The capital city contains all the requisites of government. It has its army, its civil service, its departments and echelons of leadership. Most importantly, it contains the Ultimate Computer. All decisions of the Council are made by this machine, a marvelous, almost infallible organism developed by the brightest minds of Thrush. The Council will collect all information on any subject or project, feed the information to the Ultimate Computer, then follow the plan of action it develops. When Thrush fails it is not through any flaw in the computer. It is through human error or superior force of the enemy.
With fantastic brains, resources, money and power at its command, Thrush is the most deadly threat the world has ever known. It has great armies equipped with the most modem weapons. It has the most advanced methods of communication, transportation, factories, laboratories, and it has an enormous treasury constantly replenished and fattened by legitimate and illegitimate enterprises.
Thrush is not an organization of criminals like the Mafia or Cosa Nostra. It is not a secret agency for any of the powers of the world. It is a supra-nation, led by super intellects under the guidance of the Ultimate Computer—and it is constantly at war. Thrush has no allies. It has only enemies. Good men or evil men, if you are not a member of Thrush, you are marked to be ruled or destroyed.
Waverly said, “Garbridge is Thrush’s Council man directing the Danish and Swedish satraps. There is no doubt at all that his units are behind this ‘flying saucer’ business. You can imagine what an asset a machine like that would be to Thrush.”
“I can see the panic there’d be if a flock of those things suddenly appeared in the sky over New York or London,” Solo agreed. “Everybody would think that the Martians were landing.”
“Exactly! Defenses would be thrown into chaos for those first few vital hours. We must stop that happening—by destroying the things now, while they are still in the experimental stage.”
Waverly’s rubbery face lightened. “So far, our reports show, not one machine has been completely successful. Every flight traced has ended in a crash and usually a totally destructive explosion. But that will not necessarily continue. Thrush has some of the best aeronautical brains in the world at its disposal. And they are persistent.
“But where are they making the things?” Solo asked. “A project like that would need a vast factory. Where would they hide it on a small island like Jutland?”
“That,” said Waverly, “is what you are going to find out.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE SEA-WASHED WIND of early morning was blowing on Solos face as he walked through the Gammel Strand fish market. There was more than a touch of frost in the clean air. He turned into a tall, old-fashioned building and climbed to the third floor.
It took a few minutes to locate the office of Paramount Products A/S, and when he found it there was nobody in the reception room but a blonde girl at the switchboard. She said, “Good day. Did you want somebody?” and rolled big eyes.
Solo said, “We’ll take it up after office hours, but right now I want to talk to Mr. Jorgensen. The name’s Solo.”
The girl said, “Solo,” as if it tasted sour. “Have you an appointment?”
“You tell him,” Solo said, “I need to see him so badly I came out without my morning coffee. We were at school together and I just remembered about it.”
“You went to school?” she asked incredulously. She knocked on an inner door and went in. Reappearing, she held the door wide. She said, “Mr. Solo, Mr. Jorgensen will see you.” It sounded like a big favor.
Mr. Jorgensen was the kind of man who spends his time in garden suburbs fiddling with rose trees and crazy paving. He was small and skimpy and short on hair. He wore a black jacket and gray pants. His collar gave his Adam’s apple plenty of air and it was fastened with a dark gray tie. He said, “Good day, good day. How can I help you?” He was smiling, but his eyes were cautious.
Solo said, “Mr. Waverly, of your New York branch, asked me to contact you.”
The cautious look went out of his eyes. “I heard you might call,” he admitted. “What can I do for you?”
Solo said, “I thought I might call on a mutual friend at the Rodehus.”
He shook his head. “You would be wasting your time, my friend. The birds have taken flight.”
“Where?”
“That we do not know—yet.” He smiled again. “There is something else?”
“Yes,” Solo said. “I want an armpit gun, somewhere about .32 caliber, and if you have such a thing, a shoulder holster to match. I’ve got a Luger but it spoils the fit of my clothes and your Copenhagen police are apt to be curious.”
“Of course.” He pressed a bell on his desk and the switchboard girl appeared.
Mr. Jorgensen said, “A universal wrench, please, Gütte. Size two, with five hundred bolts to match. Oh! and Gütte”—he measured Solo with an expert eye—“an adjustable brassiere for the gentleman. I think he takes a size forty.”
Gütte’s blue eyes opened wide. “Oh, Mr. Solo, she said reproachfully, “and you look so virile.”
She came back with several boxes and dumped them on the desk. The wrench turned out to be a Mauser 7.65mm, World War I type but in new condition. The bolts were chrome nickel flat nose shells. The soft leather shoulder rig fitted Solo as if it had been custom-tailored. “Thanks a lot,” he said. “I feel fully dressed again.”
Gütte said, “Come again for your summer outfit—if you live that long.”
Solo walked across town to the Vesterbrogade. In a side street near the skyscraper Royal Hotel he pushed open the door of the Maritza Bar. The noise hit his ears like a physical blow. The blue haze that passed for air was scented with cigar smoke and Jul punch. Solo pushed his way through the crowd to the back of the room where an elderly man, immersed in the sports page of Politiken, sat alone at a table.
He was a medium-sized, round-faced man with a convex upper lip and the bridge of his nose flattened like a plank. He wore an olive-green anorak and a misused black Homburg was pushed far back on his bald skull.
Jens Johannes O’Flaherty was the son of a Danish farm girl and a wandering Irish horse-coper. He called himself an agent, which covered a multitude of jobs from booth fighting to acting as power behind the throne in a two-bit Central American republic. Filibustering came as natural to him as patent-medicine faking, and his favorite literature was lives of the saints. The bad boys of two continents called him by his first name but according to his lights he was as straight as a billiard cue. One with a slight warp.
When he saw Solo he registered amazement theatrically.
“Napoleon, me errin’ son! I thought you was in New York.”
“I got in last night,” Solo said.
The barman brought two Carlsbergs in long glasses and Solo paid.
O’Flaherty looked at the beer.
“’Tis a commentary on the decadence of civilization,” he soliloquized, “that when I was no older than you a man could go out with five kroner in his pocket and be a monarch of the night. A few ore would buy him an ounce of tobacco the like of which ye would not find in Amalienborg Palace this day, and for no more there was lager like the gods drink on Olympia. Now”—he sighed gustily—“they rob you of three kroner the small bottle.” He nodded, looked Solo in the eye in the Danish fashion, nodded again, tilted back his head and the Carlsberg vanished. He put the glass back on the table and licked his lips.