[Magazine 1966-­12] - The Goliath Affair - Jakes John - Страница 6

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Cables flew back and forth from Europe and America. Solo and Illya were jetted to Manhattan on the first available U.N.C.L.E. craft out of Greenland. By the time they arrived and received their orders from Mr. Waverly, another cable had come in from the European branch of Policy and Operations, informing the entire network that the agent who had spotted Klaanger after identifying him from his picture had turned up dead in a sewage ditch.

That is, portions of him had turned up.

A torso.

A leg.

Enough of his lower skull and jawbone for dental identification.

And nothing else.

It was as though incredibly strong hands had simply torn the man's body apart and scattered the pieces.

Beyond the ceiling-high plate glass of the airport waiting room, drizzling rain fell.

The morning was heavily overcast. Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin waited in line with the ninety or so passengers who were preparing to board the immense, four-engined jet with Air Deutschland markings. The jet sat out there on the ready line like a dull silver bird. A passenger agent had just announced over the loudspeaker that despite the bad weather, Flight 414 for London and Munich was expected to depart on schedule.

Solo had been feeling unaccounttably tense ever since their taxicab deposited them at the Air Deutschland terminal at Kennedy International. He felt eyes crawling over him. Illya appeared unconcerned. He was studiously lost in a pamphlet on isometrics.

"After all, Napoleon," he had remarked while making the purchase at the newsstand, "if I am to go up against Herr Klaanger and his fellows in physical combat, I am approximately two hundred pounds behind. Perhaps I can add a couple of inches to my biceps just on the trip across. You're never good company. All you do is ogle the stewardess."

More accurate words had never been spoken, especially in reference to this particular trip. Solo was distracted from his visual search of the waiting room by the sight of the Air Deutschland flight crew. The crew had appeared outside the waiting room window.

As the crew members hurried toward the plane, one of the young ladies assigned to make the passengers more comfortable developed some difficulty with her nylons. She paused outside the waiting room window to examine the back of her trimly Teutonic left calf.

Despite the rather unexciting cut of her blue and white-piped airline uniform, she was a shapely pasty, Solo could see. A big, healthy-looking German girl with sparkling blue eyes, yellow hair and pretty, generous lips. Solo admired her tantalizing hip action as she darted on through the drizzle and ran up the stairs into the plane. He hoped she was assigned to first class.

Abruptly, then, Solo had something else to worry about. He finally localized the source of the uneasy, they're-watching-us feeling. Carefully he unfolded a copy of the Times and appeared to scan it. Over the top of the sheet he peered obliquely at a man lounging near the water cooler.

The man was portly, wore an eggshell-colored raincoat and a green Tyrolean hat with a gaudy feather in the band. Despite the day's somberness, the man also wore immense sun glasses. Their lenses reflected the fluorescent lights in the ceiling in blue-white star bursts.

Gently Solo nudged his companions. Still pretending to read, he whispered, "Notice the job by the cooler."

Illya feigned total absorption in isometrics, but his eyes moved quickly over and back.

"The one with the oversized shades," he said. "He jostled me at the magazine stand."

"I don't think he's boarding," Solo said.

"No, and he doesn't appear to be saying good-by to his frau, either. He's just watching us."

Solo's mind clicked and whirred ahead. Since the U.N.C.L.E. operative who had sighted Klaanger in Munich had been killed, chances were good that U.N.C.L.E.'s interest in Klaanger's whereabouts was already known.

Thus THRUSH could quickly have spread an observation net aimed at pegging down known U.N.C.L.E. agents traveling in the direction of Germany. What distressed Napoleon Solo was the open nature of the manoeuver. He had seldom known THRUSH to employ operatives who would make themselves so obvious. Those sunglasses stood out too sorely in the terminal.

Of course every organization had its incompetents. Perhaps this agent was one of them.

Perhaps there was a perfectly logical reason for the man standing next to the cooler, a reason which had nothing to do with THRUSH at all. Still, the pattern would bear watching. If a tail turned up at the Munich end also, Solo and Illya would be operating under a new handicap. They would know they were tagged before they even began the investigation.

"Here we go," Illya said loudly. The line began to move past the booth where an Air Deutschland passenger agent with a pasteboard smile examined the tickets of boarders.

Moments later Solo and Illya were hustling through the rain towards the first-class boarding stairs.

"Ooops," Solo exclaimed, faking the accidental dropping of his attache case. Bending to retrieve it, he peered back past his right knee.

Herr Sun-glasses was standing next to the waiting room window, still watching. His hands were deep in the pockets of his eggshell-colored raincoat.

Solo scooped up his case and ran after Illya.

At the head of the stairs the pleasantly-proportioned German pastry Solo had noticed before was waiting to greet passengers:

"Guten morgen, gentlemen. May I see your tickets?"

The stewardess gave Napoleon Solo a sizzling smile. He returned it in kind. Although the point of her jaw was a trifle strong, almost blunt, her features were otherwise nearly perfect and quite lovely. He continued to grin winningly while Illya went to his seat.

Solo juggled his attache case awkwardly from hand to hand.

"I wonder whether you could get rid of this for me, fraulein—"

The girl quickly filled in the verbal blank which Solo had created:

"Fraulein Bauer. Of course. May I have it, please?"

Solo transferred the case to the girl's hand, experiencing in the process a not unpleasant contact with her soft fingertips. This reassured him that the flight might be diverting after all.

Fraulein Bauer was about to stow the bag in a compartment just behind her when she noticed the white embossed plastic tag hanging from the handle.

The tag bore Solo's full name and the address of a bogus Manhattan flat.

"What an interesting first name," said the Fraulein. "Are you French?"

"Well, temperamentally I guess," Solo replied with a good-natured leer.

The girl laughed. A passenger waiting outside in the damp at the top of the ramp complained about the delay.

"See you later," Napoleon Solo said by way of invitation, and marched down the aisle to his seat beside Illya.

"You think of romance at the most unlikely times," Illya grumbled as Solo sat down.

"Can you think of a better time? Our U.N.C.L.E. in Munich, U.N.C.L.E. Doremus—" That was the code for the station chief. "—won't be back until tomorrow morning. We'll have a free evening. So will all the young ladies on the flight, I assume. Munich is the end of the run."

Illya looked miffed. "I intend to devote myself to isometric exercises. I consider that somewhat more practical."

"But dull."

Solo really didn't feel all that jolly.

He could still glimpse the watcher in sun glasses through the oval window at Illya's left.

Fraulein Bauer was busily hanging up coats, soothing an elderly lady who had never flown before, offering a pillow to a young mother who spoke only French and carried a squalling baby. Even though these duties kept her occupied, she still had enough time to glance Solo's way once or twice and smile.

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