The Moby Dick Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  THE MOBY DICK AFFAIR

  by ROBERT HART DAVIS

  In the sea… in the clouds… cunningly and well had THRUSH spawned their seeds of evil, as Napoleon and Illya combed panic-stricken London to find the key to the most satanic murder device ever to menace U.N.C.L.E.—a man-made tidal wave which could drown the world.

  PROLOGUE

  "—AND NOT A DROP TO DRINK"

  THE ONLY color in all of the threatening gray world came spurting orange from the power pods on each wing of the jet sea plane. And the mood of Napoleon Solo exactly suited the somberness in which they were flying, at what seemed an irritatingly slow pace for so important a mission.

  Solo's index and middle finger, right hand, smarted suddenly. The cigarette he'd been smoking had nearly burned down to the filter. Startled, he dropped it, shooting to his feet from the jump seat behind the co-pilot's in the cockpit.

  The smoldering butt rolled for ward toward the instruments. Their pilot, Masters, a sallow Scot, spotted the little rolling cylinder.

  "Put that thing out, for the Lord's sweet sake," he said. "Kuryakin? Someone!"

  Solo rubbed his hand on the right leg of his flight suit. Seated just ahead of him in the co-pilot's chair, Illya Kuryakin slid his left boot over and used the ridged soles to extinguish the last wisp of smoke. Solo sucked his index finger.

  "I know U.N.C.L.E.'s pilot squadron has high health standards," Illya said. "But don't you think you're carrying it a bit far, Masters?"

  Masters swiped at his drooping mustache, muttered, "Extreme fire hazard. Special fuels and all."

  "Oh," Illya said. "That explains it." His glance back over his shoulder at Napoleon Solo implied that it did not explain it.

  Precisely the opposite.

  Solo was angry with himself for allowing the minor burn to divert his attention, even momentarily, from the circular frosted display glass on the futuristic-looking for ward wall of the cockpit. Though it was noon by the clock, they were flying through cloud. They had been since leaving the Shetland Islands behind, some twenty minutes ago. The cockpit was gloomy. Concentric yellow circles glowed on the display glass. Solo bent between the men in the twin front seats, alarmed.

  He pointed. "Masters, I thought you were locked on. We've lost the blip."

  Masters grunted, threw a couple of selector knobs.

  "Gone, all right."

  "Masters," Illya said, "don't be so casual. We must catch that THRUSH helicopter. It's imperative that we forestall Dr. Shelley's capture by the enemy."

  Solo winced. "Always understating it. Shelley has already been captured. Kidnapped is the right term. Due, you'll recall, to the delay we encountered trying to get through London traffic, once the informant confessed."

  "Thirty seconds," Illya said softly. "It can encompass a lifetime."

  Solo said, "Listen, Masters, what do we do? We've lost them."

  Masters snuffled. "Doing the best I can. Frankly, you chaps from Operations and Enforcement always expect miracles. We were lucky we had this craft available at London at all. We were lucky that the THRUSH helicopter which carried off this Shelley fellow apparently was only a transfer vehicle, otherwise we'd never even have caught the signal from British Air Defense that enabled us to pick them up."

  "I wouldn't say we were expecting miracles, Masters." Solo felt testy. "I'd say we were expecting that a THRUSH jet helicopter could be caught by an U.N.C.L.E. jet seaplane which, unless I'm mistaken, is theoretically faster."

  Ahead, past the windshield, tattery gray clouds whipped at them. The cockpit smelled of metal and fuel. The stink of tension rose in Solo's nostrils. Suddenly through the scud coming at them with ex press-train speed, a ragged swatch of dull gray-blue appeared. Solo craned forward. The power pods whistled and the seaplane burst from the low-hanging clouds.

  Below them rolled the cold metallic, waters of the North Sea, uniformly stretching to the horizons except at one point ahead and slightly to port. There, the outcrops of several small rocky islands pushed up through whitecaps. Over this cluster of islands a black dot hung and then slowly lowered.

  Solo clapped Masters on the shoulder: "There they are. Landing. They must be expecting a pickup."

  The U.N.C.L.E. agent was suddenly aware of Masters' response to the gloved slap of enthusiasm. Inside his flying suit, Masters had gone stiff.

