Pulp Fiction | The Howling Teenagers Affair (February 1966) Read online

  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.

  But, as Solo and Illya watched, the picture began to narrow its field, as though focusing on a single point.

  "You will note the small group of police near the edge of the airfield," Mr. Waverly said.

  The picture on the screen became a close-up of this group. Four policemen, bloody and holding their heads-and standing with them, helping one policeman, a single man wearing the uniform of a native soldier.

  Solo and Illya stared hard at the hazy face in the blow-up. Waverly placed two prints of the blow-up on the circular table and revolved the top until the pictures were in front of the two agents.

  "That face, gentlemen, belongs to Azid Ben Riilah, a Somali of Muslim parentage. He was born, supposedly, in Somaliland, but he has spent little time there. He appeared in Kenya during the Mau-Mau troubles. He was seen in both Stanleyville with the Gizenga rebels, and in Leopoldville with the other side in the Congo affair. He has been identified in Zulu peace parades in South Africa, also as a native informer for the Apartheid Government in the same country. In actuality he is an agent of THRUSH, uncovered only four months ago by Section-II men in Africa. There is absolutely no evidence of any action on his part that led to the mob that murdered the president down there. But he was there. You understand, gentlemen?"

  "Is he still in Kandaville?" Solo said grimly.

  "As far as Section-II there knows, he is," Waverly said. The Leader of U.N.C.L.E. stood up in a gesture of dismissal. "He is your man. I assume you will think of just what to do with him?"

  "Any suggestions, sir?" Solo asked. Waverly had returned to his desk. The older man seemed to have already forgotten the presence of his agents. The job he had just given Solo and Kuryakin was only one of many he had to consider each day. After a moment, Waverly appeared to hear and look up again.

  "Eh? Oh, I'm sure you'll think of something—uh—Solo."

  Illya was grinning like a cat as Solo turned away from Waverly. The two of them walked out through the door that silently opened and closed itself. They went to check on their transportation and on the Section-II agents in South Africa.

  FIVE

  Idlewild Airport, renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport, bustled with the night-departing passengers. Three giant jets were departing within the hour. Napoleon Solo, carrying a briefcase stepped to the loading desk to claim his seat on the London-bound B.O.A.C. jet.

  Some buildings away, a small, bent old man with graying dark hair and a heavy beard shuffled up to the loading desk of the Air France flight non-stop to Paris. The uniformed loading clerk studied the old man closely but without giving himself away.

  The old man muttered in French but with a heavy German accent. The loading clerk stamped his ticket, gave him his seating card, and turned his attention to the next person.

  At the B.O.A.C. loading desk, the actions of a baggage handler were vastly different. Observing Napoleon Solo, the baggage handler suddenly bent over for a dropped suitcase.

  At the loading desk, Solo was passed through and took his place on a seat to await the time to board. Idly, he noticed the baggage handler pushing his cart away down the long, bright corridor.

  Solo became aware of the noise before he actually heard it. A rumbling like the sea, turning into a roar that came closer. Solo leaped up, walked quickly toward the fence that imprisoned him inside the loading area.

  He was too late.

  The first of a horde of teenagers appeared running at the far end of the wide and shining corridor. Behind the first few young boys and girls he saw a solid wall of howling teenagers coming toward the loading area. Solo whirled and sprinted for the door to the plane. It was locked.

  Quickly he opened his briefcase and produced a small, circular object. He touched it to the electrically controlled door. He pressed a button. The door, activated by the special electronic circuit activator, sprung open. Solo dashed through, just as the howling mob of teenagers reached the loading area and smashed down the fence.

  In the loading ramp, a long tunnel with corrugated sides like some giant bellows, Solo ran toward the door into the jet. Already the howling teenagers were in the tunnel behind him.

  Solo ran into the jet, past the protesting stewardess, and along the aisle toward the pilot's cabin. Behind him the teenagers knocked down the screaming stewardess.

  Solo, inside the pilot's cabin, locked the door behind him. Again he opened his briefcase and produced a small pellet. Setting the pellet on the escape hatch, he pulled a tiny cord on the pellet and jumped back.

