a drawer of her desk and brought out a small white badge which she pinned carefully to his shirtfront, just below the shoulder. "Usually it's lapels, of course," she told him. "I wonder if you'd even notice if I'd stuck you with it?"

Illya smiled, an exercise that lit up his entire face. "Probably not," he said politely. "I should most likely have been too busy admiring the contours of the scenery to notice such pinpricks..."

"Gee," the red-headed girl breathed as she watched him cross the foyer to the elevators, "maybe one day he'll get around to call me Barbara..."

But the agent, absent-mindedly fingering the white badge in the elevator taking him to the third floor, was wondering what could have been the reason for the unexpected call on what should have been a free day. His taste, as it happened, inclined more towards brunettes.

(The white badge was more important than it looked. Each individual entering the headquarters—staff, out-posted personnel or visitor—was equipped with a badge every time he or she came in. And badges of different colors admitted to different levels of the organization. Thus a red badge restricted its wearer to the entrance floor, where only routine operations were carried out; a yellow badge permitted entry to this floor and also the communications and electronics centers on the floor above; and the Policy and Operations Sections on the top floor were reserved for white badges. The small shields themselves were activated by a chemical on the tips of the receptionist's fingers—and any badge thus treated which strayed into the wrong part of the building would immediately trip an alarm setting off winking red danger lights on every desk in the headquarters, while steel doors slid shut to divide the place into compartments in which capture of the interloper would be that much easier. Napoleon Solo had been there once when a too-curious columnist had strayed from the course marked out for him and caused the whole system to swing into operation. "It was hell," he told Illya afterwards. "Just like being in a torpedoed ship, with the watertight doors closing and bells ringing their heads off all over...")