Pulp Fiction | The Dagger Affair by David McDaniel

by Unknown

  "Whatever he told you," Napoleon suggested, "subtract about fifteen from it. We've had a very busy evening."

  Baldwin produced a large gold watch from his vest pocket and consulted it. "At this hour it may take a while to call up support. But time is definitely of the essence. Irene..."

  "Yes, dear. We are on the route to South San Francisco now."

  "Thank you. Mr. Solo — Mr. Kuryakin — it is quite late, but would you care to investigate?"

  "I wouldn't miss it!"

  "Yes, we owe them a visit."

  "How long will it take to arrange support?"

  "It is being arranged for. It may be as much as half an hour, allowing for travel time," said Illya, ostentatiously replacing the transceiver no one had seen him bring out.

  "Good. Irene..."

  "Yes, dear. ETA about seven minutes."

  "Thank you."

  * * *

  The location was a small electronics store on Grand, a few blocks off the freeway. Horne had been put to sleep peacefully with an injection of something Baldwin had taken out of the cocktail cabinet, and was left snoring gently in the back seat.

  Irene cruised slowly past the address, and pulled into the alley behind it.

  The store was dark and silent as they got out and approached the back door. Baldwin stepped forward, murmuring, "Allow me..."

  He bent over the door, leaning his cane against the wall, and the shadow of his body hid his actions from them. But some fifteen seconds later the door swung open silently.

  He straightened, and picked up his cane. "It was necessary to detach one of our protective devices. Mr. Keldur is foolishly attempting to use against us equipment developed by the Hierarchy, perhaps still unaware that we're now working against him. But I fear we will find little. The birds appear to have flown." He stepped aside, and gestured. "My own agility is somewhat impaired. Will you precede me?"

  Napoleon's gun nestled lightly in his hand as he stuck his head around the corner of the doorframe. The room was in total darkness. A thin beam from Illya's pencil flash flitted around the room, showing workbenches, racks, shelves and cabinets, all empty. The drawers were open, the cabinet doors swung wide. The door into the front of the shop stood slightly ajar, and Baldwin examined the hinges, top, and bottom carefully before opening it.

  Irene's large five-cell flash shone around.

  The counter had been cleared, and the shelves were as empty of stock as the back room.

  Illya broke the silence. "I think we're late." He reached for the switch near the door, and Baldwin spoke.

  "Mr. Kuryakin — the light switch may be wired to a bomb. I think the flashlights are quite sufficient under the circumstances."

  Illya's hand dropped, and his lips tightened a little. He scanned his light along a workbench. It was charred in little lines as though by soldering irons carelessly laid down, and little shiny flecks of metal caught the light and squinted back. A long shadow appeared in the beam, and Napoleon reached for the little shielded capacitor that cast it.

  Irene started to say something, but Baldwin cleared his throat and spoke with a voice of infinite patience.

  "Mr. Solo — if you're going to continue toying with things, I fear we must leave you alone, and quickly. Please try to understand that the shop has quite probably been very well booby-trapped. They would not have cleared out so completely if they had not been expecting us — and they would certainly have left something for us to find. We can do no more here; in the morning I will send a few technicians out to check the entire site over carefully. And in case you are interested, that is not a condenser, but a pressure-sensitive bomb of sufficient power to destroy your hand and necessitate amputation of most of your arm."

  Napoleon drew his hand back as smoothly and casually as he had extended it. He turned politely to face his host, and said, "I bow to your superior knowledge." He bowed slightly, and started for the door.

  Illya paused a moment. "Mr. Baldwin, what is the likelihood that they would have left something shall we say, a little more personal?"

  "Not unlikely at all. If we are allowed to leave here quietly, I shall be most thankful and moderately surprised. How soon will the support from your people arrive?"

  Illya glanced at his watch, and canted his head doubtfully. "Perhaps another ten minutes."

  Napoleon stepped outside, and something slapped into the doorframe. He stepped back inside. "You can save both the thanks and the surprise. Either I've just been shot at again, or you have .38 caliber mosquitoes coming up from the salt flats."

