The Vanishing Act Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  The silent man was an U.N.C.L.E. agent in London. Section I (Communications and Security). The man driving the car was Napoleon Solo—re-armed and anxious to find Maxine Trent and her men.

  FIVE

  FIVE MILES from the ancient cathedral town of Salisbury, the magnificent spire of the cathedral itself out of sight to the north, the black car slowed to ha halt five hundred yards down a country lane from a big, gothic house. Behind the wheel, Solo looked at the silent house through his infra-red binoculars.

  What he saw made him slide silently from his car and fade quickly into the thick hedgerow that bordered the country land. They were there. Two black cars and at least seven Thrush men, wearing their black uniforms and carrying ugly rifles with heavy, round infrared night scopes.

  Cautiously Solo moved closer. They, the Thrush men, were deployed around the old house. The house itself was dark and silent. Solo looked for Maxine Trent. He finally located her standing with two Thrush chief guards near one of the two cars. They appeared to be planning their attack.

  Solo edged closer, his U.N.C.L.E. Special ready, but cautious because there were too many of them. They seemed ready to move. One of the two chief guards of Thrush stepped forward from the shelter of the car toward where his men waited. He took two steps—and stopped.

  High on the third floor of the gothic house, on a small balcony, there was sudden flash and a great red glow seemed to bathe the facade of the house in eerie red light. The Thrush attackers stared upward.

  The night was as bright as day with the red glow.

  On the small balcony there was a puff of blue smoke.

  A man stood on the balcony.

  Solo recognized the satanic face of Morlock The Great.

  The midget-like figure with the oversized head stood high on the balcony and laughed down at the gaping Thrush men.

  The Thrush leader stared upward.

  For a long minute nothing moved, nothing happened but the weird laughter of the midget bathed in the red glow. Then Maxine Trent shouted.

  "There he is! Take him alive!"

  As if galvanized by an electric shock, the Thrush men leaped up and ran toward the house. They did not hesitate a second the command of their superior far more powerful to them than any fear. They ran up the steps of the old house—and fell in a hail of withering fire.

  The Thrush men screamed. The red glow went out on the balcony above. In the dark the Thrush men stumbled across the porch and into the house. Inside there was more fire and more screaming in pain.

  Solo watched as a Thrush man ran back out onto the steps of the old house.

  "Empty! The place is empty!"

  "Someone fired at us!" a Thrush leader cried.

  "No one! Automatic fire. Booby trap!"

  Solo saw the flash of blue light to the left. The light flashed at a spot fifty yards from the house. A blue light bright on a small hillock. Another puff of smoke, white this time, and Morlock The Great stood on the hillock, laughing Maxine Trent cursed and shouted to her surviving men.

  The Thrush soldiers ran toward the small hillock.

  Solo watched. He was impressed by what he knew had to be tricks. He had seen great magicians work before. But they were impressive tricks. Even though he knew that this was Morlock's house and would have been prepared, the trick of the smoke and lights was enough to almost frighten him.

  On the hillock, Morlock laughed. His tiny, devilish figure mocked the running Thrush men.

  As the Thrush soldiers reached the foot of the hill they vanished in a series of explosions. Solo nodded. Mines. Morlock had taunted the Thrush men into a small, private minefield.

  The Thrush soldiers groaned, screamed.

  Morlock The Great vanished from the hillock.

  Once more the tiny magician appeared, this time on a tall stone two hundred yards from the house. A puff of red smoke and the midget magician stood there.

  No one pursued him.

  Only Maxine Trent, safe behind the car, was left to stand and stare at the distant figure. Morlock laughed once more, and was gone.

  Solo stepped out of the bushes and stood behind Maxine Trent.

  "You're having a hard night, Maxine," Solo said.

  The woman agent whirled, her violet eyes flashing in the dark. She reached down, lifted her skirt to show her long, magnificent leg. Solo saw the holster strapped to the shapely thigh.

  "Ah, ah, Maxine!" Solo said, his Special trained on her. "You're all alone now."

  Maxine hesitated, smiled, straightened up and looked around her hat the bodies of her men.

