17-The Hollow Crown Affair

by David McDaniel

  Before Napoleon, heartened in his doubtful quest, started on the afternoon's dreary routine, he promised to meet Chandra and Ed for dinner. The next day he did go out to the dig area, where he was shown a lot of apparently identical pieces of pottery and arrowheads and some charred wood. He was more than willing to extend his stay indefinitely as Chandra suggested, but that evening after he had returned to his motel, his communicator signaled.

  "Good evening, Napoleon," said a familiar Russian voice. "How would you like to meet me in Philadelphia tomorrow afternoon about three? We've found Baldwin."

  * * *

  "You spotted him, tailed him and photographed him?" said Napoleon Solo doubtfully.

  "That's right," said the slender girl with the intent, serious face. Her name was Terri Harris, and she was the local contact for UNCLE's seldom-employed Section A. "I'm sorry about the quality of the photograph—the only time I had a camera available was when I spotted him coming out of a building downtown while we were in the car. I grabbed my brother's Instamatic and shot from about fifteen feet as we went by."

  "Mr. Simpson fed it to his computer, reduced the grain with a Fourier Transformation and took out the blur with something else. Then the computer was able to read enough of the image to identify it positively as Baldwin by comparison with the rest of our file," Illya explained. "It took about twenty minutes."

  "But how did you know we were looking for him?" Napoleon persisted.

  "His picture was in the monthly operations summary you sent out for July. I asked some of the kids at my school to notice if they saw somebody who looked like that. From what the report said I thought he might like a place like Philadelphia."

  "You're fifteen, aren't you."

  "I beg your pardon? Yes, I am."

  "Illya," said Napoleon aggrievedly, "what are we doing bringing a girl into this? Ward Baldwin is dangerous. And he knows a lot of dangerous people. And she was following him around?"

  "He's behaving himself perfectly," said Illya.

  "I have his hotel and room number," Terri volunteered. "You can phone him, if you like."

  Napoleon sighed and shook his head. "Will you want to come along on the stake-out tomorrow? I'd like to meet him face to face; if I phoned he'd probably hang up on me."

  "I'd love to," she said, "but I have homework. I can take the afternoon off, though, if I won't be in the way."

  "You needn't come armed," said Napoleon uncertainly.

  * * *

  They took up their positions at eight the next morning in a traditional parked car across the street and a few yards down. Terri joined them shortly past twelve and started learning about their operations, asking and observing, while they exchanged reminiscences. At twenty minutes to one Ward Baldwin stepped out of the main entrance to the hotel.

  Napoleon reached across Terri and opened the curb door. "You get out. If he doesn't want us to see him he may get nasty."

  "I'll wait here and watch," she said as she slipped to the curb.

  "If he comes back without us," said Illya, "don't try to stop him. If he leaves again, call Headquarters at once and tell them."

  "Right," she said, and ducked out of sight into a doorway as a gray Lincoln with its rear windows curtained drew up across the street and Ward Baldwin exchanged a few words with the driver. Then he got in and the car pulled away.

  The starter whirred and the engine caught as Illya turned the key, and their own undistinguished-looking car with a most distinguished engine and certain other modifications made an illegal U-turn and rounded the next corner in time to see the gray Lincoln turn two blocks ahead into Broad Street.

  Soon they were several cars back in medium dense traffic, heading south towards the City Hall. Soon the Lincoln shifted lanes to the right, and then turned on Race. Illya closed the distance between them gradually until only one car separated them when the Lincoln turned left on Sixteenth Street and accelerated. He let them go, making the turn at his leisure, and saw them brake at the second light ahead.

  He kept well back after that, only watching through the knotted traffic for an occasional glimpse of the low gray chassis. At last it made another left on Latimer and turned into a large parking structure. As they cruised past, Napoleon could clearly see the Lincoln turn into the ramp heading down.

  "Want to follow it and see what it eats?" he asked.

  "They'd probably notice if we came right in."

  "Once around the block, then."

