13 - The Rainbow Affair Page 2

  As they did so their chief spoke again. "A week ago yesterday the firm of N. M. Rothschild and Sons, merchant bankers, was robbed of a quantity of gold bars worth just over two million dollars. The particulars on this affair are the first item in the folder before you. As you will observe, the loot consisted of more than a ton and a half of pure gold in one hundred and forty-four bars. Not the sort of prize one can conveniently carry off in a Gladstone bag, conceal in a rental locker, or bury in the back yard."

  Illya leafed through the stapled sheets of paper, then looked up. "Impressive," he said. "But does it fall within our province?"

  "Thrush has been developing a taste for large quantities of pure gold lately," Napoleon suggested. "It has a certain advantage in international trade, as well as being practically impossible to trace."

  "While the possibility still exists," Waverly said, "Thrush has been tentatively absolved of this particular job. The modus operandi bears striking similarity to several robberies in the last few years, not all of which have been awarded the publicity attendant upon this one. An absolute minimum of violence; a perfectly planned, timed and coordinated operation on a scale which would daunt most thieves; and loot which would present an insoluble difficulty of disposal to any but the best organized gang with secure international connections."

  "The Great Train Robbery," said Napoleon, his voice supplying the capital letters deserved by the largest successful haul in modem history.

  Waverly nodded. "And a few others. The Royal Mail job certainly is the best-known, and it is, as far as we can tell, only the second of the robberies which are of interest in this case. You will find details on that operation as the second item in your folders."

  He paused while both agents examined the second sheaf of pages. Again Illya spoke first. "Without intending to appear facetious, under the circumstances, sir, isn't this properly the concern of Scotland Yard, or at best, of Interpol?"

  "Until now," said Waverly, "it has been. Both organizations, admirable as they are, have been making only slight headway for almost four years."

  "Sir," said Napoleon, "what is special about this gold heist that deserves our attention?"

  "A moment please, Mr. Solo. You will note there is a third item in your folder. Allow me to give you the back ground on it. Evidence has been accumulating in certain areas that there is, as suspected, a single mind be hind these operations. A cashiered ex-British army officer, known only by the code name of Johnnie Rainbow."

  "Johnnie Rainbow?" said Illya, studying the third sheaf of pages. "An unlikely name."

  "An unlikely individual," said Waverly. "Probably one of the finest criminal minds of the last fifty years."

  "But hardly our concern," said Illya. "I realize I am in no position to make suggestions on matters of policy to the head of Section One, but it seems to me that if we turned out after every bank robber in the world we'd never have time to save civilization. Local crime should be left to local authorities, regardless of their effectiveness."

  Napoleon started to object. "But this isn't just any bank robber, Illya. He's in a class by himself, you might say."

  "He's just a bigger and better bank robber, in other words." Illya frowned slightly. "You're part of Policy Section, Napoleon. If your section thinks we should chase after a bank robber, I'll go. But it's scarcely what I signed on for."

  "It's scarcely what you will be doing, Mr. Kuryakin," said Waverly with just a hint of asperity creeping into his voice. "For one thing, the loot from the Royal Mail is unrecoverable - our sources indicate that the bulk of it not only left England within a year after the robbery, but has now returned to England through untraceable and unimpeachable legal channels. To save you the trouble of looking it up on page sixteen of the report before you, it was shipped out of the country bit by bit in the diplomatic pouches of a certain middle-Eastern nation which is badly in need of hard currency, in return for their government bonds which have since been disposed of on the open market, and the profits therefrom parceled out to the men who actually pulled the robbery, or in some cases spent to free them from prison and remove them to a place of safety. Scotland Yard has not been completely ineffectual - almost half of the train jobbers have been detained, at least temporarily. Only last fall Buster Edwards was arrested in connection with the job; I believe he is still in custody, but for how long no one-can tell.

  "The point I want to make is this: the men who did he physical work of the robbery could scarcely have disposed of the loot themselves. They instead trusted it to Johnnie Rainbow. Any man capable of commanding this degree of loyalty is well worth a second look. Secondly, and finally, our sources in England indicate that Rainbow's recent and continual successes have attracted the attention of another group, one in which we are vitally interested."

