13 - The Rainbow Affair (2 page)

"There he is," said the voice. "Cairo, in 1923. A travelogue photographer by the name of Devlin was shooting a film on the mysterious Middle East. He probably never had the least idea of the mystery he actually caught a corner of."

Napoleon Solo looked at the face projected upon the wall and nodded. "You're positive of the identification?"

"Reasonably, considering Devlin was unconcerned with getting signed releases, and considering the fact that this was shot almost forty-five years ago. You've seen him - do
you
think that's Baldwin?"

Solo turned to the shadowy figure in the next seat to his. "What do you think, Illya? Is that him?"

The Russian's soft voice answered hesitantly. "Well, he had all his hair then. The film is too grainy to get any good Bertillion comparisons. But the basic shape of his face is the same, and from what I could see of his right ear it's the proper type. And of course there's the limp... I would say, under the circumstances - since Section Four seems fairly certain - that probably is Ward Baldwin."

There was a moment's silence, then the projectionist asked, "Shall I go on?"

"I think so," said Napoleon.

The projector's whirr came up to speed and the clattering racket began as the figure came to life again and hastily averted his face as he walked off the right side of the frame. The bustling plaza was replaced by another title introducing the Pyramids, and the travelogue continued.

At last a full profile of the enigmatic face of the Sphinx looking out over the sands of the ancient desert faded, and "THE END" wrote itself across the screen. The light died, and the noise of the projector ground to a stop as the fluorescents in the room flickered and came on.

Napoleon blinked at the sudden illumination, and turned to his partner, who was looking at him with a slightly puzzled expression.

"Really, Napoleon, I am impressed with our Intelligence section. But why the interest in what Ward Baldwin looked like in 1923?"

Solo shrugged uncertainly. "Call it a hunch. We're going to be running into that limping devil again some time - I'm sure of it. And I want to know everything about him. That's why I've had this order in with Section Four for the last year and a half - right, John?"

The projectionist, a graying bespectacled man, nodded and grinned. "Anything at all connected with Ward Baldwin, head of Thrush Satrap in San Francisco, gets relayed to you. And frankly, there hasn't been much. Finding this piece of film was a fluke."

"That's okay - flukes pay off. As we used to say, Luck Counts."

"You should know that better than anyone, Napoleon," said Illya good naturedly.

Solo smiled, his long face creasing into its most innocently boyish expression. "It's my greatest talent," he said modestly. "Call it luck, talent, or magic - as long as I can depend on it, I'm bulletproof." His face grew more serious. "And I've always been able to depend on it, except during that DAGGER affair a couple years ago. And Baldwin was all over that."

Illya permitted himself a low, Slavic chuckle. "You think he's a jinx? And if you can figure him out enough, he won't be able to bother you?"

Napoleon frowned thoughtfully. "Maybe so. Maybe so. But I know we're going to run into him again. And there just might be something, somewhere, we can use as a lever against him."

A bell chimed softly, and Napoleon picked up a telephone handset beside his chair. "Solo here... Okay. Be right up." He replaced the intercom and rose. "Mister Kuryakin, we're needed. Upstairs, and it sounds like an assignment."

The projectionist looked up from his rewinding reels. "Will you want a blowup of that frame?"

"No, I don't think so. Thanks anyway. Just don't lose it - we may need it someday." He paused. "I can't imagine for what, but we may."

They stepped out into the corridor side by side and strode towards an elevator. "So Baldwin was in Cairo in 1923," Napoleon said under his breath. "I wonder what he was doing there."

"Why don't you ask him?" said Illya. "You've got his address and telephone in the files."

Napoleon paused and looked at him. "Do you really think he'd tell me if I asked him?"

"He might. You could wait until we encounter him professionally, but on the other hand he might not be on speaking terms with us then."

Solo nodded. "What a shame he's on the wrong side." Illya smiled slightly. "You may remember he said the same about us. I suppose it's all how you look at it."

