18 - The Unfair Fare Affair

by Peter Leslie

  "Wow!" Solo exclaimed. "That must have been some sap they slugged you with!"

  Wincing slightly at the slang, his superior corrected him. "It was not the result of the—er—sap," he said stiffly. "There was the mark of a hypodermic on my forearm. Apparently I had been drugged."

  "And held while they checked that you really were who you said you were—and that you weren't a sleeper fed in to blow their little setup!"

  "Ours is said to be an alive and vital language, Mr. Solo," Waverly remarked with a pained expression. "Yet there are times..." He sighed and shook his gray head.

  "Then they took you back to Amsterdam in the middle of the night and jettisoned you in the doorway of this jeweler's store?"

  "In the Kalverstraat, yes. Apparently I was unable to give a satisfactory explanation of my presence there to two representatives of the law who chanced to pass by shortly after ward—I wasn't myself, you know—and I was—er—placed under surveillance for the remainder of the night."

  "They slung you in the pokey!"

  "Mr. Solo, please!... Of course, as soon as I was permitted to call my colleagues at Interpol, I was released. The Chief of Police was most apologetic. Most. But by the time we got around to making an investigation, naturally there was nothing left to see."

  "You went straight back there with a team?"

  "Well... almost. One of the more disagreeable aspects of the case was that, as you may recall, the whole thing started because I was hungry. You will also remember that at the time I was bludgeoned into insensibility, I had still not eaten. With the result that, despite a severe headache, I was ravenous when I recovered consciousness at 3 A.M.

  "I can imagine," Solo said, repressing a smile.

  "Quite. And those fools of policemen refused to allow me to go to some respectable establishment and order a meal. I had to be content"—Waverly shuddered—"with a bag of fried potatoes, a cold soused herring, and a boiled sausage from an all-night stand before they locked me up. You can see, therefore, that before I set out on the following day I was obliged to cater extensively to the—er—inner man."

  "Oh, absolutely," Solo said. He coughed and moved across Waverly's office to the window.

  Few employees have had the opportunity of hearing their bosses explain how they were knocked on the head. But when the boss was Waverly and when the explanation included a complaint that the police arresting him had refused to allow him to go to a nightclub on the way to jail to order a meal... Solo took refuge in another fit of coughing and attempted to master his facial expressions.

  "You found nothing, I suppose," he said after a moment, staring out at the tall tower of the U.N. building. It was raining in New York, too, and there was a strong wind gusting across the East River, stammering the windows in their frames.

  "Nothing," Waverly echoed behind him. "Nobody had ever seen or heard of the boatman or anybody like him. Nobody had ever seen the Minerva taxi—which is odd, because there's no old-car cult in Holland, and thus a mid-thirties monster like this would be bound to attract attention, you'd think. Not a soul could be found, naturally, who had ever seen three men in green leather coats... and that was about it. We did locate the place where the taxi turned off the road. But there were so many tracks and it was so muddy in the lane that the police were not able to identify any one set."

  He dragged from the pocket of his shapeless tweed jacket a brand-new meerschaum pipe he had bought in Amsterdam, jammed it between his teeth, and sauntered over to join Solo at the window.

  "All right then, Mr. Solo," he said, staring out into the rain. "What do you make of it all? Cook me up a theory to fit these facts."

  The agent turned and looked at him. "Unless it's a trick question, I should say it's a straightforward case of mistaken identity," he replied. "There's this little organization all set up and waiting for somebody—the man to take him from the island to the mainland, the liaison men to direct him to the waiting taxi, the men in the truck ready to supply false papers... and from there on down."

  "I agree. But why pick on me?"

  "I guess they were expecting somebody from the island, somebody they didn't know too well by sight, and you turned up around the right time. I imagine you inadvertently gave the right password or innocently supplied the correct answer to a coded question. Something like that."

  "That's exactly what I thought," Waverly agreed. "I said, in German, 'Good day. I seem to have missed my way. Could you take me across.'"

  "Ah. That was probably the opening gambit."

