Pulp Fiction | The Dagger Affair by David McDaniel

by Unknown

  "I came to this country as soon as I could after the War ended. I was embittered against the world, and came into contact with an old superior officer of mine in New York. He recommended me for trial membership, and I donned the gray uniform first in 1921.

  "Mr. Waverly, do you remember a gas called Thornite? It was a poison gas of a particularly vicious type, for the time. There was a sort of free-lance spy by the name of Kosloff who had gotten a copy of the formula and a sample of the liquid form of the gas. The Hierarchy decided to join in the rush of bidding for the information, and because of my training in chemical warfare I was assigned as an aide for the team of representatives we sent to Kosloff.

  "The man was a clever spy, but a clumsy technician. The arranged demonstration was highly successful, except that the gas escaped control and Kosloff as well as most of the witnesses were killed by it. My experiences in Salonica stood me in good stead — I improvised a mask which held together long enough to enable me to secure the last few drops of the gas and escape from the island. When I brought back this story, and the sample, I was rewarded with immediate advancement. The sample was analyzed, and the gas was added to our arsenal. It has some properties which kept it in demand until fairly recently.

  "The Hierarchy has never been so large there has been a lack of opportunity for advancement. As failure brings punishment, so does success bring reward. An efficient system, and one which continues to meet with pragmatic validation."

  He looked around, and then said, "Gentlemen, my apologies. If I were allowed to continue, I would talk about myself and the Hierarchy all night. We do have business to discuss — business of a serious nature. I suggest we adjourn back to the sitting room for a trade of information. Irene, I think the dishes can be left for the time being. I want you to join the discussion."

  When they returned to the front room, the sky outside was dark. A few stars could be seen, and the lights of the city were visible past the bulk of the park across the street. The gaslight seemed not only sufficient illumination, but quite appropriate for the setting. Baldwin filled his pipe, and handed the humidor to Waverly, who stoked his ancient briar and settled back contented.

  It was Illya who spoke first. "Mr. Baldwin, I think our first serious topic of discussion should be Kim Keldur — his history, his psychology, and his probable behavior. As his former...employer, your records should contain a wealth of data on him."

  "Quite correct. Robin here takes care of such things for me in addition to her medical duties. She is a true wonder as far as paperwork is concerned." He nodded to Robin, who began to quote as though from memory.

  "Kim Keldur joined Thrush in the fall of 1962, worked his way up in his Satrap rapidly and attracted the attention of Thrush Central. He underwent the full battery of tests, and passed all except the psychological. In effect, they indicated he had strong aptitudes for theoretical mathematics and for destroying the world. His lack of desire for material goods or power, and his positive distaste for mankind and all its works, were the deciding factors in his stabilization at a high local level. While an excellent field and research worker, Thrush Central found him unfit to advance to a policy-making level as his personal goals were too far divorced from those of our organization.

  "In January of 1965, Keldur and two fellow agents were flying from Hawaii to San Francisco when their plane disappeared. When no traces were found, they were presumed dead and their files closed. Then, some six months ago, a series of petty crimes were reported in various locations up and down the West Coast, utilizing techniques and equipment which our Intelligence unit recognized as those with which our agents were supplied. A complete security check was made at once, and no leaks were found.

  "Among the gear on the lost airplane were three complete field agent's kits. There was also a good assortment of other specialized items which had been employed on the Hawaiian trip — many of which had been there by Keldur's specific request.

  "When his name was given by the captured member of DAGGER, the likelihood that he was connected with these crimes passed minimum probability, and his sister was placed under surveillance. She had been unaware of his connection with Thrush, and was therefore not alert for us. We quickly found out Keldur was alive and active. We also found he had gathered a small organization of cohorts and supporters, and was in the process of developing some horrible weapon about which nothing could be discovered. Our field agents reported rumors which were generally disregarded as impossible regarding a field which could prevent ordinary weapons from functioning, or snuff fires, but no eyewitnesses could ever be found."

