04-The Dagger Affair

  The Dagger Affair

  By David McDaniel

  "Tell us all about Dagger!"

  That was the command thrown at Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin by the unseen THRUSH agents who kidnapped them and interrogated them with lie detectors. And from each U.N.C.L.E. agent came the same answer: "We know absolutely nothing of DAGGER."

  "You appear to be telling the truth," said the hidden voice. "A pity...."

  But it was more than merely unfortunate that the U.N.C.L.E. organization had never heard of DAGGER. For the secret behind that name was an insane plot for mass murder — the murder of the human race!

  Author's Dedication: To Dean and Shirley Dickensheet,

  Technological Advisors on the Hierarchy

  THE DAGGER AFFAIR

  Illya Kuryakin blinked at the darkness in his bedroom and wondered what had awakened him. He listened intently while he counted to one hundred, and heard only the distant sound of traffic four floors below. But he knew there was someone else in his apartment. He turned his head slowly, looking about the room. It was empty. The luminous dial of his alarm clock told him it was shortly after 3:00 A.M.

  Heaving a deep sigh and snorting as a sleeping man might, he rolled over in bed, and on the same squeak of the springs slipped to the floor. His hand moved under the edge of the mattress to grip the specially designed silenced automatic that was never out of his reach, and he rose warily to his feet.

  Like a cat, he moved to the door. There was no light in the next room, but as he listened again he heard the sound of an incautiously drawn breath. His head moved, just enough to allow him a glimpse around the door. The faint light that seeped through the drawn curtains silhouetted a figure bending over the desk. The figure seemed human, except for the head.

  Above the shoulders of a man there rose a great crested form with three huge eyes and insect-like antennae. Illya moved silently forward, his bare feet compressing the rug with no more sound than a passing ghost. A moment later he stood directly behind the intruder, and was able to see that the man — if it was a man — was in the midst of a thoroughly professional search. More remarkably, the search was being carried out in almost total darkness. Yet every move the man made was direct, smooth and efficient, as if he were working under full, even illumination. Either he was a trained owl, or was in fact a blind burglar....

  Illya decided to find out. He leaned forward until his lips were inches from the man's ear, and spoke softly:

  "May I help you find something?"

  The effect was as if the searcher had touched an electric wire. Every muscle in his body seemed to spasm, and he snapped upright, spinning to face his host. Illya retired two steps and turned on the desk lamp. He held the little gun low enough that the man could see it clearly, and then tilted the lampshade to direct the light upon his visitor's face.

  His entire head was blank and metallic, except for a human mouth and chin. The three eyes were black, glassy, and larger than coffee cups. After the first horrible impression faded, Illya realized that the man was wearing a large mask-like helmet. But at the same moment the man recovered his composure and spoke — to someone else.

  "One — three. Plan Baker."

  It was crisp, direct and emotionless. The man had not raised his hands, nor shown any indication of drawing a weapon. Illya glanced for a fraction of a second at the door to his right, and the window to his left. The window was open. He stepped back again, to keep a greater distance between himself and his prisoner, and reached for the telephone.

  At that moment something flicked through the window and burst softly on the rug. The helmeted man still did not move, but to Illya he seemed gradually to draw away, as his gun became very heavy and began to pull his arm down. He fought to hold it up, but after a long time he grew tired, and began to fall very slowly. He did not remember hitting the floor.

  * * *

  Napoleon Solo was driving west on the Long Island Expressway after a most pleasant evening spent far up the island. By the rally clock on his dash, the time was 0320. The road was almost deserted, and he took advantage of this condition to push his red sportscar quite some distance over the speed limit. The night wind of his speed tore at his hair, and the cold of it stung his eyes so that the overhead lights were dancing spheres that sped by on either side. He sat lower in his seat and blinked his vision back to normal.

  To his right, a racing-silver XKE Jaguar pulled out of an access ramp and roared a blue cloud as it accelerated. Napoleon glanced sideways as he shot past, and saw a girl driving. But at the moment his mind was on his car, and speed.

