The Rainbow Affair

The projectionist, a graying bespectacled man, nodded and gri

"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 i

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 pla

"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 Joh

"Joh

"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 cha