  His head jerked around sharply. Before he turned back forward to the controls, Solo saw sickly yellow reflections from the display glass shining in the man's watering eyes.

  Solo decided that Masters disliked him. Unusual. Strictly the exception for an organization with the high morale U.N.C.L.E. enjoyed.

  Or was he overreacting? Solo wondered about it as the seaplane closed the distance to the rocky island. The stakes were extremely high—

  They stood to make a double bag if they succeeded on this mission. One half of the catch was essential. That was the recovery of Dr. Artemus Shelley, the oceanographer who headed by U.N.C.L.E.'s special undersea warfare research station near Golder's Green.

  The other half of the catch could be a bonus—Newsom Naglesmith. It was an unlikely enough name for a crack professional murderer. Naglesmith was a European sub-sector chief for THRUSH, with a long record of kills and assorted mayhem.

  Word of a plot to kidnap Dr. Artemus Shelley had reached Solo and Illya in Edinburgh, where they were just winding up an affair which had found THRUSH packaging toxic chemicals at a small multivitamin tablet factory. The vitamins were to be shipped to the post exchanges of key military bases maintained by several important nations.

  The two agents had jetted back to London, conversing briefly with Mr. Waverly while airborne. Then at London HO they had spent twenty naggingly slow minutes with the washed-up Wagnerian soprano who had been Newsom Naglesmith's latest light of love.

  Several months ago, it seemed, Naglesmith had grown a whit careless while drinking vintage champagne. He'd babbled to her of the impending plot to ferret Dr. Shelley away.

  A lover's quarrel just yesterday had resulted in the poor soprano being bounced out of Naglesmith's life forever. Tipsy with gin, the lady had reeled into a police station, incoherently wailing about the plot, and about dear Newsom being wrought up because of his impending "situation," as he referred to acts of violence on behalf of THRUSH.

  Naglesmith's name was relayed to C.I.D., thence to U.N.C.L.E. While the lady was still under sedative, resident agents plied her with other effective but basically harmless drugs, thereby draining her psyche of a few concrete details about the planned Shelley kidnap.

  Deduction from the details: Naglesmith was wrought up because the time for an important "situation" had arrived, and it stood a good chance of being the Dr. Shelley lift. Solo and Illya were signaled on an emergency call and got into the London traffic jam after leaving HO.

  They arrived at the laboratory just in time to see the THRUSH transfer copter winging away. With the aid of the British Air Force, they'd picked up the trail at sea an hour later, Masters their pilot.

  Illya Kuryakin was thumbing through his little book. Solo's nerves were stretched to the limit. They were closing on the rocky islands, each outcrop of stone assuming definition in the sea. Masters had both flight gloves on the control levers. Abruptly Solo reached past him.

  "What the devil are you doing, Solo?"

  Flick, flick, Solo twisted red levers.

  "Your job. Getting the anti-personnel rockets ready. We don't know what kind of reinforcements THRUSH has on those islands."

  "Their 'copter is out of sight now," Illya said. Solo hadn't even seen him glance up.

  Masters licked his lips. Sweat popped on his brow. A drop rolled down and sat on the tip of his nose.

  "Should
n't we radio for help?" he asked.

  Solo couldn't help himself:

  "What do you use for backbone, Masters? Jello?"

  The yellow dash-glare shone again in Masters' eyes. "That wasn't a prudent thing to say."

  Illya snapped his small book shut. "Not prudent, perhaps. But precisely right. Napoleon, the behavior of Mr. Masters on this flight can be described by only one word. Reluctant."

  Suddenly Illya's hand went out of sight. When it re-appeared, the fingers were dwarfed by the massive blackness of the long-muzzle U.N.C.L.E. pistol.

  "This seaplane is not underpowered, Mr. Masters," he said. "It is you who are underpowered. You lack ambition to catch THRUSH at its dirty work. I suggest you take the controls, Napoleon. Mr. Masters was fearful of your cigarette. He pleaded exotic fuels aboard.

  "I always carry my little pamphlet on U.N.C.L.E. operating equipment. I was leafing through it just now. This type of plane operates on standard fuel. We are quite explosion-proof here in the cock pit. Unless, of course—" Illya Kuryakin jabbed the muzzle nearer Masters' face—"there is some other explosion hazard we don't know about."

