Pulp Fiction | The Dagger Affair by David McDaniel

by Unknown

  "First, allow me to apologize for the rudeness of refusing to meet you face-to-face. But I am sure you understand the necessary precautions."

  "Perfectly," said the spokesman. "An unarmed man is the most dangerous of assassins because few will guard against him. This way you will be able to listen to us without having to guard against us at the same time. And what we have to tell you and show you is of the greatest importance. If we could arrange to have these spools of videotape fed into the system..."

  "Certainly. Hand them to the gentlemen outside your door."

  One of the Thrushes rose, tape reels in hand, and crossed to the door, which opened automatically, revealing an armed guard. The guard accepted the tape without a word.

  "Mr. Waverly, we are from the Public Relations branch of Thrush. We have data which will be of interest to you, regarding the problem of the organization known as 'DAGGER'."

  Napoleon leaned forward intently. Illya nodded quietly to himself as if he had expected it all along. Waverly spoke guardedly. "We are aware of the problem of DAGGER."

  "A short time ago," said the Thrush spokesman, "DAGGER came to the attention of a Satrap on the West Coast. With some difficulty, a high-level member of this organization was brought in for interrogation, to satisfy ourselves as to the nature, goals, and affiliations of DAGGER.

  "The tape you are about to see is our record of that interrogation. Down the right side of the frame you will see the simultaneous polygraph recording of the subject's reactions. In the lower left corner is a meter which indicates the amount of electric current being fed through the arms of the chair. Across the bottom of the frame will appear identification of other techniques used in the interrogation. We have mimeographed copies of the transcript available for you."

  An orange light flashed on Waverly's panel, and he spoke. "The tape is ready. Do you want it played now?"

  "Yes, please."

  He touched another button, and the image of their visitors tore up and was replaced by a field of jagged lines which shortly resolved into a scene familiar to both Napoleon and Illya.

  The camera was looking down on the subject, fastened into a metal chair in the middle of a small metal cell. His body was erect, and his mouth was firmly set. A voice said, "What is your name?...What city is this?...Where are you from?" There were pauses between the questions, but the man gave no sign of having heard them. The traces on the polygraph record were unsteady.

  "What are the goals of DAGGER?" The lines down the side jumped badly, with the respiration trace recovering first, heart second. Skin conductivity was drifting toward the edge of the scale until a light at the top of the frame flashed "CALIBRATE." Then it centered up, continued to drift, and finally settled into a new position.

  "Where is the headquarters of DAGGER located?" The heart was beating faster and the breathing was shallower. Skin conductivity rose steadily. The man was becoming increasingly terrified, but was obviously not going to volunteer any information. The voice said, "No more questions." The man relaxed.

  A moment later the word "HYPNAMINE" appeared across the bottom of the frame, and the picture tore up. When it re-formed, the voice said, "Gas administered ten minutes ago. Subject in medium trance."

  The man was slumped forward in the chair. His breathing was deep and irregular, his heartbeat slow, skin conductivity low. The voice spoke again, soft and insistent. "I am your friend. I wish only to help you. But you must help me. Tell me the names of your other friends in DAGGER."

  The man in the chair raised his head a little and looked glassily toward the TV monitor below the camera. In the upper left-hand corner of the frame suddenly appeared a slowly-turning spiral, drawing the eye to its center. The man stared fixedly at his screen, where the hypnotic vortex was presumably full-sized. He made a vague sound, like an attempt at speech.

  "Tell me the names of your other friends in DAGGER."

  "Misstraut allen, in welchen der tribe zu strafen mächtig ist."

  There was a moment's silence while the interrogator considered this; then he said, "Geben sie mir die Namen ihrer anderen Freunde im DOLCH."

  The subject stared into the depths of the spiral and said, without intonation, "Jeder kleinst schritt auf der Erde is ehedem mit geistigen und körperlichen Martern erstritten worden."

  "Wo befindet sich der Hauptsitz der Vereinigung?"

