The Blazing Affair, page 1
GREAT FAT SPIDERS
scuttled obscenely across the floor. On they came, a silent armada, fastening their tentacles to the bedcover, climbing closer to the frozen April Dancer. Deadly black widows. Compliments of TORCH.
TORCH was the name that sent Mr. Waverly’s blood pressure sky high. TORCH was the assignment from which no U.N.C.L.E. agent has yet returned. TORCH was the blazing trail that April Dancer and Mark Slate followed from a hotel room in Budapest to a deserted mine shaft in Johannesburg. TORCH was the secret international organization led by a scar-faced maniac who called himself Der Führer!
And if Der Führer’s plans for a world holocaust and Fourth Reich were being bugged, it was because TORCH had run into U.N.C.L.E.’s most powerful secret weapon. Namely, April Dancer.
the girl from
U.N.C.L.E.
The Blazing Affair
By Michael Avallone
Table of Operations
Introduction to an Agent
Operation Torch
The Spider People
All That Glitters
Death in the Diamonds
Blaze of Doom
Make Mine Mau Mau
Down Went April Dancer
A Nephew from U.N.C.L.E.
Slaughter Alley
Serendipity
Mayhem on Wheels
Said the Führer
The Bathroom Horror
Simon Says “April Fool!”
Some Like It Cold
Population Explosion
For the Uninitiated
The letters U.N.C.L.E. stand for United Network Command of Law Enforcement. This is an organization of unusual quality and outstanding ability; its main function is to defeat the forces of global operations which seek to subjugate civilization as we know it beneath the hell and totalitarianism of tyranny.
To combat all the deadly isms, there is U.N.C.L.E. No other arm of counterintelligence and espionage exists in which the range of counter-ism endeavor is so nonparochial and far-flung. The personnel of U.N.C.L.E. is intentionally multinational and multilingual. All races, colors and creeds combine their efforts to block any world power or underground organization which attempts to unbalance the scheme of things by force.
U.N.C.L.E. is subdivided into six sections:
SECTION I: Policy and Operations
SECTION II: Operations and Enforcement
SECTION III: Enforcement and Intelligence
SECTION IV: Intelligence and Communications
SECTION V: Communications and Security
SECTION VI: Security and Personnel
There is a profitable overlap of one Section into another. Section II is perhaps the most vital of all the departments in that it is there that the all-important job of execution of the work of the other five sections truly solidifies into reality.
For there is one country, one force, one power, whose entire raison d’être is world domination. Out of this country has come an organization of supra-people who seek to rule the universe and is known by the code name of THRUSH.
U.N.C.L.E. is the only answer for THRUSH.
No one has ever learned what the lettered name of a bird symbolizes.
But it is not the dove of peace. It is the bird of war. All-out, deadly, no-holds-barred war.
U.N.C.L.E. has the men to stop them.
And the women.
Introduction to an Agent
The assassin waiting patiently on the tarred roof above Rosten Boulevard checked his rifle once more to make certain all was in readiness. The range he had estimated at two hundred yards, allowing for the moving vehicle. He knew the Crown Prince would be flanked by the two burly Secret Police officials who never left his side. No matter. The rifle was high-powered, cross-haired to the thousandth of an inch, and the ammunition was .30-.30 caliber. The cartridges had been flattened at their noses for expansion. When the Crown Prince’s body became framed in the telescopic sight lenses, it would be but a second. Even a glancing shot would spread into a gaping fatal wound. Then indeed would the death of a nobleman come, marking the beginning of a gloriously new and different regime in Ostarkia. The world would see the dawn of a great movement…
Trumpets blared suddenly. The throngs lining the paved walks cheered lustily. Flags, pennants, and handkerchiefs fluttered in gay abandon. The assassin crouched over his weapon, every line of his body ready, the rifle an unwavering line. The motorcade of Rolls Royces and Mercedes-Benz touring cars had swung from Halsen Street, as he had known it would, into Rosten for the procession past the Prime Minister’s headquarters.
The Crown Prince’s car, an open vehicle specially constructed for such tours as this one, rolled forward.
Music filled the air, horns chorused, the people of Ostarkia roared hoarsely. The dark shining limousine bearing the still-boyish Crown Prince drew nearer, a motorcycle escort racing ahead to clear the way. The trumpets soared to a fanfare, wholly filling the atmosphere of the town square.
The assassin squinted through his telescopic sight.
The moment of comic tragedy had come. Weeks of endless plotting, the bribery of trusted officials, the deceit of politics, had brought the sweep hand of the watch strapped to his left wrist to that precise second when the Crown Prince must die. One delicate squeeze and…
Behind his crouched body, the roof door suddenly slammed in violent sound. The assassin whirled, the rifle coming to high port in his quaking arms. His eyes bulged in wonder and disbelief.
A woman stood framed in the entranceway, a scant ten yards from the parapet of the roof. The assassin had only a flashing instant to take in the American-cut afternoon dress of blue, the mocking smile on an extraordinarily pretty face, and the almost casual stance which suggested that all of this situation was indeed ridiculous.