  Napoleon looked up from his study of the Rainbow dossier. "Since so much seems to be known about Johnnie, what is preventing the Yard from giving him a complete going over?"

  Waverly smiled wryly. "An unfortunate skepticism. The Criminal Investigation Division of Scotland Yard has yet to be convinced of the actual existence of Johnnie Rainbow. The information on him was developed by a retired Superintendent of Detectives through his own personal sources, and since the data did not come through officially recognized channels the Yard has felt justified in discounting it, at least so far."

  Illya cleared his throat and spoke thoughtfully. "Rainbow is a brilliant criminal, able to command great loyalty and presumably respect from his workers. He probably has quite a personal fortune stowed away by this time. But his work is confined to England, although he has wide international contacts. Would it perhaps be reasonable to suppose that he has attracted the attention of Thrush?"

  "Exactly," said Waverly. "Thrush has begun to woo Mr. Rainbow with offers we can only begin to guess. If you will check page three of the dossier on the recent gold robbery, you will find that the guards were incapacitated with guns which squirted a blinding spray. There is an excellent chance that these guns were supplied to the Rainbow gang by Thrush.

  "Involving as they do the utilization of international exchange, the crimes already have international implications. The criminal himself has a great deal more. Were Thrush to succeed in winning him to their camp, we could foresee the police of the world baffled, the treasury of Thrush enriched many times over, and robberies worthy of the imagination of a pulp novelist being implemented daily."

  "What exactly is our assignment, then? To help the Yard find Rainbow, to find him ourselves, to lop off whatever arm of Thrush is beckoning him, or a combination?"

  "All three, if possible. The last has priority; as has been pointed out, the local authorities generally prefer to retain responsibility in their own area. If you can lead them to Rainbow and then step out of the scene as they arrest him, well and good."

  He tossed the familiar slim envelopes on the table and spun them to their recipients. "Here are your tickets from Kennedy International to London. On arrival you will cheek in with New Scotland Yard - and remember, they've moved to a new address - but don't expect too much cooperation. Accept whatever they're willing to offer, and then continue on your own. We have little to go on here, frankly; you will doubtless be improvising as you go." He swiveled his chair back towards his desk and reached for the humidor.

  Napoleon and Illya stood, the Russian still with a trace of a scowl. Waverly, without turning around, spoke again. "If you have any further comments, Mr. Kuryakin, please don't hesitate to make them."

  "Well," said Illya reluctantly, "I still can't feel too impressed by a mere bank robber."

  Waverly tamped his pipe calmly. "Understandable, Mr. Kuryakin. I suggest you study his dossier tonight. You may have a different feeling towards him when you have done so." He struck a match and listened as the steel door sighed closed behind his two agents.

  Chapter 2

  How Napoleon Commented on the Weather, and the C.I.D. Took a Firm Stand on the Subject of Rainbows.

  THE PLANE
CAME down out of the fog, tiny streaks of water flicking across the windows, with gray wisps of limbo wrapping themselves around the sleek steel body. Its wheels touched the runway, screeched and smoked as the thunder of the jets rose to a scream of reversed thrust, bounced and rolled along the dark wet tarmac.

  Inside the jet, Napoleon looked out the small round window next to his head. "Ah," he said. "London."

  Illya looked past his shoulder to where the wing disappeared into the gray nothingness that cloaked the plane. "How can you tell?"

  "I have a boundless faith in Trans World Airlines, Illya. They told us we were going to London, and since we have arrived somewhere, I can only presume..."

  The plane rolled to a stop, and a stewardess came up the aisle to open the forward hatch. The two U.N.C.L.E. agents were among the first out, and were greeted with a freezing drizzle as they stepped onto the top of the wheeled stairs. Napoleon hunched his shoulders and turned up his collar. "Ah, to be in April," he said wryly, "now that England's here."

  "Cheer up," said Illya as they hurried towards the warmth of the customs house, "It was probably worse in April."