  The man continued to speak in German, while Napoleon tried to remember why the phrases sounded familiar. Then he had it — they were quotations from the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher who had preached the conquest of mankind by the superior man. It seemed appropriate, considering what they knew of DAGGER.

  There was a pause before the interrogator spoke again, and this time there was a slight edge to his soothing voice. "Welche seien die Ziele ihrer Vereinigung?"

  The subject's face had not changed expression, nor had the polygraph traces revealed any sign of nervous reaction. Nothing moved but his mouth, as he continued to give voice to the quotations.

  After a moment the figures "G-12" appeared at the bottom of the screen, and a few seconds later pulse and respiration dropped and the man's head sank forward as his voice trailed off. The picture tore up again as a voice said, "Subject has now regained consciousness."

  When the image steadied, the man was looking around nervously. The voice spoke again. "You apparently will not cooperate without a little prodding. Let us know when you have decided to talk."

  The dial in the lower left-hand corner of the frame stirred a little off zero and rose perhaps a tenth of the scale. But the effect was totally unexpected. The pulse and respiration shot up and skin conductivity went off-scale in a moment. The man struggled against the clamps in panic, and gasped. "No! The leader is Keldur — Kim Kel..." His voice caught and choked.

  The polygraph record showed a deep breath gasped in and held as the heart spasmed violently twice, and lapsed into slight irregular twitchings. The electric current was cut off at once, but the heart contracted again as the man in the chair made an awful sound and strained against the clamps.

  The respiration trace showed one last shuddering exhalation as the heart stopped. The man slumped loosely in the chair, like a puppet with its strings cut. Skin conductivity began to fall slowly. Blood pressure fell. Pulse and respiration were two perfectly straight lines. After a while the picture cut off and the screen went dark.

  Napoleon Solo glanced across the table. Illya was studying the backs of his hands intently. Napoleon reached for a carafe of water, and poured himself a glass. His mouth and throat seemed uncommonly dry. They had seen men die before, but watching a machine reading out every bodily function, automatically recording every detail of his last moments, was not pleasant.

  Then Waverly touched a button and the four representatives from Thrush were on the television monitor again.

  As soon as the screen lit up, the spokesman said, "I don't believe I made clear to you the scale on that voltmeter. The amount it registered just before the subject's heart attack was quite small — it would have been moderately painful, but by no means fatal except in cases of a diseased heart or some other physical weakness. This man's heart was strong and regular until the pain was applied.

  "I might also point out to you that even while under deep drug hypnosis he was able to resist our suggestions. The German he spoke turned out to be quotations, apparently at random, from various works of Nietzsche — so deeply implanted that they dominated even his subconscious.

  "An organization that can indoctrinate its members this effectively is not an ordinary organization. And if our reports on the nature of their main weapons are not exaggerated, they present a threat greater than any the world has ever faced."

  Waverly said, "They are not exaggerated. Every word of them is true."

  The Thrush nodded. "Apparently the man panicked when he realized we were going to begin applying pain stimuli. He blurted out the name of Kim Keldur at the last moment, but the stimulus was applied anyway." He p
aused. "The interrogator was too quick. He has been disciplined.

  "The name was checked out. Kim Keldur was found in our records — as a member of the San Francisco nest of Thrush. He was also listed as deceased, about a year ago. Discounting this, his files were examined. Keldur was — or is — a brilliant theoretical mathematician, specializing in the physical sciences. He could not have risen above the rank of technician, however, because of a dangerous psychological instability revealed by the extensive tests our applicants undergo. He could have been a danger to the organization, as intelligent as he was — his philosophy was too much at odds with our own. He believed..." (the Thrush consulted his notes briefly) "...he believed that mankind was fundamentally evil, base, worthless, and deserving only of destruction." He stopped, and looked up at the camera.