  His tachometer hovered around 4000 and the speedometer needle sat rock-steady a shade above ninety. He had at least another twenty, possibly thirty miles per hour in reserve, and he almost wished for a temptation to call on it. How long had it been since he had been able to open up all the way? Too long....

  Then temptation came up from behind him, in the shape of a slender girl in a sleek silver Jag. The roar of her motor floated over the whipping of the wind, and a moment later she was even with him. As she passed, there was a moment in which he looked at her again, more closely. She was dressed in white, with a white scarf concealing her hair. She did not turn her head, but drove with a cool concentration as she accelerated away from him. Napoleon Solo smiled.

  "If you want to race, I'm always glad to oblige a lady," he said into the wind. As he spoke his foot rode heavier on the gas pedal, and the little car shot forward. In a half-mile he was pacing her again.

  Then she slowed very slightly, but enough that he would have had to brake to stay even with her. He didn't. He allowed himself to drift ahead until almost a full length separated them. A bridge whipped by overhead, and the echoes of their engines thundered around them for a moment. A car appeared on the other side of the divider, grew, flared by, and was gone, and Napoleon Solo remained a length ahead.

  Suddenly she was beside him again, to the left, and he looked and smiled at her. Still she did not turn her head for a glimpse of him, and still he could not see her face.

  She slipped ahead of him with an unexpected burst of power. He urged his speedometer over the magic hundred mark, and the wind tore the laugh of sheer exhilaration from his mouth and left it hanging in the air a hundred yards behind. At one hundred and five she was no longer pulling away, but he wasn't gaining.

  That Jag was in superb condition! She was still accelerating as they crossed a hundred and ten together. At one-fifteen, he began to gain slightly. The little gas pedal was pressed firmly against the floor, and the tach was edging into the cross-hatched zone above 6000 rpm. He touched one hundred and twenty, and the car ahead seemed to falter.

  Five feet apart, the two cars split the darkness as blurs of red and silver, howling through the night like comets. Curves appeared before them and were taken without slack. Ramps rose beside them and arched away and vanished. Then a wide straight stretch showed before them — an easy five miles of level wide-open run.

  The speedometer nudged one-twenty-two, and Napoleon drew even with the silver Jaguar. Then the girl turned her head to look at him. She was beautiful, after all. Napoleon grinned widely, and waved to her. His hand moved above the level of his windshield then, and he was nearly pulled out of his seat by the force of the slipstream.

  The girl smiled sweetly, raised a hand, and blew him a kiss. And a moment later she was gone, as Napoleon suddenly started losing speed. The tach dropped to 500 and the speedometer was drifting downward past ninety, past seventy, past fifty...

  The motor was gasping, and seemed to be missing on all cylinders. Napoleon guided his limping steed into an emergency off-ramp rather than risk permanent damage to the engine. He pulled up, set the hand brake, and watched th
e distant red star of a tail-light vanish around a far curve. He knew he would meet the driver of that Jaguar again — and there would be a re-match worth waiting for. He unfastened his seat belt, climbed stiffly out of the car, and raised the hood.

  Section I: "Is This a DAGGER That I See Before Me?"

  Chapter 1: "Let's Call It A Little Vacation."

  Chapter 2: "What Do You Know About DAGGER?"

  Chapter 3: "Today Just Isn't Our Day."

  Chapter 4: "He Really Could Destroy The World!"

  Section II: "Give Me The DAGGER!"

  Chapter 5: "The Most Fun By A Damsite."

  Chapter 6: "But He Left His Glass Slipper."

  Chapter 7: "Call It Egotism, But I Think We're Worth More Alive."

  Chapter 8: "Looks As If They've Got It Working."

  Section III: "Though It Rain DAGGERs With Their Points Downward."

  Chapter 9: "Take Us To Your Leader."

  Chapter 10: "The Technological Hierarchy For What?"

  Chapter 11: "We May All Be Outnumbered!"

  Chapter 12: "Let's Take Him Sightseeing."

  Section IV: "The Hand That Held The DAGGER."

