The driver screamed a frantic curse and shouted for the gunman to stop before he killed the wrong targets. He shoved the car in gear and tried to ram Napoleon. But as the car started Solo leaped on the hood. He shoved his gun through the shattered windshield. The gunman frantically tried to swing his gun around.
The driver twisted the steering wheel frantically. The car swerved, throwing Napoleon on the grass. A burst of fire ripped from the killer's tommy gun, but it flashed up toward the sky as the man was thrown back by a straight shot from Illya Kuryakin's gun.
Solo twisted around. As Illya raised up to fire the shot that saved Solo's life, he made a perfect target for the first killer still crouched behind the wrecked car.
As Solo twisted he saw the man rise up. He shot from the ground, without aiming for he realized in that split second of danger that Illya's life hung by a mere thread.
He missed! He shot too fast, but there was no alternative.
The bullet struck the edge of the shattered windshield. The spray of splintered glass showered the crouching gunman. He jumped and his aim was spoiled. The bullet intended for Kuryakin smashed into the ground at the U.N.C.L.E. agent's feet.
Solo whirled as the driver of the stalled car grabbed for the machine gun dropped by his dead companion. As the man raised up, Solo's bullet caught him between the eyes. Napoleon whirled, but it was all over. He saw Illya walking rapidly toward the slumped figure of the other THRUSH agent.
After they made sure neither of the THRUSH men were playing 'possum but were really dead, Solo said crisply, "Keep me covered just in case there's another group following them."
Illya nodded silently. He went over and switched off the car lights so they wouldn't present as good a target if another attack was made by THRUSH.
While Solo hurried over to the wrecked taxi to see what had happened to Santos-Lopez, Illya stared at the dead men. For perhaps the thousandth time in his life he wondered about them and the strange organization they served.
THRUSH! An organization so strange no one knew even what its initials stood for. Only one thing was clear about THRUSH. This was that was composed of a group of men willing and able to use criminal means to affect a dream of world conquest.
Apparently the organization was based in and received support from a certain European country, but it had never been determined that the country's government was behind the organization. Because it operated world-wide, only a world-wide crime fighting group like U.N.C.L.E. could effectively block this super-evil group.
Kuryakin took a deep breath as he considered their narrow escape. Each tangle with THRUSH was more difficult than the last. He wondered, staring at the dead men, where it all would lead.
The blare of a police siren broke his thoughts. He went down to the street to identify himself and make a report to the police. The tough manner of the police changed instantly when Illya flashed his U.N.C.L.E. identification.
He turned as Napoleon Solo came up. The man from U.N.C.L.E.'s face was grim. Illya did not have to ask him what Santos-Lopez's condition was. Solo's face told him.
"Chalk up another for THRUSH," Illya said bitterly.
"We did the best we could," Solo said slowly. "Unfortunately time was so short we had to approach Santos-Lopez direct. We should have arranged an interview with him through some third party he trusted. He would have trusted us then."
"What do we do now?" Illya asked. "This thing isn't over by any means."
"No, I'm afraid this storm expert's death only complicates what promises to be a bitter battle. I've got to report to Waverly that we failed. Why don't you help the police as much as you can? I'll call New York."
Solo walked over to the broken wall, where he could not be heard by the others. He pulled out his pen-communicator and twisted the cap to extend the aerial. His low spoken call letters were amplified and transmitted instantly to a room high in an office building in New York.
In this office a leathery faced man of indeterminate middle age leaned back in a high backed chair and thoughtfully regarded the steel and glass spire of the United Nations building visible through his window. He was thoughtfully rubbing the bowl of an unlighted briar pipe as he looked at the giant building which represented a large share of the world's hope for tomorrow.
A light flared on a small console recessed in the large mahogany desk in front of him. He turned so quickly he dropped the pipe on the thick rug. In his haste he didn't bother to pick it up. He snapped on a circuit to hear Napoleon Solo's voice identifying himself.