  Baldwin spoke. "The interrogation of the DAGGER member was a signal failure. There is no record of anyone in our experience ever having been so thoroughly indoctrinated against revealing information. If we can take another DAGGER with any information worth digging for, we will probably take as much time and care as we would in disarming a live bomb."

  "I would suggest –" Illya began, but was interrupted by a shattering of glass as the front window burst inward, showering Baldwin's chair with shards and splinters. A bottle, clad in flame, hit the rug near the center of the room and exploded in droplets of fire.

  "Hold your breath!" Baldwin said sharply, and did something with the arm of his chair. In the same moment that the bottle burst, spreading its flaming contents across the room, gray clouds of white smoke thundered from a number of small holes in the wall and billowed across the floor.

  A few seconds later the room was freezing cold, and dark. The only light came dimly through the broken window, filtered by the peasoup fog which seemed to fill the room.

  Irene was on her feet. "I'll get the air-conditioner running and clean this stuff out," she said, and was gone.

  Napoleon ventured a cautious inhalation, and choked. The clouds were water vapor condensing in the bitter cold, and carbon dioxide, from some dozen or so concealed fire extinguishers inside the walls.

  "The molotov cocktail," said Baldwin, in the tone of a lecturer concluding a demonstration, "is unsophisticated and old-fashioned, quite out of place in a modern, technical society. But it is quite practical, inexpensive, and extremely effective when properly used.

  "My apologies, gentlemen, for the foul odors. Irene had this installed some time ago, because my pipe occasionally gets out of hand and I cannot move fast enough to escape a fire. One of the penalties of living in a wood-paneled house of the late Victorian era." There was a distant rising hum, and the air began to feel colder. But the fog began to move out the shattered front window.

  Baldwin re-lit the gas lamp and surveyed the burned patches and extinguisher stains. "Efficient, gentlemen, and we probably owe our lives to it. But it does seem to have ruined the rug...."

  Chapter 11: "We May All Be Outnumbered!"

  The shards of the bottle had been picked up and saved with the greatest of care by Illya, and the next day he accompanied Waverly to the San Francisco office of U.N.C.L.E. While Waverly was in conference with Jerry Davis, the local chief of staff, he took the black and broken pieces of glass down to the lab and found a technician to help him in his work.

  Two hours later they had checked the fragments for fingerprints, ashes of fiber or hair, and subjected the charring to a mass-spectrum analyzer. The bottle itself was easily seen, from the remains of a label, to have originally contained Oak Barrel Muscatel, and this was verified by the analysis of the remaining material coating the glass.

  But of fingerprints, fibers, or any other type of more specific identification of the last user, none could be found.

  When Illya returned to the office level, Davis' secretary signaled him. "Mr. Solo and Mr. Waverly are here. Go right on in, please."

  Inside, he found a layout similar to that in Los Angeles. Three heads turned as he entered the room, and he found himself being introduced.

  "Welcome to San Francisco," said Jerry Davis, as he rose to shake hands. "I was just going over the situation with your fellow New Yorkers here, and touching on the subjec
t of our relations with the local law enforcement people."

  "Or you were about to," said Waverly.

  "The point I was about to make," said Davis, resuming his seat, "is that things are somewhat different in San Francisco. Perhaps you can get away with a lot as far as New York's Finest are concerned, but the police here take a dim view of running gun battles up and down Market Street, bombs going off in public places, and bodies left on the City Hall steps at dawn." He shook his head disapprovingly. "Do you ever work in cooperation with the New York police on problems?"

  Waverly frowned. "Our interests seldom overlap."

  "We work with ours quite often. Perhaps the New York police are more tolerant in view of your admittedly unusual position, but the San Francisco police do not find us at all amusing."

  He leaned forward. "Now, I'm not trying to tell you how your operation should be handled. But I feel you should know the situation. The police can be very helpful if you work with them, and they can also make things very awkward if you..." He shrugged. "You know."

