untroubled blaze of sunlight and sea.
Under Han's direction, Illya operated the radio. Soon they had ghostly voices from hundreds of miles away to help them. In the passenger compartments, the general hysteria was being controlled by more champagne.
Solo lit a cigarette and sucked the smoke deep. It would have been a relative piece of cake the rest of the way to Hong Kong if his gaze hadn't been pulled back time and again to that mysterious series of steel cigarette-case units around the dead pilot's waist.
Solo wanted to experiment. He wanted to throw the switch back again. He didn't. Why push for trouble?
They would have it in quantity, once that black belt reached New York and made its damnable, diabolical presence felt at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters.
Two
Three days later there were several peculiar occurrences in a certain nine square block area in Manhattan's East Fifties.
The news media reported them. The commentators closed their broadcasts with them, usually making a joke. The United States Weather Bureau was powerless to explain them.
The peculiar occurrences were a series of black, furious rain showers accompanied by thunder, lightning, and high velocity winds. Each storm lasted five minutes or less.
The storms encompassed only nine square blocks.
But it was hardly a coincidence that the affected area contained an unbelievably modern complex of offices and research facilities concealed behind a front of decaying brownstones.
Within this complex, in the laboratories manned by scientists of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, tests of the black belt were going on. On a 24-hour priority alert basis, U.N.C.L.E. was attempting to ascertain an answer to the question, What hath THRUSH wrought?
High up in the chamber with the motorized revolving conference table, the planning room for U.N.C.L.E.'s Operations and Enforcement section, three men tried to pry loose some additional pieces of the puzzle from a reluctant fourth.
Mr. Alexander Waverly looked hale and well rested, although he hadn't slept in thirty-six hours. Solo and Illya both looked hung over.
Solo's fine linen shirt was rumpled and gray. Illya sat with his feet up on a desk, a vitamin pill in his hand. He tossed the vitamin pill up and caught it, tossed it and caught it, while Mr. Waverly tapped his forever unlit pipe against the sill of the window overlooking the panorama of the East River and the United Nations Building.
Solo had been doing the questioning for the past quarter hour.
"Your name is Chee," he said. "Alfred C. Chee. We know that. We have a file on you. You're not a Thai, you're Chinese. You were with the Reds for a while after the takeover. Then. later, you joined THRUSH in nineteen sixty-two as second echelon supervisor for the Ranjiranji cell. But apparently your pilot's training was too valuable. The last listing shows you were transferred to Strategic Logistics and Operations. Listen my balky
friend -"
Solo grabbed the shoulder of the man seated stiffly in the straight chair. "It's all on the computer and your undistinguished, not to say disgusting, face is on our microfilm.
Now we've got food and you haven't. We've got cots to rest on and you haven't. So you'd better start talking."
Mr. Waverly cleared his throat. "I might also remind our guest, Mr. Solo, that when more civilized methods of interrogation fail, we have chemical agents designed to immobilize the will and liberate the tongue."
"He means," said Illya, "we'll stick you with a needle. You'll betray THRUSH anyway. Why not get it over with? You've stalled long enough."
"Thirty-six hours," Solo said. "I'm getting damn sick of it."
"Temper, Mr. Solo," said Waverly.
"Temper, hell. We've gotten nothing out of this fourth-class Fu Manchu since the flight from Hong Kong landed. I vote to skip the drugs and try something ethnic, like bamboo shoots under the
Under Han's direction, Illya operated the radio. Soon they had ghostly voices from hundreds of miles away to help them. In the passenger compartments, the general hysteria was being controlled by more champagne.
Solo lit a cigarette and sucked the smoke deep. It would have been a relative piece of cake the rest of the way to Hong Kong if his gaze hadn't been pulled back time and again to that mysterious series of steel cigarette-case units around the dead pilot's waist.
Solo wanted to experiment. He wanted to throw the switch back again. He didn't. Why push for trouble?
They would have it in quantity, once that black belt reached New York and made its damnable, diabolical presence felt at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters.
Two
Three days later there were several peculiar occurrences in a certain nine square block area in Manhattan's East Fifties.
The news media reported them. The commentators closed their broadcasts with them, usually making a joke. The United States Weather Bureau was powerless to explain them.
The peculiar occurrences were a series of black, furious rain showers accompanied by thunder, lightning, and high velocity winds. Each storm lasted five minutes or less.
The storms encompassed only nine square blocks.
But it was hardly a coincidence that the affected area contained an unbelievably modern complex of offices and research facilities concealed behind a front of decaying brownstones.
Within this complex, in the laboratories manned by scientists of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, tests of the black belt were going on. On a 24-hour priority alert basis, U.N.C.L.E. was attempting to ascertain an answer to the question, What hath THRUSH wrought?
High up in the chamber with the motorized revolving conference table, the planning room for U.N.C.L.E.'s Operations and Enforcement section, three men tried to pry loose some additional pieces of the puzzle from a reluctant fourth.
Mr. Alexander Waverly looked hale and well rested, although he hadn't slept in thirty-six hours. Solo and Illya both looked hung over.
Solo's fine linen shirt was rumpled and gray. Illya sat with his feet up on a desk, a vitamin pill in his hand. He tossed the vitamin pill up and caught it, tossed it and caught it, while Mr. Waverly tapped his forever unlit pipe against the sill of the window overlooking the panorama of the East River and the United Nations Building.
Solo had been doing the questioning for the past quarter hour.
"Your name is Chee," he said. "Alfred C. Chee. We know that. We have a file on you. You're not a Thai, you're Chinese. You were with the Reds for a while after the takeover. Then. later, you joined THRUSH in nineteen sixty-two as second echelon supervisor for the Ranjiranji cell. But apparently your pilot's training was too valuable. The last listing shows you were transferred to Strategic Logistics and Operations. Listen my balky
friend -"
Solo grabbed the shoulder of the man seated stiffly in the straight chair. "It's all on the computer and your undistinguished, not to say disgusting, face is on our microfilm.
Now we've got food and you haven't. We've got cots to rest on and you haven't. So you'd better start talking."
Mr. Waverly cleared his throat. "I might also remind our guest, Mr. Solo, that when more civilized methods of interrogation fail, we have chemical agents designed to immobilize the will and liberate the tongue."
"He means," said Illya, "we'll stick you with a needle. You'll betray THRUSH anyway. Why not get it over with? You've stalled long enough."
"Thirty-six hours," Solo said. "I'm getting damn sick of it."
"Temper, Mr. Solo," said Waverly.
"Temper, hell. We've gotten nothing out of this fourth-class Fu Manchu since the flight from Hong Kong landed. I vote to skip the drugs and try something ethnic, like bamboo shoots under the
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