In this office a leathery faced man of indeterminate middle age leaned back in a high backed chair and thoughtfully regarded the steel and glass spire of the United Nations building visible through his window. He was thoughtfully rubbing the bowl of an unlighted briar pipe as he looked at the giant building which represented a large share of the world's hope for tomorrow.
A light flared on a small console recessed in the large mahogany desk in front of him. He turned so quickly he dropped the pipe on the thick rug. In his haste he didn't bother to pick it up. He snapped on a circuit to hear Napoleon Solo's voice identifying himself.
"Mr. Waverly? Come in, please," Solo said from South America
TWO
Alexander Waverly, Section I member and operations chief for U.N.C.L.E., hesitated just a moment to compose himself. He was a human being with a human's worries and doubts, but he tried never to present any face but a composed, confident one to his agents. His personal troubles and uncertainties remained his personal property.
He shared them with no one—not even the five other men who share with him the terrible responsibility for direction of the giant United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.
It took him but a second to compose himself and shove back his anxiety over this latest and most terrible of THRUSH's threats to the world.
"Yes, Mr. Solo," he said quietly. "Go ahead, please."
In South America the quiet, decisive voice had a soothing effect on Napoleon Solo. Regardless how tough a situation might be, he never failed to feel better about it after hearing Alexander Waverly's quiet, confident voice.
"I'm afraid we have to report a failure, sir," he said.
"What happened?" Waverly asked.
Napoleon gave him a brief but accurate sketch of what they encountered.
"Unfortunate," Waverly said slowly. "But unavoidable, I can see now. Since I called you I received a special report on Dr. Santos-Lopez from our Section IV. Just a moment."
Waverly picked up a yellow teletype sheet marked with the call code of U.N.C.L.E.'s section IV Enforcement and Communications.
"It says that Dr. Santos-Lopez was extremely suspicious of anyone," Waverly said. "Under the circumstances I doubt that we could have made direct contact with him."
"Shall we remain here and see if we can get his reports on his storm breaking experiments?" Solo asked.
"No," Waverly said. "Our South American offices will be put on that job. I want you—"
He broke off as a brilliant red light flashed on his desk console.
"One moment, Mr. Solo. Stand by. I have an emergency call."
Mr. Waverly punched in a new circuit. A hidden speaker went into action with: "Section III on report."
"Go ahead, Section III," Waverly said. "Switch to Code Line A, since I will retransmit your report to Mr. Solo on the field band."
"Yes, sir," Section III, Enforcement and Intelligence replied. "News service reports from South America are that the laboratory of Dr. Santos-Lopez was destroyed two hours ago by fire. Another fire of unknown origin broke out in the hotel where he had been staying. It destroyed his baggage."
"Thank you," Mr. Waverly said, cutting the connection to Section III. "Did you get that report, Mr. Solo?"
"Yes, sir. I'd say it is futile to try and find any reports that Dr. Santos-Lopez might have left about his storm destroying work."
"It would seem so," the U.N.C.L.E. chief said slowly. "However, I doubt that he was far enough advanced to provide us a sure kill for any storm generating system THRUSH is working on. That threat is our immediate concern. So you and Mr. Kuryakin report to me here just as quickly as you can get here."
"Yes, sir," Solo said. "There is a regular airline flight leaving here in-"
He glanced down at his watch. "—In forty-five minutes. We can make that quicker than we can charter a special flight."
"I am sure you can," Waverly said. He picked up another piece of paper from his desk. "But there is another flight, the Inter-Hemisphere Airlines, leaving in forty minutes. I have already arranged through Section II for the blocking of two seats on it for you and Mr. Kuryakin. That cuts five minutes from your departure time. I consider five seconds wasted a tragedy. Five minutes compounds the tragedy sixty times. So you will forgive my presumptuousness in arranging a different schedule for you."
"Yes, sir," Solo said, sighing. It was impossible to get ahead of Waverly, he thought wryly.
"Excellent," Waverly said. "We have received new evidence that clearly indicates that my original presumption was correct. THRUSH is experimenting with the creation of synthetic storms—and they are succeeding! Therefore you can see why every second—every second—Mr. Solo—endangers the lives of thousands of people!"
"We'll be on the plane, sir," Napoleon said.
"I'll be expecting you," Waverly replied crisply as he cut the connection.
A police escort got them to the airport with only one of Mr. Waverly's precious seconds to spare. There wasn't even time for them to check out of their hotel. Illya asked the chief of their police escort to inform April Dancer of their sudden departure and to request the girl from U.N.C.L.E. to take care of such details for them.
The two U.N.C.L.E. operatives were the last passengers aboard. Every other seat was taken.
"Sit down here, Illya," Solo said. "I'll take the next one."
But Kuryakin had seen the girl sitting in the window seat farther up the aisle.
"No!" he said, to Solo's surprise. "Age before beauty. You sit here."
He went up the aisle to the other empty seat. Napoleon saw the girl then and his face twisted, wryly.
Solo slipped into the other empty seat, opposite a sour-faced old man. Up the aisle he could see Illya talking with the lovely girl. From what little he could see of her, she seemed to what Alexander Waverly would describe as buxom in the—er—right places.
He sighed and leaned back in his seat. Between Illya's aggressiveness and Alexander Waverly's impatience, Solo wondered how he would ever get any romance in his life!
THREE
About thirty minutes after were airborne, the stewardess lowered the lights. The old man beside Napoleon Solo started to snore loudly. Deep breathing showed that others in the plane were also sleeping. Solo found it impossible to doze off himself. He kept thinking of THRUSH's new weapon.
He had more than the usual experience with hurricanes and typhoons. He knew that if THRUSH could harness their fantastic fury, U.N.C.L.E.'s great enemy now possessed a weapon capable of doing more damage than any weapon ever conceived.
Napoleon was thinking of the terrible devastation he'd seen only a few months ago when a typhoon hit southern Japan. Not a house remained standing in a hundred mile area.
As Napoleon recalled it, more than 2,000 people died and losses ran into the millions.
What frightened him was the thought of THRUSH-guided typhoons striking the U.S. coast in areas unused to storms of such frightful nature. Florida was constantly ripped by hurricanes. The people there knew how to batten down the hatches and ride out the blow. But what would happen if a typhoon suddenly struck the coast of Southern California, with its lath and plaster houses? Or Honolulu or Seattle or San Francisco? The destruction would be frightful.
Suddenly his thoughts were shattered by a sickening heave of the flying plane. His head flopped forward. But for the seat belt he would have been thrown across the aisle.