  "Do we?" Napoleon asked innocently. "You seem to be cautioning us against breaking any local ordinances. We're really not such desperate criminals as that, you know. In fact, we'll try to keep our gun battles on back streets, and we'll only shoot people who really deserve it. And more than that — we'll make every effort to inform the police of our intentions in advance."

  "The problem is that our opponents may not abide by such civilized rules," Illya added. "In this battle — in all defensive battles — you must fight when and where your enemy wants to fight. It's a bad way to run a war, but it is required by convention. The sheriff must always let the bad man draw first."

  Waverly leaned forward. "That's enough. Mr. Davis, let us drop the subject. Reports of our behavior in New York are somewhat exaggerated."

  "Have you had any luck with the material Los Angeles sent up on DAGGER?" Napoleon asked, eager to change the subject.

  "Garnet Keldur's list of contributors? We've checked out the local ones — with the help of the police — and as far as we can tell they all think they're supporting a charitable organization. About two-thirds of them think he's a harmless crackpot, just want some interesting donations to take off their income tax. The other third think he may actually have a line on some way of stopping atomic war — and most of them are harmless crackpots, but crackpots with money."

  "He doesn't have a large following, then?"

  "No idea. He could have a small army. We just haven't found any of them yet. All the funds contributed go through a lot of devious channels to get to wherever they are going." He tossed a few stapled sheets of paper on the table. "A few bits of identifiable money have turned up — here's the data."

  Illya picked up the pages and leaned over to Napoleon so that they could both see them. Davis continued. "These are some stores where donation checks were cashed. Electronics supply stores — big ones. Never the same one twice."

  Waverly asked, "And have you checked out the stores, their clientele, and the cashers of these checks? Have you sent men to talk with the donors?"

  "Since the list here was only completed last night, we have scarcely had time. I was thinking your men might do some of the legwork .. ." He broke off as though he had been about to end the sentence with "...for a change," and then had thought better of it at the last instant.

  All right, thought Napoleon. The glamour boys from the Head Office are being given a hard time. So we'll play along. He looked at Illya and raised his eyebrows. Illya gave a little shrug in answer and nodded. They both looked at Waverly.

  Their superior also nodded, though without a great deal of enthusiasm; he turned to Davis and said, "Of course. Do them good."

  * * *

  "Yeah, I remember that. Ordinarily we don't cash checks, y'know, especially that big. But it was written locally, and we called the bank to see if it was okay. And the guy was real nice. Sharp, too. Knew just what he wanted, and got it. And he needed most all of that check for the stuff, too."

  "Do you remember what it was he bought?" Illya asked.

  The man pursed his lips, and stared at the ceiling while he blew out a long sigh, thinking hard. "Gosh, no. Not after all this time. There was a lot of heavy-duty stuff, I remember — I asked him if he was building his own power station or a 50-kilowatt transmitter. And what was it he said? Something about...Oh, yeah. He said, 'I have a big hi-fi rig.' Got a kick out of that."

  "Anything besides simple components? Anything that wouldn't go into a hi-fi rig?"

  "No...not that I can...Wait a minute. He wanted half a dozen GX 40 B9 tubes, and we didn't have any. That's a kind of unusual tube — it's a multi-stage internal resonator with a real high inductive reactance field. Not much call for it from our customers. I told him he might try Charmolian Electronics over in Oakland — they have a good stock of special-order items."

  "And did he?"

  "Gee, I wouldn't know. You would have to check with them. He probably did, though — he was pretty bugged 'cause we didn't have those tubes, and he sure wanted 'em. Here, I'll give you their address. Charmolian'd remember — something funny like that."

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Napoleon Solo was more pleasurably engaged. A mansion sat amid the trees in the mountains above Oakland, looking over the city to the shining sheet of water that was the Bay, and the rising mound of San Francisco far away through the haze. And out on the sun deck a girl lay basking, with plastic eye-cups protecting her vision from the beautiful view.