  Baldwin frowned, and looked at his wife. "My apologies, dear. I had not expected you to become quite so involved with this field problem."

  Irene smiled. "Ward, you know perfectly well I've missed the excitement of field work since our last promotion. I wouldn't have missed this for the world." She opened her purse. "See? I even brought along my derringer."

  The small handgun she produced hardly qualified as a lady's weapon — its twin barrels looked large enough to accept a thumb, and both Napoleon and Illya recognized it as the largest punch per cubic inch available to the general public — a .357 magnum derringer.

  Illya cleared his throat and looked doubtfully at Napoleon, who shrugged. Very few people could handle that much weapon, and none of them in his experience had been women. He looked at the slivers where the bullet had torn through the doorframe, and wished for his own U.N.C.L.E. Special, lying on a warehouse floor in Oakland, miles away across the bay. Maybe tomorrow he could retrieve it. Until then he would have to make do with the spare he had saved from the burned car. This had not been what one would call a successful day.

  It had been along one, though. The time was approaching four-thirty. It's a good thing I'm superhuman, Napoleon thought, as he checked the clip in the automatic. Otherwise I'd probably be getting pretty tired of all this by now. He looked at Illya.

  His partner was on hands and knees, next to the door, peering around it carefully. He brought his automatic up to eye-level, squeezed off a shot, and ducked back. Irene said, "Excuse me, but do you gentlemen have any form of gas masks? Nostril filters or similar devices? We're likely to be under attack with our own gases as well." Her voice seemed muffled, and Napoleon looked around.

  She and her husband were wearing small affairs something like anti-silicosis masks. Napoleon sighed, and got out his nose filters again.

  Illya announced, "They're hiding out there, keeping a very sharp watch on the door. The fact they haven't attacked would indicate all they want to do is keep us pinned down for a while."

  "They probably want to relieve us of our guest," suggested Napoleon. "Would we mind?"

  "Yes," said Baldwin. "There are doubtless many things he has not told us, and I should still like to send him over the Powell-Hyde cable. It has a few interesting additions.... Irene, do you have an idea?"

  Mrs. Baldwin was rummaging about in her purse by the light from Illya's pencil flash. She looked up and smiled. "I think so, dear. I've found my long comb, but I'm looking for a piece of tissue paper. It's an old trick, but they often work best against these moderns."

  Napoleon stared at her, and sighed deeply. "Well I suppose music hath charms to soothe the savage et cetera, but is it really ofpractical application right now?"

  Irene glanced up from her search and favored him with the patient smile he had come to know and hate. "I don't indulge in musical entertainments, Mr. Solo; I simply have what Ward likes to call an unorthodox mind for weaponry. Perhaps if I told you I also needed my mirror and my eyebrow pencil you would understand?"

  Napoleon wouldn't, but he knew better than to say so. If he did, she might tell him. And he wasn't sure he was quite ready to know.

  Illya stood close to the door, occasionally leaning a bit toward it in an attempt to see something outside without materially increasing his chances of absorbing a bullet. He couldn't.

  Meanwhile Irene was busy working on a facial tissue with the eyebrow pencil. The top was roughl
y darkened, then two large round circles were drawn and carefully shaded. A long oval patch was added, and she held it up to admire her workmanship. She turned to her husband.

  "Will it pass, dear?"

  Baldwin looked at it a few seconds, and a diabolical smile of satisfaction spread across his features. "Irene, you are a credit to the firm. Write yourself a pay voucher for brilliant improvisation under fire." He looked benignly at the U.N.C.L.E. agents. "You see, the Hierarchy is not as dependent on complex technology as you might think. Simple ingenuity is always valuable."

  Irene had hung the tissue paper to the very end of her long comb, so the face hung down, pale in the darkness. She held out the mirror to Illya. The Russian looked at it with knitted brows and intense concentration. Then gradually his eyes brightened, and he smiled his wry little smile and accepted it.

  He and Irene went to the door, where Illya knelt down and, holding the handle in his fingertips, extended the mirror almost to the edge of the frame. Irene stood over him, and put the end of the comb out. Then Napoleon understood.