"Mr. Waverly? Come in, please," Solo said from South America
TWO
Alexander Waverly, Section I member and operations chief for U.N.C.L.E., hesitated just a moment to compose himself. He was a human being with a human's worries and doubts, but he tried never to present any face but a composed, confident one to his agents. His personal troubles and uncertainties remained his personal property.
He shared them with no one—not even the five other men who share with him the terrible responsibility for direction of the giant United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.
It took him but a second to compose himself and shove back his anxiety over this latest and most terrible of THRUSH's threats to the world.
"Yes, Mr. Solo," he said quietly. "Go ahead, please."
In South America the quiet, decisive voice had a soothing effect on Napoleon Solo. Regardless how tough a situation might be, he never failed to feel better about it after hearing Alexander Waverly's quiet, confident voice.
"I'm afraid we have to report a failure, sir," he said.
"What happened?" Waverly asked.
Napoleon gave him a brief but accurate sketch of what they encountered.
"Unfortunate," Waverly said slowly. "But unavoidable, I can see now. Since I called you I received a special report on Dr. Santos-Lopez from our Section IV. Just a moment."
Waverly picked up a yellow teletype sheet marked with the call code of U.N.C.L.E.'s section IV Enforcement and Communications.
"It says that Dr. Santos-Lopez was extremely suspicious of anyone," Waverly said. "Under the circumstances I doubt that we could have made direct contact with him."
"Shall we remain here and see if we can get his reports on his storm breaking experiments?" Solo asked.
"No," Waverly said. "Our South American offices will be put on that job. I want you—"
He broke off as a brilliant red light flashed on his desk console.
"One moment, Mr. Solo. Stand by. I have an emergency call."
Mr. Waverly punched in a new circuit. A hidden speaker went into action with: "Section III on report."
"Go ahead, Section III," Waverly said. "Switch to Code Line A, since I will retransmit your report to Mr. Solo on the field band."
"Yes, sir," Section III, Enforcement and Intelligence replied. "News service reports from South America are that the laboratory of Dr. Santos-Lopez was destroyed two hours ago by fire. Another fire of unknown origin broke out in the hotel where he had been staying. It destroyed his baggage."
"Thank you," Mr. Waverly said, cutting the connection to Section III. "Did you get that report, Mr. Solo?"
"Yes, sir. I'd say it is futile to try and find any reports that Dr. Santos-Lopez might have left about his storm destroying work."
"It would seem so," the U.N.C.L.E. chief said slowly. "However, I doubt that he was far enough advanced to provide us a sure kill for any storm generating system THRUSH is working on. That threat is our immediate concern. So you and Mr. Kuryakin report to me here just as quickly as you can get here."
"Yes, sir," Solo said. "There is a regular airline flight leaving here in-"
He glanced down at his watch. "—In forty-five minutes. We can make that quicker than we can charter a special flight."
"I am sure you can," Waverly said. He picked up another piece of paper from his desk. "But there is another flight, the Inter-Hemisphere Airlines, leaving in forty minutes. I have already arranged through Sectio
n II for the blocking of two seats on it for you and Mr. Kuryakin. That cuts five minutes from your departure time. I consider five seconds wasted a tragedy. Five minutes compounds the tragedy sixty times. So you will forgive my presumptuousness in arranging a different schedule for you."
"Yes, sir," Solo said, sighing. It was impossible to get ahead of Waverly, he thought wryly.
"Excellent," Waverly said. "We have received new evidence that clearly indicates that my original presumption was correct. THRUSH is experimenting with the creation of synthetic storms—and they are succeeding! Therefore you can see why every second—every second—Mr. Solo—endangers the lives of thousands of people!"
"We'll be on the plane, sir," Napoleon said.
"I'll be expecting you," Waverly replied crisply as he cut the connection.
A police escort got them to the airport with only one of Mr. Waverly's precious seconds to spare. There wasn't even time for them to check out of their hotel. Illya asked the chief of their police escort to inform April Dancer of their sudden departure and to request the girl from U.N.C.L.E. to take care of such details for them.