  At three the following afternoon, they entered an outer office at Scotland Yard. A uniformed constable had guided them through the maze of concrete, steel and glass, having to stop twice himself to check wall-mounted directories. He was quite candid in his admission – "We still haven't really gotten settled in, sir. It's a much larger place than the old Yard, and I'm afraid it'll take some getting used to."

  Napoleon was frankly lost after the first few minutes. He half suspected Illya might be as well, but the Russian would never have admitted it. The building was beautiful, in a sleek, shiny way, but somehow it seemed to clash with the traditionally uniformed officers who moved about its corridors, looking more like costumed extras on a futuristic movie set than the enforcement arm of one of the world's most highly regarded civilian police forces.

  The trim girl in a feminized version of the same uniform sat behind a sleek desk, and looked up as they entered.

  "Solo and Kuryakin," Napoleon said as they came in. "Here to see Inspector West."

  "He's occupied at the moment," she said. "I'll tell him you're here." She ticked a tab on a shiny intercom unit, and a voice answered faintly. "The men from U.N.C.L.E. are here, sir."

  "Excellent," said the other end. "Send them right in. Oh, see that Claude gets the latest additions to the Rollison file, will you?"

  "Certainly, sir."

  The inner door opened and a stomach walked out, closely followed by a red-faced man carrying a bowler hat. He glanced at them sleepily as he paused by the desk, and as the secretary flipped through a drawer he unpackaged a stick of gum and engulfed it.

  Solo and his partner stepped through the still-open door into a crisply furnished office which still smelled slightly of paint. Behind the desk a remarkably handsome man rose to greet them.

  "Mr. Solo - Mr. Kuryakin," he said, shaking hands warmly. "I'm honored. Your reputations have preceded you."

  Illya smiled as he accepted a chair. "You are well known to us, too, Inspector. Our superiors think highly of you - one reason we were sent here."

  The Inspector's mouth twisted into a wry smile. "Yes - I'm afraid the subject of your mission has also preceded you. It's about this Rainbow nonsense, isn't it?"

  "It is in regard to Johnnie Rainbow, Inspector," said Napoleon. "But, ah, our sources consider it to be quite a bit more than nonsense. Data on Johnnie and his activities have been correlated from several directions."

  West shook his head. "We at the Yard are well enough acquainted with the Rainbow story. We haven't traced the source of the rumor yet, but it has been demonstrated to our satisfaction that there is no such individual as this 'Johnnie Rainbow.' He's a sort of legendary idealization the criminal elements have created, much in the manner of the Robin Hood Ballads of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Let me put your minds at ease at once - there is no 'Johnnie Rainbow.'"

  "How do you account," Illya asked, "for the recent success of large-scale crime all over England? I believe thieves have been netting an average of some three hundred pounds a week for the last few months."

  "Highly biased figures, Mr. Kuryakin. Highly biased. They include a few fortunate coups on a large scale. There is no connection among them - except possibly for inspiration. One large haul gets into the newspapers, and some other gang is tempted to try it. That's all."

  "But the methods of operation seem so similar," said Napoleon. "From what we'd heard it seemed as if every operation could have been planned by the same man. The organization, the choice of targets, the timing, and especially the lack of violence - all point to the same source."

  "By no means," the Inspector stated flatly. "Several robberies have not fallen into these categories. A jewel robbery a few months ago was quite badly bungled, and a shopkeeper shot. It happens with increasing frequency. We caught the killer, of course."

  "And of course he had no connection with the Rainbow gang."

  "Mr. Solo, there is no Rainbow gang. He was completely independent, wanted for questioning on two other jobs, had done penal servitude twice. A typical old lag, far out of his depth. Should have stuck with second-story work."

  Illya leaned back in the form-fitting chair. "We do not maintain that Johnnie Rainbow is responsible for every crime committed in the British Isles, Inspector; merely that he is the motivating intelligence behind the most successful ones."

  The Scotland Yard man sighed and leaned his elbows on the desk top. "Mr. Kuryakin, admittedly we have little to go on in the Rothschild robbery so far. But we have some of the participants identified, and are expecting to make arrests momentarily."

