"What?"
"This whole operation is only a pilot scheme to give them information to be used later for plans under the oceans of the world. Even so, it involves warheads of several megatons each being launched at six cities in Argentina and Chile - Buenos Aires, Bahia Blanca, Cordoba, Santiago, Valparaiso and Concepcion, we understand. With the Pan-American conference coming up, you can readily imagine what such an attack would do to the O.A.S."
"But that's fantastic!" Illya exclaimed. "What can we do about it?"
"The briefing is simple," the voice in his ear said crisply. "I want you to go in there tonight and get Solo out. And at the same time I want you to put that submarine and its armaments out of action. Permanently."
"You're joking, of course," Illya said.
"Mr. Kuryakin!"
"Oh, sorry. Silly of me. You never do, do you?"
"Do you have anything constructive to say?" The voice was icy.
"Yes, sir. You cannot get in, for a start... The reservoir fills a valley which is one of several running parallel - and the hills buttressing it on either side are too bare and too steep for wheeled vehicles. Nor can they be overlooked from anywhere: what goes on in the lake remains completely without witnesses. It's all very well chosen as a site. The only way in, as you said, is through the tunnel connecting the adjoining valley directly with the underwater fortress. But we already tried to rush that, at dawn today. And it's impossible."
"Impossible?"
"Virtually impossible. Impossible with the means I have here. You'd need a battalion of troops with medium artillery, bazookas, flame throwers and all to bust in there. The tunnel is radar-guarded with electronica1ly operated steel shutters, computerized small arms, mortars, and so on."
"What do you suggest then?"
"As I see it, there's s only one possible plan that could work in the time. But it would need an awful lot of cooperation from the Command headquarters, from the U. S. or Brazilian navies, and from you, sir!"
"You can have all you want, Mr. Kuryakin. Tell me about it."
Illya spoke persuasively for three and a half minutes, put down the receiver, closed the Cadillac's trunk, and walked back across the road to the picnic. The Irish man was sipping his inevitable liqueur, telling the others an improbable story about his exploits in the Easter Rising of 1916.
"I may be calling on your services, later tonight," the. Russian said when he had finished. "And anybody else who's available. Mr. Waverly has told me that you" - he turned and smiled at Coralie - "are officially in the 'to be trusted' category. And I imagine that Raoul can come wherever Senhor O'Rourke directs. But what about Rafael, here?... Is the car rental company yet another of your sidelines, O'Rourke?"
"Ah, now look," the fat man protested, scandalized. "Would I be likely to run a hire company? Sure I'm no businessman and you know it. Rafael earns a little money on the side by supplying me with information about clients every now and then - but he's only here with us today because it's his day off, you know. There's no professional connection!"
"Absolutely not, old boy," the boy said with his wide smile. "Simply couldn't have the staff with divided allegiances, now could we? Be a terribly bad show, too, to go for a picnic on a working day, don't you know. Must keep in with the jolly old providers, what!"
"Where in Heaven's name do you get that comic-opera English from?" Illya asked, grinning.
"But its the latest, the very latest," Rafael protested. "Very in indeed. Mr. Williams told me."
"Mr. Williams is too busy to go to the movies often," Illya said gravely. "It is true that the English style is in - but the play-it-cool, stiff-upper-lip, drawing room manner's not the proper style. Its the so-called kitchen sink bit that's in today. The poor-but-honest, working class meritocrat - he's the man that gets the votes now."
The boy received this information with a blink of surprise, but he recovered quickly. "Whyn't you keep your flamin' lip buttoned, mate?" he said. "Straight up, you perishin' know-alls fair turn me stomach, you do!"
Chapter 11
In At The Back Door....
THE SUN HAD sunk beneath the bleached rim of rock formed by the higher sierras a quarter of an hour before the giant helicopter whirred in from the east. It had been touch-and-go whether or not they got a troop-carrier but Waverly had been pulling strings in Rio and Washington all afternoon and eventually he had made it. The nearest chopper with a bomb bay had been aboard a ship somewhere off Central America, even then, and they had spent an anxious hour and a half wondering whether the pilot was going to get there in time. Eventually he had sunk onto the runway at Brasilia and explained that he had thought it best to bring the ship with him rather than trust to another plane. Waverly - who had been sitting up front with the pilot - had nodded exasperatingly his agreement.
And now the operation was at last under way. Waverly had driven off in the Cadillac with O'Rourke and Raoul and Rafael - who had refused point-blank to be left out of it - and was to wait within transceiver call of the tunnel in case they might be able to fight their way out and could use assistance.
Illya and Coralie, gleaming in skin-tight suits of black rubber, sat just behind the double doors of the bay. In front of them, the midget submarine with its perspex blisters lay sleekly in its specially rigged davits. It looked as frail and crushable as the fabric of the aircraft itself in the faint light drifting back from the instruments showing through the half-open door of the cockpit. Presently the copilot emerged from the cabin and shut the door. He sat down next to Illya and began to speak. He was a navy man, crewcut, with a Bostonian accent.
"Just to check out the details with you people," he said, "I'd like to repeat, one, that you take your places and we screw you down before we lose height at twenty-seventeen. You've already been briefed on how to release the hatches from inside. Two, we shall set her down to within about twenty feet of the surface and then lower away. You'll have to be prepared to get bumped if there's anything of a breeze down there, anything enough to make a wave on that lake. Three, in her present trim, it would be most unwise to go lower than about forty fathoms - this hasn't the depth capability of that Squid you used on your last assignment,*See THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. #8, The Monster Wheel Affair. and we didn't have time to fly the Squid here for you. Besides it wouldn't have worked in this lake - it's fresh-water, not salt-water. How far below the surface is this underwater pen, d'you know?"
"We have no idea," Illya said. "Deep enough, obviously, for the buildings to escape detection from the air."
"Well, even with nearly vertical sides and good camouflage, that would need a good twenty to thirty fathoms to the top of the buildings.
"I know. We'll just have to hope the entry to the pen is on an upper floor, that's all! The place is built up from the floor of the old valley of course, but we don't know yet how many stories there are."
"I see. Now, what. else? Oh, yes: radar. The equipment's the usual gear, handled by the back-marker. There's not much room in there, as you can see, but there's a miniature aqualung each. If you do have to get out, though, remember you have only thirty minutes of oxygen in them. Now I have to ask you a question. Number One wants to know: Do they have any AI at all? Can they spot a UFO and if so will they open up? It's a question of being prepared to take evasive action," he said apologetically.