The two U.N.C.L.E. operatives were the last passengers aboard. Every other seat was taken.
"Sit down here, Illya," Solo said. "I'll take the next one."
But Kuryakin had seen the girl sitting in the window seat farther up the aisle.
"No!" he said, to Solo's surprise. "Age before beauty. You sit here."
He went up the aisle to the other empty seat. Napoleon saw the girl then and his face twisted, wryly.
Solo slipped into the other empty seat, opposite a sour-faced old man. Up the aisle he could see Illya talking with the lovely girl. From what little he could see of her, she seemed to what Alexander Waverly would describe as buxom in the—er—right places.
He sighed and leaned back in his seat. Between Illya's aggressiveness and Alexander Waverly's impatience, Solo wondered how he would ever get any romance in his life!
THREE
About thirty minutes after were airborne, the stewardess lowered the lights. The old man beside Napoleon Solo started to snore loudly. Deep breathing showed that others in the plane were also sleeping. Solo found it impossible to doze off himself. He kept thinking of THRUSH's new weapon.
He had more than the usual experience with hurricanes and typhoons. He knew that if THRUSH could harness their fantastic fury, U.N.C.L.E.'s great enemy now possessed a weapon capable of doing more damage than any weapon ever conceived.
Napoleon was thinking of the terrible devastation he'd seen only a few months ago when a typhoon hit southern Japan. Not a house remained standing in a hundred mile area.
As Napoleon recalled it, more than 2,000 people died and losses ran into the millions.
What frightened him was the thought of THRUSH-guided typhoons striking the U.S. coast in areas unused to storms of such frightful nature. Florida was constantly ripped by hurricanes. The people there knew how to batten down the hatches and ride out the blow. But what would happen if a typhoon suddenly struck the coast of Southern California, with its lath and plaster houses? Or Honolulu or Seattle or San Francisco? The destruction would be frightful.
Suddenly his thoughts were shattered by a sickening heave of the flying plane. His head flopped forward. But for the seat belt he would have been thrown across the aisle.
The plane shuddered. It was almost as if a giant hand had pushed against it and the four-motored jet was struggling to fly through the obstruction. Solo had the awful feeling that they had stopped dead in the air.
Then the left wing dipped. He was thrown heavily against the arm rest. The old man beside him neglected to fasten his seat belt. He was thrown over on top of Napoleon.
The plane fell a hundred feet and pulled up with a sickening thud. It rose like an elevator and then dropped again, snapping the necks of the frightened passengers.
Outside, a wild fury of rain beat on the windows. A vivid crack of lightning flashed through the sky, throwing a weird blue light inside the passenger compartment of the beleagured plane. The stewardess switched on the lights to help calm the passengers.
She came down the aisle, obviously a frightened young woman but one bravely trying to hide her fear. The bucking of the plane in the super turbulent air almost threw her off her feet with each sickening heave. But she braced herself, grasping each seat back as she passed in an attempt to keep her balance.
"Please tighten your seat belts!" she cried above the noise of rain, thunder and jets. "Please be calm! There is no danger. We have just run into some turbulence. It will pass in a few minutes!"
Solo watched her in admiration, but Illya Kuryakin did not even glance in her direction. He was too busy with his lovely companion. She was neither brave nor afraid. That is what surprised him. She was furious. Her face was flushed. Her eyes flashed as vividly as the lightning outside.
"Damn them!" she cried, balling her fists and beating on the back of the seat in front of her as an outlet for her fury. "What are they trying to do to me! They should have checked to see which plane I boarded!"
Illya Kuryakin looked at her in astonishment. It seemed like a very curious time to get mad.
He put his hand over and caught her fist.
"Take it easy," he said. "Everything is going to be okay. It's just a strong front."
He raised his voice to make himself heard for the slap of rain on the metal skin of the plane was loud as hail.
