[Magazine 1966-06] - The Vanishing Act Affair, стр. 1
The Vanishing Act Affair
By Dennis Lynds
June 1966
Volume 1, Issue 5
Misshapen, monster-like, they crouched deep under London and listened to their demoniac leader: "You will take over the Earth after tonight—after the whole men die. For nothing—not even the creatures from U.N.C.L.E.—can stop me from decreeing the end of the world!"
Somewhere deep under London, a misshapen monster had decreed the end of the world. Only two men, Illya and Solo, might stop him—and time was running out too fast!
Act I: To See Or Not To See
Act II: Come Kill With Me
Act III: The Last Shall Be First
Act IV: Not With A Bang But A Scream
ACT I—TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE
THE MAN limped across the open space between the wooded hills and the armored truck.
A grotesque figure in the twilight—short, heavy, with a twisted leg and thick, shaggy hair that hung down almost to his eyes in front, below his neck in back.
The armored truck, closed and buttoned up, its last pick-up of the day made, started its engine. The loading dock was now deserted, the floodlights out, all personnel of the factory inside.
There was only the armored truck, locked and sealed, and the man limping toward it.
There [was] no one else in sight as the truck began to move slowly out of the narrow driveway of the factory, only the truck and the grotesque figure, limping more rapidly now toward a spot where the truck had to pass.
Nothing else moved. But the truck and the hurrying figure were not alone.
High on the side of the wooded hill that overlooked the factory on the highway between Santa Carla and Coopersfield in Southern California, two men crouched and watched the scene below through infra-red binoculars.
They studied the short, shaggy-haired figure limping, and the truck moving slowly down the narrow driveway—the limping man and the truck converging on a point just before the driveway reached the highway.
One of the two men was slender, dressed in a light black sweater and slim black trousers that contrasted sharply with his shock of blond hair that looked as if it had been cut below the edge of a soup bowl. This man's glasses were trained on the slow-moving armored truck.
"They either don't see him, or they don't think he can be of any danger to them," Illya Kuryakin said.
The second man nodded, his glasses trained on the limping figure, which looked even more weird through the infra-red lenses. This man was taller and heavier than his blond companion. A well-built man of average height, with a youthful, half-amused expression on his face.
"They could be right," Napoleon Solo said. "What can he do? The truck is buttoned up like a tank."
"Tanks are hardly invulnerable, Napoleon," Illya pointed out drily.
Napoleon Solo appeared to be thinking this over. His open, handsome face showed little of the sharp and shrewd mind that made him the efficient chief enforcement officer, Section II, United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, better known simply as U.N.C.L.E.
"We know he's not even armed," Solo said.
"Do we, Napoleon?" Illya said.
The Number 2 man of Section II (Operations and Enforcement) of U.N.C.L.E. watched the strange scene below and frowned. A loner in a world of organization, Illya's quizzical eyes were often amused; they were not amused now.
Solo, his sharp mind so well-concealed behind the facade of a flippant young executive type, saw his partner's concern.
"We know he left the meeting of the Cult unarmed. Our detectors showed nothing metal, wood or plastic. We've never let him out of our sight since," Solo said.
Illya nodded. "Of course you're right. My gloomy Slavic mind is working overtime. But—"
"But?" Solo echoed quietly in the deepening darkness.
Illya's eyes were glued to the eye-pieces of his infra-red binoculars. "But why has he come forty miles from the Cult meeting to walk unarmed up to an armored truck?" he said softly.
Then, as if the grotesque figure below had heard the question of the small Russian U.N.C.L.E. agent, the two agents had their answer.
"Look!" Solo cried.
Both men had their glasses trained on the events below.
As the truck reached the point of leaving the driveway, the strange, hairy figure below suddenly rose up from a clump of bushes. The man limped two quick steps to the armored truck, thrust out his hand toward the narrow slit of an air vent, and leaped back.
"Air vent!" Solo breathed.
"Gas?" Illya hissed.
"How would you open the truck?" Solo whispered.
But, below, the limping man seemed to have no intention of opening the truck. The instant the truck had passed him, he turned and limped away into the bushes and across the open area toward the wooded hills. He went as rapidly as he could, without a backward glance.
Then, the man did glance backwards, and fell on his face.
The armored truck had not slowed, even after the man had made the motion with his hand toward the air vent. It went on down the driveway, reached the highway, turned—and stopped dead in the center of the highway.
As the two agents watched from the wooded hills in the Southern California twilight, the doors of the truck opened and the guards jumped out. Four guards, all those in the truck, leaped out, guns ready. They fired as they came out, the long tongues of flames spitting out into the now dark night.
The men form the armored truck fired a withering hail of bullets. They ran and darted all across the road, firing all the time, running for cover. It was a scene of complete battle.
Except that there was no enemy.
The armored guards were firing a deadly hail of bullets at absolutely nothing!
Illya and Solo stared through their infra-red binoculars, and then slowly lowered the glasses and looked at each other.
"Nothing?" Solo said.
"Nothing at all," Illya said. "They are firing as if an army were attacking them, and there isn't anyone."
"Where is our limping friend?"
Illya looked. "Still lying flat. Which means he knew this was going to happen. He wanted no part of a stray bullet."
Solo was again studying the armored car and its wildly-firing guards. Now the suave chief agent of U.N.C.L.E. strained to see more clearly through the infra-red lenses.
"Illya!" Sola said suddenly.
Both agents stared again at the guards, who were still engaged in their bloody battle with an enemy who was not there. The guards were down, flat on the highway and motionless. Even as Illya and Solo watches, the driver, crumpled to the macadam and lay still.
The weird figure with the long, shaggy hair got up and began to limp rapidly away toward the woods and the small car that had brought him to the factory and the armored truck.
The two agents moved. Each picked up a small, thin attache case.
"You take the truck," Solo said. "I'll follow our limping friend."
"Check. And Napoleon, be careful. There is something very odd happening here."
Solo nodded. The two men vanished like wraiths into the trees on their way down the wooded hillside.
TWO
THE ARMORED truck guards lay on the highway. No traffic passed in the evening on the back road. Illya, cautious, approached the silent men and the empty truck. The guards did not move.
His quick eyes searched the empty road and the dark bushes that bordered it. He saw and heard nothing. No one was near now, and n o one had been near when the guards fired their weapons into the twilight, shattering the bushes and trees with bullets.