  Chapter 13: "I Have A Special Tour In Mind."

  Chapter 14: "Such A Sloppy-Looking Thing To End The World With."

  Chapter 15: "Mr. Solo, We Are DAGGER!"

  Chapter 16: "'The Object of Power is Power!'"

  Section I: "Is This A DAGGER That I See Before Me?"

  Chapter 1: "Let's Call It A Little Vacation."

  The Intelligence Section of U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters in New York City maintains complete files of all information that could conceivably be of use in any investigation. And since Napoleon Solo was involved in an investigation, he carried a small scrap of paper with a license number into the automobile registry file room. His investigation was not connected with an assignment, but this was his secret. The license was that of a certain well-driven Jaguar he had encountered in the small hours of that morning.

  With an especially serious set to his face, he stalked past the secretary at the desk, returning her greeting crisply, and drew out the proper file drawer. Leafing through the cards, he felt a twinge of guilt about his presence there — Alexander Waverly, his superior, had objected more than once to Solo's occasional use of U.N.C.L.E. facilities or records for his personal projects, which Waverly referred to as "peccadillos." Actually, Napoleon had seldom done more than make an outside telephone call or two. He'd checked out a company car a few times, and once a helicopter, and sometimes he would use U.N.C.L.E. files to find a telephone number or address, but that was all.

  Even so, Waverly reacted as though he spent half his salaried time working for U.N.C.L.E. and the other half working on his own. Which was hardly the case — a man could not have achieved the rank of Chief Enforcement Agent at the age of 33 without devoting vast amounts of time, talent and concentration to his real job. What few people besides Waverly realized was that Napoleon Solo worked as hard at relaxation as he did at his job.

  So it was that he was spending part of his lunch hour in automobile registry, in the hope of finding the girl he had raced the Long Island Expressway with the night before.

  "2Q-727...729...730!" Address of registry: Washington Car Rentals, at Kennedy International Airport! His eyes recorded the legend just as the loudspeaker in the wall requested, "Napoleon Solo — Napoleon Solo. Please report to Mr. Waverly's office at once!"

  Napoleon's hand froze on the card. He was discovered. The secretary had reported him to Mr. Waverly. She was jealous because he hadn't asked her for a date in almost a month. He glanced sideways, thoughtfully — she was looking at him. Oh, of course — the page for him. He pushed the card neatly back in place and headed for the door. He paused there, and said, "Miss Brown...I wonder..."

  "I'm sorry, Napoleon," she said, "but I've got a date for this weekend."

  "I was about to say, I wonder if you could call the commissary and have them send a roast beef sandwich and coffee up to Mr. Waverly's office for me."

  She looked down quickly to hide her blush, and said, "Certainly, Mister Solo," as the door closed behind him.

  * * *

  Mr. Waverly's secretary nodded recognition as Napoleon sauntered past the desk to the sliding steel door which sensed his presence and opened automatically as he approached. On the way up from Section Four, he had decided to face his reprimand bravely, and follow up the registration on the car tomorrow. So as he stepped into the nerve center of U.N.C.L.E.'s Western Hemisphere Operations, he attempted a serious and efficient appearance. But neither of the occupants of the room noticed.

  Illya Kuryakin, his deceptively innocent face intent and worried, was talking quietly to Waverly across a large round table which dominated the room. As Solo entered, he was saying, "...burst on the floor. Ten seconds later I was unconscious. I woke up about six-thirty, checked over the desk and the rest of the room. As far as I could tell, nothing was missing."

  Waverly glanced up, saw Napoleon, and waved him to a seat at the table. Illya continued. "The helmet looked like a slightly modified version of the Thrush dark-vision set — an Infrared flood on the forehead and two screens over the eyes. With a backup man outside the window for support. I'd like to know how he got around the alarms on the window, though. Good morning, Napoleon. Did you have a visitor last night?"

  "Ah, no — not that I know of. But I didn't get in until about four. I had some engine trouble coming home. What time was your little party?"

  "Just after three. They could have hit your apartment before, or even after, they hit mine."

