The Howling Teenagers Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  Solo and Illya continued to walk as if they had seen nothing until they reached the rear wall.

  And vanished.

  * * *

  The beautiful woman lurked in the doorway of a building on East 45th Street. She watched as the young man came down the steps of another brownstone two doors up the street closer to the East River. She frowned. She had expected Napoleon Solo to be carrying something when he emerged.

  Aware that the wail of his miniature radio had been a summons to U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, she had trailed him to the 44th Street brownstone. She had not gone up the alley; it was too convenient. Instead, she, Maxine Trent, had come around the block and been rewarded for her quick guessing by the appearance of Solo from another brownstone. But the U.N.C.L.E. agent was empty-handed.

  Maxine stared at the figure of Solo. The handsome young man was walking east toward the river. She sighed to herself; Napoleon Solo was such a good-looking man; it was too bad that she would have to stop him now, and search him. He could easily be carrying what she wanted hidden somewhere on that slender but so nicely masculine body.

  She left her refuge and followed down the street in the shadows of the buildings on the shaded side. She was proud of herself. U.N.C.L.E. was so proud of its security! Solo was sure no one could have followed to the building on 44th Street and from the building on 45th Street.

  The handsome fool was walking openly, carelessly.

  Maxine had to hurry and move closer as people began to pour out of an office at the end of the block. She passed another set of brownstone steps, still smiling but hurrying. She never saw the small blond man step out.

  Illya caught her neck, pressed and caught her inert body in his arms as she collapsed. She made no sound, lay totally unconscious in his arms.

  A policeman pushed through the crowd.

  "I'm sorry, officer. My wife has these spells," Illya said.

  "She just passed out," someone said.

  "You need a doctor?" the policeman said helpfully.

  "That's an excellent idea," Illya said. "If you wouldn't mind holding her, I'll find one at once."

  Illya handed the inert form of Maxine Trent to the arms of the policeman, smiled and walked away into the crowd. All the people looked at the nice young man with sympathy. Illya smiled sadly back at them as he turned the corner and vanished.

  It was nearly twenty minutes before the policeman began to wonder about the nice young man.

  * * *

  There are four known entrances to the hidden complex of U.N.C.L.E headquarters in New York. A maze of steel and bomb proof concrete hides behind its innocent fa‡ade, which includes a tailor shop, the false offices of an international aid organization also called U.N.C.L.E., and a key-club type restaurant called The Mask Club. The stronghold has no stairs, only elevators, and has been penetrated only once. From that simple penetration, no one in the attacking force survived.

  To those who know, the headquarters can also be entered by water from the river through secret tunnels. But the main entrance, used by all but the few who can never be seen going in, is Del Floria's tailor shop.

  Del Floria himself is a tall, balding man in his fifties. He is a good tailor, but he is also one of the best and quickest shots with any of the many weapons he has hidden close.

  Del Floria is the keeper of the gate. He has been this, a key man in Section-V of U.N.C.L.E., for a long time. To enter the headquarters an enemy must pass him. This has never been done. The one penetration was made through the river entrances. Del Floria knows every U.N.C.L.E. member by sight, the only man below Section-I who does. He knows their faces, and no more. To know more would be his death warrant. Now he smiled as he greeted two old customers.

  "If you would step into the fitting rooms, gentlemen," Del Floria said, "we can start fitting you."

  Solo and Kuryakin stepped through the curtain into the fitting room. Once inside, they waited a moment; then, on a signal from Del Floria that all was clear, they stepped into one of the many dressing rooms. They closed the curtain. The wall opened. They stepped through. The wall closed behind them.

  They stood in the reception room of U.N.C.L.E.

  The room was windowless, without doors of any kind. A pretty girl sat behind the reception desk. The controls on the desktop were unlabeled, unidentified. Only she knew which button did what, and the buttons were interchanged at irregular intervals. She looked like a receptionist in any office in the city. Her U.N.C.L.E. special was out of sight in its holster behind her back. She handed Solo and Illya their triangular identity badges.