  From ten feet or more away down the alley, in the dim light of a distant streetlamp, there would be a face peering anxiously out from the edge of the door. If they didn't spot Illya's mirror, he could see from the muzzle flashes where the snipers were located. The most efficient flash-shield in the world can't protect from straight ahead — only seldom does it to the witness any good.

  There was a shot, and the tissue fluttered. Illya muttered something. "Can't see. I'll have to get closer to the mirror." As he edged forward another shot shredded the edge of the tissue, and Illya snorted. "There he is. Behind a trash bin about fifty feet down to the left."

  "Do you see any more?"

  "No...Yes. Two just broke and sprinted across the alley about ten yards away. They're coming closer."

  A third shot tore through the tissue paper, leaving a fairly neat hole. Napoleon hoped it wouldn't seem odd to the sniper that his target didn't fall.

  I think there are only the three of them," Illya said. He put his left hand out with the U.N.C.L.E. Special, and rested the butt on the ground just around the corner of the door. Still holding the mirror in his right hand, he sighted carefully and fired. There was a sound like a flat Chinese gong, and an answering shot from the sniper.

  Suddenly the tissue paper was gone, and Irene pulled her hand back. She looked at the stump of her comb, and said something entirely unladylike. "My best tortoise-shell rat-tail! Mr. Kuryakin, give me that mirror."

  Illya handed her the mirror, and moved away.

  Talking the mirror under one arm, Irene broke the action of her derringer and checked the ammunition. Then she closed it and flexed her fingers. "I suggest you hold your ears," she said coolly, and put the mirror around the corner of the door. There was a shot from their sniper, and something slapped a shower of splinters out of the frame just above the mirror. "Thank you," said Irene politely, and extended the gun. Napoleon placed his palms flat over his ears, and felt his spine go tense.

  The detonation was like a thunderclap. He felt the concussion all over the side of his body toward the door, and his ears ached despite their protection.

  He lowered his hands and looked around. Irene was kneading her right hand with her left. The mirror lay on the floor. The gun was nowhere in sight. "I think I got him," she said. "Illya, take a look. Mr. Solo, see if you can find my toy."

  Illya looked carefully around the corner of the door. Under the streetlight, the trash bin lay on its side, some fifteen feet farther away than it had been. Looking carefully, he could see an arm and a leg sticking out from under the edge. They weren't moving.

  He pulled his head back. "Yes. You did get him."

  "Can you see the other two?"

  "No, I'm afraid not. They may...No, there they are. On the other side of the car." Dropping to his belly, he fired along the surface of the alley at the ankles visible under the high-slung body of the Rolls. The bullet screamed off the pavement and both sets of legs pulled up out of sight. So did Illya.

  "I think they're into your car. Can they start it?"

  "No," said Irene. "They'll have to be satisfied with Mr. Horne." She shook her head sadly. "It seems a shame for him to leave so soon — we should have taken him out to Sutro's and Golden Gate Park before ending the tour. But it was rather late, and we did have business to transact with him. Perhaps we may persuade him to come around again...."

  Something arced over the top of the car and burst with a pop just outside the door. In a moment dense dark smoke filled the alley. "You see," said Irene through her mask. "What did I tell you?"

  "I think it's just a screen laid down so they can get Horne out without our getting a clear shot," said Napoleon. "I'm going outside. Here's your derringer." He tossed it to Irene and ducked out into the smoke.

  Then he was blind. He could breathe, slowly, but his eyes burned and he wanted to gasp. Squinting against the stuff, he felt his way forward until his outstretched hands hit the side of the car. He groped along it until he found the front door handle, and wrenched it open.

  The smoke followed him inside the car, but he could breathe more normally, and he could see out the opposite window. The figures already several yards away were carrying a limp figure between them and hurrying down the alley. They were passing under the streetlight by the overturned trash bin when Napoleon saw them, and one turned to look. He almost dropped the feet he was carrying, and turned away quickly. Napoleon wondered what he had seen.

  He opened the window, cupped his hands, and called. "Okay, you two. Put him down and your hands up."