  All at once Masters seemed to acquire character. He threw his head back and laughed.

  "Get out of there, you miserable traitor," Solo shouted. He grabbed the fur collar of Masters' flying suit.

  Masters clubbed at him hard. Napoleon Solo took a blow on the temple. He went crashing back against instrument dials on the rear cockpit wall.

  With his left hand Masters reached beneath his seat and gave a twist.

  "There! Now I've armed the little darling—" He batted savagely at Illya's pistol with his fist.

  Illya's right hand was driven up. The pistol blammed. A big ragged hole appeared in the cockpit roof. Wind screamed.

  From somewhere Masters produced a heavy spanner. He cracked Illya across the bridge of the nose with it. Then, face contorted with fanatic fury, he twisted up out of his bucket seat. His leg accidentally kicked one of the control levers. The seaplane's nose jerked up into a steep climb.

  Wind whipped and tore at Solo's face as he fought for balance. The plane's upward tilt threw Masters at him, hacking air with the spanner. Solo ducked and darted between Masters' legs as the pilot's hard blow connected.

  Had it connected with Solo's skull, that would have been all. As it was, Masters had swung violently and the spanner head crashed through the tin outer metal shell of the instrument panel on the rear wall.

  Glass shattered. Ripped wires spurted green sparks. The spanner in Masters' hand became a conductor of powerful currents. The flight glove was of little help as insulation. Masters' backbone arched. He shrieked, trying to stand taller than he was as electricity shot through his body.

  Then he dropped, crisped.

  Smoke swirled in the cockpit now. Solo crawled groggily into the pilot's seat. Sparks hit him on the back of the neck, burning his skin. He thought he heard ticking but that was impossible. The wind was screaming through the shot-out cockpit roof too loudly.

  Had the roof control tracks been damaged? If they had, he and Illya, who was muzzily shaking his head, would be marmalade or worse as soon as he tripped the lever—

  "Hang on," Solo yelled. "I'm going to blow the ejector."

  "I preferred Edinburgh," Illya yelled back. "Scottish lasses, Scottish whiskey—"

  Solo hammered the ejection lever and knew a moment of exquisite horror. Nothing happened.

  But his own senses had stretched a split second into an eternity. There was a thunder, a sense of lifting, of shooting straight at the cockpit roof.

  Good-bye, skull, Solo thought. Then he was rocketing up into gray-blue sky.

  He shot up and up like a projectile. The remains of the ejection seat dropped away beneath. A ferocious blam hurt his ears and sent black smoke balls writhing across his vision. The seaplane had gone up.

  Solo began to drop. The horizon spun over and over. Finally, when he was dropping like a stone and thought he had the sea and sky in their proper places, he yanked the ring. With a crack and a tear at his armpits, the chute opened.

  He twisted his head. Silk bloomed several hundred yards above and to his right. Illya bobbed like a doll at the end of his shrouds. He kicked a boot to indicate he was all right.

  On the way down Solo had only a swift glimpse of the nearest island. The THRUSH jet 'copter had landed on its far side. In all the island was not more than several hundred yards across, but it was bisected by an uneven ridge. Atop this ridge two tiny figures stood silhouetted now. They were out of pistol or rifle range. That was both a blessing and a burden. Time might be short.

  With a huge splash, Solo settled into the icy sea. He struggled and snorted and flicked the inflating switches on the legs of his suit. Soon he paddled out from under the soggy silk of his chute. From the neck down he resembled the circus fat lady.

  An equally bulbous shape with Illya's head on top floated a dozen yards off. Solo paddled toward it. Illya squirted a spout of water out of his mouth.

  "I saw two of them," Solo panted, indicating the island. "One might have been Shelley."

  "Two against two isn't bad," Illya said. "Of course they've seen us too."

  Squinting into the light haze which lay on the surface of the sea, Napoleon Solo nodded.

  Neither of the U.N.C.L.E. agents needed more words with the other. They'd worked long as a team, knew what must be done, appreciated the perilous shortness of time just now. Naglesmith might have arranged his pickup on a split-second schedule. A nuclear-powered THRUSH powerboat could appear on the horizon and reach the island before Solo and Illya succeeded in swimming halfway there.