The woman (she looked very young) was holding a chrome and black leather camera as though she were going to take his picture. The assassin, bewildered, for one mad moment imagined this was but one of those annoying cinema people who overran Ostarkia from time to time. Movie makers and tourists…
“Pity, Karwin,” the woman said in a curiously mild, unexcited voice that spoke his own language as beautifully as it could be uttered. “As difficult as it might have been, I think you could have made that shot.”
Karwin growled in his throat, the rifle pointing, his finger constricting on the heavy trigger. The woman in the doorway did not try to dodge.
But there was a blur of movement, a coughing sound lost in the medley of parade noises floating up from the street below, and a tiny puff of smoke materialized magically in the vicinity of the intruder’s right hand. The camera had popped like an old-fashioned flashbulb device.
Karwin sagged back against the tarred slope of the parapet, still clutching the rifle. There was now a red mark visible in his broad, apish forehead, as if an annoying bee had scored a hit. He had never been able to get a shot off.
The remarkably attractive girl in the American-cut dress stepped back behind the door, closing it softly. The camera was now slung from her shoulder by a leather strap.
The limousine bearing the Crown Prince of Ostarkia swept slowly past Karwin’s observation post. Ringing cheers of love and acclaim surrounded it. The Crown prince was standing erect, waving, his uniform immaculate and grand.
He was handsome, young, and nearly classic-looking in the bright and glorious sunlight.
He was also very much alive.
“Chloral hydrate.” The little doctor down at the detention center said. “It is amazing but it seems to have been far more potent than usual. Karwin had been unconscious at least an hour when your people found him on the roof.”
The police chief, a fierce-faced man with a great deal of braid and an equal amount of hatred, snorted.
“The telephone call came within minutes of the Crown Prince’s entourage leaving Rosten Boulevard. These assassins! Clearly, Karwin’s accomplice betrayed him. We shall have much to ask that worthy when we clear his head a bit. He is still babbling like an idiot.”
The doctor shrugged, reaching for his overcoat, a tan ulster slung over a chair in the office. Politics was not his department.
Captain Dorset permitted himself a cold smile.
“All too true, Doctor. Still the phone call disturbs me. The man who took the message---Sergeant Freddo---says the voice was that of a woman.”
“Mata Hari was a woman,” the little doctor muttered without emphasis, waved his hand, and left the room.
Captain Dorset cursed fluently in his own language, now that he was alone. He shuddered to think what would have happened to the principality of Ostarkia had Karwin succeeded in his assassination. Was no one safe any longer in this highly dangerous age?
It would seem not.
Miss April Dancer was still carrying her camera when she returned to her side-street hotel. It was a pleasant enough hostelry, with clean, quiet rooms, a small lobby, and an elevator from the days of balls, cotillions, and great soirees where the peasantry met royalty on equal terms. Ostarkia was a throwback all the way. There were few automobiles, very little television, and not a whisper of the supermarket modernity that had overrun most of Europe. Ostarkia, lost in the high ranges of the Balkans, clung almost feverishly to the past. Perhaps that was why it had been such a perfect spot for an attempt by THRUSH to impose satrap limitations on its government. Monarchies were made for anarchists like THRUSH agents of Karwin’s stamp.
There were no messages or phone calls for her at the tiny registration desk. Th
“Ah,” he murmured with relish, his dark eyes raping her. “And the parade? Did you like it?”
“Real Fourth of July stuff,” she agreed, speaking English because the clerk did. “Would you make out my bill, please?”
“You are leaving us so soon? When tomorrow is the Grand Promenade of the Blessed Virgin on Lake Oliveri---”
“Sorry. I’m due in New York on Monday. Can’t traipse around Europe all the time, you know. I expect to leave the hotel by sundown so if you could arrange a car to take me to the airport, I’d be very grateful.”
He sighed unhappily, his dark eyes rolling.
“If you must---you must---” He tried to take her hand as he handed her the room key but she skillfully avoided contact by sweeping the tag end from his fingers. She smiled at him, just to show him she wasn’t offended by his enthusiasm.
She could still see him leering at her from the flowerpot-lined desk as the grilled elevator car rose feebly to the third floor. She had correctly pigeonholed the amorous clerk as a man on the make, but it was dangerous making snap judgments. You could never be too sure of anyone when the stakes were life and death.
Her room had been undisturbed, her luggage and clothes and personal effects as she had left them. She had taken the ordinary amount of routine precautions, leaving objects in a fixed position and making a line drawing of their arrangement in the room. When she checked the sketch against the room proper, everything matched. The hairs from her head that she had placed at strategic spots like door frames and windowsills were unbroken. To all appearances, Ostarkia had accepted her for what she was. Miss April Dancer, innocuous American tourist, who seemed to have little interest in the birds and the bees. She had worn glasses part of the time to enhance the characterization of clear-eyed, levelheaded career girl.
She stowed the camera in with the rest of the technological arsenal in her wardrobe suitcases. Mission accomplished. She had been sent to Ostarkia to block the attempt on the Crown Prince’s life. Karwin was in the hands of the police. Score a big hit for U.N.C.L.E. The United Network Command of Law and Enforcement.