  They made it halfway. A small door between two shop fronts was diffidently identified as the Convenience Entrance of the same garage, and a parking space stood miraculously open nearby. A firm believer that miracles are not to be ignored, Illya zipped smoothly into it and locked the doors as Napoleon fed the parking meter.

  Inside they were confronted with concrete and the clammy stench of the modern stable. Ahead daylight showed through the open lanes; a door labeled 'stairs' blocked a frame to their right.

  "Which way did they go?"

  "Down."

  "This door's locked. Want to check the front?"

  "Why not."

  The attendant drowsed in his air-conditioned glass cage, facing the street, and remained unaware of the two UNCLE agents as they crept quietly around the end of the cement pier that protected the descending ramp. A sheet of steel which rolled down from the ceiling covered it, and a sawhorse-mounted sign said SORRY—TEMPORARILY FILLED. SPACE RESERVED FOR REGULAR CUSTOMERS.

  They withdrew as silently as they had come, and a moment later Illya murmured, "Those looked like fairly irregular customers to me. I think I'd like to try the lock on that back door."

  The lock was a good commercial model, but it surrendered in seconds to a set of non-commercial instruments and the two found themselves in a stairwell. Shielded bulbs cast yellow parabolas on the stained concrete walls. Without pause they hurried silently down the steps.

  At the bottom another lock faced Illya's deft manipulations, but before it gave way they heard the faint sounds of voices.

  "The elevator will take you directly up," said one. "Turn right when you get out."

  "Thank you," said a familiar harsh precise voice.

  A moment later footsteps approached, and the door was pulled open. It is doubtful that either of the two men knew what hit them.

  "I'll bet they were going up," said Napoleon. "Let's catch that elevator."

  They didn't exactly sprint up the stairs, but they made good time. They passed the first level on Napoleon's hunch, but checked the second. There was no door for an elevator; they took the next flight two at a time.

  A nondescript door was closing in the wall and they peered cautiously out and listened. Instead of the cavernous hollow sound of the other levels, they heard the crisp close reverberations of slow footsteps with the occasional tap of a cane. Closing the stair door silently behind them and blocking the latch, they followed the sounds into a corridor which turned a right angle every twenty or thirty feet for some distance. Concealed fluorescents shed an even shadowless light along the steel paneling. Illya caught Solo's eye once with a suspicious now-what-are-you-getting-us-into look, but they saw no signs of opposition.

  After the fourth turn, they heard another door open and the footsteps ahead paused. On silent feet they moved past the next turn and saw Baldwin's back disappear through a frosted glass door set in one of the identical wall panels. A concealed detent showed its return, and on impulse Napoleon leaped forward and caught it silently just before it latched. He thumped it lightly with his fist to satisfy waiting ears, and beckoned to Illya with a toss of his head.

  Faint voices muttered in the next room, and faded as the speakers moved away. Gently Napoleon eased the heavy door open a crack and peered through. Baldwin and a short Chinese girl were just going through a door on the far side of an empty office. As the far door closed, Solo opened his and Illya followed him into the room, looking uneasily around.

  And was plunged into total darkness a fraction of a second befo
re a shrill buzzer sounded. The silence was shattered and other sounds grew around them. Something coughed and roared hugely on the other side of the far door, and was joined by a chorus as things slammed and two or three voices shouted. Bright bluish light grew beneath the far door, and by the glow Napoleon and Illya looked at each other.

  They weren't sure what was behind that door, and they didn't think they were equipped to find out. Nonetheless, they might never have another chance...Together they hurried to the inner door.

  They hit it side by side just before a dropping bar wedged into its rests, and two gray-suited figures were bowled backwards by the force of their rush through the door. Napoleon and Illya skidded to a halt and gaped into the room that lay revealed to them.

  Where acres of cars could have parked, rows of diesel-powered trucks stood facing the ramps, coughing out smoke. Men in gray coveralls ran about fastening down sidepanels emblazoned with the faded and dirty insignia of two dozen old and reputable trucking firms. As the first rank engaged their clutches and rolled off, the last ones were inhaling lengths of black cable. Shots splattered the brickwork a few feet above their heads, and they jumped back and slammed the door.