  "It was our conclusion that Kim Keldur was: a) the head of an organization called DAGGER; b) the inventor of some kind of weapon of unsurpassed destructive potential; c) capable of employing that weapon to any ends, not short of total destruction of the human race. Certain evidences he left behind when he disappeared and was believed dead indicated the direction of his last researches. He was working on the nature of energy transference — the way magnetic energy becomes motion, for instance, or nuclear energy becomes heat and light. This, coupled with his psychological predilections, left us with only one conclusion.

  "It was in anticipation of our course of action that all our...less socially acceptable activities on the West Coast were discontinued, and all our efforts have been bent toward locating Keldur — and DAGGER. When Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin suddenly appeared in Los Angeles, we apparently overestimated your intelligence service and concluded they, too, were interested in locating and stopping Kim Keldur."

  He paused, and smiled a wry little smile. "We would like very much to know how Mr. Solo managed to locate Kim Keldur and learn of his planned attack on Boulder Dam within twenty-four hours after landing in Los Angeles — especially since our evidence indicates strongly that he arrived with no knowledge of the existence of DAGGER."

  Napoleon cleared his throat self-consciously. "Well," he said modestly, "I live a clean life."

  "And you have helpful friends," Illya murmured.

  "This is all very well researched," said Waverly, with a hint of impatience in his voice, "but what is your purpose in telling us things we already know?"

  "Mr. Waverly, the idea of the destruction of the world has Thrush worried in much the same way it has U.N.C.L.E. worried. The objective of Thrush, as you know, is to rule the world — so obviously we do not want the world destroyed, especially since we would perforce go with it. We must therefore do all we can to save the world from Kim Keldur's threat.

  "Thrush is well-organized, but it is not really such a large organization. We have many freedoms that you do not, but you have massive power. We have technical developments and weapons beyond yours, but you have the strength of public opinion. You have endless restrictions, but we have enemies all about us. You have been unable to do anything about Kim Keldur and DAGGER. So have we. Mr. Waverly, in view of the circumstances, Thrush offers an alliance with U.N.C.L.E. for the duration of the common threat."

  There was absolute silence in the office. Waverly stared at the screen, and very slowly removed the pipe from his mouth. Without looking he set it down very softly on the table.

  After a moment the Thrush spokesman added, "There are many arrangements that must be made for mutual security. We will leave a number of our key personnel as hostages for any agents working with us; Thrush extralegal activities in the affected areas will cease for the duration; and so on."

  At last Waverly managed to speak. "If you don't mind, we will cut out of the circuit for a few minutes. This will take quite a bit of study." He blanked the screen and turned to face Napoleon and Illya.

  Illya spoke first. "Do you really think they can be trusted?"

  "Of course not — but they can be relied upon. Thrush will do anything that is most practical, most efficient, most direct. The question is, how far are they willing to go under these circumstances?"

  "If they are so efficient and practical, perhaps they are correct in their appraisal of the threat of DAGGER. All our evidence — and I see no reason to doubt the evidence they showed us — indicates their analysis of the situation to be reasonably accurate."

  "And since we blunted their point at Boulder Dam," Napoleon added, "DAGGER seems to have gone so far underground we couldn't find them without a mining engineer. Thrush doesn't have the personnel for heavy-duty routine footwork like this is going to be."

  "Yes," said Illya. "And U.N.C.L.E. doesn't have the contacts to know where to dig."

  Waverly nodded, and tapped absently at the bowl of his pipe. "Since Keldur was trained by Thrush, they would also be better able to predict his behavior. They also have access to information we lack."

  "We might be able to work with them under certain conditions," said Illya, "protecting our backs at all times and watching out for doublecrosses. I think we can believe they have no desire to be destroyed along with the rest of the world."

  Waverly reached for his tobacco jar, and there was silence as he carefully filled his pipe, tamped it with a moistened thumb, and set it afire. At last he said, "Is there anything else?"

  There wasn't. He touched the button that put them back in communication with their visitors.

  "We are willing to discuss terms for this temporary alliance you suggest. There are however, a great many aspects of security which must be handled carefully."

