The Diving Dames Affair - Leslie Peter. Страница 3

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Napoleon Solo placed the papers carefully back on the desk and raised quizzical eyebrows at his chief. "And the fourth?" he asked.

Waverly spun around the memo sheet so that he could read it. The penciled scrawl read: Solo?

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," Solo said. "So two girls falsely representing themselves as members of D.A.M.E.S. almost write themselves off in Brazil. What does that have to do with us - or with me?"

"The balance of probabilities have to do with us, Mr. Solo," Waverly said. "You state the problem too simply. The newspaper cutting was one of the minor pieces of trivia that come my way. I should doubtless never have given it a second thought had I not run into Mrs. Stretford this morning. She happened to mention this odd query from the Rio police. And then, as a matter of routine, I found the FBI cable among the sheaf of courtesy copies they provide me with every day."

"Yes, but –"

"Patience, Mr. Solo. Patience! I was still disposed to file the matter away in my mind as an oddity - but then Forster of the Central Intelligence Agency telephoned me to ask what I thought of it."

"The C.I.A.! And what do you think of it?"

"I really don't know," Waverly said frankly. "Here we have two American citizens, both with police records, passing themselves off in a friendly foreign country as members of an eminently respectable trust based in New York. It's curious, to say the least. One wonders exactly why."

"Your papers don't say much about the D.A.M.E.S. angle."

"No, but I have been in touch with Rio by radio. Their car was hired and all the documents they produced were on official D.A.M.E.S. paper. Yet in the car they appear to have gone to a great deal of trouble to remove any reference to the organization - or to their identity at all. There were no papers, no licenses, no insurance certificates, no letters among their effects. And even their clothes had all the tabs removed."

"That is strange," Solo admitted. "You'd think that anyone who bothered to sail under the wrong flag, as it were, would keep it flying especially bravely, to foster the illusion."

"Exactly. There may be nothing more to it, of course, than a simple case of intended fraud or false pretenses. Some kind of confidence trick. On the other hand..."

"Any particular reason for the C.I.A. interest?"

"No, just routine. The facts I've given you are enough to make them wonder. But they're not sufficiently interested to risk their necks. You know how delicately they have to move these days: everything they do is wrong, everywhere. They're the whole world's whipping boy. And with the congress of Pan-American states and the O.A.S. conference coming up, Forster's especially keen to avoid treading on Brazilian toes. If they should go blundering in there and there's nothing to this thing, you can imagine what the Latin American papers would make of it!"

Solo nodded. "And they want us to be the fall guys, is that it?"

"As we're an international organization, it would look much better if there were any trouble. Since you're not engaged on anything specific at the moment," Waverly said almost apologetically, "I thought you might like to run down to Rio and, ah, nose around for a day or so."

"What exactly do you want me to do?"

"Be discreet above all. Try to find out what these girls were doing and why; find out where they are based and if there are any more of them. And don't declare yourself: you're strictly on your own. As I say, there's probably nothing in it, but I daresay it's worth a couple of days of your time."

"I can't go officially to the Rio police?"

"No."

"Well, the first thing, obviously, is to see the injured parties. Any objection if I present myself to the hospital - and to the police if necessary - as an American lawyer acting for them?"

"I don't think so. Just so long as nobody is involved officially before you find out what's going on. If in fact it turns out to be merely a police matter, you can simply report back to me and we'll hand the facts over to the proper authorities. If, on the other hand, this affair is the tip of some – ah - international iceberg of wrong-doing, then we shall probably have to state our case and ask for Brazilian cooperation."

Solo rose to his feet. "All right, then," he said. "I'll be on my way. If I hurry, I should be able to make the afternoon plane."

Waverly nodded. "I'll have Miss Tanimotu telephone for your ticket now," he said. "You can pick up a few notes I've made from Operations, and I'll send Geddes to meet you at the airport with a suitable passport, papers, cover story and so on."

"I'll be in touch by radio," Solo said. And he walked briskly out.

---

During the lunch hour, one of the switchboard girls from the vast U.N.C.L.E. communications center on the second floor of the headquarters went to a drugstore. After she had eaten, she went to the telephone booth in the back and dialed a number. She spoke rapidly and concisely for half a minute and then returned to her seat for coffee.

The fat man to whom she had been speaking replaced the receiver on its cradle in the Park Avenue penthouse. He sat for a few moments drumming ringed fingers on a Sheraton occasional table. Then he reached for the instrument again.

"Hello, operator?" he said. "Will you give me Long Distance, International? I want to make a call to Rio de Janeiro."

Chapter 2

The Man On The Mule

PALM TREES LINED the private road leading to the hospital and punctuated the green verandas surrounding the low, white building. From the steps leading to the entrance, a bright crescent of sand and surf marking the distant waterfront was visible between two soaring apartment buildings further down the hill. Away to the right, above a colony of flat-roofed villas, the Sugarloaf humped itself into the sky at the seaward end of the chain of tree-covered mountains encircling the city.

Napoleon Solo braked the hired Buick to a halt on the graveled circle and ran up the steps to the foyer. His oatmeal-colored lightweight suit clung uncomfortably to shoulders and thighs. After the long flight and a sleepless night in a hotel room, he was exhausted by the unaccustomed heat.

A large pendant fan revolved slowly in the shadowy entrance hall. Beneath it, a uniformed police officer was speaking to the dark girl at the reception desk. Under her starched cap, the girl flashed a professionally inquiring smile at Solo. The agent placed his brief case on the desk and leaned forwards. "My name is Williams," he said. "I'm a New York attorney delegated to represent two patients you have here: Miss Rosenthal and Miss Sciotto - the two Americans injured in the auto crash. Have they regained consciousness, do you know; and, if so, may I see them?"

The police officer had swung around and was staring curiously at Solo. His sallow, moustached face was tired. As the receptionist was about to speak he interrupted.

"Captain Garcia at your service, Mr. Williams," he said, holding out his hand. "Evidently you have not heard."

"Heard?" Solo repeated, taking the hand. "Heard what, Captain?"

"Both the ladies are dead, senhor," the girl said.

"Dead?" Solo echoed. "Both of them? But I thought -"

"They were both improving, though it is true that neither had recovered consciousness. But then something happened." The girl glanced at Garcia.