  "Illya," said Napoleon aggrievedly, "what's going on here?"

  "I have a silly idea..."

  "What?"

  "You'd laugh."

  Illya pushed the door open again and peered out. The last truck revved its engine and swung toward the open ramp downward, where another steel sheet was already beginning to roll down from above. As it passed, four men in gray coveralls with black berets broke from cover; two even paused to fire once more at the doorway where Illya stood staring before they swung aboard the open tailgate, with hands reaching out to help them up as the truck sped up and roared around the corner.

  The mutter of its engine faded as Illya gradually eased the door all the way open and stood up. The two men they had knocked over were gone, and the place was spotless except for a few oil stains on the floor at regular intervals. Slowly they walked out into the vast empty room and looked around.

  A scrap of paper, caught in the dying eddys of the last truck's departure, fluttered across the concrete towards them and stopped. Illya bent and picked it up automatically.

  It was an unused piece of note paper with MEMO: in fair-sized letters beneath the neat black symbol of the fighting thrush. He showed it to Napoleon.

  Solo looked at it for a minute, then looked at his partner with mixed awe and disbelief. "Aw, no," he said. "We didn't just walk into the middle of Thrush Central, did we?"

  Illya looked at him and shook his head sadly. "I told you you'd laugh," he said. "But I'll bet Ward Baldwin didn't."

  Chapter 4: "Sugar Maple And Pine"

  "This one was spotted by pure luck, Mr. Solo," the pilot yelled over the racket of the rotors. The radio-summoned helicopter had picked them up from the roof of the garage on Latimer Street and was now following the direction of a ground station. "It ran a red light about a minute after you put in the call and traffic control spotted it. The other ones must have gotten away."

  Below them, a middle-sized semi thundered along the Schuykill Expressway. The pilot throttled back to stay well behind him and fairly high. "We can't stop him until he gets back onto the streets or hits open country, so we'll just have to stay with him."

  It was fifteen tense minutes from the time they picked him up in Fairmount Park before the truck lumbered into an offramp for Conshohocken and turned north. Radio summoned cars to the area for support while the copter itself began to swing back and forth across the road in front of the speeding diesel, forcing it gradually to a standstill. Guns drawn, Napoleon and Illya leaped out and ran towards the cab, where a black-jacketed driver was starting to get out.

  "Hold it right there," yelled Solo, and the man froze, one hand on the door handle and one foot in mid-air. "That's right. Now let that foot down slowly and back out."

  The driver did as he was told, and turned a terrified face towards the two UNCLE agents. "Is this a hold-up?"

  "You might say that," said Illya. "What's in there?" He gestured with his automatic towards the back of the truck.

  The man's head followed his gesture, and then looked back with eyes wide. "Bricks, mister. Just bricks."

  "Okay," said Napoleon. "Open it up. I want to see your bricks."

  The driver looked at him as if he had just lost his mind, and the ghost of a doubt twitched in Napoleon's stomach. "Okay, mister, anything you say. They ain't my bricks." He eased himself slowly to a walking position, glancing at the two leveled automatics from time to time, and led them to the rear of the truck. There he threw back two bolts and swung the doors wide.

  Inside, stacked on pallets, were piles and piles of bricks. They could see enough space down the sides to be sure no concealed compartments opened through the walls.

  As they stared, both communicators chirped for attention and Waverly's voice spoke crisply. "Well, what have you found?"

  "It's full of bricks, sir," said Illya hesitantly.

  "Well, check the license number. Check the registration. Verify the driver's identity. Don't let anything out of your sight. Oh—Mr. Simpson tells me we will probably have to examine each brick carefully; they could easily be disguised memory units. Or only a few of them might be. And check his bills of lading and receipt book. Hang it, check everything! I'll be there with Mr. Simpson in two hours."

  When the support forces arrived, Solo put them in charge of the truck with orders to wait for Mr. Waverly while the driver sat on the cab step with his head in his hands. As Solo started to get back into the helicopter, the man looked up and shook his fist. "You're gonna cost me my job, you..." The engine fired and the rest of his statement was lost to the world in a thunder of rotor blades and exhaust as they lifted.