  "I think it must have been. For he showed no surprise at all. Nor did he answer the question. He simply asked me where I was from, and when I replied absently—I was thinking of something else, you know—that I was from Section One, he got straight up and pulled in the boat."

  "That's it! That's it! The approach in German—and then, by an extraordinary coincidence, the right code word when you say Section One!"

  "I expect you're right. Because, come to think of it, I spoke in German; yet he replied in Dutch. And that's the way it went on—German from my side, Dutch from his. I can understand Dutch, you see, but I don't actually speak it. One surmises that this was another part of the arrangement, the twin language thing."

  Waverly paused, sucked noisily on the empty meerschaum, and reached into his pocket for a tobacco pouch. "Well, that's all right, as far as it goes," he continued, "but how do you see the thing in its broader aspects?"

  "As a continuing organization, I think," Solo said after he had considered for a moment. "Rather than as a one-shot job, I mean."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Several reasons. The boatman said he expected you wanted to be off as quickly as possible and added, 'Your lot always do.' Secondly, nobody knew the taxi, although it was easily identifiable. If it had been a one-shot job, they could have used a local car and bluffed it out—but a mystery auto spells organization to me! Third, all that insistence on 'it's best not to talk.' A hastily improvised organization would risk nothing by talk; but one that had subsequent tasks of the same nature to carry out… well, obviously the less known—and said—the better!"

  Waverly nodded. "Yes, that's all good reasoning," he said.

  "As to what such an organization is... well, my guess would be that it exists to smuggle undesirables—or contraband goods, even—into Holland. Judging from what you said, the mysterious Willem lands the clients on the north coast of the island, and they then walk across and meet your boatman on the south. And he in turn hands them on to the taxi and the men in the truck."

  "Going where?" Waverly asked softly. "If they're already in, why would they need to be squired further?"

  "Squired further…? Oh—I see what you mean." Solo was silent for a moment, and then he said slowly, "Long, green leather coats, did you say? Of a particular dark bottle green?"

  Waverly nodded, stuffing tobacco into the vast bowl of the pipe.

  "Then that suggests northern Germany, Westphalia, to me. There is a certain type of German, especially among the older ones, who automatically wears a coat like that in winter. Particularly in places like Hamburg, Bremen, Oldenburg, and so on."

  "Precisely."

  "In which case, it argues that Holland was only an interim stage on the route. That also fits in, of course, with the fact that the 'client' was to be issued with a fake passport after he had entered the country. If the three men were Germans, the passport would be required for crossing the German border."

  Waverly tamped the tobacco down with his thumb and put the meerschaum back between his teeth. "That's the way I see it," he affirmed.

  "This also takes care of the taxi. Suppose it is in fact a German vehicle which only appears in Holland when there is a job on, when they fit it out with false Dutch plates. Well, there's no wonder the locals haven't seen it! And then, when the passenger has been duly equipped with spurious German documents, they merely change back to the genuine plates and drive across the border!"

  "Exactly. There are two
dozen small frontier posts between Emmen and Enschede, any one of which they could have been heading for when they realized I was the wrong man. They could use a different one every time, to minimize the risk of someone noticing something."

  It was Solo's turn to nod. "Yes, it all figures," he said. "Even the client's name—Fleischmann, did you say it was?—is German. I'd guess it's a big-time outfit too; your boat man said something to the effect that the fare was paid, didn't he? That implies large-scale operations to me—you pay the fare before you start, and everything's taken care of, just like on a travel-agency tour! No doubt that was why your ferryman turned on the screws and asked for the extra: Willem's man was for some reason late and, being a fugitive as it were, could scarcely refuse the demand!"

  "Where do you think Willem's man came from?" Waverly asked.

  "Looking at the map, I imagine the boys bring illegal immigrants from America—or anywhere overseas, for that matter—into the Federal German Republic. Probably the clients are stowed away or in some other manner smuggled aboard boats docking at Amsterdam. And then, when they get there, instead of walking down the gangway, they drop over the blind side, as it were, make for the other bank of the Noordzeekanaal, cross the neck of land dividing the canal from the Ijsselmeer, and pick up Willem there."