  Badges in place, they stepped toward a wall that opened miraculously. Without the badges there would now be a hundred alarms clanging, doors closing and sealing, armed men facing them from every angle. With the badges they walked straight ahead through doors that opened untouched, past doors that never would open without the proper signal. They walked on floors of steel, between walls of steel, and there were no windows anywhere.

  They rode up two floors in a silent elevator. They emerged into another steel corridor. Again doors opened and they reached the end door of the corridor. This door was unmarked, exactly as all the other doors. A plain steel door with no way to tell that it was in any way different. But it was. This was the heart of U.N.C.L.E. operations in New York. The office of the chief, the office of one of only five men who formed Section-I—Policy and Operations.

  The door opened. Solo and Illya stepped inside. Alexander Waverly stood at an open window, absently tapping his empty pipe in his hand. Solo and Illya stood behind him. The chief, the member of Section-I, seemed to be trying to think of something he wanted to say.

  "He—uh, seemed to know nothing," Waverly said, without turning around. "The one who was following Mr. Kuryakin. They brought him around in Section-V but he could tell us nothing."

  "THRUSH?" Napoleon Solo said.

  "Yes, of course, Mr.—uh—Solo. Of course," Waverly said.

  The head of U.N.C.L.E. in New York turned now. Alexander Waverly looked, Illya Kuryakin had once said, like an aristocratic bloodhound. Beneath a broad forehead and thinning but neat gray hair, bushy eyebrows stood out from a heavy brow. The eyes were sunken in deep sockets, heavily wrinkled at the corners, as if the man had spent many years squinting into the sun and wind of the world. Below the eyes, Waverly's face drooped into a permanently serious expression. A face that never smiled, never frowned, never showed any expression but thought.

  "And mine?" Solo said. "Maxine Trent?"

  "She talked her way out of the hands of the law. She then eluded the Section-V man who followed her," Waverly said. "An entirely different cup of tea, the Trent woman."

  Waverly seemed to be thinking of something a long time ago. It would have been hard for Solo or Illya to guess what it was. The background of Alexander Waverly was shrouded in an obscure mist. Beyond a rumor of fifty years service in British and American Intelligence, the manner of a man who had been born an aristocrat, the speech of an Englishman who had lived in many lands other than England, there was nothing known.

  Just a man over sixty who wore tweeds and liked pipes, who could barely recall the names of his own agents, and who seemed always in a vaguely bumbling haze. A minor official who should have retired years ago. A man who, when it counted, had a memory like an elephant, a brain as quick as a scorpion and equally dangerous, a composure that never ruffled, and the ability to command men. A man who was very alone.

  "Well," Waverly said. "I expect I sent for you gentlemen."

  "Something THRUSH apparently knows about already," Illya said.

  "We weren't followed for nothing."

  "Yes," Waverly said. "I dare say they know what I have to tell you. Not surprising. THRUSH Council members are well placed, as you know."

  "How would they know it would be Illya and myself you would use this time?" Solo said.

  "I believe they would assume we would use our best men on something of this importance," Waverly said. And Waverly nodded to hi
mself, as if seeing the THRUSH council, his opponents in the perpetual chess game he played for the future of the world. "Yes, they would have learned we have been called in. They would properly try to stop us befor we started."

  "They appear to know more than we do," Illya said dryly.

  "Eh? Oh, yes, I imagine they do. We shall have to correct that now. You see, it appears that THRUSH has found a way to use, and perhaps destroy, the young people of the world."

  FOUR

  They were seated around the circular briefing table with the moving top. Waverly had pressed the button on his desk; a panel had slid back on the wall, revealing the screen. Now Illya, Solo and Waverly were watching the gray screen. Somewhere far off inside the complex of steel rooms the head of Communications and Research in Section-III, the pretty and redheaded May Heatherly, operated the screen and the running commentary.

  "This is the airfield at Kandaville, photographed a few minutes after the mob had gone. You will note the knife in the back of the president," the crisp, yet very female voice of May Heatherly said.