  Ten minutes later they switched to their own car and sped back to Baldwin's hotel. As they pulled up to the curb, Terri stepped out of a doorway to greet them. "Baldwin got back here about twenty-five minutes ago," she said, "and hasn't come out this way."

  "Let's go in and see if we can patch things up," said Napoleon.

  They hurried into the lobby and asked for the bearded man with a cane—and found he had checked out fifteen minutes ago and taken a cab from the basement garage.

  Terri stood and looked seriously at them as they walked back from the hotel to where she stood by the parked car. "You didn't find him," she said.

  "I'm afraid he's gone again," said Illya.

  "Oh well," said Napoleon resignedly, "we were close."

  * * *

  Even Alexander Waverly showed traces of despair when Napoleon and Illya finished reporting to him four days later.

  "He was from a brickyard half a mile west of where Thrush Central was located, and his orders were checked out and cleared—he was on his way to a construction site in Seven Stars," said Solo.

  "At last report, the investigation team had gotten about two-thirds of the bricks checked—thoroughly negative so far," said Kuryakin.

  "They won't find anything," said Waverly. "We all know the truck was a red herring. What is more irritating is the loss of Baldwin again. Mr. Bigglestone of our San Francisco office reports two attempts to introduce high explosives into their building; Chicago has stood off two overt attacks in the last three days. The other Continental Chiefs tell me daily of increased harassment from Thrush since your ill-timed invasion of their innermost sanctum. And have you described in detail the methods you used to circumvent the complex of alarm systems you must have foiled?"

  "Well," said Solo, "we went right in behind Ward Baldwin—I guess they thought we were with him."

  Waverly poked at his cold pipe with a bony fore-finger. "Apparently they continued to think so after they found out who you were. It would seem Baldwin had sought out Thrush Central, probably to make a final attempt at reconciliation or negotiation. When you walked in on his tail, the obvious interpretation was that you were the vanguard of an invading force with Bald
win as the betrayer. I can't think how he could have escaped, but he obviously did."

  "Well, we can hardly blame him for leaving town so suddenly, then," said Illya.

  "And now we've offended him," said Napoleon, "and he's probably gone off in a snit and will refuse to be found until it wears off or someone can talk him out of it." He sighed. "It may be a while."

  * * *

  August became September and Ward Baldwin was not seen again. Waverly sent Solo and Kuryakin off on another assignment for three weeks, but their hearts weren't really in it. Summer faded slowly, and the first hints of autumn began to show in New York City. The skirts stayed short, but gusty breezes whipped unexpectedly around corners more often and sweaters began to appear.

  One Monday morning early in the month Illya was in mid-town Manhattan on personal business when a sudden shower drove him to take refuge in the doorway of the Automat facing Bryant Park on Sixth Avenue. The sky had been low and leaden all morning, hanging like dirty cotton batting strung among the skyscrapers, oozing a chill dampness, and finally allowed its load of misery to fall on the sooty city beneath. While pedestrians scampered from the spattering drops, fat speckled pigeons huddled high on building ledges and shook their wings angrily at the indignities of the weather.

  Illya looked out into the shadowless muted grays, considering the temperature and the condition of the storm fronts he had noticed on the morning weather display, and gave it one chance in three of letting up within the hour. Opting for the lesser evil, he turned and pushed through the bronze doors polished by millions of hands into Horn & Hardart's. A dollar and a quarter later he seated himself at a tray-sized table alone amid the cluster of strangers, right by the window, with a cheering hot meal in front of him. He just started to pour the milk when a flicker of movement caught his eye and he glanced up.

  The cardboard carton froze in mid-air, halfway to the glass, as he recognised the cheerful motherly face of Irene Baldwin eight feet away. She wore a faded dress and a knit sweater; an old black shawl covered her head and she was nodding to him. She seemed to have just appeared, and she was carrying a small tray with something on it.