  "So I am, Napoleon. But not really, darling. I have you," Maxine said.

  Solo grinned. "Correction. I have you. Shall we go?"

  Maxine shrugged. Solo motioned her into the silent house. He stepped warily, watching for more of Morlock The Great's little traps, and for the very possible return of the wily little magician himself.

  But inside the house all was silent. There were no more traps, no sign of Morlock The Great. In fact, there was nothing inside the house at all. Solo stared around slowly at the vast emptiness. Even Maxine Trent blinked her violet eyes in a puzzled surprise.

  Why would Morlock The Great come to an empty house? And why have an empty house so well booby-trapped with automatic weapons and mine fields?

  * * *

  THE GENTLE-FACED hunchback, Paul Dabori, sat against the wall of the lead-lined storeroom deep under the great city of London. The voice and footsteps outside had gone away without searching the storeroom, and Illya listened as Dabori told his story.

  "I was lonely, I suppose, Mr. Kuryakin," Dabori said. "We are all lonely, we human beings, one way or the other. But for a man like me—"

  "You seem like a very good man," Illya said quietly.

  Dabori shrugged. "I was, I suppose, feeling sorry for myself. I joined them. They said that since we who were crippled, deformed, were shut out from the rest of the world, we had to make our own world. I was full of self-pity then. I listened. It was, they told me, a brotherhood and a literary society."

  "And then you found that they were building the atomic bomb shelters?" Illya said.

  Dabori nodded. "Here, and under Morlock The Great's house at Salisbury. I helped work on that shelter. They have built them all over the world."

  "Why?" Illya said grimly. "Why are they building them? Just in case? To be sure to survive? That is possible, but you don't think so, do you, Paul?"

  "No. Morlock has a plan of some kind, a plan that will be put into effect soon. Somehow it involves all those robberies and the attacks where no one attacked."

  "Soon?" Illya said.

  "Very soon, I think."

  Illya stood up in the hidden, lead-lined storeroom. "Then we must get out of here. Tell me, have you seen another prisoner?" And Illya described Solo.

  Dabori shook his head. "No, no one like that. But perhaps Morlock took him to the Salisbury house. Morlock is there now himself."

  "You know how to get there?" Illya asked the hunchback.

  "Yes," Dabori said. "But we cannot go yet. They are still searching for you. We must wait."

  "But not long," Illya said. "Soon we'll have to take some action, Paul."

  Dabori nodded. "I know. I am ready."

  In the dim light of the lead-lined room Illya Kuryakin and the gentle hunchback listened and waited.

  * * *

  SOLO and Maxine Trent completed their search of the house. In the front hall, with the bodies of two of her men, they stood and considered what they had found.

  "Nothing," Maxine said, undisturbed by the bodies of her men. "Absolutely nothing."

  "But wired for defense. Why?" Solo said. "It's your turn to tell me what I want to know, Maxine. For instance, there should be a cellar under this house, but there seems to be no entrance into a cellar."

  "I noticed the same thing. You think the real part of this place is down below?"

  "Why don't you tell me, Maxine?" Solo said.

  "O
h for God's sake, Napoleon, don't you realize yet that we're not working with Morlock The Great! He just killed eight of my men!"

  Solo grinned, his Special still warily trained on the beautiful Thrush agent. "With Thrush that could be a lover's quarrel."

  "For the last time, you fool, Thrush is just as anxious to stop Morlock The Great as U.N.C.L.E is! Do you think we want some other organization getting in our way?"

  "Not enough spoils to go around, eh?" Solo said.

  Maxine shrugged. "If you like, yes. We in Thrush have no love for competitors. We have enough trouble with do-good outfits like U.N.C.L.E. without having to worry about amateur competitors."

  Solo smiled. "Just what are you suggesting?"

  "That we pool forces! There, I said it! Think of it, Napoleon—for once we can work together. You want to stop the Cult, whatever it's up to, and so do we. You saw how much Morlock loves us! I say we work together."

  "Why should we? You want to know what we know. What do you have to offer?" Solo said.

  "Illya Kuryakin and how to save him," Maxine said.