  The Thrush spokesman smiled. "Here you have more to gain than we do — since we already know most of the inner workings of U.N.C.L.E., and you will no doubt be able to learn more about the secrets of Thrush."

  Waverly cleared his throat. "In point of fact, we have little to learn about Thrush. We know almost everything about you — including exactly how much you know about us — and how much of it is true. But our focus of interest should be on finding out more about DAGGER," he added with mild reproof.

  "The interrogation you just witnessed, combined with our knowledge of Keldur's psychology, indicates most strongly that this is not a group of rational individuals," said the Thrush leader, his inflection implying that this in itself was sufficient reason for their destruction. "DAGGER, we have every reason to believe, is made up of fanatics — people who are incapable of logical reasoning." He hesitated. "We have not yet been able to determine the cause behind such a large number of fanatically dedicated individuals clustering together. Nor have we been able to make an estimate as to the actual number. But our data indicates a minimum of one hundred."

  "You have shown us something we didn't know," said Waverly. "Allow us to return the favor. Only the innermost circle of DAGGER is aware of their actual goal. Other parts of the organization know only as much of the total as is necessary. As to their fanaticism, this is also related to their position in the ranks. The innermost circle is quite as fanatic as your evidence indicates."

  "Fanatics are the worst enemies," said the Thrush, "and the worst friends, as well. We employ a few, for special purposes, but dislike them as a matter of policy. Any man who cannot be bought cannot be trusted. He may sell you out at a whim."

  Waverly's face crumpled into a smile of disbelief. "This may seem immodest," he said, "but I have always considered myself trustworthy, and of my best agents I have heard nothing of bribery."

  "Proof of our point, Mr. Waverly. A man's price is not always money, but depends on the man. Money is the most common denominator, but in fact your loyalty has been bought — by the ideals which the United Network Command for Law Enforcement represents. This is your price — and it is a price which Thrush cannot meet. If U.N.C.L.E. stopped working toward those ideals — if they stopped paying your price — you would take your services to any other organization that would pay the coin you can accept. You are trustworthy because you have been bought — and at a price which few could top."

  Waverly n
odded slowly and thoughtfully, sucking on his pipe. He smiled again. "You may be right. And may I add that most of my top agents are 'bought' for the same price — service, directed toward the control of crime. Crime of all kinds," he added pointedly.

  He considered a moment, then suggested, "I would guess that the price Thrush pays its highest echelon is personal power?"

  "That is mostly correct. We try to buy every man at his own price. Power is the highest, money the lowest. You show a quick grasp of our principles — I think we may be able to come to some kind of agreement after all."

  * * *

  Negotiations continued for several hours. Waverly was on the intercom part of the time, on the transoceanic telephone part of the time, and bringing consultants from other departments into his office most of the time. There were a vast number of things to arrange.

  The Thrushes were to remain as hostages, but Waverly insisted on at least two high-ranking operatives of equal value to Solo and Kuryakin. Thrush agreed without reservation to cooperate with U.N.C.L.E. until the problem of Kim Keldur and DAGGER was nullified. At the insistence of Waverly, they agreed, although hesitantly, to modify their methods of operation to some extent during the period of cooperation, out of deference to the sensitivities of the governmental supporters of U.N.C.L.E. with regard to anything illegal.

  Because of the greater flexibility of the Thrush organization, it was determined that Solo and Kuryakin would go to San Francisco, to work with the Nest there.

  "Keldur has definitely pulled out of Los Angeles," the Thrush spokesman said. "We have been able to trace a few of his supporting connections, and everything indicates that his base is somewhere in the Bay Area. Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin have the only first-hand knowledge of DAGGER."

  "Of course," said Waverly. He paused, thoughtfully. "I think," he said slowly, "we will be sending a third party."

  "Fine," said the Thrush. "Separate accommodations?"

  "Not necessary," said Waverly. "I plan to work in the same conditions my men do."