  "But why should they bother to cross an inland sea, traverse an island, and come back to the mainland again when they could just as well have gone around the edge of the sea in the first place?"

  "Simply because of the relative danger, I guess. A man without papers, a man on the run, is a natural target in a seaport, on the streets of a capital city, on the main roads—most of which are patrolled by police. But if you take him to a desolate stretch of country that's underpopulated and put him in touch with the people who can give him papers there, well, you're halving the chances of detection right away, aren't you?"

  "I thought strangers were supposed to stand out even more in country areas," Waverly objected.

  "If they're going to stay, to live there, sure. But not passing through. With a bit of luck, nobody'll see them at all."

  "You may be right." Waverly went back to his desk and skimped into his chair. He tossed the unlit pipe onto a pile of folders. "In any case, we shall soon know. Are you done with that Hawaiian forgery thing yet?"

  "Not quite. We have to make a digest of the depositions and—"

  "Hand it over to Rodrigues," Waverly interrupted.

  "To Rodrigues? I'm afraid I don't quite—" Solo began.

  "He's capable of handling it, isn't he?" the head of Section One demanded irritably. "All the stuff's in, isn't it?"

  "Well, yes. Slade and Miss Dancer have to file a report from Manila, but otherwise everything's there. The report'll be in tonight in any case."

  "Excellent. Hand it over, then."

  "Very well, Mr. Waverly. Did... did you have some thing else, something urgent, for me?" Solo inquired, his dark brows raised in puzzlement.

  "Yes, I did," his chief said crisply. "I want you to fly to Amsterdam tonight and find out all about Willem…"

  Chapter 3

  A Question of Etiquette!

  NAPOLEON SOLO was incredulous. "You can't be serious!" he said in dismay. "You don't mean... officially? Not as an assignment... for the Command?"

  "Of course I'm serious," Waverly said testily. "And for whom else would it be an assignment, if not for the Command?"

  Solo gulped. Perhaps the old man was going out of his mind. Maybe the blow on his head had been harder than anybody realized. He would have to play it very cool if he was to prevent the head of Section One from making a fool of himself.

  "Mr. Waverly," he said seriously, "we go into action if there's a possibility that the balance of world power may be threatened. We can operate secretly within the boundaries of member states if there's a chance their stability is endangered—in a currency coup, for example. We can work supranationally, when an international conspiracy such as THRUSH poisons or weakens the relationship between states."

  "Well?"

  "Well... well, surely... I mean... Well, we couldn't go into Holland to investigate this little nest of smugglers or whatever it is. We wouldn't have the right to."

  "Why not?"

  "Why, because... look—I understand you're sore at being roughed up by these characters. It's natural to want to hit back. And our conversation of a few minutes ago was an interesting exercise in deduction. But Mr. Waverly, that's a very different thing from ordering an official investigation by the whole U.N.C.L.E. apparatus! Surely a setup such as we envisaged—even if we were right about it—would be entirely an affair for the Dutch and German police departments working in liaison? Perhaps for their counterintelligence or special services. At the very most for Interpol."

  "But not for us, you think?"

  "Well, good heavens no!" Solo burst out desperately. "We have no mandate for that sort of thing. We'd be interfering in the internal affairs of a member country. If we did it with out their knowing and got found out, there'd be hell to pay! And I could never justify asking for their help, on the other hand, if they themselves hadn't called us in. You must know that, sir."

  Waverly was chuckling. "And you are quite right, of course, my dear Mr. Solo," he said urbanely. "There are, however, some facts you do not yet know."

  Solo subsided into a chair. What was coming next?

  "You're thinking too much about me—the man who was taken by mistake—and not enough about the man who should have been there," Waverly said.

  "Fleischmann

  "Yes, Mr. Solo. Fleischmann. I've checked up, and I think I know who he is—and if I'm right, then you are wrong in thinking the good Willem seeks his clients on the east of Amsterdam docks! For Fleischmann would have come from the north."