  Solo watched the beautiful Thrush agent. He did not rust her as far a s he could have thrown all of England. But if she knew where Illya was! After all, it was obvious that she, and Thrush, were not working with Morlock and his Cult this time.

  "You know where Illya is?"

  "I saw them take him, Napoleon, and I know how to get into their London headquarters," Maxine said.

  Solo grinned. "Then welcome, partner."

  Maxine laughed. "It has a nice sound. And may I have my gun back?"

  "On one condition," Solo said.

  "Condition, Napoleon dear?"

  "That I can put it back into its holster."

  "Napoleon, you do care!"

  Smiling, Solo returned her small pistol to its holster on her long, beautiful leg. Maxine laughed as Solo kissed her lightly. He, too, laughed—he had taken the precaution of palming the bullets from the clip before he returned the pistol.

  "Shall we go to London?" Solo said.

  "Lead on, partner," Maxine said.

  ACT III: THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST

  MAXINE TRENT lifted her skirt to climb up out of the old sewer onto the ledge of dry stone. Solo followed her. Together they stood in the dark far below London. Rats scurried against the ancient stone walls, and ahead there was a door.

  "That's it, Napoleon," Maxine said. "One of our men located it last week."

  "Where does it lead?"

  "Into the old tunnels and corridors. There are new corridors, but I think we can find a way through."

  "Stay here," Solo said.

  The agent inched along the stone ledge to the old door. It was rusted and locked, but there was a trace of oil around the lock. The door had been used. Solo took out a small strip of what looked like foil and stuck it to the door next to the lock. The foil was self adhesive. Solo polled a small metallic thread and jumped back.

  The foil burst into an intense white heat. The door glowed around the lock, melted, and when the white hot glow died away in the dark sewer, a gaping hole had appeared in the metal around the lock. Solo stepped forward and pushed the door open. He motioned to Maxine.

  Together, Solo and Maxine stepped through the door and into a short stone tunnel that led to a flight of stone steps going upward. Carefully, they moved up the stairs in the pitch dark. The steps did not go far, and came out in a low room that stank of slime and ancient decay.

  They crossed the low room and went through an archway into another low stone room. The second room was low but vast, its corners hidden in the dark. Solo flicked on his ring flashlight. The ultra-powerful beam picked out all the corners of the vast room.

  Rusted metal rings hung from the walls; rusted metal cages littered the floor. Spikes that had once been sharp protruded out from the walls. There was a cauldron and a brazier all turned to dust at Solo's touch. What had once been skeletons lay on the floor, nothing now but white dust.

  "Things don't change much," Solo said. "It reminds me of a Thrush headquarters."

  "Ah, ah, Napoleon dear. Remember, we're partners; speak nicely about us," Maxine said.

  "I'd rather speak nicely about how we're going to get out of here," Solo said, his powerful miniature light playing around the walls. "I don't see any way out, and no one's been in here for centuries. There must be another way in; that door had been oiled."

  "Then we better find it," Maxine said.

  They turned and retraced their steps to the smaller stone room. As they passed out of the vast room into the smaller one, Solo suddenly crouched and pulled Maxine down. His U.N.C.L.E. Special was out. Maxine held her pistol.

  Something moved along the right wall of the smaller room. Solo and Maxine waited, watched. His light out, Solo crouched with his Special trained on the wall. A Stone moved, a large stone.

  The stone fell into the room.

  Someone, a figure, came through the hole in the wall. A second figure followed. The two figures turned to replace the stone.

  Solo switched on his miniature flashlight ring.

  The two strangers dove for the floor.

  Solo and Maxine shone the light directly on the two and stepped forward with their weapons.

  * * *

  DEEP beneath the city of London, in a large, soundproof room lined with thick sheets of lead, the twelve men sat at the long table and watched their leader. They were all deformed, disfigured men, and their leader was Morlock The Great.

  The tiny magician stood before a great map of the world. His thin, delicate hands swept an arc in the air that took in the whole world and the many red pins on the map. His eyes gleamed in his large head.

  "They are all completed. We are ready. We will not wait now."