  Napoleon crouched beside her, talking intently. It had taken a good bit of intent talking already to get this far. She didn't want visitors, and she didn't care who they were. She had never heard of U.N.C.L.E., and didn't want to. She didn't know who can Keldur was, and she never gave to charities. But at least she was now lying still again and listening. Napoleon gave silent thanks for that correspondence course in salesmanship, and kept talking.

  * * *

  "GX 40 B9?" The man behind the counter frowned. "I don't know anything about that. Let me get Mr. Charmolian for you. He takes care of all our special items — knows the whole stock by heart." He disappeared, and a fraction of a minute later was replaced by a man about four feet tall and four feet wide. He bounced like a rubber ball.

  "What do you know about those GX 40 B9s?" he squeaked. "Are you from the police?"

  "Not exactly. What would interest the police about these tubes?"

  "What do you mean, 'not exactly'? Look, mister, I reported the theft to the police the day after I found out about it — and I only spent that day making sure they weren't lost. You from the insurance company?"

  "No," said Illya, fishing out his identification. "I represent the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement."

  "Yeah? I've heard of you. Like Interpol?"

  "Somewhat. Now what about these tubes? How many were stolen, and when?"

  "Four. All we had in the warehouse stock. I found they were gone about six days ago."

  "How?"

  "Well, we always keep a couple handy — we get a lot of business from people who need off-beat stuff right away — and a guy came in and bought both of them. Last Tuesday, it was. And the warehouse manager couldn't find the replacement stock. So the next day, I had to get over to the warehouse myself to check a big order, and I took a look for the GX 40 B9s. And they weren't there."

  "You checked..."

  "Mister, I check that place all over! Now, I know those tubes were there, because I brought 'em in myself, see, and if I didn't trust Pat completely I'd probably say it was him stole 'em. Pat Frieden's my warehouse manager, and he's been with me twenty-three years. But I don't know how any burglars could have gotten in there — we've got the whole place wired with the best alarms we can get. And besides, burglars would have taken more than just four tubes. I mean, they're valuable tubes, but where could they sell 'em? Nobody could have any use for 'em."

  "What about the man who bought the two you had here?"

  "Bu
t he got his two. What would he need any more for?"

  "Did he only ask for two?"

  "Yeah. I handled the sale myself — the boys leave the special items to me. I keep the whole stock inventory right here," he said proudly, tapping his forehead. "The guy said, 'You got any GX 40 B9 tubes?' and I said, 'We sure do, mister. Got a couple right back here.' And he said, 'Fine. That's just how many I need' and took 'em."

  Illya nodded.

  * * *

  Napoleon was still talking to the girl. She lay facing the declining sun within her glass-walled deck. Her butler occasionally came out with an iced pitcher of something to keep her glass filled. Napoleon had not been invited to join her, but at least she was speaking to him now.

  "Really, Mr. Solo, the world is quite a large place. I should think it would be impossible to build something that would do...this...to all of it at once."

  "A hundred years ago, it would have been impossible to build something that would carry a voice to every point on the globe. But the big radio stations can do it. And this man is onto something at least a hundred years ahead of present-day science, and on a different track. Believe me, I have had this machine very effectively demonstrated."

  Her head turned slightly, and a slim golden hand came up to lift the plastic eye-protectors. Her cool gray eyes looked straight at him for the first time. She smiled. "Mmmm. You are much handsomer than I would have guessed from your voice," she said. "You may sit closer to me, and continue telling me...whatever you were telling me. Do you mind if I interrupt with a question once in a while?"

  "Not at all," said Napoleon politely. "It'll show you're still listening."

  She laughed as though she practiced it in private, and tapped her fingernail against her glass. "Godfrey, another glass."

  She stretched like a cat, her arms over her head, fingers curling, body twisting a little. When the glass was placed before Napoleon a moment later, she said, "It's beginning to get cool, Godfrey. What you turn on the infra-reds as you go in?"