The Stone-­Cold Dead in the Market Affair - Oram John - Страница 1

The Stone-Cold Dead in the Market Affair

By John Oram

A fortune for world conquest

It began when a man walked into a bar and ordered a beer that he was never to drink—for moments later he saw two other men enter, and he panicked and ran headlong out the door, across the street...and under the wheels of a truck.

When he was hit, hundreds of bank notes flew all over the street, a small fortune in currency. And all of it was counterfeit.

But when U.N.C.L.E. investigated the case they found much more than just counterfeiters at work. Instead, it was a THRUSH plan to destroy the economic and political foundations of Europe—and it look as though it was going to succeed....

THE STONE-COLD DEAD IN THE MARKET AFFAIR

FROM BLODWEN

NEWPORT MON

SOUTH WALES

TO W

SECTION I (P)

UNCLE NEW YORK

SECRETEST: STREET FATALITY HERE TODAY PRODUCED BUMPER BUNDLE MINTWISE STOP SUSPECT BROWN BIRD SINGING STOP SUGGEST RELATIVES ATTEND URGENTEST STOP

TO BLODWEN

NEWPORT MON

SOUTH WALES

FROM W

SECTION I (P)

UNCLE NEW YORK

SECRETEST: DISPATCH SPECIMEN REQUEST IMMEDIATE STOP RUSSIAN COUSIN TRANSITING STOP TRY LOCATE NEST STOP

FROM BLODWEN

NEWPORT MON

SOUTH WALES

TO W

SECTION I (P)

UNCLE NEW YORK

SECRETEST: WILCO BUT NAME BLODWEN NOT CASSANDRA STOP CASE OF NEEDLE HAYSTACKWISE TOP AND NO THREADS STOP

Chapter One

Market Street in Newport, Monmouthshire, bears no resemblance to its namesake in San Francisco. It is around three hundred yards long, narrow, shabby, with an atmosphere redolent of gasoline, printer's ink, fish, vegetables and good Welsh beer.

It is bounded on one side by the gray stone outer wall of the old municipal covered market, and on the other by a conglomeration of premises which include a branch of a multiple tailoring firm, the truck bay and editorial entrance of the South Wales Argus, wholesale fruit, vegetable and fish merchants, and a store specializing in workmen's clothing.

There are two taverns in the street's three-hundred-yard length. The man in the shabby fawn trenchcoat visited each in turn.

He was a small, slim man about thirty years of age. His face was pasty, with high cheekbones accentuated by the sunken flesh below. His hair was a thick thatch that looked like bleached hay. His curiously pale green eyes, set close to a button nose, held an expression of abject fright.

He went into the cream-painted bar of the Black Swan and bought a glass of beer and a sandwich. The chicken sandwiches at the Black Swan are worth traveling a long way to sample, but the man in the trenchcoat gulped his down as if it were tasteless. His little green eyes roved over the back of the bar, resting briefly on the miner's lamp on the top shelf and the ship's bell over the door in to the landlord's private quarters. Then he drank his beer quickly and left without a word.

He hurried along the street and pushed open the door of the bar of the Cross Keys. Except for a pretty girl sitting alone by the counter, the big room was empty. Again the man's eyes searched the bottle-filled shelves. Perched perkily between two-thirds of Long John whiskey there was a little doll in Welsh national costume. Some of the tension went out of the man's face. He rapped on the counter for service.

The barmaid came from the table area in the back, where a juke box was playing an Andy Williams number. A big, handsome, black-haired woman in a black, close-fitting dress, she could have stepped straight out of a Manet painting. She smiled and said good morning as if she really meant it.

The man said, "A pint of bitter." Then, nodding toward the doll: "You don't get many of those around here, I suppose?"

"No. A friend of the lady who owns the place brought it from Cardiff for a present. Pretty, isn't it?"

"Yes." The man seemed satisfied. He took the beer and went to sit at the far end of the room. He was careful to choose a seat from which he could watch both the door and the big window that looked out on to the street. After a token sip he did not touch the beer on the table in front of him.

The girl at the bar said quietly, "A sociable type."

"You get all kinds," the barmaid said. "I never saw him in here before."

"Oh, well!" She pushed her empty glass across the counter. "Fill it up again."

Mixing the gin and vermouth, the barmaid asked, "You staying long in Newport, love?" Her husky voice with its attractive Welsh lilt contrasted strongly with the girl's clipped London accent.

"A few days, maybe. It depends."

"Just on vacation, like?"

"You could call it that." The girl lifted her glass. "Cheers! You sure you won't have one?"

"No, thank you, love. Too early for me."

The bar door opened and two men walked in. Both were six-footers, dressed in discreet business suits. One wore a navy blue raincoat.

Their effect on the man in the trenchcoat was electrical. He jumped to his feet, overturning the table, and charged between them, his eyes wild and staring.

As the door swung behind him, one of the men asked, astonished, "What the hell was that all about?"

"Must of thought you were coppers," the barmaid said.

There came an agonized screech of brakes from the street outside. Women screamed. There was a confused babel of voices.

"My God! An accident." The barmaid whipped up the counter flap and ran across the room with the girl beside her. The two big men were already on the sidewalk.

A truck loaded with heavy crates was blocking the narrow street. Under its front wheels was all that remained of the man in the shabby trenchcoat. The driver, a gray-faced kid in patched blue overalls, was vomiting uncontrollably against the truck's fender. His partner, dazed but articulate, was protesting: "We 'adn't got no chance. 'E dashed right out of the pub straight under our wheels."

But few of the crowd were listening. They were to busy picking up the hundreds of brand-new currency notes which littered the street.

A boy in a white coat was incredulously counting a handful of fivers. The girl put her hand on his arm. "Where did all the money come from?"

"Gawd knows," he said. "Out of 'is pickets, I suppose. 'E must've been a walking Bank of England. You seen a copper, miss? I got to 'and this over quick or I'll be tempted."

The girl waited until the police, ambulance and tow-truck had arrived. She watched the broken body taken from beneath the wheels and put on a stretcher. Then she made her way up Market Street and across High Street to the General Post Office.

She went into a public telephone booth and dialed a number.

"From Blodwen, Newport, Mon, South Wales," she dictated. "To W., Section I (P)....

Chapter Two

When the telephone bell cut harshly into the Shostakovitch symphony, Illya Kuryakin was less than delighted. He had just showered and shaved after a profitless twelve-hour stake-out of a house in a crummier section of the Bronx, and he had been looking forward to a lazy morning in the small, untidy apartment he called home.