MFU Whitman - The Affair of the Gunrunner's Gold

by Brandon Keith

  The Affair of the Gunrunners' Gold

  By Brandon Keith

  1. Welcoming Committee

  THE SUN WAS like a great golden balloon in a brilliant sky blue as cobalt. It was mid-July and the day was bright and breezy at Kennedy Airport in New York City. Outside the Customs Building, casually chatting, stood Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin.

  Solo's wrists were crossed in front of his body. His hat, held in his left hand, covered his right hand. Illya's hands, to the contrary, were fully exposed, but what nestled in the palm of his left hand was not exposed—except to him and to Solo, and they glanced at it frequently. It was a small photo of the man for whom they were waiting, Howard Ogden, who was arriving on a flight from Bogotá, capital of Colombia, South America. It was an old photo, taken five years ago.

  "But," Solo remarked, "a picture is a picture. We'll recognize him."

  Illya grinned. "Suppose he's wearing a disguise?"

  "He won't be. Why should he? He has no idea he's got company out here expectantly awaiting him."

  "One thing's for sure. That baby's not traveling under his own name."

  It was Solo's turn to grin. "Yessir, that's for sure."

  Suddenly Illya stiffened. "Look!"

  Solo looked. There was their man, carrying two heavy suitcases. Tall, dark, in his mid-thirties, he was striding erect with athletic step toward the taxi stand. Quickly, efficiently, Solo and Kuryakin parted and then came together again on either side of the tall man.

  "Just keep right on walking, Mr. Ogden," Solo said.

  The dark face swiveled to Solo, then to Kuryakin, then back to Solo, but what convinced the man was what Solo showed him. A quick flip of the hat in the left hand revealed the gun in Solo's right hand.

  Howard Ogden, an experienced operator in his own right, was not one to argue with a gun. But even were he so disposed, he could not. If he attempted a struggle, he would have to drop his bags, and that would incur the risk of losing them. Nor could he break and run—the bags were too heavy. He would have to go along with the two strangers and then talk them out of whatever they were up to. For a moment he considered it a case of mistaken identity—but no. The man with the gun had called him by his real name.

  They walked past the taxi stand to where Kuryakin's car was parked. Ogden noticed it was a quite ordinary sedan, nothing fancy. The blond man opened a rear door, motioned to Ogden to put the suitcases inside, and Ogden complied. Then the blond man slammed the door and got into the driver's seat. The man with the gun smiled politely.

  "Okay, Ogden. Get in. Up front."

  "My name isn't Ogden."

  "What is it?"

  "Owens."

  "Have it your own way. Get in."

  Ogden sat alongside Kuryakin and Solo sat on the other side of Ogden, the muzzle of the pistol pressed against the man in the middle. Kuryakin started the car and they were off.

  "Look, you guys, you're wasting your time," Ogden began in a bantering tone. A veteran of many criminal adventures, he was trying to ease himself out of a tight situation. "If this is some kind of stickup, you people sure picked the wrong party. All you can get out of me is a whole lot of nothing."

  "What about the bags back there?" inquired Illya Kuryakin.

  "Worthless. That is, to you."

  "What are they worth to you?"

  "They're my business."

  "What's your business?" asked Solo.

  "I'm a salesman."

  "Salesman? For what?"

  "I'm a machinery salesman. I work for a firm in Bogotá. I'm up here to see some prospective customers in the United States. Those bags back there are actually sample cases containing miniature samples of ironware—motors, cogs, gears, wheelworks, mechanical contrivances—for display to the customers. I can prove to you that I'm telling the absolute truth. All you have to do is look over my papers, my passport, my identillcation."

  Could be he was telling the truth. Neither Illya nor Solo could contradict him. They had had no thorough briefing—only the meager details sufficient for their purpose. They had been given the photo and told to go to Kennedy Airport. Purpose: to pick up Howard Ogden, the man in the picture, no matter his present alias, and bring him in. Those had been the Old Man's instructions, the Old Man being their boss, Alexander Waverly, head of U.N.C.L.E. All the instructions had been general except one, and that one specific instruction Solo now proceeded to obey. The muzzle of the gun pressed against the man in the middle. Solo pulled the trigger.