  "The north!" Solo echoed in astonishment.

  Waverly nodded. "From Denmark. Outside the North Friesian islands, and then inside the East and West Friesians and through one of the giant sluice bridges beneath that extraordinary road causeway that blanks off the mouth of the old Zuider Zee. Once through there, it's only a matter of forty-five kilometers or so before you hit Oost Flevoland."

  "What makes you so sure?"

  Waverly lifted his pipe from the folders on his desk and stuck it once again between his teeth. He raised the top folder, opened it, and took out a sheet of onionskin.

  "Fleischmann, Ralph," he read. "German national sentenced to six years' imprisonment for his part in a huge company swindle in Copenhagen. He was being transferred to a maximum-security prison last week when the van in which he was traveling was ambushed near Kolding, in Jutland. He hasn't been seen since."

  Solo whistled. "And you think...?"

  "The team who got him out are tough boys," Waverly continued. "A guard was killed when the van was rammed, and another—the man to whom Fleischmann was hand cuffed—was seriously injured. They couldn't unlock the cuffs, so they amputated the man's hand—just hacked it off while he was still conscious, so that they could get Fleischmann away."

  "But that's barbarous! And this was Willem's client?"

  "I think it was. Obviously there'd be a close watch on places like Esbjerg, Malmo, Kiel, Cuxhaven, Lübeck, and even Oslo after a deal like that. But who'd think of looking for him on the Ijsselmeer?"

  "I see what you mean. But what would have happened when he did arrive and found out that you'd inadvertently taken his place beforehand?"

  "I don't think he ever did find out," Waverly said. "I think the reason for his lateness, and for Willem's apparent inefficiency, lies in this..." He picked another piece of paper from the file and read:

  "'A converted torpedo-recovery boat, 82 feet long and equipped with sleeping accommodations for six, broke in half and sank instantly when it was rammed by a tanker in ballast between the island of Terschelling and the Dutch coast last night. There was light fog at the time of the collision, but the forward lookout aboard the tanker stated that the smaller craft was carrying no navigation lig
hts. It is thought that there were at least three people on the TRB, though neither survivors nor bodies have yet been found. Dutch marine authorities said they had no knowledge of such a craft operating in the area of the Friesian Islands.'"

  Waverly laid the paper down and closed the file. "That news report was dated the day of my—er—abduction," he said. "That is, the collision would have occurred on the previous night—though none of the men who passed me along the escape chain in the afternoon would have heard of it."

  He opened another folder and spread several sheets of onion skin on the polished surface of the desk before him.

  "I'll draw your attention to three more apparently unrelated items," he said. "First, one of the courtesy carbons we get every day from the CIA. This one is dated three weeks ago and it says, quote: 'We have now received confirmation that Colonel Stulkas, the U. S. army flyer-turned-pacifist who vanished from his mess near Stuttgart a week ago, is in a Russian-staffed officers' club on the outskirts of Dresden.' Unquote.

  "Second, an Interpol memorandum stating that a certain Ferenc Sujic, who robbed a bank at Plzen, in Czechoslovakia, of close to half a million dollars last month, was thought to be on one of the Peloponnesian Islands in the Aegean. It adds," Waverly commented dryly, "that he was believed to have spent several days in Liechtenstein on the way! No doubt to bank some of the money and form a tax-free company or two!

  "And the final exhibit is a newspaper cutting. This is a story that has, as it were, a beginning but no end—yet— whereas both the others were complete, inasmuch as you knew where the subject came from and where he went. Here, though—read it for yourself."

  The agent took the slip of newsprint and read,

  PARIS, Tuesday—Gerard Mathieu, "The Man They Can't Convict," has got away with it again! The stocky nightclub owner, summoned to appear before an examining magistrate today on charges concerning a gang shooting in Montmartre last month, had fled just before detectives from the Police Judiciare arrived at his plush avenue Marceau apartment.