David McDaniel - The Final Affair

"Napoleon," Joan asked, "are you likely to lead the infiltration force?"

"I'd expect to," said Solo, glancing at his chief.

"I don't know anything about offshore contours or outer defenses, but I can tell you a lot about the island you can't get from satellite photos, like what's in which building, and what goes on where. They might have moved one or two of the test shacks, or put up a new quonset in the last couple of years, but the main buildings looked as if they'd been there quite a while. I could probably draw you a rough map – not really detailed, but I think I remember the layout pretty well."

Illya pushed a blank manila folder with a nylon-tipped pen clipped to it across the table towards her, and she began.

First she sketched an emaciated crescent moon, remarking, "It's about two hundred miles from end to end around the lagoon beach and maybe two hundred yards across at the widest. Maybe less."

She placed a hundred-yard square, according to her scale, on the inner side of the island, about the middle. "That's the Big House. Maybe not that big," she added, and corrected the sketch messily. "But pretty big. There's a dock right in front of it, and I believe a submarine pen opens into the lagoon. Then along here are three narrow buildings side by side.- they're big enough to fly a small plane into. I don't know what's in them, probably shops; nothing to do with my job. On this side is the staff housing – it's as old as the Big House, at least a hundred years, and so are the long buildings. And one other: it looks like a big stone and mortar barn. It's back behind and to the side from the Big House, almost touching at this corner. I think that's where the generators are." She added the described structures to her map as she spoke.

"Guard housing is here and here, sort of bracketing the center of the island. I think there's a Guard staff at the Big House, too – there's a total garrison of at least three or four hundred. Then this big open space is the combat test area, launch site, landing strip, parade ground and soccer field; past it is a big blockhouse and a couple of test shacks way out on that point. I know this end better because I always went out there to go swimming. There's a nasty undertow along the southern tip, and no sand at all. I usually had to wear sneakers when I went in because of the coral, but the water was about eighty degrees the whole time we were there. I didn't have much to do – mostly some psych testing, and one or two routine jobs assisting at a drug-therapy interview – so I had lots of. time to myself.

"Anyway, in the other direction, past Staff Housing, there's ten or twelve – probably fifteen by now – lab huts. They're all painted different colors. Light green was Psych, yellow was Chem, blue was Human Factors. I think red was High Energy Physics, and I remember black was something terrible. Nobody told me, and questions are rude, when everybody is under some kind of security restrictions. If you need to know, you'll be told – that sort of thing. I don't remember what the rest of them were. Beyond them was another test area – I think it was material and equipment exposure tests. Some of the larger lab animals were penned out there, too; they needed room to run around in and stay healthy. The big transmitter was past the zoo, and there's a test shack with a big dish antenna on top right at the tip. I think it's focussed on a synchronous satellite. How's that?"

"Satisfactory," said Mr. Waverly, studying her work carefully.

"Good. I want to go along."

"I'm afraid -"

"That's my price for all this information. I spent two years as a field Thrush; I've stayed in training. I also know your target better than anyone else available."

"You must understand your recent – ah – change of heart seems comparatively sudden…"

"It wasn't so much a change of heart ," she said, exchanging another sappy smile with Napoleon. "Thrush just prevented me from finding where it really was all those years."

"How fortunate," said Illya, "that you found out just before Thrush was effectively annihilated."

Napoleon nodded. "Luck," he said, "runs in our family."

The requested satellite photographs arrived Tuesday morning and went with xeroxes of a cleaned-up version of Joan's sketch map to teams of photointerpretation experts. By lunchtime Wednesday nothing had turned up.

After lunch a pair of pages arrived on Mr. Waverly's desk, a staple through their corner. A complex file code filled the top line and was translated by the second, third, fourth and fifth lines which identified the paper as selections from the monthly summary filed 23 July, through Djakarta – specifically the text of a report from an U.N.C.L.E. supported marine research station in Makasar. Mr. Waverly scanned the next twenty lines and his hand reached out to the call button before he turned the page.

Illya, Napoleon and Joan assembled within two and a half minutes to be met with a precis of the report. One of several dolphins who came in regularly for conversational practice and a game of checkers had mentioned passing an atoll far to the south (location uncertain but apparently within a hundred kilometers of the Lesser Sunda Archipelago) which was ringed with small floating things, made of metal and plastic, spaced every kilometer or so around the atoll at about a sixty kilometer radius. They were apparently connected by wire to the island, and made no sound at all according to the dolphin, who had been asked to go back and find out more. He seemed curious about it; he'd mentioned the subject hoping Dr. Kaja, the marine biologist who operated the research station and who had filed the report, could tell him what they were.

He'd asked a couple other dolphins he'd met on the way back; they'd noticed the things and supposed they were listening devices, but they didn't particularly care.

"The island would have to be between seven and eight degrees south," said Illya, studying the wall map and tilting his head to read- the angled lettering.

"Listening devices?" said Joan.

"Sonar and radar and other detection systems mostly emit loud signals which tell the whole world somebody's there," Napoleon explained. "The same reason to use photomultipliers to see in the dark instead of an infrared searchlight."

"And floating like that they can listen in the air and underwater," Illya added. "They will be very difficult to sneak up on."

"While you're on your way up here," Mr. Waverly said, "I filed a revised request with NASA specifying high-resolution mapping shots of the appropriate quadrangle. This request is being processed at the moment. Apparently, Mrs. – ah – Solo, that twin-jet had a somewhat higher cruising speed than your travelling companion knew."

"Oh, I learned long ago never to trust anything a Thrush tells me. Told me," she corrected herself.

The deskside telephone chimed and Waverly answered it. "Yes? Ah. Very good… Oh. Oh? Have you compared -" His eyebrows knitted as he bent full attention on the telephone and his audience sat silent and staring. "I see. Yes, that is in itself informative. Can we arrange to have that particular set of co-ordinates photographed again as soon as possible? I see. Yes, by all means use my name if necessary to get it done. Thank you."

He hung up and drummed his fingers for a moment. "One frame is missing from the series, replaced by a re-coded duplicate of another frame of vacant sea. Apparently that one negative has been tampered with in the master files."

He cleared his throat and looked sharply at Joan, "Are you still as anxious to rush into the jaws of death?"

"Absolutely," said Joan, gripping Napoleon's hand and smiling up at him. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"You think the missing negative is proof enough, then?" said Illya.