  The door was bending, breaking under the pressure of the screaming mob behind him.

  The pellet burst into white, flame-less heat, a heat that would melt any metal known. The escape hatch dropped open. Solo threw his briefcase out, lowered himself through the open hatch and let go.

  He seemed to fall for minutes.

  He hit hard on the concrete, rolled and came up on his feet. Above him the mob of teenagers had reached the hatch. One was already jumping through.

  The first teenager jumped down, tilted in the air and landed on his side, screaming with the pain of a broken arm. Solo did not wait. Others were already jumping down. He picked up his briefcase and ran toward the distant corner of the loading building.

  He reached the corner and turned it, the mob of teenagers strung out now behind him, some limping but still coming on. As he reached the next corner he stopped, skidded to a halt.

  A second howling mob was coming at him from the other direction. He turned and ran out toward the great open area of the airfield, running with the speed that had made him a track star in his younger days.

  As he ran into the dark night, he pulled the transmitter-receiver from his pocket. He raised the thread-like antennae.

  "Sonny to Bubba. Sonny to Bubba. Condition Red, condition Red." He pressed the receiving button.

  "Bubba to Sonny. Instruct action. Am safely aboard."

  Solo pressed his sending button, trying to speak clearly as he ran on across the dark field.

  "Proceed. They are after me. I'll lead them off. Watch yourself."

  "Can I help? Repeat, can I help?" the distant voice of Illya said from the tiny receiver.

  Solo stopped and looked around. He could hear the howling mob still behind him, coming closer. He pressed his send button.

  "Proceed on mission. Good luck."

  Solo replaced the tiny set in his pocket. He listened. The mob seemed to be moving off, heading the wrong way. He smiled and began to trot, carrying his briefcase. He heard the sound of motors too late.

  Glaring light pinned him in the night like a moth on a pin.

  He dropped his briefcase and drew his U.N.C.L.E. Special. He aimed the Luger-like pistol at the lights. They were car headlights, one set on either side of him. He flicked the special button on his pistol to set it to fire bullets, not darts. He raised he pistol and aimed at the lights.

  Something touched his neck. A faint, stinging prick.

  He knew nothing more...

  In his seat at the window of the Paris-bound jet, the old man with the beard muttered to himself. But it was neither French nor German he muttered. It was Russian—and his bright blue eyes were not old.

  Illya replaced the tiny radio set in his pocket. He sat back in his seat. The disguise had worked for him. NO one had chased the old man who spoke such bad French. His head turned and he seemed to sleep facing the window of the jet.

  But Illya was not asleep. His eyes peered out into the night. He saw the faint lights of headlights far off in the center of the

  airfield. He had a sinking sensation as he looked at those strange lights and thought of Napoleon Solo. But there was work to do.

  Soon, the jet took off. He had reported to headquarters th
e Condition Red call of Napoleon. There was nothing more he could do now, but get on with his task.

  As the field passed below, all was dark.

  ACT II: THRUSH and COUNTER-THRUSH

  Napoleon Solo did not open his eyes. Awake, alert again, with no ill effects beyond a blinding headache and a pain in his neck where the dart had struck, he remained motionless. He was surprised to be still alive.

  His hands, he knew, were bound behind him; his feet were encased in something soft yet strong. He probably did no have long to live, but the training of years never deserted him. He listened to the voices to remember them for future reference. Two men and a woman. He could not hear what they said, but he would never forget the timbre of their voices.

  Cautiously, Solo opened his eyes. And saw nothing. He blinked, opened his eyes again—all was black, yet moving, fluttering with faint light.

  As if his eyes were not open at all.

  Yet he knew he was opening them; he knew the muscles were opening his eyes.

  But his eyes were not open.

  "Look, his eyes are moving," the woman's voice said. The voice of Maxine Trent.

  "Fix the eyes," a man's deep voice said.

  Something sprayed against his eyelids, a cool mist. He waited, blinked and his eyes came open.

  "Hello, Napoleon," Maxine said.

