“Decidedly,” said Waverly. “Unfortunately, we turned up nothing really conclusive in our search of the brokerage and all the other tenants of that building seem to be pleasantly, honestly secure in unrelated businesses. All we have is our list of suspects, and our own very certain knowledge that they’re bilking the Exchange in connivance with Thrush. It’s up to you to help us get them all behind bars.”
Behind a pillar of the boardwalk Illya stood up and scanned the area. “I think I can get from here down to the pier without much risk of being seen. Perhaps from nearby I can figure some way to get inside that unfunny fun house. To keep from freezing, I may end up by having to walk right in the front door, though.” He signed off with characteristic abruptness and began a close-quarters inspection of the building.
He left the security of deep shadows in a low crouch, moving fast and taking advantage of every roll of the beach to keep out of the light. No one came out of the Space House, and he seemed to have no company along the windy beach but the abandoned automobile. In a few moments he was down at the water’s edge, hiding in the darkness underneath the pier.
As an alternative to the front entrance he marked the cargo door overlooking one side of the pier. Trucks driving up to it would have to use a ramp to deliver, but Illya suspected some heat-paste or a small bomb might work for him. The door was corrugated steel and looked solidly closed, but U.N.C.L.E. agents in the field usually anticipated doors at least that solid.
He ranged full circle about the pier, angling, in front of the fun house swiftly to be in the light as briefly as possible. He saw no signs of a flaw in their defenses. The exercise had helped him keep warm, but the main entrance still seemed the best way to approach the enemy.
Standing on the hard-packed, wet sand at the beach’s edge he realized more energy had gone into the skulking than it was really worth, even if he had gotten warm. His breath was coming fast, and he let out clouds of white every time he exhaled.
Then his eyes caught the flicker of a burning coal beneath the pier. It seemed to be part of a fire in shadow, and he went rigid, wondering if he had stumbled on some Thrush operation below the Space House, or if he was intruding on someone’s privacy.
Privacy can go hang at a time like this, he thought. My partner may be up there, and if I can take out an outside guard or two it’ll help the odds of making a successful rescue. With all the extremes of caution a death-laden career teaches U.N.C.L.E. agents, Illya moved in on the fire and strained to catch sight or sound of anyone lurking nearby.
In the darkness, on his belly in cold sand, he wriggled up to a pier support. Keeping his lean frame entirely behind the piling from the fire, he stood up quietly to peer out.
I feel like Oil-Can Harry, he thought, dashing from post to post, slithering around in the dark and plotting eviyal things to liven up the night as soon as I capture-And then he was next to the fire, staring down into it, seeing that it was covered with sand and deserted. Nobody, he concluded. All this skullduggery, all this deep guerilla warfare methodology, and I end up with a dead fire and no one around to tend it.
The camp had just been abandoned, he decided. Embers still glowed warmly in the heart of it. He scattered sand from the remaining wood, using his paper as a shovel, and then looked at what he was doing.
“I suppose I could warm my backside with this little pint-sized picnic fire,” he muttered. “In fact, with the night as rotten freezing unprintable cold as it is, I’m mightily tempted.” He conjured up a picture of himself before a roaring blaze, lacking only his slippers. “The crossword has served its purpose and can be converted to kindling-in fact, I don’t even need to requisition it, because 1 paid for it, not U.N.C.L.E. But all I need is some other night-crawling type to sneak up on me when he sees the fire. I’d probably be so content lolling in front of it that I’d invite him to clobber me.”
Self-discipline had seldom come harder. Nearly shedding a tear, he scooped more dank sand over the wood. “I’m probably doing the Fire Commissioner a big favor, anyway. Maybe they’ll give me a Smokey the Bear type hat ‘for not letting Coney Island bum down.”
He straightened and walked back up to the front of the Space House. Standing just outside the lighted area, he assessed the situation.
With no enemy agents circling the area, he felt sure that Thrush was riding a high wave of overconfidence. Deep inside they had Napoleon, of that he felt certain. Napoleon had just walked into their trap today, seemingly defenseless (because he had intended to be trapped), and they must have thought it a wonderful piece of luck to capture him so easily. Any U.N.C.L.E. agents following ought to have arrived shortly after the car from Gambol’s because certainly Thrush couldn’t know how U.N.C.L.E.‘s tracer device worked.
Their discipline ought to have gone a little slack after a time, thinking they had gotten a free prize.
Illya hitched his trousers up and opened his jacket to ready his pistol. “Napoleon is no prize,” he said under his breath, “and I think I’m going to have to go in there and convince them of it.”
As he stepped out of the shadows and went directly up to the entrance, he didn’t see three figures in denim watching him from the boardwalk. Neither he nor they saw the three Thrushes further back in shadow, who watched everything.
Apprehension dragged Illya’s feet as he approached the Space House that Thrush built. The fire below the pier had to be more than just an abandoned picnic, but what did it mean? Complete silence along the cold wintry beach was itself enough to raise his hackles-at other times of the year the place would be wall to wall with sweating hordes from three states, all fighting for a chance to dip a foot in the salt water and get indigestion from hot dogs and soda. The transition to a loneliness of such proportions, with wind moaning inland from the sea, was nightmarish.
He drew his U.N.C.L.E. Special and picked up speed as he stepped onto the piers asphalt. He seemed to float through the open doors, crouching low. Well into the room he discovered he was surrounded by the figures of armed men, who didn’t move or breathe.
Outside, three Thrushes pounced on the quarry they’d been watching.
Porpoise spun in his swimming pool like the center of a whirlpool. Color blotched his fat cheeks, and sweat poured over his face, making him submerge again and again to keep cool.
“Those fools have got to find Solo!” he repeated between giving orders and making calls to hasten the arrival of a submarine in Lower Bay. “If he escaped my maze, he had to swim away from it. Nobody can do that in this weather and outguess a search party. He’ll be blue and half dead. They’ve got to find him.”
Apis, hunched over the control console normally in care of Arnold, suddenly activated Porpoise’s television-ceiling to show a man’s shoulders and head. The man calling in struggled to keep from laughing at the sight of Porpoise, alarmingly hairless and fat, floating nude in a swimming pool.
“Code Canary,” said the caller. Porpoise scudded to a halt by reversing his sea-screw, and tilted the violet chair back to look upwards.
“Well, Captain,” he said with a thrum of fingers on his armrest, “how soon can you get here? I know all about your regular schedules. I know all about the three-mile limit. I know the waters, the storms offshore, and I know how high I can reach in the Hierarchy if necessary. How soon can you be here? I may require emergency transportation at any moment.”
Amusement touched the televised face. Many years at sea had marked it with furrows and a few scars, and the result didn’t look like a man who quailed at threats.
“The only factor you didn’t mention is the United States Coast Guard,” he said. “They tend to object to my Canary prowling waters with Uncle Sam’s initials on them; you probably won’t get Thrush Central to order me in as close as Sandy Hook, let alone right into your lap. I’m not too excited about unplanned invasions of New York Harbor anyway, and this trip sounds like a dilly. Fleet HQ hinted you may be evacuating your base under attack by U.N.C.L.E.”