  Shock and pain had already conspired to put a weight of fatigue on Napoleon Solo. He tried to forget it all. He deflated his suit to the proper level to give his stroke maximum efficiency. Then, icy water slashing at his head, he began to swim.

  He drew within fifty feet of the island's rough beach. He heard a flat report. A geyser of water leaped up inches from his head. From atop the ridge, Newsom Naglesmith had found the range.

  Solo poured on the speed. Another gunshot. This time the echo said the shot was directed at Illya, approaching the island's far side. Solo swam like a madman, filling and emptying his lungs with savage force.

  Naglesmith fired in his direction again. The bullet ripped a slash in his left sleeve. Solo's knees crunched gravel.

  He staggered up the rocky beach and floundered out flat behind a big boulder, a portion of which was chipped away by Naglesmith's next bullet. A flying bit of stone nicked his right eyeball, bringing intense pain and momentary blindness.

  Hastily unzipping his right suit leg, Solo took out his own long-muzzle pistol. He snapped a range extender over the end to make it even longer. Then he dragged him self upright.

  He peered from behind the rock. Up above him the ridge was jaggedly cruel as a dinosaur's spine. And empty.

  Carefully Solo dodged forward to the cover of the next rock nearest the ridge base. Suddenly Naglesmith loomed into sight in a bright scarlet windproof with parka hood. His face was ugly with delight as he aimed and fired.

  Solo dove and rolled frantically. The bullet ate away part of the shale where he'd stood an instant before.

  Something crashed softly against the ridge rock near Naglesmith. A rock thrown by Illya Kuryakin? The THRUSH sub-sector chief twisted around and fired his pistol three times. Solo got to his feet and scrabbled wildly up the sloping side of the ridge. He could hear Illya's boots pounding from the other direction, though he could not see him.

  Naglesmith let out a shrill cry of rage. His foot must have slipped. He landed on his chest, his face sticking out over the ridge edge, not six feet above the place where Solo was clinging.

  Naglesmith's muddy eyes lighted with killing hunger. Solo was caught in the open, absolutely unprotected as he hung on the slope of the ridge. Naglesmith jerked his right hand forward. He aimed his automatic pistol down at Solo's damp forehead.

  S
olo whipped his own gun-hand up to beat Naglesmith if he could. But the swim had left his palm slippery. The pistol wriggled, slid against his skin. The muzzle dipped. The aim was disastrously wrong—

  Naglesmith leaned down.

  His trigger finger turned white.

  Something cracked. Naglesmith exhaled, a long, startled, "Ahhhhh!" He flopped over on his back.

  Solo fought for purchase on the rocky slope. Cautiously he edged upward and looked over the lip of the ridge.

  In the distance the black-painted THRUSH jet 'copter stood silent in an open, relatively rock-free area. Nearer, a thin, altogether innocuous sandy-haired man of fifty or so huddled with his hands in the pockets of a raincoat two sizes too large. And just a few feet away, Illya Kuryakin slipped out from behind a large boulder.

  In his hand he held his small auxiliary close-range weapon. The zipper on his left suit leg was open; he'd gotten it out of there. He'd lost his regular pistol in the plane.

  Illya stared down, his face devoid of expression, his bangs a damp dark line across his forehead. Newsom Naglesmith lay with one arm crooked under his face. His back showed a darkish widening stain where Illya's bullet had pierced the scarlet windproof fabric directly below the left shoulder blade.

  "Stop mumbling," Solo said. "And thanks for the assist."

  "You're welcome. And I'm not mumbling."

  Solo jumped forward then, using his boot toe to lift Naglesmith's chest and flip him over.

  The THRUSH agent groaned. His teeth were clenched. His face was formed into a hideous, glare-eyed expression of pleasure. And Napoleon Solo saw that a false face on Naglesmith's watch stood upright at a 90 degree angle from the real face, which incorporated a small transmitter unit of familiar design.

  Solo bent, tore the bogus wristwatch off Naglesmith's arm. Illya raced up.

  "How long has he been talking on that thing, Napoleon?"

  "Long—quite long—enough," Naglesmith said. His puffy face convulsed into what could only be called black humor. A dying man's humor. His eyes seemed to grow very large. "Quite long enough to signal—"

  "Gentlemen, gentlemen—look!"