  She stood before him, changed now. The soft female face was longer, harder. Her languid clothes of the afternoon had been changed for a severe black suit, a wide-brimmed hat pulled low. But she was smiling the same smile. She was still almost six feet tall, yet not too tall. Solo sighed. Even here and now she was a beautiful woman.

  "Hello, Maxine," Solo said, mustering up a smile.

  Behind Maxine all was black. He could not make out any shape to the room. There was a bright light on a fine inlaid table, but the light did not seem to reach any corners anywhere.

  Solo could just make out the shapes of two men behind Maxine. He could not see them. While he was pretending to stare hard to make them out, he tested his bonds. The rope around his wrists behind the chair he was sitting in seemed secure. The soft material encasing his feet would not budge.

  He glanced down to be sure of what he was up against, and he stared. Maxine Trent laughed mockingly. Solo stared at his feet. There was nothing holding them—nothing at all. They were encased in nothing, yet he felt some soft but strong material holding his feet.

  There was nothing holding his feet, yet he could not move them. When he tried to move them the unseen material clung and cut into his legs. Maxine laughed again.

  "If you could turn around, Napoleon, you would see that there is nothing holding your hands, either. No rope at all. See?"

  Maxine held two mirrors in such a way that he could see his bound hands behind the chair. There was no rope. There was nothing holding his hands, yet they were bound tight.

  "A toy, Mr. Solo," the deep male voice said from the darkness.

  "A simple hypnotic drug that paralyzes the muscles and induces the brain to ascribe some physical cause, such as ropes or a cement block on the feet. It is both effective as a restraining device, as a demonstration of our limitless sources of power."

  There was a sudden hiss from the dark, an eerie sound like wind whistling through a thin reed. Reedy, hissing and yet it was a voice. It was the weird, toneless voice of the other man hidden in the dark.

  "We waste time. He will tell us," the hissing voice said.

  Maxine Trent seemed to stiffen like a dog whose master has whistled. Her beautiful face changed, became a mask. A tremor very like fear seemed to shudder through her.

  Solo stared toward the point in the dark where the reedy voice had hissed. It was a voice that was inhuman, made not of flesh and bone but of metal and plastic, yet Solo knew now that this was the voice of a leader of THRUSH—a council member. It had to be, to make Maxine jump like a dog in obedience and terror.

  "Tell us what Waverly told you, Napoleon," Maxine Trent said. "It will save time."

  "I like to see THRUSH work," Solo said calmly. "Sometimes I even learn something."

  The deep male voice snapped in the dark. "The needle."

  Solo laughed. "Pentathol? How unimaginative. I really expected better, especially with a council member present."

  The reedy hiss of the hidden voice neither laughed nor threatened. "Council Member N if that will help, Mr. Solo. And the needle does not contain pentathol. That would be far too slow and unreliable. NO, I have developed something much better. Its effect is similar, but it acts instantly; no one can withstand it."

  "Proceed, Agent Trent," the deep male voice ordered.

  Maxine approached with the needle. Solo thought about the deep voice. This had to belong to a chief agent, above Maxine Trent, but below the horrible hissing voice. Somehow he had to see them.

  "Try to relax, Napoleon," Maxine Trent said. "You will anyway. In five seconds you will tell us all you know."

  The beautiful woman raised the needle, found a vein in his paralyzed arm, and plunged the point into his flesh.

  TWO

  Illya Kuryakin leaned to look out the window of the small jet as it circled the city below. A white city, dazzling in the African sun, the great river curving like a snake around the buildings. Even from the sky, Illya could see the great white government buildings in the center, and the grey-brown shacks surrounding them where the people still lived.

  Illya stared down. It was for this that he had left the service of his own country—to bridge that terrible gap between the great white buildings and the miserable shacks of the people. To free the great river that wound below to serve the people, all the people.

  He had seen the failure of a dream in his own country, the failure of many dreams in many places, and other places where there had not yet even been time to dream amid the misery.

  And, somewhere sown there was a man, Azid Ben Rillah, who served a "nation" that wanted to destroy all dreams—all dreams but the dream of keeping every misery as it was. Down there, somewhere, THRUSH was at work to keep the hovels dirty, to forever separate the power from the people.