  Howard Ogden did not die. Nor did he bleed. Nor was he wounded. His chin descended to his chest and he was immediately asleep. Solo's gun was not a lethal weapon. It discharged a tiny, spongy bullet that had no power of penetration. When the bullet smacked against the target, it flattened and released chemicals into the skin, rendering the body unconscious.

  As Alexander Waverly said: "A gun—unless in the hands of a murderer—is merely an instrument to immobilize an adversary, to stop him, to cause him to be harmless and powerless. What more perfectly serves all those ends than sweet and peaceful slumber?"

  Sweet and peaceful slumber on the part of Howard Ogden perfectly served the ends of Solo and Kuryakin. Ogden was being escorted to U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, and his escorts, U.N.C.L.E. agents, could not permit him to see or know where he was being taken.

  2. Lone Wolf

  SITTING ALONE in his office at Headquarters, teeth firmly clenched on the stem of his pipe, Alexander Waverly stirred impatiently. Where were they? He looked up at the clock on the wall, took the pipe from his mouth, shook his head, then smiled despite himself. There was time, plenty of time. Under no circumstances—all having gone well—could they as yet have completed the mission. But soon.

  Shrugging, he sat back, lit the pipe, and, to curb his impatience, reviewed the matter of Howard Ogden, who just possibly could be the key to the solution of a problem that had been giving him a good deal of trouble for a number of years.

  During the past decade, certain Latin American countries—Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Bolivia—had been plagued by Communist revolutionaries. A longtime plague, chronic, persistent, it had, during the past couple of years, flared to alarming proportions, and the reason was—guns! For the past two years, there had been an immense, illegal influx of contraband guns and armaments to the revolutionaries.

  Waverly had long suspected that T.H.R.U.S.H. was behind this gigantic smuggling operation. Certainly the turmoil within these Latin American countries provided a rich and fertile field for nefarious T.H.R.U.S.H. activity. But whatever the cover, it was excellent: There was not a single shred of proof that T.H.R.U.S.H. was involved. And now, at last, a possibility, a hope—in the person of Howard Ogden.

  The chief of U.N.C.L.E. knew a great deal about Howard Ogden, and of one thing he was certain— Ogden was not a member of T.H.R.U.S.H. Indeed, he was not a member of anything! Ogden was a free-lancer, an individual adventurer, a soldier of fortune. In all truth, until now U.N.C.L.E. had displayed little interest in Howard Ogden—he was small fry, a loner, a solitary operator. Time and again, however, he had come within Waverly's scrutiny, but only as a tiny tangent to other, major investigations.

  Waverly knew, for instance, that five years ago Ogden had been arrested on the Pacific Coast, charged with gunrunning—illegally smuggling weapons, but on a small scale, to Communist China. The U.S. authorities had caught up with him, indicted him, then released him on bail awaiting trial, but Ogden had jumped the bail and fled the country. When last heard of, he was somewhere in South America.

  Quite recently Waverly had learned that Ogden was in Colombia, a hotbed of Comm
unist banditry and insurrection. But then, when Waverly had got a tip that Ogden was coming back to the States, his interest in Howard Ogden increased rapidly.

  To begin with, Ogden had been charged with gunrunning. That in itself was small concern to Waverly, but of large concern to Waverly was gunrunning in Latin America. Could Ogden, somehow, have become involved in that? And why was he coming back to the United States? Why would this man, a fugitive from justice, risk, under whatever pretense, under whatever forged papers, a return to the United States?

  Waverly's instincts had prickled. An experienced investigator, head of United Network Command for Law Enforcement, Alexander Waverly, a born ferret, played out his hunch. He assigned agents for discreet but intensive research on the subject of Howard Ogden and soon knew all there was to know about him.

  Ogden, a bachelor, a lone wolf, a criminal adventurer, was nonetheless a highly intelligent, resourceful man. A wily schemer, an opportunist, he was a shrewd, closemouthed individual reputed to know a great deal more than he ever let on. Thus, although Waverly had acquired many items of small information, he was aware that the information was far from sufficient.