  "And by your description of their efficiency, I wouldn't be able to tell they'd been there. Well, they certainly could have been — that's exactly the way it looked when I came in."

  Waverly cleared his throat. "There appears to be no reason to believe this was more than a routine surveillance by Thrush. But it is annoying to think they have ways of circumventing our best alarms. I'll post a guard on your apartment, Mr. Kuryakin, and put some technicians to work checking all the alarm systems. It could be inconvenient if our best agents were murdered in their beds some night." He fumbled a pipe out of his pocket and reached for a humidor. "What happened to your car last night, Mr. Solo? You mentioned engine trouble."

  "Well, nothing, really. I was driving west on the Long Island Expressway..."

  "Over the speed limit, I presume," said Waverly, tamping his pipe.

  "Ah...yes...a little.... And for no particular reason that I could figure out, the motor kicked off."

  "Just stopped?"

  "Just stopped. I pulled over — in the area of the Clearview Expressway — and looked it over. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with the motor, so I tightened a few wires and tried to start it again. It caught right away, and gave me no more trouble all the way home."

  "And this morning?"

  "Behaving perfectly." Napoleon shrugged. "A little bit of temperament, I guess."

  Waverly spent several seconds of complete concentration setting fire to the contents of his pipe and assuring himself it was drawing properly. He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. "Possibly a convenient coincidence. Leave your car with our technicians for a complete examination."

  "We have an assignment, Napoleon," said Illya in response to his questioning look. He glanced at Waverly and smiled slightly. "At least, sort of an assignment."

  Waverly exhaled a cloud of blue smoke and said, "Not exactly an assignment — not even a mission. If anything, it could be called a directed vacation. Some four weeks ago Thrush waylaid a courier in Vancouver, British Columbia. The same day some three million dollars in gold was smuggled out of Los Angeles to start a revolution in Terra Caliente — again, by Thrush." He puffed at his pipe, which bubbled softly in the silence of the room. "Since then — as far as we can tell — absolutely nothing has been done by Thrush in the Western third of the United States as of this morning."

  Napoleon looked with raised eye
brows at Illya, who nodded.

  "It seems ironic that the inaction of our enemies should cause more anxiety than their actions, but this is a strange war we are fighting. We feel it likely that Thrush has some major move in preparation, which will center in the west. You two are to go to Los Angeles, receive a final briefing by our office there, and then try to stir up trouble. If we can upset Thrush so that they move early, we may be able to start them off on the wrong foot. Los Angeles has been under maximum security for the last week — this is the reason. When Thrush knows you are coming in, they should try something. We will be ready for them."

  "If this is a vacation," Napoleon muttered to Illya, "I think I'd rather stay at work."

  Waverly pretended not to have heard, and continued with his characteristic absolute calm. "Naturally, you will be in constant communication with the local office, and under as steady surveillance as is practicable — probably by both sides."

  He leaned to the table, placed two envelopes on it, and gave the bearing-mounted tabletop a turn. Napoleon and Illya each picked up an envelope as they came past.

  "Here are your tickets on the 6:00 A.M. jet to Los Angeles. You will be met at the airport with the usual procedures. Take the afternoon to make your preparations; I can't say how long you'll be gone — probably less than two weeks. The more trouble you cause, the sooner you'll come home."

  * * *

  "The silver one was out last night — sure. Came in this morning at...lemme see...9:45."

  "Do you remember who brought it in? A girl, brunette, white dress?"

  "Yeah. Good lookin' girl. Kind of short, but a good figure."

  "What else do you know about her? Is her driver's license number on your receipt? Her address, her name?"

  The clerk looked up at Napoleon Solo and chuckled nastily. "Sorry, fella. We gotta protect our customers. Information like that only goes to the law." He paused, considering. "And it'd take about twenty bucks to convince me you should know anything else about that girl."

  Napoleon didn't like being called "fella." He leaned down on the counter so that his face was level with the clerk's. "I don't have twenty dollars to spare right now," he said coolly. "Will this do?"