David McDaniel - The Final Affair

"Key," said Illya, grimly ignoring his cold passenger, and Napoleon slammed the back door, locked it for the last time and tossed the key to his partner. If the impending holocaust lived up to its billing, no trace would ever be found of the key amid the remains of the truck, but both men were trained to situations where such details were the pivots of life or death, and the Thrush van was as perfectly prepared as forty-five seconds of professional care could manage before the Russian engaged its clutch and started off to catch up with where he was supposed to be.

Illya swerved past the Do Not Enter sign at the entrance to the next block of Hayes and raced two illegal wrong-way blocks before cutting right on Van Ness, straight across Market and south, parallel the route of their ringer and four blocks farther east, heading the van towards its rendezvous six minutes away.

On Valencia, the Thrush Fiat led the U.N.C.L.E. van south at the sober speed of thirty miles an hour while Illya raced down deserted Van Ness at seventy. The ringer would be out of their sight for another space of fifteen to twenty seconds at the corner of Valencia and Army. Up an alley nearby waited the tank truck, its diesel turning over. A Section Three technician on a. nearby rooftop held the remote control which would send the rolling bomb out to meet the truck which Illya drove, while the U.N.C.L.E. duplicate would vanish quietly.

His synchronized Accutron, matched to every other man's on the team, brought him to the shadowed side of the selected intersection with twenty seconds to spare. He took a few deep breaths while waiting for the Fiat to appear and pass, its passengers still alert for any threat to their convoy.

The car made its left turn onto Army, and Illya swung the Thrush truck out of the alley before his counterpart swung in.

Five seconds later he braked to a stop on his marks in front of a parking lot two buildings from-the corner. Ten seconds, he'd dragged a lump of discarded meat behind the steering wheel. Fifteen seconds, and he was sprinting for the shelter of the alley with the sound of a diesel gathering speed pounding at his heels. Twenty seconds, and a fist of concussion slapped his back as building fronts lit up before an impossibly huge yellow flare.

He almost stumbled: as the shock wave punched past him, then recovered his long stride. His new shadow danced, black and elongated along the street before him as he staggered up to the U.N.C.L.E. van and was helped in as their engine revved up and they shot away up the side street while leaping flames licked against the sky behind them.

Illya found a communicator in his hand. "Kuryakin here," he said. "Detonation successful. Do we have the merchandise we came for?"

"Indeed we do," said Mr. Simpson's voice unexpectedly. "As well as I can tell in five minutes' examination, we have accomplished all we could have hoped for this evening."

"Okay, that's it then," came Napoleon's voice. "Teams One and Two are relieved as soon as they have their areas secured. Illya, I'll see you back at the office. Everybody else – thank you. It's been a pleasure working with you. This operation is officially completed."

And in U.N.C.L.E's San Francisco communications room, Alexander Waverly leaned back from his console and smiled. The first knot in a fatal skein had been tied, and the web which might ensnare Thrush was strengthened. A chance encounter and an unlikely friendship had spun the first strands, three years ago, and now for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century he could almost foresee the beginning of the end to which his life had been devoted.

He smiled the smile of patience rewarded, the smile of the hunter who has finally cornered the old grizzly, and began to. pack his pipe.

Illya got to see it the following afternoon. In twelve hours a mixed bag of technicians from Sections Four, Five and Eight had disarmed the autodestruct mechanisms in the Thrush terminal, and now it rested on a table in the basement laboratory of U.N.C.L.E.'s San Francisco office. No complex of cables sprouted from its comfortably paneled sides – only a single well-shielded AC cord which terminated in a standard two-prong locking plug. Instead of the wall socket, this was plugged into the front of a tall wheeled rack which displayed eleven panels including three quite different oscilloscope traces. This rack was plugged into the wall. Napoleon stood behind a white-coated technician, watching as she expanded a small portion of the complex waveform on the second 'scope into close focus and made some notes. Illya stared over his shoulder for several seconds before he spoke.

"Is that signal going in or coming out?"

"It's coming in," said Mr. Simpson, who had appeared quietly. "It's part of a multiplexed carrier-current signal which can be received at least in the central San Francisco area – we haven't started carrying the terminal around to find just how far the signal extends."

"It looks like white noise," said Napoleon critically.

"Well, it is, pretty much," said Mr. Simpson. "Except mathematically. There are about fifty-channels, I'd guess, and they're all scrambled."

"But the system has a key which our computer can work out?"

"Oh, no. That would be simple. This unit has broken synchronization with the Ultimate Computer; effectively, it has been disowned. Any direct attempt to signal into the operational banks would result in the erasure of the terminal's own working core, as well as triggering its autodestruct circuits."

"That's what we need the maintenance access code for," said Napoleon accurately, if ungrammatically. "Well, Harry's on the job. Are you ready to start work as soon as you get it?"

"Well, I won't be doing that part. Once we have communication established a Mr.

Gold will be taking over. My expertise gives way to his once you get away from how the machines think into what they think about."

"Communication? Two-way?"

"Of course. We have to be able to tell it what we want. Otherwise all we could do with this would be tap Ward Baldwin's private line to Central."

"I can remember when that alone would have been worth all we've gone through," said Napoleon, impressed.

"Then they left the unit fully functional," said Illya. "They didn't disable it."

"It wasn't destined for the scrap heap; Thrush is never wasteful. According to Mr. Stevens' last report, it was to have been overhauled, reconditioned, modified in a few modules and sent to one of the emerging African Satraps."

"But won't anybody notice an unauthorised signal coming in?"

"They have no reason to monitor terminal channels – Central has nearly fifteen thousand anyway, some of which only call once a month. And security on the terminals themselves is much easier than questioning each call. Yes, it's a weakness; it took us some effort to find it, and we hope to make the most of it."

"Then the whole contents of the Ultimate Computer will fall into our hands like – like an egg?"

"Well, not that simply. Thrush doesn't trust most of its own workers – which you must admit is reasonable – and the most interesting sections require the highest priority and the most obscure passwords. This is what Mr. Gold will be doing for us. In the persona of a qualified and cleared Thrush system analyst, he will identify himself convincingly and proceed to talk his way into the vaults."

"You're anthropomorphising," said Illya. "A bad habit."

"And the Ultimate Computer won't get suspicious?" asked Napoleon.

"Remember," said Mr. Simpson, "a computer is an idiot. And a big computer is a big idiot. You just have to handle it more carefully."