  Waverly sighed. He wondered how much more— if anything—he would learn when Solo and Kuryakin delivered the man.

  It depends, he thought. It depends upon what levers Ogden himself might furnish to pry open that close mouth of his.

  As it turned out, Howard Ogden furnished all the levers that were necessary.

  3. An Extraordinary Discover

  A SMALL LICHT suddenly came alive on the desk console.

  Waverly pushed a button.

  "Yes?"

  The overhead loudspeaker boomed hollowly. Waverly recognized Kuryakin's voice.

  "Chief?"

  "Speak up, Mr. Kuryakin."

  "We're in Detention. We've got your chap here."

  "Good. Good work."

  "Thank you."

  "I'll be right down."

  Waverly clicked off the light on the console board and silence returned to the room. He knocked the ashes from his pipe, stood up, and went out along steel-walled corridors to the elevator in the rear.

  Downstairs in the Detention Section, Kuryakin opened the door to Waverly's knock. The Old Man smiled, his face wrinkling like ancient leather.

  "How did it go, gentlemen?"

  "No sweat. No—er—perspiration, sir," Illya replied, then pointed to the suitcases on the floor. "He was carrying those."

  "What else was he carrying?"

  "Else?" Illya inquired somewhat blankly.

  Solo grinned. "His personal belongings. His effects. Is that what you mean, sir?"

  "Of course."

  "Oh. Else. Yes." And now Illya grinned embarrassedly.

  "We haven't gathered them yet," Solo confided.

  "Where is he?"

  "Still asleep, sir. Naturally."

  "Naturally," the Old Man growled. "Well, kindly gather the effects, Mr. Solo."

  "Yessir. At once, Mr. Waverly."

  Solo took up a large manila envelope, went to a far wall, pushed a button, and a steel door slid open. Solo entered into a bright, well-ventilated room fitted out as a bedroom. Comfortably asleep on the bed was Howard Ogden. Quickly, gently, Solo searched him, placing his belongings in the manila envelope. Then he left the bedroom, touching the button again to close the steel door.

  "Everything?" the Old Man asked.

  "Everything," Solo replied.

  "Please take the bags, Mr. Kuryakin."

  They marched to the Investigation Room, the Old Man leading, Solo with the manila envelope following, and Illya with the heavy bags as the rear guard. There the Old Man sat in a wooden armchair at a long table, motioning for Solo and Kuryakin to sit on either side of him. Above them hovered a group of technical experts.

  The Old Man examined the contents of the manila envelope. Ogden was traveling under the name of Harry Owens. His papers and credentials showed him to be a machinery salesman for the Castillo Manufacturing Company, an old, respectable company in Colombia, South America, with its main office in the city of Bogotá.

  Brusquely the Old Man ordered, "Check that out, please, Mr. Kuryakin."

  "Yessir."

  Illya went to the privacy of another room where, alone, he made the transcontinental telephone call. When he returned to the Investigation Room he found it a swirl of activity. Experts were examining Ogden's passport and papers. Other experts were examining the suitcases, now empty. The contents of the suitcases—the small samples of machinery parts—were on a counter, being inspected by Billy Sol Kaplan, expert on metals.

  The Old Man looked up.

  "Well, Mr. Kuryakin?"

  "Two things, sir. Castillo Manufacturing does not sell machinery in the United States. And Castillo Manufacturing does not, and never did, employ a salesman named Harry Owens."

  The Old Man approved. "Excellent."

  And he sat, fingers drumming the arm of his chair, waiting word from his experts.

  The first report concerned the suitcases.

  "No false bottoms," an expert said. "No secret compartments. Nothing unusual. Just good, solid, ordinary valises."

  The Old Man nodded slowly. Quite obviously, he was disappointed.

  The next report had to do with Ogden's passport and papers.

  "Forgeries," an expert said. "Beautifully done. Fine quality. But forgeries, all."

  Again the Old Man nodded. This he knew. This he expected.

  Solo glanced toward Illya. The Old Man was fast getting nowhere. Disappointment was etched in every seam of his lined face. Now Waverly, shoulders drooping, turned toward Billy Sol Kaplan. What could he expect from the metals expert? A lecture about machinery parts. The Old Man's sigh was a quiver of disappointment.