But before he finished speaking there was a sudden lull between rain gusts. His loud claim that it was just a strong weather front carried halfway down the passenger compartment.
A man in the uniform of an officer in the U.S. Air Force leaned across the aisle.
"Don't kid yourself, buddy," he said to Kuryakin. "Before I went on military duty in South America I flew hurricane patrols out of Florida. This is no front. It is a genuine hurricane!"
Illya thought so too. His remark was intended to calm the furious girl beside him. Yet the weather report when they left Rio was for calm weather all the way. The meteorological reports might miss a budding storm, but this one was full-blown. Anything so large should have been discovered by hurricane hunter planes.
It was impossible for so large a storm to have gone completely undetected.
But was it?
He remembered what Napoleon told him regarding the call to Mr. Waverly.
Was this a THRUSH-made storm? That would explain its unusual sudden appearance.
Just then there was another lull in the driving rain. The former hurricane hunter across the aisle leaned over and said to Illya: "There is something very strange about this storm. I know something about hurricanes. This thing is absolutely impossible!"
"How do you—" Illya Kuryakin began, but the full fury of the storm struck the plane again. It was impossible to be heard. He gripped the armrests of his seat as the storm-tossed plane almost went into a loop.
His stomach heaved from the furious up and down motion. He hoped that he wasn't going to disgrace himself before the girl by losing his supper.
There was another short lull between gusts of rain. He heard the officer talking to himself: "It's impossible! There couldn't be a storm like this!"
ACT III: THE STORM GIRL
The pitching of the plane grew more violent. The hard driven rain was becoming hail. The alarm of the passengers increased.
Suddenly the girl unbuckled her seat belt. She stood up, bracing herself by holding to seat in front of her.
"Just a minute!" Illya said to her. "You can't—"
"Mind your own business!" she snapped. "I know what I'm doing. That fool of a pilot is going to get us all killed. I've got to do something to keep alive!"
"All you will do is hinder the pilot," Illya said. "Everything will be all right. These men are experienced—"
"Get out of my way!" she said.
She had the look of a person who knew exactly what she was doing. She stepped over Illya's legs. The plane lurched, but she
kept her feet. She started making her way down the aisle, holding to the seat backs for support.
At the end of the compartment the stewardess tried to stop her. The girl brushed on past. The plane almost rolled over. She caught the knob of the compartment door.
Illya Kuryakin unbuckled his seat belt and got up. However, the girl braced her herself in time to avoid being thrown off her feet. When the plane righted itself, she opened the door and stepped into the pilot's compartment.
Illya hesitated for a second, then went after her. The wind was becoming gusty. The plane shivered and rolled between moments of comparative calm.
The stewardess half rose from her seat by the compartment door.
"Please, sir—" she began.
Illya patted her shoulder and said, "Don't worry!"
"But you can't bother the pilot at a time like this. He needs to keep his attention on the plane."
"I'm going to get that girl out of there," Illya said. "I—"
"You are from U.N.C.L.E.," she said.
The plane twisted. Every strut and rivet groaning under the strain. Illya could imagine the pilot's struggle to bring them back to an even keel.
"How did you know that?" he asked the girl when he could get his balance again.
"That woman—the one who went in the pilot's compartment. She asked me about you when you first got on the plane. She saw you coming up the ramp and she asked me to make sure nobody took the seat beside her. She wanted one of you to sit there."
"Thanks," Illya said. "Thanks for telling me."
He went on up front, fighting constantly to keep his feet. The tossing of the plane was getting worse. It was building up to the most ferocious storm he ever encountered.
He found the girl standing between the pilot and co-pilot. Both men's uniforms were stained with sweat.
Their faces were strained and tired from the constant struggle to keep the plane from tossing over and losing lift.
"You've got to climb!" It was the girl screaming in the pilot's ear. "These storms only rise about twenty thousand feet. It you can break out of the worst circle of wind, you can rise above it!"
The Synthetic Storm Affair Page 2