  Solo noted the knife in the back of the dead president of the new country. But a corner of his mind thought of the very alive, very pretty, May Heatherly. He sighed aloud. And smiled when he noted Waverly looking at him. His chief missed little-worse, understood him. Waverly knew precisely what Solo's sigh meant, and disapproved, and yet—

  Sometimes Napoleon Solo was sure that Alexander Waverly still appreciated the young ladies.

  "This is the body of the boy in London, taken just after the Palladium was cleared," the voice of May Heatherly went on.

  Illya looked at the crushed head of the boy. His mind observed every detail. He frowned. There was nothing at all unusual, nothing he could see to go on. Just a dead boy of seventeen.

  "This is the basement room in Sydney taken by the police when they arrived. There was no doubt of the verdict, mass suicide," May Heatherly's voice continued.

  Solo and Illya looked at the twenty-two sprawled bodies, all smiling in death.

  "Note the smiles," Waverly said. "Quite unusual."

  In rapid succession the screen showed the burning laboratory in Chicago, the armored car and its dead guards in Soho, the beach near Santa Barbara, the dead deputy chief of security in Red Square. And there was more, much more. Waverly laid a report, tow copies on the table and swung the top until the copies were before Illya and Solo.

  "The report is quite complete," Waverly said. "At least forty-seven other comparable incidents within the last three months."

  Solo flipped through the report, scanning the acts and places.

  "Teenagers are always rioting," Solo said.

  "Quite true," Waverly said. "But there are some peculiarities. Miss—uh—Heatherly, will you run them again?"

  The pictures flashed on the screen again one by one. Solo and Illya studied them intently in the silence of the office. They were horrible, sad. They were angering, wasteful.

  "Note all the expressions of the teenagers, gentlemen, those who are in the pictures. You will notice the smiles, even on the dead. And observe the eyes-positively exhilarated, I should say."

  "Manic," Illya said. "Almost insane."

  "No, I think not insane. Look carefully. They are happy,"

  Waverly pointed out. "It has been my experience that teenagers who have committed some act of violence or vandalism are characteristically frightened or at least subdued afterwards. Their natural insecurity returns after the impetus if gone. But these young people are still happy."

  "Drugged?" Solo said.

  "Not in the usual sense, I should say," Waverly said. "But I suspect some form of artificial stimulant—a most peculiar kind."

  Illya leaned forward. "In what way, sir?"

  Waverly did not answer at once. The older man patted at his tweed pockets as if searching for something. At last he pulled out a pipe. Then he began to look for his tobacco. He continued his search as he talked.

  "Well, it leaves no trace of how it was administered. It also leaves no trace in the body. They ran autopsies on all the dead children. Finally, it seems to have unpredictable effects."

  "What do you mean exactly by unpredictable?" Illya said.

  Waverly filled his pipe. "Possible I should have the pictures run again for you, gentlemen. But in the interest of saving time, let me point out that in some of these cases there seems to be considerable method to the madness. I should think you could see-"

  "The murder of the president," Illya said, "the stealing of the gold bullion, the burning of that laboratory, and the theft of the fuse plans, and-"

  "And the killing of the deputy chief of security," Solo finished.

  "Very good, gentlemen, I see all your training is not lost," Waverly said. "Yes, it is quire clear that in each of those cases random accident appears rather unlikely. Someone had much to gain in each instance. One such accident, yes. Two? Possible. Three, not really possible. Four, never."

  "Mathematically all but impossible," Illya said. "Given the exact similarity of conditions-all teenage riots."

  "What about the Russians?" Solo said. "Each of those cases was in the West except the deputy chief of security, and he was a Pole. It could have been some sort of purge."

  Illya smiled. "Always ready to malign my poor countrymen."

  "Your ex-countrymen," Solo pointed out.

  Waverly cleared his throat, tapped out his never lighted pipe.

  "Let me say it is not the Russians. Our friends at the Kremlin are not cooperative with information, as you well know, but in this case we have reliable data to show that other such incidents have occurred in the Soviet. They are, I believe, quite as worried as the West.

  "THRUSH?" Solo said.