  Billy Sol Kaplan was holding a gear wheel in his right hand.

  "These samples," he said, "are poor, quite crude." He tossed the gear wheel icily, catching it. "Rotten samples; put together, they simply wouldn't work." Suddenly he frowned and paused, lost in thought. "Just a minute."

  "What?" the Old Man asked dispiritedly. Again Solo glanced toward Kuryakin. All fight seemed to have been drained from the Old Man. He was merely going through the paces. The job, which at first had so happily animated him, now seemed to cast him deeper into a flat, sad hopeless ness.

  "What?" the Old Man repeated to Billy Sol, tossing and catching the iron gear wheel.

  "The heft of this, the feel," Billy Sol said excitedly. "I don't like it. The heft is wrong. Peculiar. Queer."

  Whirling about, Billy Sol dropped the gear wheel to the counter. From a cabinet above the counter, he took fine-pronged instruments and a microscope. He carefully examined the gear wheel, then, dancing about in his excitement, thrust it aside, took up another of the iron samples, examined that, and then another and another.

  Solo watched, Kuryakin watched, and the Old Man watched, each experiencing similar emotions. Billy Sol Kaplan was a little man, dry and wizened, older than his chief. He had once been a professor of physics at Yale University. What, now, had happened to Billy Sol Kaplan? Usually he was calm, dour, solid as the metals of which he was an acclaimed expert. But now his breathing was noisy, his little feet were jumping, he was dancing about like a youngster at a discotheque. Finally he made an extraordinary pronouncement.

  "Gentlemen," said Billy Sol Kaplan. "Every item contained in these suitcases is made of gold. Gold!"

  "Gold!" exclaimed Alexander Waverly.

  "Molten gold," returned Billy So!, "has been poured into crude molds, made to look like parts of machinery, then left to harden, and then covered with a thin veneer of sheet iron."

  And now it was the Old Man who was prancing as though to his own personal strains of go-go music. Lightly he trod to a phone, lifted the receiver, and said, "Send down Frank McCall. At once." Frank McCall was the money man, the financial wizard, the monetary expert.

  They waited, as though a fixed tableau, silent, expectant, motionless, all ex
cept Billy Sol Kaplan, who again, quite feverishly, was applying instruments to seemingly crude iron machinery parts.

  When McCall, out of breath, arrived, he was quickly briefed on the situation, and then he went into conclave with Billy Sol Kaplan. They talked quietly together, whispered, laughed, again examined with instruments the machinery parts, weighed the parts on a delicate scale, and when Frank McCall came out of conclave he announced, "Your salesman from Bogotá was carrying one hundred thousand dollars' worth of pure gold."

  Reaction was a great cumulative gasp, like the hiss of an erupting volcano, from the assemblage—all except Mr. Alexander Waverly, who calmly addressed Solo and Kuryakin.

  "Gentlemen."

  "Yessir," they replied in unison.

  "Please revive our slumbering guest."

  "Yessir."

  "And bring him up to my office for some gentle interrogation."

  "Yessir. Gentle. Interrogation. At once, Mr. Waverly."

  The Old Man grimaced good-naturedly.

  Solo and Illya left the room.

  4. Interrogation

  ALEXANDER WAVERLY sat in his swivel chair, his hands loosely clasped on his abdomen. Opposite him, the desk between them, sat Howard Ogden. A distance behind Ogden stood Solo and Kuryakin, like sentinels.

  The Old Man coughed, then smiled. "Mr. Ogden, do you know who I am?"

  "Owens," said Ogden, disregarding the question.

  The Old Man's smile tightened. His gaze concentrated. He saw before him a man lounging easily, long legs crossed, face serenely confident. The face was dark, well structured, with a strong jaw and dark, narrow, glittering eyes. "Mr. Owens, do you know who I am?"

  "Sir, you are known, respected, and sometimes feared by the entire world. Nobody knows who your agents are, who your people are, but you— you are internationally renowned. You are Alexander Waverly, head of United Network Command for Law Enforcement. What beats me is, what is your interest in me?"

  "Why not you, Mr. Ogden?"