  It was a "nation" Illya would destroy, and all like it. Then, perhaps, he could listen to his jazz records, read his books, travel as he had always wanted to, alone and afraid of no on and nothing, with no one afraid of him.

  "Fasten your seatbelts please."

  The voice of the stewardess pulled Illya from his reverie. He fastened his seatbelt and waited. He had abandoned his disguise in Paris—even Napoleon might be made to talk—and now sat in the small jet a Specialist Tworkov of the Soviet trade mission to the new country. A drooping blond mustache hid his young face. He had acquired a creditable limp. Thick glasses hid his dark eyes. All his weapons were checked and in place.

  Illya left the jet fourth in line. Behind the thick glasses his eyes watched. The field was clear. A fawning native porter ran up to clutch his suitcase. Illya casually fingered the deadly, needle-like knife in his side pocket. The native porter grinned up.

  "Bwana have three more suitcase?"

  "Can you carry three or six?" Illya said.

  "Uphill three, downhill six," the native said.

  "I have only one." Illya said.

  "One is very good. I am twelve," the native said.

  "I am nine," Illya said.

  "So?" the native said. "Welcome to Africa, Mr. Kuryakin. Follow me closely."

  Illya followed the porter across the field, his eyes, behind the thick lenses, scrutinizing everyone who neared them. The porter moved fast, did not pause on his way into the single main building of the airport. Once inside the building the porter led Illya to customs, and through customs under the regular procedure.

  Illya continued to follow the porter out to a taxi. Once inside the taxi, Illya watched the porter vanish. The taxi driver waited for Illya's instruction.

  "Imperial Hotel," Illya said.

  The driver nodded and drove off. Once out of the area of the airport, with no
cars in sight on the sunny morning, the driver reached into his pocket and brought out an innocent card. It was plastic.

  Illya opened a small bottle of fluid and placed a drop on the plastic. A faint purple spot appeared. It had identified the driver as Joseph Ngara.

  "You were supposed to have another man with you," Joseph Ngara said.

  "We ran into trouble in New York."

  "I'm sorry. Who was it?"

  "Napoleon Solo," Illya said. The taxi swerved a hair. "Napoleon? I've worked with him. Damn, Kuryakin, we can't afford to lose chief enforcement agents like him."

  "We haven't lost him yet," Illya said. "You're Section-II out here?"

  "Chief enforcement agent for Section-II, Africa. Our Section-I man briefed me," Joseph Ngara said. "We had our eye on Rillah for some time, but we only got proof he was THRUSH a few months ago."

  "Have you found what he is doing here?"

  "Not precisely," Ngara said, "but he arrived less than a week before the riot that killed the president. We picked up one clue, a word: PowerTen. Two words, really, but our, ah, source says he heard it as one word: PowerTen."

  "Your source is reliable?' Illya asked.

  "Reliable but low-placed. He heard Rillah use the word twice when talking otherwise in code on the telephone. The word seemed to impress Rillah."

  "Anything else? Any weaknesses we can use to make him talk?" Illya asked.

  "You know better, Illya," Ngara said. "THRUSH agents don't have weaknesses."

  "Everyone has a weakness somewhere, Ngara," Illya said. "Only THRUSH knows how to neutralize the weaknesses of their agents. Is there anything unusual about Rillah?"

  "Yes, he likes modern jazz music. He frequents a place called The Yellow Zebra. Almost every night he's there."

  "Jazz?" Illya said.

  "It's more this rock and roll, the long-haired kids with guitars," Ngara said.

  Teenage music! Illya's dark eyes narrowed. He sat back in the taxi.

  "I think we had better visit The Yellow Zebra tonight," Illya said. Ngara nodded. By this time they had reached the Imperial Hotel. Illya paid Ngara as he would any driver, and went in to claim the room reserved for Comrade Tworkov. All was in order: the Russian trade mission was, conveniently, out of the city at this time. Section-V did not make mistakes when they arranged a cover. Illya examined the room, secured it against surprise attack, and slept soundly until time to go that night.