  Startled, the two men dodged sideways into a narrow space between two buildings, and Napoleon sent a shot whining down the alley past it to ensure they would keep their heads in. Then he leaned out of the car into the thinning smoke on the other side. "Illya, they're cornered. Come on and we'll rout them out."

  From somewhere a slug snapped past his head and he ducked back. A back-up man they'd missed! He hoped the Rolls was armored. Those DAGGERs had thought of everything.

  From the direction of the shot, Napoleon guessed him to be at the other end of the alley, away from the light, but the echoes among the walls were confusing and contradictory. He rose cautiously and peered through the back window. There was no sign of the gunman.

  This was getting more annoying. Now there was nothing to do but wait for the rescue group from U.N.C.L.E. to...

  A fusillade of shots broke out from the far end of the alley, and a moment later a tall man came hurrying toward them, making no attempt to cover himself. "Solo — Kuryakin — you all right?"

  "Next time announce yourself," Napoleon called. "You're right on time, but I wish we'd known when to expect you," he added as the U.N.C.L.E. agent came up to the car.

  Baldwin stood in the doorway, an irritated look on his face, and something small and metallic in his hand. With a slight shock Napoleon recognized the capacitor-bomb from the workbench.

  "Mr. Solo, you could have saved me an awkward job disarming this thing. It is now in a condition where it will have to be treated with special care. I had intended to throw it to the second-string sniper and damage him severely enough we could overpower him without assistance from your fellows."

  "Well, I'm sorry," said Napoleon with a slight edge to his voice. "If I'd known they were coming, I'd have arranged for you to meet them."

  He turned quickly to ask the next approaching U.N.C.L.E. agents about the condition of his attacker, ignoring whatever reply Baldwin might choose to make.

  Illya and Irene came out to the Rolls and made ready to leave. As Illya got into the back seat, he patted Napoleon on the shoulder. "That's all right, Napoleon. We love you anyway."

  He looked at the Russian agent without any expression at all. At last he shook his head. "I think I'll just give up the whole dirty business," he said cheerfully. "I'll turn in my gun, change my name, retire to a village on Minorca, and breed wombats. I just can't keep up with things anymore.
In one day I have had to be rescued twice; I have lost one gun and one car; I have been insulted an average of twice an hour by our host. My heart is just no longer in my work."

  Illya shook his head sympathetically. "Napoleon, perhaps you need a long vacation, as Mr. Waverly would say. Why not go home, sleep for six hours, and then report back for work?"

  * * *

  Dawn filled the eastern sky as they returned to their base on Fulton Street, and it was full day outside when they finally went to sleep behind drawn curtains. Field crews had taken over the routine jobs of identifying the bodies left in alley in Oakland and South San Francisco, disarming the electronics store and checking it for any possible clues.

  Illya's first action on returning, even before seeking his bed, was to check his directional receiver. As was his habit, he had planted a tiny transmitter on Mr. Horne, so subtly that not even Napoleon had noticed. And the transmitter was still signaling the location of their late guest.

  Sometime past noon, when they met for breakfast, Waverly announced, "It's a good thing someone got some sleep last night. Mr. Kuryakin, your little tracer has been rather busy in the last few hours. It apparently remained stationary until about ten o'clock, but since then he has awakened and begun quite a round of activities. His present whereabouts are being monitored by our equipment at headquarters, and his routes are being charted. I presume you will want the honor of running him down again?"

  "Yes; thank you, sir."

  By two-thirty, they were back in the Rolls and following, with Irene at the wheel again. Baldwin had opted to remain home and discuss the situation with Waverly, so Illya and Napoleon shared the front seat of the big black Thrush car.

  The last report on the tracer had shown it crossing the Bay Bridge into Oakland. It had stopped downtown, and was still there, as near as any instrument could tell.

  They were on the bridge before Illya's portable detector registered the signal. He listened carefully and nodded. "There he is. Moving north."

  He lost the signal briefly as they passed through Yerba Buena Island, and fiddled with the knobs as they came out the other side. "There seems to be some interference from the upper deck of the bridge," he said. "The signal is spotty. No, there it is." Suddenly he snorted. "He's coming right toward us! He must be westbound on the top level. Irene, how hard will be to turn immediately when we come off the end?"