The metal doors hissed closed behind them, and a few seconds later opened again on another floor. They proceeded down the grim gray corridors, passing through banks of the most sophisticated security devices known to electronic science, to an otherwise undistinguished door. It slid open, revealing a large, high-ceilinged room with a huge world map on one wall, a complex communications console on another, tall narrow windows on a third, and a large round table dominating the floor. Across the table from them, Alexander Waverly looked up as they stepped into the room and the door slid closed behind them.

"Mr. Solo - Mr. Kuryakin - please be seated." He placed two manila folders bearing the skeleton-globe insignia of U.N.C.L.E. on the edge of the table and gave it a turn. The two agents picked up the folders as they came by and opened them.

As they did so their chief spoke again. "A week ago yesterday the firm of N. M. Rothschild and Sons, merchant bankers, was robbed of a quantity of gold bars worth just over two million dollars. The particulars on this affair are the first item in the folder before you. As you will observe, the loot consisted of more than a ton and a half of pure gold in one hundred and forty-four bars. Not the sort of prize one can conveniently carry off in a Gladstone bag, conceal in a rental locker, or bury in the back yard."

Illya leafed through the stapled sheets of paper, then looked up. "Impressive," he said. "But does it fall within our province?"

"Thrush has been developing a taste for large quantities of pure gold lately," Napoleon suggested. "It has a certain advantage in international trade, as well as being practically impossible to trace."

"While the possibility still exists," Waverly said, "Thrush has been tentatively absolved of this particular job. The
modus operandi
bears striking similarity to several robberies in the last few years, not all of which have been awarded the publicity attendant upon this one. An absolute minimum of violence; a perfectly planned, timed and coordinated operation on a scale which would daunt most thieves; and loot which would present an insoluble difficulty of disposal to any but the best organized gang with secure international connections."

"The Great Train Robbery," said Napoleon, his voice supplying the capital letters deserved by the largest successful haul in modem history.

Waverly nodded. "And a few others. The Royal Mail job certainly is the best-known, and it is, as far as we can tell, only the second of the robberies which are of interest in this case. You will find details on that operation as the second item in your folders."

He paused while both agents examined the second sheaf of pages. Again Illya spoke first. "Without intending to appear facetious, under the circumstances, sir, isn't this properly the concern of Scotland Yard, or at best, of Interpol?"

"Until now," said Waverly, "it has been. Both organizations, admirable as they are, have been making only slight headway for almost four years."

"Sir," said Napoleon, "what is special about this gold heist that deserves our attention?"

"A moment please, Mr. Solo. You will note there is a third item in your folder. Allow me to give you the back ground on it. Evidence has been accumulating in certain areas that there is, as suspected, a single mind be hind these operations. A cashiered ex-British army officer, known only by the code name of Johnnie Rainbow."

"Johnnie Rainbow?" said Illya, studying the third sheaf of pages. "An unlikely name."

"An unlikely individual," said Waverly. "Probably one of the finest criminal minds of the last fifty years."

"But hardly our concern," said Illya. "I realize I am in no position to make suggestions on matters of policy to the head of Section One, but it seems to me that if we turned out after every bank robber in the world we'd never have time to save civilization. Local crime should be left to local authorities, regardless of their effectiveness."

Napoleon started to object. "But this isn't just any bank robber, Illya. He's in a class by himself, you might say."

"He's just a bigger and better bank robber, in other words." Illya frowned slightly. "You're part of Policy Section, Napoleon. If your section thinks we should chase after a bank robber, I'll go. But it's scarcely what I signed on for."

"It's scarcely what you will be doing, Mr. Kuryakin," said Waverly with just a hint of asperity creeping into his voice. "For one thing, the loot from the Royal Mail is unrecoverable - our sources indicate that the bulk of it not only left England within a year after the robbery, but has now returned to England through untraceable and unimpeachable legal channels. To save you the trouble of looking it up on page sixteen of the report before you, it was shipped out of the country bit by bit in the diplomatic pouches of a certain middle-Eastern nation which is badly in need of hard currency, in return for their government bonds which have since been disposed of on the open market, and the profits therefrom parceled out to the men who actually pulled the robbery, or in some cases spent to free them from prison and remove them to a place of safety. Scotland Yard has not been completely ineffectual - almost half of the train jobbers have been detained, at least temporarily. Only last fall Buster Edwards was arrested in connection with the job; I believe he is still in custody, but for how long no one-can tell.