  The Russian scowled. "We aren't reporters, Inspector. You don't have to quote press releases at us. As I recall, you have had the eleven men who robbed the Royal Mail almost four years ago identified for some time, and the last I heard you were still expecting to make arrests momentarily."

  "There's no need to be rude, Mr. Kuryakin. Everyone takes our successes for granted, and only our failures receive widespread notice. We have hardly closed the books on the Royal Mail job - one of the robbers was taken only a few months ago."

  "And he denies ever having heard of Johnnie Rainbow?

  "We didn't feel the question worth asking. Scotland Yard is always bombarded with crackpot theories after every major crime; when you've worked here a while you get so you can smell out the worthless ones. The idea of a secret criminal mastermind went out of vogue even among the pulp writers some two decades ago, but the well-meaning citizens…"

  The intercom buzzed, and he answered it.

  "Inspector Seagoon on line two, sir."

  Nodding a wordless apology to Napoleon and Illya, Inspector West picked up the telephone. "Hello, Neddie. You got my memo? Fine. Look, I'm somewhat occupied at the moment, but could we meet for dinner? Very good. The usual place. See you shortly after seven, then." He disconnected, and turned back to his visitors.

  Illya spoke first. "I can't really see calling one of your own Detective Superintendents a crackpot. After all..."

  West sighed. "You've read the book."

  "Book?" asked Napoleon.

  "A retired D.S. has written a book on the robbery. His sources have been feeding him the Rainbow story, and he has accepted it. But of course, being retired, he has no official connection with the Yard, and we have given his theory every reasonable consideration and found it actually quite untenable."

  There was a long uncomfortable pause. It was be coming increasingly obvious to Napoleon that they were getting nowhere. Well, Waverly had told them not to expect much cooperation from Scotland Yard - and as usual, he was right.

  After several seconds their host stood up. "I'm really sorry we can't help you. But rest assured; Johnnie Rainbow is as imaginary as Robin Hood or King Arthur. Those jobs have all been organized and executed by independent criminals. No mysterious genius hiding in a dingy flat in Brighton - ju
st ordinary small-time crooks who've gotten inspired and lucky at the same time. And their luck is running out."

  Napoleon and Illya stood as well, and shook the proffered hand. "Now will you be able to find your way out again, or shall I call a sergeant to guide you?" the Inspector asked, only half joking.

  "I think we can find our way back to the street," said Illya, who would never admit to being lost.

  "Getting out is much easier than getting in," the Yarder agreed, as he saw them to the door. "Not much like the old place, is it?"

  "Hard to imagine anything less like it," Napoleon admitted.

  West laughed easily. "Actually, I'm not at all used to it yet. I much preferred the feeling about the old Yard. But we were desperately in need of the space for records and files. We're computerizing, you know: most complete set of fingerprints, mug shots and criminal records in Europe. From a few apparently unconnected pieces of data on a crime, our machines will be able to pick out a list of likely suspects complete with their records and last known addresses in seconds."

  Illya smiled coolly. "It doesn't seem to be doing you much good at the moment."

  "It's doing its job. But even the best computer is no better than the data fed it. The human equation will never be removed from detection until it is removed from crime as well. Good afternoon, Mr. Solo - Mr. Kuryakin. Please take my advice, and leave the pursuit of criminals to us. Surely the U.N.C.L.E. has more important things to do than run after bank robbers."

  Illya looked at him and Napoleon suppressed a grin. "I've had that thought myself," the Russian agent admitted. "But I don't pick our assignments."

  "Well, I wish you the best of luck on this one, though I doubt if you'll have any as long as you insist on chasing Rainbows." He chuckled, and closed the door behind them.

  Solo looked at it and said softly, "Chasing Rainbows. Bleah."

  The secretary looked up. "I beg your pardon?"

  "Nothing - just an involuntary exclamation on my friend's part," said Illya, and they stepped out into the corridor, closing the frosted glass door gently behind them.