  "I think we can safely detect their fine hand in this, Mr. Solo," Waverly said. "Especially since they appear to be out to stop us before we start. A sign, I believe, of the high priority nature of whatever scheme they have."

  Waverly searched his tweed jacket for his tobacco pouch again.

  "In addition, our Section-I representative for Africa, with whom I had the pleasure of speaking this morning, has some other indications. It appears that the man who will step into the dead president's shoes out there may well be a THRUSH man. That would make the new country another THRUSH satrapy, I fear. In any event, each case would benefit THRUSH in its work enormously."

  There was a silence in the office. They were all thinking of the work of THRUSH. That supra-national organization, almost a nation of its own, had only one work—to dominate the world, to have the only power. To this end THRUSH had already invaded the body politic of the earth like some insidious virus. Everywhere on earth, high places and low, there were men who seemed to belong to various nations, but who, in fact belonged to only one nation—THRUSH

  These men lived complete double lives, whether they were taxi-drivers of cabinet ministers. Their rank in the visible world did not necessarily coincide with their THRUSH ranking. A taxi-driver in New York could be a leader of THRUSH; a cabinet minister in Peru could be no more than a common soldier. At the head of THRUSH was the council—great men all, in both worlds: soldiers, industrialists, politicians, scientists.

  Illya Kuryakin leaned forward across the circular table, his dark eyes fixed on Waverly. "I can understand the cases where THRUSH has something to gain. But what about the other incidents? Were they mistakes of THRUSH?"

  "Possibly," Waverly agreed.

  "Or a cover," Solo said. "Intended to hide the real incidents where they gained.

  "Possibly," Waverly agreed again. The older man sucked on his unlighted pipe. "I think, gentlemen, that we are dealing with both mistakes and a cover, but not in the usual sense. There is something here that does not meet the eye. Teenagers have been rioting, running wild at times, for many years. It is a part of our modern world, it seems. But now we have a difference. Now we have what appears to be true madness, insanity. Some of it seems directed, some not. But in all cases, ultimate violence has ensu
ed, and the young people, and others, have died—smiling! It is as if something had pushed the young people beyond the normal limits. We know they were not drugged in the normal sense, and despite much work we have discovered no agents provocateur. We are looking for something capable of turning great masses of young people into mindless monsters who kill, steal and perform planned atrocities apparently without direction! Something that works on great numbers, leaves no trace, and leads to single acts of definite method in some cases but not in all cases. That, gentlemen, is the key. Why does it work only in some cases? That is what we must know."

  "Perhaps it is still experimental," Illya said. "That would explain why it doesn't work."

  "That occurred to me," Waverly said. "And that is why we must move fast before it is perfected."

  "How?" Solo said. "If there is no direction from outside, no agents, no visible contact with anyone, how can we trace it? You can't just go and question every member of a teenage mob!"

  "Naturally not, Mr. Solo," Waverly said. "In any case that has been tried. The young people seem to know nothing, those who have survived. All they can tell us is that they suddenly felt the urge to be violent. In most cases, those who live have no true recollection of just how violent they have been."

  "Like the alkaloid drugs," Illya said quickly. "Aware of what they are doing, but unaware of the speed, the degree."

  "Exactly," Waverly said. "Over and over again authorities have reported that the teenagers appear to think they merely knocked down a person they have actually trampled to death."

  "But they do know they have been violent?" Solo said.

  "Yes, Mr. Solo. They know," Waverly said. The older man tapped his pipe on the circular table. "There is one more detail. Is is, I believe, vital. Over the past six months the cases have tended to be prolonged. That is, the violence does not leave the young people as soon. Each time they appear to remain in their madness longer. We have no time to lose."

  "But where do we start?" Solo demanded.

  "In Kandaville, I think," Waverly said. "You see, we now have one clue, our only clue."

  The older man turned back to the screen and pressed a button. Instantly the scene of the airfield at Kandaville appeared. It was the same as before. Bodies of dead teenagers, the battered and bloody police and troops, the wrecked aircraft, and the dead president on his face.