With the room door locked, she walked to the bed and clicked on a night lamp. From the drawer of the stand on which it rested, she produced a fountain pen. It was chrome and rather expensive-looking. She adjusted the clasp holder and it sprung ceiling ward, forming an antenna a full six inches high. A low beeping sound filled the room. A sound which could not have been heard in the corridor outside the room.
Ostarkia was quiet outside the hotel. Only the normal hum of activity and movement persisted. Cart wheels clattered on the cobblestones. A hawker’s voice could be heard shouting the benefits to be derived from fresh mountain grapes and succulent cheeses of every description. She smiled to herself but all of her attention was on the communicator device poised in her hand.
A crisp, English-sounding voice filtered from the fountain pen.
“Yes, Miss Dancer?”
It never ceased to amaze her. The vast complexities of relays and boosters, the electronics wizardry of the age which enabled her to talk into a fountain pen to somebody in New York, thousands of miles away.
“The parade is over, Mr. Waverly. Scratch Karwin.”
“Good, good. Any difficulties at all?”
“None as of this moment. I’m checking out tonight.”
“I see. How were the mountains?”
Mr. Waverly might have been discussing a cure for warts, so avuncular and patient was his tone. April’s smile widened. The old dear was about to spring a surprise on her. She knew him too well.
“Beautiful. But I have no more mountains to climb here.”
“Just as well. I feel you should go on to Budapest. I have arranged for Mr. Slate to meet you there. Tomorrow. No later than, say, six o’clock, their time. He has all the details. You can both talk to me from there. Understood?”
“Budapesh?” she echoed. “You mean Hungary, of course.”
“My dear Miss Dancer. Do not allow your fluency in languages to betray your special skills. You must watch that habit. Good luck and a safe journey to you.”
“Roger and wilco. Signing out.”
She lowered the antenna and the intermittent beeps ended. She frowned. Budapest. Hungary. Mark Slate. Something had to be up. She always teamed with the thin, green-eyed, guitar-playing ex-RAF pilot who had become such an important arm of the U.N.C.L.E organization. It would be great seeing him again, especially since she had left him in New York several weeks ago. The Karwin business had taken a great deal longer than expected. So may leads to ferret out and run down before she had been able to pin-point the assassin’s presence on the roof that under-the-table monies had left unguarded.
Now, all that was left was getting out of Ostarkia with a whole skin. Karwin had to have some friends. Or possibly, he might break down under police questioning and give a perfect description of the woman who had done him in.
She couldn’t hang around waiting for the Crown Prince to send her his personal thanks for saving his life. That wasn’t the order of things with U.N.C.L E. He didn’t know about her anyway, wasn’t supposed to know, and she would have to get her satisfaction for doing the deed as she always did. From her own unerring, inescapable involvement with wanting the world to spin properly on its axis, without world-domination fanatics like THRUSH upsetting the scheme of things.
THRUSH never stopped trying. She wouldn’t be too surprised if the rendezvous with Mark Slate in Budapest meant more of the same. In the two short, hectic, impossible years she had spent as a girl from U.N.C.L.E., it had been THRUSH that had kept her the busy little agent she was.
Even Mr. Waverly had once remarked, in one of his few excursions into personal opinion: “They never stop trying. They never will stop. So many heads, so many arms. So many legs. We no sooner sever one than another springs into being. Ready to fight us.”
The Old Man could say that again.
With no more to think about than her safe exit from the pleasant environs of the principality known as Ostarkia, April Dancer began her preparations for departure.
It was somewhere during that time that the turnkey down at police headquarters had occasion to go to Karwin’s cell. He was a bit frightened and thoroughly upset when he saw that the squarish, loutish assassin was not stirring on the small cot that held his reclining figure. Assassins were usually cell pacers. Like caged beasts.
The turnkey’s hue and cry for a doctor and help was of little avail. No amount of medical skill could have returned Karwin to life.
Like all failures in the deadly game of espionage, Karwin had somehow secreted on his person the L pill that permitted him to take his own life. L as in lethal. Potassium cyanide.
Captain Dorsett, when apprised of the calamity, cursed more fluently and passionately than ever.
The Devil take all spies everywhere!
Operation Torch
The Iron Curtain that so closely enfolds Hungary has not changed the look of the land. Mother Nature knows little of political ideology, of individual or collective oppression. Hungary is still largely a rolling fertile plain, stretching east of the Danube across the Tisza River to the border, and yielding many crops. The Danube still looks blue to new lovers. Indeed, the land of Tokay wine, bauxite, and agriculture looks little changed by the events of that historic day in 1956 when Red Army tanks swept across its borders to reinforce the puppet government and overthrow the national Freedom Fighters, and by all that has followed.
United Nations observers and committees are still barred from the country. In the port metropolis of Budapest, there is no wall as in Berlin. But there is communism, there are Communists, and there is intrigue, political chicanery, and eternal vigilance for spies.
For two agents to arrange a meeting in one of the bigger hotels in such a city was an extraordinary feat. The walls had ears, every smiling Hungarian face could mask an enemy---a traitor or Secret Police underling who might turn you in for a forint.