"The point I want to make is this: the men who did he physical work of the robbery could scarcely have disposed of the loot themselves. They instead trusted it to Johnnie Rainbow. Any man capable of commanding this degree of loyalty is well worth a second look. Secondly, and finally, our sources in England indicate that Rainbow's recent and continual successes have attracted the attention of another group, one in which we are vitally interested."

Napoleon looked up from his study of the Rainbow dossier. "Since so much seems to be known about Johnnie, what is preventing the Yard from giving him a complete going over?"

Waverly smiled wryly. "An unfortunate skepticism. The Criminal Investigation Division of Scotland Yard has yet to be convinced of the actual existence of Johnnie Rainbow. The information on him was developed by a retired Superintendent of Detectives through his own personal sources, and since the data did not come through officially recognized channels the Yard has felt justified in discounting it, at least so far."

Illya cleared his throat and spoke thoughtfully. "Rainbow is a brilliant criminal, able to command great loyalty and presumably respect from his workers. He probably has quite a personal fortune stowed away by this time. But his work is confined to England, although he has wide international contacts. Would it perhaps be reasonable to suppose that he has attracted the attention of Thrush?"

"Exactly," said Waverly. "Thrush has begun to woo Mr. Rainbow with offers we can only begin to guess. If you will check page three of the dossier on the recent gold robbery, you will find that the guards were incapacitated with guns which squirted a blinding spray. There is an excellent chance that these guns were supplied to the Rainbow gang by Thrush.

"Involving as they do the utilization of international exchange, the crimes already have international implications. The criminal himself has a great deal more. Were Thrush to succeed in winning him to their camp, we could foresee the police of the world baffled, the treasury of Thrush enriched many times over, and robberies worthy of the imagination of a pulp novelist being implemented daily."

"What exactly is our assignment, then? To help the Yard find Rainbow, to find him ourselves, to lop off whatever arm of Thrush is beckoning him, or a combination?"

"All three, if possible. The last has priority; as has been pointed out, the local authorities generally prefer to retain responsibility in their own area. If you can lead them to Rainbow and then step out of the scene as they arrest him, well and good."

He tossed the familiar slim envelopes on the table and spun them to their recipients. "Here are your tickets from Kennedy International to London. On arrival you will cheek in with New Scotland Yard - and remember, they've moved to a new address - but don't expect too much cooperation. Accept whatever they're willing to offer, and then continue on your own. We have little to go on here, frankly; you will doubtless be improvising as you go." He swiveled his chair back towards his desk and reached for the humidor.

Napoleon and Illya stood, the Russian still with a trace of a scowl. Waverly, without turning around, spoke again. "If you have any further comments, Mr. Kuryakin, please don't hesitate to make them."

"Well," said Illya reluctantly, "I still can't feel too impressed by a mere bank robber."

Waverly tamped his pipe calmly. "Understandable, Mr. Kuryakin. I suggest you study his dossier tonight. You may have a different feeling towards him when you have done so." He struck a match and listened as the steel door sighed closed behind his two agents.

Chapter 2

How Napoleon Commented on the Weather, and the C.I.D. Took a Firm Stand on the Subject of Rainbows.

THE PLANE CAME down out of the fog, tiny streaks of water flicking across the windows, with gray wisps of limbo wrapping themselves around the sleek steel body. Its wheels touched the runway, screeched and smoked as the thunder of the jets rose to a scream of reversed thrust, bounced and rolled along the dark wet tarmac.

Inside the jet, Napoleon looked out the small round window next to his head. "Ah," he said. "London."

Illya looked past his shoulder to where the wing disappeared into the gray nothingness that cloaked the plane. "How can you tell?"