from the Unclaimed section of the City Morgue. There would be little left of the panel truck when Thrush or the San Francisco Fire Department found it, but every effort was being made to insure that subsequent investigation would show everything that should have been there. Mr. Simpson had sacrificed a malfunctioning PDP-8 calculator unit, a CRT with a burned-phosphor, a misaligned photo-printer and a captured Thrush terminal housing shell, all of which would leave convincing remains after a brief but intense cremation. The same could be said for the corpses, since the Thrush guards in the truck would be taken in peacefully and held incommunicado until the entire affair was resolved. 'Sometimes,' Illya had remarked at one point, 'it's inconvenient to be the good guys.'
Now both agents crouched in the rear of their panel truck, an open communicator lying on the carpet between them. Three-quarters of a mile away an observer stationed at a third-floor window was watching a pair of heavy doors which concealed the basement garage through which deliveries were made to the subterranean Thrush complex. His eyes rested in the rubber cups of a tripod-mounted pair of 10x80 binoculars focussed by the blue light of a solitary streetlamp-on the enigmatic steel of the unmoving doors. A cigarette stump lay cooling in the ashtray by his elbow; a can of soda sparkled faintly in the silence.
The watcher blinked into the darkness. A Vine of deeper black had appeared between the slabs of dull metal, and as he stared it widened. He reached for his communicator, which lay open on the table,, and spoke without removing his eyes from the lenses. 'Open Channel R.'
Solo's communicator chirped for attention and got it instantly as the distant watcher's voice reported. 'Biederman here. The-door's opening. I think somebody's looking out. Be ready… There's a car –
'There they. go. And there go the doors. It's a drab grey – pretty close to the ringer. Okay, go to it, you guys. I wish I was down there.'
'If I'd known, I would've been happy to trade,' said Illya. His own silver transceiver was assembled as he listened, and now he said, 'Open Channel L. Stand by all points. Drivers, start your engines.'
For all its flexibility, Thrush had fallen into a habit pattern and Harry had known the regular route followed by such vital caravans; he'd picked up an occasional hundred-dollar bonus for riding in the lead car on previous occasions when visiting dignitaries or top technicians were being transported in secrecy. The armoured Fiat preceded the plain van by two or three blocks, and total radio silence was maintained between the two vehicles since even a scrambled signal can be triangulated.
The Thrush would drive down Hayes from Alamo Square towards the center of town, and turn right on Gough, which rhymed with
Solo and Kuryakin, black-clad, stood in shadow against the soaring concrete piling, their three aides behind them. Beneath the next intersection, Hayes and Octavia, a two-man team was poised with tank and nozzles and respirators, ready to cloud the space immediately above them with rapid-dispersal gas. The duplicate panel truck waited behind the freeway pier, lights out and engine idling. Silence and wisps of drifting fog filled the street, but tension crouched in the shadows as the endless seconds passed.
Then the muffled stammer of the Fiat could be heard approaching and Solo murmured into his microphone, 'Check Point One, are you there?'
'Here. They haven't – There's the Fiat. License JGB 817. Now crossing Laguna… Mark. And… there's the truck. A-OK on identification.'
'Thank you. All points: This is target. Repeat, this is target. Ready to do it -' He drew back to invisibility as the Fiat cruised by, echoing between parallel concrete walls, its two passengers looking in both directions. As it turned the corner and passed from sight, he said, 'Do it!' and slipped a re-breather unit over his face.
As the Thrush panel truck crossed Octovia, half a block away, colorless gas hissed out to fill the cubic yards between building fronts. The truck swayed unsteadily as its driver felt an overwhelming urge to sleep. A nylon landing net dropped into his path from above, anchored to the elevated structure which concealed the main U.N.C.L.E. force – the truck shouldered heavily into it and bumped to a stop as cables creaked and held.
Simultaneously the duplicate let in his clutch behind Solo and swung out into the street and around the corner, docily following an unsuspecting Fiat south towards Market.
The ambulance backed smoothly out of the shadows as the net was lifted from the nose of the truck. Napoleon and Illya were the first ones to reach the cab, dragging the drowsy Thrush out. The key to the rear door was in his pocket; as Solo fished it out and ran around to unlock the van two rehearsed agents loaded a corpse into the opposite side of the front seat. Four sleepers were dumped out of the back of the truck and the prize was exposed, a desk-size unit four by three by two feet. Its screen and keyboard were tastefully hidden by a sliding walnut panel. Positive identification took only a few seconds in back while Illya replaced the driver in front; a couple boxes of carefully chosen junk were lifted into the rear as the terminal was hoisted smoothly out between two men, then the other grisly replacements took place and Napoleon slapped the side of the truck as his last scan over the interior showed everything his mental checklist called for.
'Key,' said Illya, grimly ignoring his cold passenger, and Napoleon slammed the back door, locked it for the last time and tossed the key to his partner. If the impending holocaust lived up to its billing, no trace would ever be found of the key amid the remains of the truck, but both men were trained to situations where such details were the pivots of life or death, and the Thrush van was as perfectly prepared as forty-five seconds of professional care could manage before the Russian engaged its clutch and started off to catch up with where he was supposed to be.
Illya swerved past the Do Not Enter sign at the entrance to the next block of Hayes and raced two illegal wrong-way blocks before cutting right on Van Ness, straight across Market and south, parallel the route of their ringer and four blocks farther east, heading the van towards its rendezvous six minutes away.
On Valencia, the Thrush Fiat led the U.N.C.L.E. van south at the sober speed of thirty miles an hour while Illya raced down deserted Van Ness at seventy. The ringer would be out of their sight for another space of fifteen to twenty seconds at the corner of Valencia and Army. Up an alley nearby waited the tank truck, its diesel turning over. A Section Three technician on a. nearby rooftop held the remote control which would send the rolling bomb out to meet the truck which Illya drove, while the U.N.C.L.E. duplicate would vanish quietly.
His synchronized Accutron, matched to every other man's on the team, brought him to the shadowed side of the selected intersection with twenty seconds to spare. He took a few deep breaths while waiting for the Fiat to appear and pass, its passengers still alert for any threat to their convoy.
The car made its left turn onto Army, and Illya swung the Thrush truck out of the alley before his counterpart swung in.
Five seconds later he braked to a stop on his marks in front of a parking lot two buildings from-the corner. Ten seconds, he'd dragged a lump of discarded meat behind the steering wheel. Fifteen seconds, and he was sprinting for the shelter of the alley with the sound of a diesel gathering speed pounding at his heels. Twenty seconds, and a fist of concussion slapped his back as building fronts lit up before an impossibly huge yellow flare.
He almost stumbled: as the shock wave punched past him, then recovered his long stride. His new shadow danced, black and elongated along the street before him as he staggered up to the U.N.C.L.E. van and was helped in as their engine revved up and they shot away up the side street while leaping flames licked against the sky behind them.
Illya found a communicator in his hand. 'Kuryakin here,' he said. 'Detonation successful. Do we have the merchandise we came for?'
'Indeed we do,' said Mr. Simpson's voice unexpectedly. 'As well as I can tell in five minutes' examination, we have accomplished all we could have hoped for this evening.'
'Okay, that's it then,' came Napoleon's voice. 'Teams One and Two are relieved as soon as they have their areas secured. Illya, I'll see you back at the office. Everybody else – thank you. It's been a pleasure working with you. This operation is officially completed.'
And in U.N.C.L.E's San Francisco communications room, Alexander Waverly leaned back from his console and smiled. The first knot in a fatal skein had been tied, and the web which might ensnare Thrush was strengthened. A
