1511672039 Z DE: WATERLOO TO: CENTRAL PHASE TWO TARGET DATE 26 NOVEMBER.
1511672312 Z DE: WATERLOO TO; TADPOLE PRIORITY BLUE Q: HAVE YOUR SUBS BEEN SIGHTED BY UNCLE YET. IF NOT WHY NOT. END.
1711671507 Z DE: WATERLOO TO; NEW YORK PRIORITY BLUE HEY HARV REMEMBER THAT IDEA WE WORKED OUT FOR GETTING SOLO OFF HIS SWIVEL CHAIR WITHOUT RISKING A DIME :Q. THE FRUITS ARE RIPE FOR PICKING NEXT WEEKEND THE 25-26. LOVE TO ALL ROGER. END.
1811670148 Z DE: WATERLOO TO: HONG KONG PRIORITY BLUE YOU ARE DIRECTED TO ORGANIZE AND SUSTAIN A MAJOR RIOT AROUND UNCLE HQ HONG KONG FROM 1930 LOCAL 22 NOVEMBER UNTIL COUNTERMANDED OR UNTIL YOUR FORCE SUFFERS 50 PER CENT CASUALTIES. FURTHER ORDERS FOLLOW. END.
1811671523 Z DE: WATERLOO TO: BOGEY PRI ORITY BLUE REQUE INTERCEPT INTERCEPT INTERCEPT UCR PROJECT BOGEY IS PRIORITY WHITE AND IS NOT ON YOUR CLEARANCE. Q: WHAT IS YOUR SOURCE OF DATA ON SAME.
DE; PIKE TO: ULCOMP I HAVE PERSONAL CLEARANCE ON BOGEY AND WISH TO REQUEST DATA ON THE STATE OF THE PROJECT.
UCR NOT IN YOUR PROVINCE. ONLY COUNCIL MAY OVERRIDE DIRECTIVE.
Roger read the screen over Dr. Pike's shoulder and nudged Helena. "I told him he couldn't slip one past the Computer. That thing in Manitoba must be the biggest surprise package since Christmas, and Central doesn't want anybody fooling around with it."
Helena arched an eyebrow. "Maybe so, but if you've been following the tabloids you'll notice that it's in operation when we really need it. Central may seem overcautious, but they know what's going on. Don't you ever forget that."
A red copy of the message hit Solo's desk within ninety seconds after the intelligence report bad been deciphered. His suspicions had been correct—the leaders of every Thrush satrap in the northeastern United States were coming together in New York in 48 hours.
In the guise of a businessman's association meeting, this two-day conference would place dozens of key men in direct contact to arrange the countless interactions that made their operations practical. It would also place them in a spot where he could eavesdrop until he had learned enough to bring legal action against them, and then move in. There was every reason to believe they would put up a fight, and Napoleon had every intention of giving them one. For a week now, as other operations had slacked off, he'd been putting more and more field agents on standby as evidence of the planned meeting began to accumulate.
He tapped a code on the keyboard at his left elbow and a floor plan of the hotel faded up on a back-illuminated screen set in the desk top. He leaned forward and began to study it defensively. Where would he place plainclothes guards around a conference? What coverage would they have? What kind of attack would they be expecting? All he had to do was to be one step smarter than the sharpest planners Thrush had at their disposal—and probably the Ultimate Computer as well.
His earlier studies of the plans had left him only one choice—a frontal attack. Without looking, he keyed the intercom. "Miss Williamson, set up a briefing session here in twenty minutes. We're going to hit that Thrush conference Sunday night. You may tell them I will head the attack personally. And get Section Four up here first—I'm going to want a hotel suite bugged."
2711670502 Z DE: NEW YORK TO: WATERLOO
ROGER BABY IT WORKED LIKE A DREAM. OUR CASUALTIES TOTALLED SIXTEEN, NO PRISONERS, NOBODY LEFT BEHIND. IT WAS WORTH IT TO SEE SOLOS FACE THOUGH WHEN HE KICKED IN THE DOOR. THANK ME FOR HAVING THE PHOTOGRAPHER READY. YOU CAN SEE HIM TOO WHEN I SEND YOUR TEAM THREE EIGHT BY TEN GLOSSY PRINTS. WHEN WE TAKEOVER YOU CAN HAVE HIS OFFICE. MARV. END.
The hardest part was the long walk past the glass windows of the main communications room. It was soundproof, but he could feel the silence fall among the girls when he appeared. He walked steadily erect, eyes on the door at the far end, jaw set, not a flicker of expression hinting at the hard cold knot just under his stomach. The only sounds in the corridor were the whisper of the air conditioning and the rhythmic tap of his shoes, but he could almost hear murmurs. "He found what?" "You're kidding!" "And that's what he was doing when Manitoba blew up?" "Wow! He really blew it, didn't he?"
He didn't sag a millimeter until he heard the door slide closed behind him, but his knees started to shake just as he reached the desk and he had to lean against it for a moment before easing himself into his chair. Who would be taking over if he removed himself from command? He couldn't think of any field agent with the necessary understanding of the range of U.N.C.L.E.'s activities—he'd probably just better call on Carlo Amalfi or Jorge da Silva, request they coordinate operations for North America along with Europe or South America, whichever of them would take on his defaulted responsibility. All he had to do was admit he couldn't handle the job.
He couldn't. He'd called out the full force available on a wild goose chase, made a fool of himself in front of dozens of his men, and in the process had let slip enough control over everything else to bring simultaneous disaster on half a dozen operations around the world.
There was Askandi, for instance. If he could have received the support he'd called for in time, be probably would still be alive. He'd gotten the data he'd been sent after—the minisubs had been using the whaling factory ship as a floating submarine pen with maintenance and refueling capacity for a dozen of the speedy little killers. But the ship and its cargo had gotten away, and a good agent had been killed. Which might not have happened if Napoleon Solo had been at his desk, where he was supposed to be, instead of all the way across Manhattan in the middle of a gunbattle just because he was feeling bored!
And of course the Flin Flon Monster had broken loose just about the moment he'd charged into the hotel suite, guns blazing all around him from a vast force of plainclothes and uniformed Thrush and his own small army of battle-tough U.N.C.L.E. men. The fight around the suite had been pitched and bloody, and had kept both sides thoroughly occupied for the better part of an hour. But the suite was a cul-de-sac, chosen by Thrush for defendability. No windows, only one door, and an en closed ventilating duct which Solo had taken the precaution of riveting closed. It was a perfect trap, and at the time had seemed perfectly reasonable.
The concealed microphones in the various rooms of the suite were picking up conversations in many voices, full of phrases like "... expanding into the solid-state device line, we could carry your full catalogue of… suppose I do; could you arrange to loan me a good assassin from one of... fiscal 1966 used 18 percent more computer time than... chick comes in from Central and flashes on me, so I have to fast-talk her into..." Hidden tape decks turned, and conferral went on while silenced gunfire plopped and thudded back and forth along the ornate halls.
At last the guards fell back and Napoleon charged forward, his men behind him, to kick in the door of the suite and stumble to a dazed halt in the center of the room, listening to a babble of voices from two small tape recorders playing their canned conversations. He stood in surprise at first, shock and understanding growing while the first two men in after him turned the machines off. Then they had gone through every room in the suite, turning off the other portable tape recorders which had been talking to the concealed microphones for at least an hour and a half.
As the voices died one by one, he became aware of the twittering of his pocket communicator. Slowly, unwillingly, he took it out, the beginnings of a full awful awareness growing as he realized what must await him on the other end.