[Whitman] - The Affair of the Gunrunners' Gold - Keith Brandon - Страница 1

The Affair of the Gunrunners' Gold

By Brandon Keith

1. Welcoming Committee

THE SUN WAS like a great golden balloon in a brilliant sky blue as cobalt. It was mid-July and the day was bright and breezy at Kennedy Airport in New York City. Outside the Customs Building, casually chatting, stood Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin.

Solo's wrists were crossed in front of his body. His hat, held in his left hand, covered his right hand. Illya's hands, to the contrary, were fully exposed, but what nestled in the palm of his left hand was not exposed—except to him and to Solo, and they glanced at it frequently. It was a small photo of the man for whom they were waiting, Howard Ogden, who was arriving on a flight from Bogota, capital of Colombia, South America. It was an old photo, taken five years ago.

"But," Solo remarked, "a picture is a picture. We'll recognize him."

Illya grinned. "Suppose he's wearing a disguise?"

"He won't be. Why should he? He has no idea he's got company out here expectantly awaiting him."

"One thing's for sure. That baby's not traveling under his own name."

It was Solo's turn to grin. "Yessir, that's for sure."

Suddenly Illya stiffened. "Look!"

Solo looked. There was their man, carrying two heavy suitcases. Tall, dark, in his mid-thirties, he was striding erect with athletic step toward the taxi stand. Quickly, efficiently, Solo and Kuryakin parted and then came together again on either side of the tall man.

"Just keep right on walking, Mr. Ogden," Solo said.

The dark face swiveled to Solo, then to Kuryakin, then back to Solo, but what convinced the man was what Solo showed him. A quick flip of the hat in the left hand revealed the gun in Solo's right hand.

Howard Ogden, an experienced operator in his own right, was not one to argue with a gun. But even were he so disposed, he could not. If he attempted a struggle, he would have to drop his bags, and that would incur the risk of losing them. Nor could he break and run—the bags were too heavy. He would have to go along with the two strangers and then talk them out of whatever they were up to. For a moment he considered it a case of mistaken identity—but no. The man with the gun had called him by his real name.

They walked past the taxi stand to where Kuryakin's car was parked. Ogden noticed it was a quite ordinary sedan, nothing fancy. The blond man opened a rear door, motioned to Ogden to put the suitcases inside, and Ogden complied. Then the blond man slammed the door and got into the driver's seat. The man with the gun smiled politely.

"Okay, Ogden. Get in. Up front."

"My name isn't Ogden."

"What is it?"

"Owens."

"Have it your own way. Get in."

Ogden sat alongside Kuryakin and Solo sat on the other side of Ogden, the muzzle of the pistol pressed against the man in the middle. Kuryakin started the car and they were off.

"Look, you guys, you're wasting your time," Ogden began in a bantering tone. A veteran of many criminal adventures, he was trying to ease himself out of a tight situation. "If this is some kind of stickup, you people sure picked the wrong party. All you can get out of me is a whole lot of nothing."

"What about the bags back there?" inquired Illya Kuryakin.

"Worthless. That is, to you."

"What are they worth to you?"

"They're my business."

"What's your business?" asked Solo.

"I'm a salesman."

"Salesman? For what?"

"I'm a machinery salesman. I work for a firm in Bogota. I'm up here to see some prospective customers in the United States. Those bags back there are actually sample cases containing miniature samples of ironware—motors, cogs, gears, wheelworks, mechanical contrivances—for display to the customers. I can prove to you that I'm telling the absolute truth. All you have to do is look over my papers, my passport, my identillcation."

Could be he was telling the truth. Neither Illya nor Solo could contradict him. They had had no thorough briefing—only the meager details sufficient for their purpose. They had been given the photo and told to go to Kennedy Airport. Purpose: to pick up Howard Ogden, the man in the picture, no matter his present alias, and bring him in. Those had been the Old Man's instructions, the Old Man being their boss, Alexander Waverly, head of U.N.C.L.E. All the instructions had been general except one, and that one specific instruction Solo now proceeded to obey. The muzzle of the gun pressed against the man in the middle. Solo pulled the trigger.

Howard Ogden did not die. Nor did he bleed. Nor was he wounded. His chin descended to his chest and he was immediately asleep. Solo's gun was not a lethal weapon. It discharged a tiny, spongy bullet that had no power of penetration. When the bullet smacked against the target, it flattened and released chemicals into the skin, rendering the body unconscious.

As Alexander Waverly said: "A gun—unless in the hands of a murderer—is merely an instrument to immobilize an adversary, to stop him, to cause him to be harmless and powerless. What more perfectly serves all those ends than sweet and peaceful slumber?"

Sweet and peaceful slumber on the part of Howard Ogden perfectly served the ends of Solo and Kuryakin. Ogden was being escorted to U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, and his escorts, U.N.C.L.E. agents, could not permit him to see or know where he was being taken.

2. Lone Wolf

SITTING ALONE in his office at Headquarters, teeth firmly clenched on the stem of his pipe, Alexander Waverly stirred impatiently. Where were they? He looked up at the clock on the wall, took the pipe from his mouth, shook his head, then smiled despite himself. There was time, plenty of time. Under no circumstances—all having gone well—could they as yet have completed the mission. But soon.

Shrugging, he sat back, lit the pipe, and, to curb his impatience, reviewed the matter of Howard Ogden, who just possibly could be the key to the solution of a problem that had been giving him a good deal of trouble for a number of years.

During the past decade, certain Latin American countries—Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Bolivia—had been plagued by Communist revolutionaries. A longtime plague, chronic, persistent, it had, during the past couple of years, flared to alarming proportions, and the reason was—guns! For the past two years, there had been an immense, illegal influx of contraband guns and armaments to the revolutionaries.

Waverly had long suspected that T.H.R.U.S.H. was behind this gigantic smuggling operation. Certainly the turmoil within these Latin American countries provided a rich and fertile field for nefarious T.H.R.U.S.H. activity. But whatever the cover, it was excellent: There was not a single shred of proof that T.H.R.U.S.H. was involved. And now, at last, a possibility, a hope—in the person of Howard Ogden.

The chief of U.N.C.L.E. knew a great deal about Howard Ogden, and of one thing he was certain— Ogden was not a member of T.H.R.U.S.H. Indeed, he was not a member of anything! Ogden was a free-lancer, an individual adventurer, a soldier of fortune. In all truth, until now U.N.C.L.E. had displayed little interest in Howard Ogden—he was small fry, a loner, a solitary operator. Time and again, however, he had come within Waverly's scrutiny, but only as a tiny tangent to other, major investigations.

Waverly knew, for instance, that five years ago Ogden had been arrested on the Pacific Coast, charged with gunrunning—illegally smuggling weapons, but on a small scale, to Communist China. The U.S. authorities had caught up with him, indicted him, then released him on bail awaiting trial, but Ogden had jumped the bail and fled the country. When last heard of, he was somewhere in South America.