COPENHAGEN WAS THE BEGINNING…
Strange aircraft had been reported in the skies over Denmark—immense and spherical, capable of flying vertically as well as horizontally, and at such high velocities that they were gone almost before they could be spotted by observers.
Flying saucers? Perhaps—but flying saucers developed and controlled by THRUSH!
Their purpose? The purpose of THRUSH itself—to subdue and rule all the world’s nations.
THE ENDING COULD ONLY BE DESTRUCTION…
PROLOGUE
THERE IS A row of buildings in New York City, a few blocks from the United Nations Building. It consists, starting from the south end, of a three-storied whitestone which appears fairly new in contrast with the series of brownstones which make up most of the row, and at the north end a busy public garage. The brownstones are occupied by a few lower-income families living above the decrepit shops and business premises at street level. Del Floria’s tailor shop occupies the street level space in a brownstone near the middle of the block. The first and second floors of the whitestone are taken up by an exclusive “key club” restaurant named The Mask Club, which features fine food served by waitresses wearing masks (and very little else) to patrons who don masks covering nostrils to brow as they enter.
On the third floor of the whitestone is a sedate suite of offices, the entrance to which bears the engraved letters U.N.C.L.E. And in this suite of offices a rather ordinary group of people handle mail, meet and do business with visitors, and in general give the impression of some normal organization engaged in a special charity project or a fund foundation headquarters.
All these buildings are owned by U.N.C.L.E. All the people involved in the activities of the garage and the key club are in the employ of U.N.C.L.E.; many of the patrons of The Mask Club are affiliated with U.N.C.L.E.; and even the frowsy tenants of the brownstones, including old Del Floria, the tailor, are members of the organization.
Behind the outer, crumbling skin of the four old brownstone buildings in the middle of the row is one large edifice comprising three floors of a modern, complex office building…a steel maze of corridors and suites containing brisk, alert young people of many races, creeds, colors and national origins…as well as complex masses of modem machinery for business and communications.
There are no staircases. Four elevators handle traffic vertically. Below basement level an underground channel has been cut through from the East River, and several cruisers (the largest sixty feet long) are bobbing at the underground wharf beneath the brownstone complex. If you could ascend to the roof and examine the huge neon advertising sign there, you might detect that its supporting pillars concealed a high-powered shortwave aerial and elaborate electronic receiving and transmitting equipment.
This is the heart, brain and body of the organization known as U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement). Its staff is multinational. Its work crosses national boundaries with such nonchalance that a daily short-wave message from the remote Himalayas fails to flutter any eyebrows—even though there is no recorded wireless station in the Himalayan area according to the printed international codebooks.
The range of problems tackled by U.N.C.L.E. is immense and catholic. There usually will be a sense of something international in the wind. But just as some of the smaller nations call on the United Nations organization for certain domestic problems beyond their own abilities (usually problems of a humanitarian, medical or technical nature), so U.N.C.L.E. may find itself called into local situations.
Anything which might affect large masses of people, or which might set up a general reaction affecting several countries or several forces, is a job for U.N.C.L.E. It could be the attempt by an organization to cause the accidental firing of a missile from the territory of one friendly power into another in order to create complications within the alliance. It could be the wanderings of a tube of germ bacilli “lost” from an experimental station. It could be an attempt to manipulate the currency of a nation.
Whatever the situation is certain that from his office on the third floor of the brownstone enclave a shabby, gray-haired man will send one or more of his tough young men and women to cope before all hell breaks loose. He will not hesitate to send them into terrible danger against seemingly impossible odds. If an agent is lost, his one concern will be who is to be sent to replace the casualty and salvage the operation.
And the man who so often draws the short straw is Napoleon Solo, Chief Enforcement Agent for U.N C.L.E.
CHAPTER ONE
SOMEHOW, NEAR CHRISTMAS, even the sleek SAS Convair Coronado 990, fastest airliner in the world, seems to take on some of the season’s magic.
Cheerful Danish expatriates, arms laden with bright-wrapped packages, crowd aboard, heading home from London for the Juleaften feast. There’s an extra-welcoming smile on the face of the pretty stewardess and an extra warmth in the cabin after the raw air on the tarmac. Nobody would be much surprised if Santa himself came beaming through the pilot’s hatch to greet the hundred passengers.
Christmas spirit? If you are not on the best of terms with your next-seat neighbor by the time you have eaten your smorrebrod and drunk your first glass of Tuborg you must be a Scrooge indeed. The Danes are always friendly, but there’s something about a December flight that breaks down the last barriers.
Mike Stanning hoped the girl beside him would get the message.
He had noticed her first in the departure lounge at the airport. She had been sitting alone—a slim, trim figure in neat, expensive tweeds. She wore no hat. Black, shoulder-length hair framed her oval face like a glossy helmet The hand turning and returning the untasted glass on the table before her was brown, well-shaped, with long, sensitive fingers. When she had stood up at the loudspeaker’s summons Mike had seen that she was not more than five feet two but built with the grace of a ballet dancer. He’d taken particular pains to get the seat beside her in the aircraft.
As soon as they had unfastened their seat belts he offered her a cigarette. She shook her head.
He tried her with his inexpert Danish. She said, I’m sorry. I don’t understand.” Her voice was low and musical.
Mike said, “Don’t worry. The Danes don’t understand it, either. But I’m working on it. This is your first time for Copenhagen?”
“Yes.”
“Visiting friends?”
“Not exactly.”
“Business?” Mike tried again. “I’m in engineering, myself. Salesman, you know. Boost the exports, and all that jazz.”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I suppose you could say I was on business.” There was a curious expression in her brown eyes. Her tone forbade further questioning. She took up a magazine and began to read.
Mike called the stewardess and ordered a large Scotch. The girl refused a drink. Through the rest of the hour-long flight he tried to interest himself in a paperback novel.
Mike always enjoyed the moment of arrival at Kastrup, surely the friendliest airport anywhere—the waving and smiling of the “reception committees” beyond the barrier as the passengers filed through passport inspection; the hugging and hand-shaking, the kissing and laughter (and not a few tears) as families were reunited. There was nobody to meet the girl, he noticed. Carrying only a sling-bag of the type they sell in airport gift shops, she pushed quickly through the crowd around the barrier. She did not reappear on the bus for the short trip to the city terminal. Sharing vicariously the excitement around him, Mike forgot about her. He walked out into the bustle of Vesterbrogade, Copenhagen’s main street, with a sense of homecoming.