The Final Affair

drawing vent.

'Well,' said Illya after a few seconds, 'that should do it.'

It did.

SECTION IV. 'Oh, What A Fall Was There!'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

'We've Just Been Destroyed.'

Breakfast was quieter than usual in the tall old house on Alamo Square that Sunday. Ward Baldwin finished his oatmeal, his eggs and his kippers without a word, addressed a knife load of marmalade to his toast and sipped his Earl Grey tea before speaking. His voice was harsh and level.

'In view of the continued silence from Central, which has now lasted nearly twenty four hours, I fear we have no choice but to assume that the Hierarchy has become at least temporarily, leaderless at the very highest level.'

'What can have happened?' Irene pondered.

'I'm sure Alexander Waverly would know,' Robin volunteered. 'In fact, I'll bet if I called U.N.C.L.E. and asked him, he'd even tell me. D'you think I should?'

'I dare say he'd relish the opportunity to tell me it was his doing. It may be a matter of a month – perhaps as much as three months – before Central can be replaced and restaffed, and. changes made in security systems. That electronic box in my study sits there with one sheet hanging out of its printer: 'Due to circumstances beyond our control, all communication with Central and UlComp has been interrupted. Please stand by. This unit will be reactivated as soon, as possible.' Not very encouraging.' He cleared his throat and sipped his tea.

'It may mean that the floating electronic crap-game will take a few days to assemble itself somewhere and resume operations on the old frequency, but in such a case The Island should be able to keep all their balls in the air during the interim. From here it is impossible to tell to what extent the top levels of the Hierarchy may have been damaged. I may call Victor after midnight by transatlantic telephone- I'm sure he still has his scrambler from that dreadful Guardian business in '61 and the old Krivan key should be as good as it ever was.'

'What do you suppose The Island is doing?' Robin asked. 'You could check through Vince and Fang.'

'The Men From Central took their leave quite late last night,' Irene said. 'When I went into the library to announce breakfast, I found the sofa neatly made up and everything put away as though they'd never been here.'

'I was still up when they left, my dear. They were in rather a hurry, apparently having received an urgent summons from The Island, but they paused to invite me to join them in the incipient action. They gave me the impression it was being fortified to be held as a last redoubt in hope of evading U.N.C.L.E.'s all-probing eyes – the picture they sketched reminded me strongly of Remington's study of The Fall Of The Alamo. Lacking the dedication of Colonel Bowie and the stamina of Congressman Crockett, I quoted my Selective Service classification of 7-J: to be mobilised only in case of an actual enemy invasion, and assembled in Union Square to pile sandbags around Huntley and Brinkley.'

'You'll have to change that one, dear,' said Irene. 'Huntley has retired.'

'What? At his age? This younger generation is soft. I've said it again and again.'

'You don't suppose poor Mr. Stevens might have had something to do with all this,' Robin asked.

'I can't see, how… One day I may ask Waverly about it. He must know – no natural disaster could have been so devastating.'

'Well, we aren't in any trouble with U.N.C.L.E., are we?'

'Of course not, dear,' said Irene. 'Not legally. Though I suppose they can't help but be suspicious of us. Besides, if they knocked over Central, any evidence they had seized in the course of an illegal entry would be inadmissible in court.'

'Then all we have to do is sit still and wait for them to get a new Central running. After all, it's not as if Ward's whole livelihood depended on Thrush.'

'Essentially my own conclusion,' said Baldwin. 'We may have to suspend portions of our operation and curtail some of the more expensive projects, and I shall be crippled without a computer – let us consider leasing a local service. Life itself should go on much as usual. Probably quieter.' He sighed and finished his cup of tea. 'Ah well, back to pure research.'

That afternoon, a few miles away in downtown San Francisco, Joan was officially Told All. Her clearance was granted in conjunction with Mr. Waverly's briefing of Napoleon and Illya on the earliest results of their successful capture of Thrush Central and the Ultimate Computer. She listened open-mouthed as the magnitude of the coup was gradually revealed to her.

'According to Mr. Gold, the emergency dump transmission from Darjeeling went perfectly. The Master Catalog Index has already been copied out and everything seemed to check as they began analysis. There are, by the way, a number of valuable programs we expect to adapt to our own system.'

'And you did all this through Baldwin's old terminal?' Joan asked incredulously.

'Well, that was the keyhole we opened, and once we had a janitor inside to tap the wine-kegs, we were able to put a whole army through the keyhole and take over.'

Illya choked and Joan laughed warmly. 'You haven't changed all that much.'

'Well, okay. It was a lot more abstract and theoretical than that. But Illya explained it all to me as we went along.'

The intercom flashed and buzzed, and was answered.

'Simpson here. I thought you'd like to know – we've just been destroyed. An outside source seems to have activated the terminal's remote destruct circuit.'

'I'm gratified we came through it so well,' said Mr. Waverly. 'When did this disaster occur?'

'About a minute ago. Before the terminal was brought in here, all the autodestruct devices had been neutralised. I thought we should know if anybody tried to set them off, so I traced that particular circuit and connected it to an alarm.'

'An alarm?'

'Just a buzzer and a large red light saying BOOM. I wanted to be sure and notice if it went off.'

'Baldwin?'

'No, the remote destruct command can only be generated by the Ultimate Computer. You can imagine the chaos that could result if any terminal could blow up any other terminal.'

'I see what you mean,' said Napoleon.

'You also mean Thrush Island has a fully programmed stand-by unit running things,' Illya realised.

'Capable of running things-,' said Mr. Simpson. 'Or possibly with only a few transmission channels, so it couldn't really handle the whole huge network all at once.'

'If they have copies of the operating executive programs and data banks, which they should,' Waverly mused, 'and adequate hardware, which they must, they might be able to recover their losses yet. Is there any way of telling how long it will take to find Thrush Island?'

'The data files we're sorting now will take at least another week to reduce and cross-check. We'll analyse the flight programs, all of which are coded, and find how far it is from two or three different airports.'

'No, you can't,' said Joan unexpectedly. 'It's only served from Tokyo. I don't know where it is, but I was told that by everybody there.'

'You were there?'