  "And Kuryakin?" one of the men at the table said.

  "He does not matter. He and Dabori cannot escape from her," Morlock said.

  "Dabori perhaps has found a way. I never trusted him," another man said.

  "It does not matter!" Morlock said. "If they escape it will be too late. We know they have not yet escaped. I am telling the Inner Council, you men, that the day is at hand! We move—tonight!"

  The twelve men at the table looked at each other, and their eyes glowed like the eyes of their leader. Morlock The Great laughed a diabolical laugh that filled the large room where the Inner Council of the Brotherhood held their secret meetings.

  "They all want to stop us, but they will not!" Morlock said. "After tomorrow the prophecy will be fulfilled—we will inherit the whole Earth!"

  Excitement ran through the room like an electric current. The members of the Inner Council began to talk, to congratulate their chief. Suddenly, there was a low buzz and a light over the single door began to blink. Morlock pressed a button.

  "Yes?" the tiny magician said.

  "Report strangers entering the old vaults from the sewer!"

  "How many?" Morlock snapped.

  "Two, sir. The detector shows that they are armed."

  "Very well. Deal with them!" Morlock snapped, and then said, "No, wait. I will come and deal with them myself."

  The midget switched off his communicator. His satanic features twisted into a crazy grin as he surveyed the members of his Inner Council.

  "As a precaution, we will find out who they are and what they know. But, whoever they are, they will not stop us now. Tonight, gentlemen! Tonight the morlocks take over the world, as predicted long ago!"

  In the large, secret room far below the great city, there was a savage shout from all the leaders of the Cult

  * * *

  AS HE stepped toward the two figures on the old stones, Napoleon Solo grinned. But he didn't feel as happy as he looked.

  "Really, Illya, you look silly lying there," Solo said.

  Illya raised his head. The small Russian stood up and dusted himself off.

  "What took you so long, Napoleon?"

  "I was delayed," Solo said, "but I brought a friend. Step forward, Maxine."


  Maxine Trent came into the light of the tiny ring flashlight. The beautiful Thrush agent smiled at Illya.

  The blond U.N.C.L.E. agent raised an eyebrow.

  "A friend, Napoleon?"

  "In this case, apparently," Solo said, and explained the details of Thrush's participation in the affair.

  "It should be an interesting experience," Illya said as he eyed Maxine from under his lowered brows. "I, too, have a friend. Paul Dabori is the man who sent the warning to Interpol."

  Illya recounted his experiences and the four of them squatted in the dark, the light out now, to plan their next move. Solo rubbed his chin.

  "Atom bomb shelters," Solo said slowly.

  "That explains why the house in Salisbury was so empty. A bomb shelter underneath it," Maxine said.

  But Solo was not listening. He was rubbing his chin, thinking. Now he looked at Illya and the morlock, Paul Dabori. The hunchback waited eagerly to see what he could do.

  "Atom bomb shelters," Solo said again, "and robberies for money to stock them, probably. And hallucinations that make men think they are being attacked."

  Illya nodded. "Are you thinking the same thing, Napoleon?"

  "When you had the hallucination," Solo said, "you thought Thrush was attacking you."

  "The enemy most on my mind," Illya said. "Yes. And those armored car guards thought they were being robbed—what was most on their mind."

  "And the Cult believes that they will survive while the rest of the world goes under," Solo said.

  There was a silence, and it was Maxine Trent who finally spoke. Maxine had listened, and now she spoke.

  "And they have built atom bomb shelters. So it is clear that Morlock The Great intends to help his Cult survive. He doesn't intend to wait, he's going to make the atom bombs drop!"

  Illya sighed. "It looks very much that way. I'm afraid that rather than wait for us to kill each other off, he's going to help us—by starting an atomic war!"

  Dabori finished it. "And soon. I know it is soon. They are worried that they will be discovered."

  This time the silence was deeper. Maxine Trent seemed lost in her own thoughts. Solo and Illya were seeing the horror of what they had just said. Somehow, Morlock The Great intended to set the powers of the world at war with each other—an atomic war in which the only survivors would be the Cult itself, deep in its shelters. Illya moved.